It was a quarter past eight before we mounted our horses on the morning of the 21st, and ten minutes past twelve when we arrived at Daulakee, a distance called four fursungs, and which may be computed at about twelve road miles. The site of Daulakee is marked by a break in the mountains, where the road which leads among them commences. It bore N. 30 E. when we mounted. Our road was much broken by the beds of numerous torrents, which, after the rain and melted snows, fall from the adjacent mountains. We here and there met with small encampments of the Elauts. They appear like the Turcomans, whom I have so frequently seen at Smyrna, and through the whole of Asia Minor. At the distance of two miles we were met by the Istakball, who fired their salute, and frightened the horses as before. This ceremony was repeated every day, so that a repetition of the description will not be always necessary. They were all arranged on a rising ground, at the foot of which ran a stream of mineral water, of a most sulphureous smell. Further on we crossed other streams of the same quality; the heat of one of which, as it gushed from under the rocks, was almost scalding. We brought home specimens of the incrustation which the spray of the bubbles left on the surrounding rocks. The bed of the stream was mostly of the colour of sulphur, although there were patches here and there of a copper hue. Still a little further on, on the left of the road, are two springs of naptha. The oil swims on the surface of the water, and the peasantry take it off with a branch of date tree, and collect it into small holes around the spring ready for their immediate use. They daub the camels all over with it in the spring, which preserves their coats, and prevents a disease in the skin, which is common to them.
The huts in the village of Daulakee, as we rode through it, appeared mostly to be covered on the tops with the entwined leaves of their date trees, while the better houses are built of mud, and terraced. The mosque was the most creditable building that met our eye in the whole place: its interior seemed neatly arranged in arches, and preserved clean with a white stucco. There was a little bath at the extremity of the town. The customary fort (for such are found in most of these villages) was situated in the middle of the huts, at the top of which many an eager Persian was perched. This place, and indeed all we had seen, presented a picture of poverty stronger than words can express. There was nothing but what mere existence required; nor to our very cursory observation did the most trifling superfluity shew itself.
The river that runs by Daulakee meanders through the plain which we had passed. All the mineral streams, which crossed our road, fall into it, and renders its waters salt and brackish. The soil itself indeed, at the roots of the mountains, is, in some places, saturated with a nitrous acid, of which, in the neighbourhood of Daulakee, the people make a pleasant beverage. In one of the recesses of the mountains, however, there is a stream of pure and delicious water. In the evening I walked to the spring, which is embosomed in date trees: it is beautifully clear, and rather tepid. Its short course down into the plain is marked by a wood, which more immediately flourishes under its influence, and follows its progress. In the lower country there is an extensive tract covered with date trees, and forming a mass of verdure on which the eye delights to rest after the constant glare of an arid desert. It is extraordinary how vegetation thrives in this country, wherever there is the least water. It is, indeed, a general rule, that wherever they can irrigate they can produce vegetation; and indeed with no other moisture than the dews, and the few occasional showers of the winter, the plain of Bushire (which all observers have agreed to call a barren land) produces one hundred for seven. The rude manner of cultivation here is sufficient to display the intrinsic goodness of the soil; for they just sprinkle with seed the spot marked out for the plough, then make the superficial furrows, and obtain most abundant crops.
We mounted this morning at eight o’clock, and arrived at our encampment at ten minutes before one. It is called four fursungs, but we compute it at sixteen miles. We soon entered the mountains, and followed the road through them to the Eastward. We came to the river (which in its lower course passes near Daulakee) at half past nine o’clock: we crossed it a second time about a quarter of an hour after, and at ten o’clock passed it for the third and last time, at a ruined bridge, of a structure which had once been neat. After hard rains its bed is very extensive, and its current most rapid: so that it entirely impedes the passage of travellers and caravans. At the fords where we crossed, it was a very fine stream up to the bellies of our horses. After that, we paced its banks, for the distance perhaps of half a mile, in a S. E. direction. We saw it for the last time winding on a southern course, when we had ascended an elevated peak of the Cotul range. We gained this summit at half past eleven; the road then continued through the mountains till twelve o’clock, when we came on the plain of Khisht. At ten minutes before one we reached our encampment. The extreme capriciousness of the windings of the road, rendered it almost an impossible task to ascertain the ultimate and exact direction of our bearing from Daulakee to Khisht. However it was evident, that we had made a great deal of Easting, with a little Northing. The mountains rose around in most fantastical forms, their strata having their highest elevation towards the South, forming a dip of perhaps forty-five degrees. The soil is mostly of a soft crumbling stone, large fragments of which seemed just balancing at the brink of the precipice above, and appearing to require only a touch to impel them into the great chasms below. The passage of the river by our numerous party, and the winding of the horsemen and loaded mules in the mountain-passes, animated the whole of the dreary scenery around into the most romantic pictures. The only verdure which cheered the sameness of the glaring yellow of the mountain, was that of a few wild almond trees.
Before we ascended to the plains of Khisht, a long string of matchlock men and horsemen (the Istakball) who came out to meet the Envoy, appeared on the brink of the precipice above us. As we ascended they fired a volley, the sound of which returned in repeated echoes through the mountains; and when we came into the midst of them, the horsemen begun their gambols; moving around us in all directions, stopping their horses, couching their long lances, throwing them, and then again galloping forwards. The footmen with their matchlocks made a charge into the plain, shouting as they advanced, as a representation perhaps of the ardour of their attack in real combat. When we approached our encampment, we were met by the Governor of Khisht himself, Zaul Khan, a man of remarkable appearance, without eyes, and with the fragment of a tongue, the rest of which he had forfeited during the troubles of Persia. He came riding on a mule conducted by a young Persian. But the most extraordinary part of his history is, that, notwithstanding his tongue is cut, he still talks intelligibly. Before, indeed, this operation was performed, he had such an impediment in his speech, that he was scarcely able to make himself understood; but the mutilation was fortunate, and his articulation has been improved. This the Envoy, who had known him before the punishment, avers.
The plain of Khisht seems to form a complete oval, and presented stronger marks of cultivation than any part of the Dashtistan which we had seen. The Konar bushes were thickly sprinkled by the roadside, and apparently all over the plain, besides plantations of date trees. At Konar-a-Tackta (a village four miles and a half from Khisht, and the place where we encamped,) there is a Caravanserai, which has lately been erected by one of the wives of Zaul Khan, and is really a neat and commodious building. An arched gateway introduces the traveller into a square yard, around which are rooms, and behind which are stables. There is also a small suite of rooms over the gateway. In the centre of the court is an elevated platform, the roof of a subterraneous chamber called a zeera zemeon, whither travellers retire during the great heats of the summer, and which in those heats is a very refreshing habitation. Behind the building is a tank or reservoir for rain-water, which has newly been added, and is not indeed yet finished. The whole forms an establishment most acceptable to travellers, and worthy of the Persian governments of a better age.
On the 23d we rose before the sun, and though in a region so much more elevated than the one in which we were on the preceding day, the temperature of the atmosphere seemed the same. The sky was clouded all over, and some predicted rain. One of our moonshees, who was considered an astrologer, told me that, according to his observations, “it would rain, if God pleased.” However, the day passed without rain, and the opinion of the astrologer was, at any rate, equally indisputable.
The trumpet, the signal for departure, sounded at twenty minutes before eight, and we went off with the usual clatter and parade. The course of the road bore N. E.: but when we had rode for about four miles its direction was nearly due East. In an hour after our departure we came to the banks of a river, which is the same that, flowing by Zeira, falls into the Daulakee river at Deerooga, and which, according to my information, takes its rise in the mountains near Shapour. Immediately on coming on its banks we began to wind through the difficult passes of the mountains, which in various parts are very dangerous. The Arab horses, who had been accustomed to the equal surface of their own sandy plains, trode the rocky sides of the mountains with fearful and uncertain steps, and one or two of the most valuable of the Envoy’s stud suffered by severe falls: the Persian horses, on the contrary, scramble over the threatening eminences, and confidently walk by the sides of the precipices with an indifference, which gives an equal consciousness of security to their riders. Our Mehmandar, by way of bravado, urged his horse over a rocky heap, which appeared almost as the feat of a madman.
There were some particular points of view in our progress, that were picturesque and grand in the extreme. The path wound so fantastically along the side of the mountain, that those who were yet at the bottom saw the whole surface intersected by the ranges of our procession; and the travellers at the upper point appeared so diminutive, that man and brute could scarcely be distinguished from each other. Just before we reached the very highest top of the mountain we came to a station of Rhadars, and to the dwelling of a derveish, which was formed in the crevice of a rock. In parts of our route we saw the Rodo-dendron, one of the strongest symptoms of the change of our climate. We reached our encampment at twenty minutes past eleven, and we found it pitched near a Caravanserai. The village of Khaumauridge is situated on a small plain, and is distant about a mile N. 20 W. from the Caravanserai. On an eminence over us was a small tower, where a rebel stood a long siege.
The mountains through which we passed were infested by a race of robbers called the Memméh Sunni. They live in the deepest recesses of their wild valleys, and commit their depredations on the unguarded travellers with an impunity quite characteristic of the state of the country. Although some attempts have occasionally been made to terrify them into submission, by inflicting the severest tortures on the few individuals who have chanced to be caught, yet the example has been lost on the living, and the love of independence and plunder has outweighed the terrors of barbarous punishment and ignominious death. The abrupt formation of their mountain haunts (labyrinths to those who have not long practised them,) favours this community so materially, that instances have been known of their having snatched from the very centre of a caravan, some traveller who promised less resistance than his companions, or some well loaded mule, that seemed to announce more booty than others. When Brigadier-General Malcolm went through their mountains on a former mission, the robbers bore off some of his mules which carried part of the rich presents destined for the King of Persia. So firmly are they now established in their fastnesses, that the neighbouring Khans and Governors of districts have chosen, since the evil itself was inevitable, to take a part in its advantages, and, it is said, maintain their own agents amongst the Memméh Sunni, with whom they have stipulated agreements about the fruits of their plunder. They happened to be less predatory at the time of our passage, and we proceeded through the mountains without the least molestation.