A TWIG BRIDGE.
The popular nomenclature is adopted here, but it would be more accurate to call this stream the Ab-i-Burujird, and to defer conferring the name of Ab-i-Diz upon it till the two great branches have united far below this point. These are the Ab-i-Burujird, rising to the west of Burujird, which with the tributaries which enter it before it reaches the Tang-i-Bahrain, drains the great plain of Silakhor, and the Ab-i-Basnoi, a part of which has been referred to under its local name of Kakulistan, or "the Curl," which drains the upper part of the Persian district of Faraidan, and receives the important tributaries of the Guwa and the Gokun before its junction with the Ab-i-Burujird. A tributary rising in the Kuh-i-Rang has been locally considered the head-water of the Ab-i-Diz.
Leaving the Ab-i-Diz, the path pursues valleys with streams and dry torrent-beds, much wooded with oak and hawthorn, with hills above, buff with uncut sun-cured hay, magnificent pasturage, but scantily supplied with water.
The belut, or oak, grows abundantly in these valleys, and on it is chiefly collected the deposit called gaz, a sweetish glaze upon the leaf, which is not produced every year, and which is rather obscure in its origin. When boiled with the leaves it forms a shiny bottle-green mass, but when the water is drained from them and carefully skimmed, it cools into a very white paste which, when made up with rose-water and chopped almonds, is cut into blocks, and is esteemed everywhere. It is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus.[11] The unwatered valleys are wooded with the Paliurus aculeata chiefly, and the jujube tree (Zizyphus vulgaris), which abounds among the Bakhtiari mountains.
The heat was frightful, and progress was very slow, owing to the low projecting branches of trees, which delayed the baggage and tore some of the tents. In places the path was farther obstructed by a species of liana known in New Zealand as "a lawyer," with hooked thorns.
We passed by the steep ledgy village of Shahbadar, on the roofs of which I rode inadvertently, till the shouts of the people showed me my error, and encamped on the only available spot which could be found, a steep, bare prominence above a hollow, in which is a spring surrounded by some fine plane trees. The Shahbadar people live in their village for three winter months only, and were encamped above us, and there were two large camps below. Men from each of them warned us to beware of the others, for they were robbers, and there was a great deal of dexterous pilfering, which reduced my table equipments to a copper mug, one plate, and a knife and fork. My shuldari was torn to pieces, and pulled down over me, by a lively mule which cantered among the tent ropes.
The afternoon, with the mercury at 103°, was spent in entertaining successive crowds, not exactly rude, but full of untamed curiosity. I amused them to their complete satisfaction by letting them blow my whistle, fill my air-cushion, and put the whalebones into my collapsible basins. One of Milward's self-threading needles, which had luckily been found in my carpet, surprised them beyond measure. Every man and woman insisted on threading it with the eyes shut, and the ketchuda of one camp offered to barter a sheep for it. They said that my shabby tent, with its few and shabby equipments, was "fit for God!"
The camps passed on that day were constructed of booths made of stems of trees with the bark on, the roofs being made of closely-woven branches with the leaves on. These booths are erected round a square with mat walls, and face outwards, a sort of privacy being obtained by backs of coarse reed mats four feet high, and mat divisions between the dwellings. The sheep, goats, and cattle are driven into the square at night through a narrow entrance walled with mats.