At 10.30 P.M., having made the guardian of our quarters happy, and requested him to convey our thanks to our absent host, Sartip Muhammad Hasan, Khalora, we set out from Hárúnabad, and after a march of twenty-four miles, at five A.M. arrived at Karriud. Here we found the sarae full; and after wandering about a while, hired a house on the skirts of the town for the day. Our route was W.N.W., by a good road over and between low hills covered with dwarf oak-trees. In the glens and hollows we passed many ilyát camps, and patches of rich corn.
Karriud is a charming spot, and its air is delightfully pure and refreshing. The town contains about two thousand houses, and is romantically situated in a deep hollow between two great hills of magnesian limestone. The elevation here is 5212 feet above the sea, and the night air is decidedly cold. Yet as we rode into the town we found the people sleeping on the house-tops, curled up in their coverlets. The tramping of our horses aroused some sleeping beauties, who, rubbing their eyes, stared at us with undisguised surprise, and shook their slumbering lords to take note of the new-comers.
Some of the young women—they were all fair complexioned, I observed—had very comely features, and fine turned limbs, which showed to advantage in contrast with their greasy and tattered attire. The town has a very flourishing look, and is crowded with a bustling population, who, notwithstanding their dirty habits and slovenly dress, appear comfortable and prosperous. We have evidently left the land of misery and starvation, for we have not seen so thriving and happy a scene since we entered Persian territory.
The bread we got here was made from the newly-reaped corn, and was simply delicious, after the coarse, mouldy, and gritty stuff we had been eating during the past fortnight. We saw lots of cattle here, a new feature on the scene; and, yet more surprising, some veritable domestic pigs. One of them, indeed, scared away from its fellows by our appearance, trotted ahead of us into the town, heralding our approach by a succession of grunts.
26th June.—Pul Karriud to Zuháb, thirty-two miles. We left Karriud at 8.45 P.M. yesterday, and proceeded W.N.W. through a narrow valley, rising gently for eight miles. Here we descended by a rocky path into a deep winding defile, the sides of which are thickly covered with oak-trees. The road, everywhere rough and difficult, passes from side to side across a boulder-strewn ravine, in which are pools trickling from one to the other down the slope. At about half-way down the pass, we came to Myán Tágh, a village of about a couple of hundred houses. Here we found a regiment of Persian infantry or sarbáz, just returned from Pul Zuháb, where it appears they have had an encounter with the enemy. The men were scattered about the road for three miles beyond the village in great disorder, and without a semblance of discipline. Some of them chaffed our men, and asked what we had with us that we should go on when they were in retreat from Pul Zuháb. Their merriment and gibes, however, were at once silenced by Shukrullah Beg, who authoritatively announced that we were mámúr i daulat i Inglisia (on the service of the English Government). The words acted with magical effect. Those near us stood at “attention,” and others as we passed on touched their caps.
Shukrullah Beg now told me we should have trouble ahead. There was no doubt, he said, about the Khaleva rebellion. A party of four hundred of them had only yesterday plundered Pul Zuháb, and were still in force in the vicinity. He was telling me what he had heard from the sarbáz (that they were brought back to the shelter of these hills to wait for reinforcements to attack the enemy), when his story was verified by a long stream of people hurrying up the defile with their asses and oxen bearing their household goods and chattels.
At the steep descent of the pass where the road zigzags down to Páyín Tágh, we had some difficulty in passing the stream set uphill against us. The poor fugitives were driving their cattle and puffing and panting as if the enemy were in hot pursuit. Some of their bullocks, taking fright at our party, became obstreperous, threw their loads, and charged in amongst us, producing no small confusion, and considerable risk of a roll down the precipice.
There were about four hundred of these Kurds coming up the pass. Many of them expressed surprise at our going down the hill when we saw they were running away up it. One hardy old dame in particular, whose bullock with all her worldly goods had dashed up the hillside to escape our approach, was especially loud and garrulous, and harangued us from the turn at a zig in words I did not understand. Shukrullah Beg explained by saying the old lady was facetious, and asked if we thought ourselves lions that we were going down to face the robbers who had defeated even the sarbáz? These Kurds were very poor and dirty people; some of them were hideously ugly. Many of them had a sickly, unwholesome look, and in the light of dawning day, I saw that ophthalmia afflicted most of their children and young people.
The descent to Páyín Tágh is long and steep, by a stony road that zigzags down the mountain slope. Above the path to the right stands a solitary fire-temple, in a fairly preserved state of ruin. Away to the left of the descent is a very deep and narrow chasm, that drains the Myán Tágh defile and hills to the plain below. Seen in the waning moonlight on one side the descent, and in the growing gleams of a rising sun on the other, it looked a very remarkable natural phenomenon, and appeared like a great rent or fissure in the rocky barrier that closes the defile in this direction.[5]
Onwards from Páyín Tágh our road led along a gradually expanding valley, and at about ten miles brought us to Pul Zuháb. The view on looking back is peculiar and strikingly curious. The hills rise abruptly from the plain, and form a well-defined barrier, that extends west and east, a great buttress supporting the tablelands of Persia against the valley of the Tigris on the one hand, and the littoral of the Persian Gulf on the other.