Mashhad, the capital of Persian Khorassan, is a considerable commercial city, and the point of convergence of the caravan routes between Persia and India and China, through the countries of Afghanistan and Turkistan respectively. It covers a great extent of ground, surrounded by fortified walls several miles in circumference. Much of the intramural area is occupied by gardens and extensive cemeteries. In the latter the graves are closely packed, and contain the remains of pilgrim devotees who die here, and of the faithful in all parts of the country, whose last wish is to mingle their ashes with the sacred soil in which lie those of their loved saint. Formerly from thirty to forty thousand pilgrims annually visited the shrine of Imám Razá, bringing in many cases the bones of their dead relatives for interment under the shadow of the sacred dome; but since the famine the number has considerably diminished, and hardly exceeds ten or twelve thousand.
Mashhad i mucaddas, or “the holy,” is one of the principal places of Muhammadan pilgrimage, the others being Mecca munawara, or “the enlightened;” Karbalá mualla, or “the exalted;” Najafa ul ashraf, or “the most noble;” and Bukhára sharíf, or “the noble.” Like these centres of Islamite piety, it too is a sink of vice and immorality of all sorts the most degrading, and its baths and bazárs swarm with swindlers and gamblers, who, with a curious perversion of conscience, combine devotion with debauchery.
Amongst the special industries of this place is the manufacture of ornamental vases, goblets, tables, pipes, and other utensils of domestic use, from a soft blue slate or steatite, which is quarried in the hills to the south of the city. Some of them are very tastefully engraved, and they sell at a remarkably cheap rate. Cooking-pots, kettles, &c., are made from this stone, and they stand the fire well.
This is the headquarters of the turquoise trade, the mines of which are in the adjoining district of Nishabor, and we had hoped to obtain some good specimens of the gem; but they were either not shown to us, or had been already bespoken by the agents for merchants in the trade. We saw better stones at Shikárpúr in Sind than any they showed us here, and at more reasonable prices. I suspect we owed our disappointment to the irrepressible greed of our servants for their customary mudákhil. They certainly required some such means of increasing their incomes over and above the fixed salaries they received from us, in order to enable them to gratify their expensive tastes in the matter of dress. The Mirzá (secretary) was particularly conspicuous for the variety of costumes he delighted to disport in. At every place we made a halt at, he appeared decked out in a new suit of clothes. One day he would wear a coat of purple broadcloth and Angola trousers, then a suit of black broadcloth; and here, where our stay was more prolonged, each day produced a new dress, and it was a puzzle to find out where he got them from, and how he paid for them, for they must have been all expensive, particularly one which struck us as very handsome. It was a coat of blue broadcloth, trimmed with gold braiding and lined with squirrel fur.
During our stay at Mashhad the weather was more or less cloudy, and showers and sunshine succeeded each other at short intervals. Our garden residence proved very damp and chill, and we all suffered more or less in health from its effects. The winter here is described as a cold season, owing to the winds that sweep the plain, on which snow lies for three weeks or a month. The summer heats are sometimes tempered by cool breezes from the north, but are more frequently intensified by radiation from the deserts around. The elevation is about 3180 feet above the sea.
3d May.—Mashhad to Jágharc, or Jáarc, twenty miles. Our heavy baggage and tents had been sent on yesterday to Nishabor by the route of Sharífabad and Cadamgah. We set out at eleven A.M., and going up the Khayábáni Bálá, left the city by the gate of the same name, and proceeded across the plain in a W.N.W. direction, with a low range of hills to our left. Standing out from it, close together, are two hills of granite called Koh Nucra, and Koh Tilá, or the silver hill and gold hill respectively, from a traditionary belief that they contain, or did contain, those metals. Across the plain to the right is a high mountain range that bounds the Mashhad district to the north. Coal is said to be found on it; and a great mass towering above the rest of the range was pointed out as Calát-i-Nadíri, a celebrated mountain fortress supposed to be impregnable. It was for some years the depository of the treasures Nadír brought with him from India.
The plain in our front represents a wide flat of mostly uncultivated land, and is traversed obliquely by a singular line of tall towers, which we learned on inquiry were fortified water-mills on the course of the stream that is led off from the Dorúd river for the water supply of the city. At about ten miles we reached the foot of the hills, along which are scattered a few villages, and by a rough stony ascent crested a low ridge called Tappa Salám, and from it got an excellent view of the city and the great Mashhad plain, which extends away to the eastward as a desert flat so far as the eye can reach, and cuts the horizon in a clear line like the sea. Here, as on the ridge of the same name on the side of Sharífabad, the ground was piled in every direction with cairns from which fluttered a multitude of rag shreds.
Beyond this we crossed the Dorúd river, a little way below a strong masonry dam built across a narrow passage between rocks, and a little later found the river above it was retained in the shape of a small lake. Farther on we passed the picturesque village of Gulistan, and then turning S.S.W., followed a winding lane up to Targobah, a delightfully situated village in the midst of gardens and orchards sloping down from both sides to the noisy and rapid little hill torrent flowing between. The vine, apple, plum, peach, and apricot, the cherry, filbert, walnut, and mulberry, with willows and poplars, formed a thick forest on either side our path, and higher up we found the elm, ash, and plane tree, whilst everywhere the damp soil was luxuriant in a rank vegetation of weeds. We recognised the wild mignonette, forget-me-not, buttercups, goosefoot cleavers, the bright red poppy, and a multitude of other common English herbs. The scene at once reminded me of Devonshire; and had I been dropped on to the spot blindfolded, should, on looking around, have thought myself on the banks of the Plym. At four miles beyond Targobah, proceeding up the course of a rapid torrent, which we crossed from side to side some thirty times en route, and passing a succession of orchards, in which we saw a number of boys and girls at work collecting fuel, and as fair as English youths and maidens, we arrived at Jágharc, where we were accommodated in a private house adjoining a sarae, which was made over for the shelter of our servants and cattle. Weather rainy and air damp.
Jágharc is built on the slope of a high slate hill right down to the edge of the torrent, which, with another farther south, goes to form the Dorúd, or “two river” stream we crossed at the foot of the hills. Its name signifies “the place of drowning,” from a tradition, as I learned from our landlord, that this country was at one time under the sea, and that this was the spot where Jonah, or Yúnas, was cast into it. He was cast up again from the whale’s belly at the spot now named Yúnasi, the same we camped at on our march from Bijistan. Jágharc is about 4650 feet above the sea, 1470 feet above Mashhad, and 1790 feet above Yúnasi.
Our next stage was over the Nishabor mountain to Dihrúd, twenty-four miles. We set out at 7.30 A.M., and proceeded S.S.W. up the stream, through orchards as yesterday. At two miles we came to a fork in the rivulet formed by an intervening hill of slate; and following the branch to the right, at two miles more cleared the vineyards and orchards, and continued ascending along a row of pollard willows bordering the stream, which we crossed continually in our course. At another seven miles we came to the Páe Gudar Sarae, a small rest-house, as the name indicates, at “the foot of the pass.” Here two roads branch off, one on each side of a great overtopping bluff. Both are very steep and difficult, but the one to the left being pronounced the easier of the two, we took it. After crossing a deep and dangerous snowdrift that blocked the bottom of a very narrow gorge, and was undermined by little streams flowing beneath its soft subsiding mass, we struck a path on the steep slope of the hill. It was so steep we were obliged to dismount and lead our horses up the hill, or, as was done by some, to hang on by their tails and let them drag us up.