From this the road continues to slope towards the north, and passing over an undulating tract of red marl, drops on to a wide valley or plain, the júlagah Bewajan, which is bounded on the north by a snow-topped mountain of the same name—a terminal prolongation to the south-east of the Nishabor mountain. The Bewajan plain is dotted with a number of fort-villages, which are remarkable from the absence of gardens or trees about them. The plain presents a gently undulating pasture-covered surface, and extends for many miles east and west and forms a long, narrow strip of tableland between the deserts on either side. To the eastward it drops suddenly, by a very broken surface, on to the Sarjam district, which presents a wide waste of red clay hummocks, of no use whatever but to provide concealment and shelter to the Turkman. To the south of Sarjam is seen a great snowy mountain, on which there is said to be a glacier. It is continuous to the north-west with the Turbat Hydari range of Asgand, and to the eastward separates Turbat Shekh Jám from Bákharz. To the north-east Sarjam is continuous with the desert of Sarakhs and Marv, and is the general rendezvous of the Takka, Sarúc, and Sálor Turkmans. To the westward Bewajan drops on to the plain of Nishabor on the one hand, and the kavír of Yúnasi, through which it is continuous with the waste of Pul Abresham, on the other. Bewajan is the route by which the Marv Turkmans invade Nishabor and Sabzwár, and the country up to Shahrúd, where they meet their brethren of the Yamút and Goklán tribes.
We crossed the Bewajan plain in a N.N.E. direction, and passing the fortified village of Sháh Tughi—which, what with Turkmans and famine, had been reduced to only three miserable families, who longed to escape the burthen of its desolation, the dread of Turkmans, and the thoughts for their daily bread; but there was none to cheer them, nor to relieve them, nor even to commiserate them—rose gently up to some low ridges of slate, trap, and granite, towards a ruined tower that stands on the edge of a muddy pool. At this point the caravan route from Tehran viâ Nishabor joins that from Turbat to Sharífabad and Mashhad. We here turned to the right, and descending into the secluded hollow in which stands Sharífabad, camped near its sarae. This is a commodious and substantial building, erected by Ishák Khán, Karai, when this town formed the frontier of his territory in this direction.
CHAPTER XI.
25th April.—Sharífabad to Mashhad, twenty-four miles. Weather cloudy and showery, with occasional glimpses of sunshine. We set out at seven A.M., and proceeded at first north-east then north, up and down over a succession of rich pasture-grown ridges, by a good military road, that exposed rocks of friable slate and a coarse granular granite abounding with great flakes of glistening mica.
At about six miles we crested the Tappa Salám, or “ridge of obeisance;” and got our first view of Mashhad i mucaddas, “the holy,” with its gilded shrine and blue-domed mosque overtopping the rich foliage of its gardens—a pleasant oasis in the centre of a wide desert plain. Our road companions and Persian attendants, straining their eyes in the direction of their loved city, muttered a prayer, and bowed reverently and low.
In fine weather, the view of the city and the mountains beyond it must be a very pretty sight. Pilgrims go into ecstasies at it, and run ahead of their caravans to get an earlier glimpse. The ridge is covered with graves, and small heaps of stones to which are tied long shreds of many-coloured cloths—the altars raised by pilgrim devotees. On the present occasion, owing to the misty weather, our view of the place was but indistinct, whilst the hills beyond were hidden in the haze.
Beyond the tappa, we passed down some granite slopes to the wide bed of a clear little rivulet, and following it awhile, at half-way to Mashhad halted for breakfast on its turfy slope, where we pitched a couple of bell-tents for shelter from the rain. Whilst here, the British agent, or Wukíl uddaula, arrived from Mashhad to pay his respects to Sir F. Goldsmid and General Pollock, and with him came an Armenian merchant, a cunning fellow, evidently with an eye to business, in which no doubt he acquitted himself eminently to his own satisfaction. He had a small supply of English bottled beer, which, on the faith of its name, we were as glad to get as he was to part with. Our subsequent experience, however, proved it to be but a very sorry imitation, and how or when it came here, if it ever did come here, we did not discover.
Besides these arrived a merchant of Peshín, one Sayyid Karm Sháh, who came out to meet his kinsmen the Afghan Commissioner, Saggid Núr Muhammad Sháh, and to give and learn the latest news, and also a couple of Persian officials to warn us of the grand preparations made for our reception and the order of our procession. This intelligence necessitated a change from our travelling costume to the more imposing habiliments of official uniform. Our passing baggage was stopped, and the transformation effected as we set out afresh in a provoking set shower of rain.
A short descent brought us to a muddy river draining eastward in a noisy stream a foot deep. We crossed its boulder-strewn bed, with a hill of granite on the right and left rear, and going across the plain, reined up at Turogh sarae. Here Sir F. Goldsmid, with his party, proceeded ahead to meet the isticbál sent out to meet him, and some minutes later, two field-officers of the Persian army rode up to conduct General Pollock and the Afghan Commissioner to meet the isticbál sent out for their honourable reception, all according to programme and the strict rules of Persian etiquette.