Thurs May 23. [23 May 1907] Off at 5.45 with Haidar and Hassan and
rode to the top of the outlying SE hill - I believe it too is called Kizil
Dagh - 2 hours and more. It is extremely steep with slippery grass
sides, a nasty place to take horses up and down. The E point[?] is
covered with the ruins of a large fort. Nothing to be made of it. We
met a flock of mares and foals coming up to their yaila - Majuun was
had all the morning in consequence. Got in about 10 and drew out the
Chat D church. After lunch, about 12.30 went off with the 4 Kurds and
Yanko to the big apse and began digging. We traced the outer wall
along the E and S sides and found neither doors nor buttresses. The
masonry on the E side very good, that on the S more irregular. Then
we started from the SW angle of the apse and followed along some
stones lying in a quarter arch from it. They turned out to be nothing but
fallen bits of an arched moulding which must have belonged to an
arch above the moulding in situ on the apse. Under there we found
the foundation stone of one of the great columns and from it
northwards we uncovered a wall which ended opposite the NW angle
of the apse in another great stone for the other column. We dug
nearly down to the foundations of the apse wall and then it was 5
o'clock and we left off. Sun pretty hot. Fattuh bought 2 lambs and 2
sheep for 10 mejs. We meant to milk the sheep ourselves, but the
difficulty of their having to go twice a day to the mountain pasturages
seems insuperable. Hassan tells me of a perfect domed and
frescoed church 2 hours from Akserai [Akseray]. Blue flax out. We
found a lark's nest behind my tents the other day, with eggs in it.
Water is the difficulty here. It takes the donkey 4 hours to go and
come from the spring with 4 tins. Just above our tents there is a clean
cistern and I think we can buy water for the men from there. That which
we buy from the town is indescribable.