to plunder us; we could not tell, and had no resource but to wait quietly the result, and in the meantime, to assume a seeming confidence in our new troops, who kept up a running fire all night.

After waiting some hours, and seeing no immediate danger of attack, I returned to my couch, and slept again as before, being occasionally awoke by the noise of the guns. Thus passed over our most eventful night, and the return of morning brought with it a calm, which seemed to whisper to me-"Yea, though an host should encamp against me, yet will I not fear."

(In Continuation). July 19. Our camp adventures are now drawing to a close, which you will not be sorry for; for I fear I fatigue you with my long detail. Having ascertained on the Thursday morning that the Agha would really quit the fortress that day, we prepared to enter it, and at two o'clock the mules. and donkeys were put in requisition for our grand march of about fifty yards. Even whilst we were preparing, the mountain Koords hovered about us, and we were obliged to have an escort of the fortress Koords whilst the cattle were entering the gates. You may judge by these facts the condi

tion of this wild country. Even a Turk observed to me, who was in the Agha's train, and lately from Constantinople, "You are come into a lawless country, where they are restrained by no government."

We arrived in the Agha's divan just as he was about to leave it; we exchanged courtesies, and pretended the greatest respect for this plunderer (my dear friend, what a world of duplicity this is, in which we are sometimes obliged to take a part!) He said that he had left a magazine of powder and of biscuits; but the only two guns of the garrison he took with him. In all the pomp and circumstance of his oriental dignity, which in these wouldbe grandees always amuses me so much, the Agha and his troops now evacuated the fortress; but they had great difficulty in clearing the gate, from the throng of Armenians which were pressing in for security. So great was the dread of the Koords outside, that it looked like a castle besieged; about fifteen hundred animals, man and beast, were thronging in at the small gateway, with such a clamour and pressure, that the scene beggars all description. Men, women, children, buffaloes, donkeys, all mixed up in one heterogeneous mass,

clambering and cudgelling, brawling and striving, until the very ribs of the castle seemed to yield to them. It was at least five hours before the whole of the caravan came in, and the noise and confusion began to subside.

During this pressure the Khan's greatest anxiety was evinced to save an old yaboo-the horse already alluded to. I could not, at the time, imagine why this was deemed more important than his fine saddle-horses-not knowing that it was so richly freighted. At length it was announced that they had succeeded in getting the horse within the gate; but in the extreme pressure he had been trampled to death" Bring in the pack-saddle," said the Khan. The booty was secured, the animal flayed, and the skin made use of against our enemies.

I witnessed the scene from the balcony, which was very lofty, and thought that many lives must have been sacrificed to the eager haste of those wretched Armenians to find shelter within the citadel. I endeavoured also to trace some of the indications of character. One woman, finding that she had no chance of getting in herself, popped her child on the shoulders of another, that the infant might be saved, whatever might become of

VOL. II.