inous that fish cannot
live in it, while its shores are enlivened by numerous water-fowl,
of which the beautiful flamingo is most conspicuous.1 The plain
contains about three hundred villages and hamlets, and is covered
with fields, gardens, and vineyards, which are irrigated by streams
from the mountains. The landscape is one of the most lovely in the
East, and its effect is heightened by its contrast with the adjacent
heights, on which not a solitary tree is to be seen. Along the
water-courses are willows, poplars, and sycamores; and the peach,
apricot, pear, plum, and other fruits impart to large sections the
appearance of a forest. Near the centre of the plain, four hundred
feet above the lake, stands the city of Oroomiah. It dates from a
remote antiquity, and claims to be the birthplace of Zoroaster. It
is built chiefly of unburnt brick, is surrounded by a high mud wall
and a ditch, and has a population of twenty-five thousand, of whom
the larger part are Mohammedans. The Nestorians of the plain were
estimated at twenty thousand.

1 An analysis of the water of the lake is said to have proved it to
be highly charged with sulphureted hydrogen.

Dr. Grant left Tabriz six days in advance of his associates, to
prepare for their coming. But so tardy had been the carpenters, that
Mr. Perkins and the ladies found things in a very sorry condition.
It was late in November, and after facing a driving rain all day,
they had to content themselves with unfinished and unfurnished
rooms; and as the muleteers did not arrive with their baggage, they
had neither bedding, nor a change of clothing. But they had a
blazing fire, and provisions from the market, with a sharpened
appetite, and slept comfortably on piles of shavings, covered with
the clothes they had dried by the fire.

Dr. Grant awakened great interest as a physician. He was continually
thronged with patients sick with all manner of diseases, real and
imaginary. Moslems and Nestorians came together. Children brought
their aged parents, and mothers their little ones. Those blinded by
ophthalmia were led by the hand. Those relieved from suffering were
ready to kiss his feet, or even his shoes at the door. But it was a
laborious and trying position. A thousand silly questions must be
answered. Nor was there any certainty that the prescriptions would
be followed, even if understood; and every Nestorian, though
suffering under the most alarming disease, would sooner die than