MODES OF TRAVEL IN PERSIA.
There are two modes of travel in Persia, caravan and chappah. The former is slow, at the pace which loaded mules can follow, say twenty-five miles a day. To travel in caravan means not to go with a large company, but in this leisurely manner. Hence our word "caravan," because large trains in the East must necessarily travel in caravan style.
Chappah travelling, on the other hand, means rapid going, at an average of eighty to a hundred and fifty miles per diem. This can only be done by riding at a steady gallop—horses rarely trot in the East—and changing horses at short intervals. The post carriers invariably travel chappah.
The method of measuring distances in Persia is by farsakhs, a farsakh representing four miles. Post stations are placed four farsakhs, or sixteen miles apart, and more rarely five farsakhs. Fresh relays of horses are kept in readiness at these stations. The post carriers, accompanied by a single attendant, both heavily armed, and wielding a fierce whip of hide, carry the mail in saddle bags. On arriving at a station they dismount, take a hasty cup of tea which is in readiness, and a few pulls at the kalian, or water-pipe. Then the horses are led out, and the postman starts for another sixteen-mile gallop over the mountain and plain, through forest and waste. These postmen are, so far as I could learn, very faithful and courageous, as they must need be, for they are sometimes attacked and killed, especially when it had leaked out that they are carrying money. Thus they go through Persia, and through life, on horseback. In summer, they have to rest during the heat of the day, but, summer and winter, they gallop all night, and practically have no rest until the end of the journey. The post rider from Teheran to Bushire goes nearly seven hundred miles before he can take a solid sleep.—S. G. W. Benjamin.