It is said that there are 1200 houses in Khuramabad, which would give it a population of over 7000. It has been visited by several Englishmen for purposes of trade or research, and it has doubtless made the same impression upon them all as it does upon me.
Burujird, August 9.—A night march of twenty-two miles through perilous country brought us in blazing heat to an encampment of Seyyids of the Bairanawand tribe, fine-looking men, showing in their haughty bearing their pride in their illustrious lineage, but not above depriving us during the night of many useful articles. Their camp had three streets of tents, in front of which oxen were treading out wheat all day long. These Seyyids have much wealth in mares and oxen. Again we started at moonrise for what was regarded as a dangerous march, a party of Sagwands having gone on ahead, with hostile intentions, it was said.
However, nothing happened, and nothing was heard except the shouts of our own charvadars and the pandemonium made by the simultaneous barking of huge dogs in the many camps we passed but could not see. We rode through cultivated valleys full of nomads, forded the placid Bawali, and at dawn were at the foot of the grand pass of Handawan, 7500 feet in altitude, which is ascended by steep zigzags over worn rock ledges, and the dry boulder-strewn bed of a torrent. A descent of 2000 feet and a long ride among large formless hills took us to a narrow gorge or chasm with a fine mountain torrent, and thence to the magnificent Tang-i-Buzful, from which we emerged with some suddenness on the slopes of the low foot-hills on the north side of the plain of Burujird or Silakhor.
This very rich plain, about thirty miles long by from six to eight broad, has been described as "waterlogged," and the level of the water is only a foot below the surface. Certainly very numerous springs and streams rise along the hill slopes which we traversed and flow down into the plain, which is singularly flat, and most of it only relieved from complete monotony by the villages which, to the number of 180, are sprinkled over it, many of them raised on artificial mounds, at once to avoid the miasma from the rice-fields and as a protection from the Lurs. Above the south-eastern end rises the grand bulk of Shuturun Kuh, with a few snow-patches still lingering, and towards the other lies the town of Burujird, the neighbourhood of which for a few miles is well planted, but most of the plain is devoid of trees. It is watered by many streams, which flow into the Burujird river and the Kamand-Ab, which uniting, leave the plain by the magnificent Tang-i-Bahrain.
The first view, on emerging from the buff treeless mountains, was very attractive. The tall grass of the rich marshy pastures rippled in the breeze in wavelets of a steely sheen. Brown villages on mounds contrasted with the vivid green of the young rice. Towards Burujird, of which nothing but the gilding of a dome was visible, a mass of dark greenery refreshed the eyes. The charm of the whole was the contrast between the "dry and thirsty land where no water is" and abundant moisture, between the scanty and scorched herbage of the arid mountains and the "trees planted by the rivers of water," but I confess that the length and overpowering fatigue of that thirty-three miles' march, much of it in blazing heat, following on three nights without sleep, soon dulled my admiration of the plain. Hour after hour passed on its gravelly margin, then came melon beds, files of donkeys loaded with melons in nets, gardens of cucumbers and gourds, each with its "lodge," irrigation channels, dykes, apricot and mulberry orchards, lanes bordered with the graceful elægnus, a large and busy village, where after a very uncertain progress we got a local guide, and then a low isolated hill, crowned by a dwelling arranged for security, and a liberally planted garden, a platform with terraced slopes and straight formal walks, a terrace with a fine view, and two tanks full of turtles (which abound in many places) under large willows, giving a pleasant shade. Between them I have pitched my tents, with the lines of an old hymn constantly occurring to me—
"Interval of grateful shade,
Welcome to my weary head."
Burujird, one and a half mile off, and scarcely seen above the intervening woods, gives a suggestion of civilisation to the landscape. In the sunset, which is somewhat fiery, Shuturun and the precipices of the Tang-i-Bahrain are reddening.
The last three marches have been more severe than the whole travelling of the last three months. Happy thought, that no call to "boot and saddle" will break the stillness of to-morrow morning!
I. L. B.