Bitlis, the hstory of which goes back to the very ancient times, is one of the most important historical centers of the Eastern Anatolia. The town is situated in the narrow and the deep valley opened by the Bitlis rivulet amid the southeastern Taurus above the 1400- 1500 metre height. As the southeastern Taurus renders the accesss to the region difficult, Bitlis has made it posssible to have an access to the route having been used for ages splitting the barrier mountainous and difficult to pass in a relatively narrow field. The geography on which Bitlis is situated has also made the town an important place for the commercial caravans.Since the town is on the important passing route, it became one of the places visited by some Western travelers and researchers who came to the Eastern Anatolia with different purposes in the 19th century; they made some observations regarding the town, they eternised these observations through the travelogues they penned. Some of the travelers and researchers of those who visited the town are J. Macdonald Kinneir, W. Francis Ainsworth, Baron Eduard Nolde Paul Müller-Simonis, Frederick Millingen, F. Richard Maunsell, C. F. Lehman-Haupt and Austen Layard. This study is based on the travelogues of the missionary Southgate who visited the region in the first half of the 19th century about Bitlis in the work titled as “Narrative of a Tour Through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia and Mesopotamia”. The purpose of the study is to discuss and evaluate the general structure of the town in the aforementioned period and thus is to make some contributions in order to enlighten the history of the town.