From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

A good deal of wine is made at this place. The white is something like hock, and the red like claret. The samples brought to us, however, were of very inferior quality and crude flavour, but were as good as one could expect at the rate of tenpence a quart, which was probably double the market price.

17th June.—Hamadán to Asadabad, thirty-two miles. We set out at 3.30 A.M., and passed through the northern quarters of the city, where is a covered bazár in a state of dilapidation. Its shops are mostly empty and tenantless, the streets are choked with refuse and filth of sorts, and the air is loaded with abominable stinks. The dress, appearance, and condition of the people we met was in keeping with their surroundings. Beyond the city we passed through an old cemetery, crowded with handsome tombstones of the Arab period. Some were carved out of splendid slabs of white marble, and others were formed of massive blocks of granite and sandstone, all from the mountain overlooking. Farther on, clearing a number of vineyards and orchards, we came to the open country, and following the path skirting the foot of the mountain, passed several villages, and crossed many brisk little streams from the hill slopes, some of them by masonry bridges, till, at about fourteen miles, we came to a branching of the road. The branch to the left goes direct over a high ridge of Alwand, and was taken by our baggage as being the shortest route; the other winds over lesser heights of the same ridge farther to the westward.

We followed the latter, and passing the castellated village of Zaghár, entered amongst low hills. Here our route changed from W.N.W. to south-west, and crossing two lesser ridges, at about twenty-six miles from Hamadán brought us to the crest of a watershed, from which we looked down on the hill-locked valley of Asadabad. Here the aneroid figured 22·38, giving the elevation at about 7525 feet above the sea, and 1363 feet above Hamadán. The road is very good and easy. It was made two years ago for the Sháh’s journey to Karbalá. The soil is light and fertile, and corn crops cover the hill slopes. The rock is a soft friable slate, traversed by great veins of quartz.

The descent is by an easy gradient in view of the high snowy range of Nahwand away to the south. At the foot of the descent we came to a wide boulder-strewn ravine, over the surface of which were scattered great gabions and fascines, the relics of a disruptured dam built across the ravine to retain its floods for purposes of irrigation. Some few weeks ago a violent flood from the hills above burst through this dam, and inundated the town of Asadabad, destroying several of its houses, and causing much loss of life and property.

On arrival at the town, a few miles farther on, we found the streets had been furrowed by the rush of waters, the height of which was plainly marked on the walls by a water-line two feet above the level of the street. The town wears a wretched, desolate look, and a gloomy silence reigns over it. We put up at the post-house, which we found deserted and in a filthy state. We could procure no barley for our cattle here, a decided hardship after their long march; and our followers had to go on half rations, owing to the unwillingness of the people to sell their bread. Asadabad is said to contain five hundred houses, but only two hundred are occupied. I saw no beggars here, and the people appeared in much better plight than we had anywhere yet seen.

Our next stage was twenty-five miles to Kangawár. The night air in Asadabad was close, oppressive, and steamy, probably owing to the action of a hot sun during the day (a thermometer placed in its direct rays rose to 142° Fah.) on its soaked soil. For so soon as we got out on the plain beyond the town, the early morning air struck cold and damp.

We set out at 2.40 A.M., and proceeded over a level plain south by west, along the line of telegraph posts. The plain is girt on all sides by high hills, and presents a green sheet of corn-fields and meadows, over which are scattered many villages. We passed six or seven dessicated and putrefying corpses on the road, and overtook several small parties of destitutes, forty or fifty people in all, dragging their withered limbs slowly along. Men, women, and children were eating from whisps of unripe corn, plucked from the roadside fields, to stave off the bitter end that was fast creeping upon them. There is nobody to help them, and they themselves are past begging.

At about half-way we passed Mandarabad, a collection of twenty or thirty huts round fortified walls enclosing an ancient tumulus, and covered with storks’ nests. Here we found the corpse of a woman lying across the road, at the edge of a kárez stream supplying the village with water.

Farther on we passed a little roadside hamlet, and beyond it, crossing a swampy rivulet by a masonry bridge, entered low hills. Passing over these, we entered the Kangawár valley, and turning westward along a hill skirt blooming with flowers and whole fields of wild hollyhock, and at 8.20 A.M. arrived at Kangawár post-house.