4th of June, 1809. The Prince had ordered four men to attend us into the Turkish territories; and as they did not reach us at Khoi, we should probably have awaited their arrival there, if I had not resisted such an arrangement, declaring that it would be better to advance one mile, than in our circumstances to remain idle for one single day. Accordingly, notwithstanding the pressing invitation of Nejef Kooli Khan, the Governor, to stay the day with him, we departed for Péréh, a village two fursungs from Khoi, which I call six miles, and in a bearing of N. 60 W. The morning was one of the loveliest in Spring, lightly covered with clouds, with a softness in the air which seemed to soothe every varied work of nature into tacit enjoyment of the bounty and munificence of their Almighty Creator. I shall ever recollect with thankfulness the delightful sensations which I experienced in passing the beautiful plain of Khoi; where every innocent sense received its gratification, and ripened into thoughts teeming with love and gratitude to their divine Maker.
Every thing was rich and beautiful: the mountains were green to their very summits; and their inequalites were here and there enriched by beds of wild flowers of the most lively and luxuriant hues. Scarcely two miles from Khoi is a very large collection of houses and gardens, which is a Mahalé or parish of the town, and is well inhabited. A stream from the mountains runs through it; and on the skirts to the N. are two pillars of brick, which are described either as the tomb or the cenotaph of a famous poet and learned Mollah of Tabriz, called Shemsé. Péréh is a pretty village, situated on the declivity of the hills, which gradually form the bases of the adjoining mountains; on the summit of one of these hills is an old square fort, now in ruins: and in its neighbourhood are two other villages called Pesé and Zaidé. There are walnut-trees, willows, poplars, elms, and fruit-trees of every description in the highest perfection, with a great profusion of grass.
On this as well as on the other side of Tabriz, the peasants convey their loads on the backs of oxen, on which indeed they frequently ride themselves. At Péréh I saw the first wheeled-carriage (excepting gun-carriages) that I had noticed in Persia. It was exactly similar to the Turkish Araba. Besides their plough, which I have already described, the Persians have the large rake, which serves as a harrow, and is fastened to a pole and drawn like a plough by yoked oxen: they have another implement of agriculture, which is certainly capable of much improvement. It is a pole fixt transversely on another to which the oxen are yoked; on each of these is a small wooden cylinder about half a foot long: and these insignificant things are dragged as a roller over the ground.
June the 5th. We went from Péréh to Zauviéh in six hours and a half, on a bearing of N. 50 W. which may be twenty-four miles. During the whole of the preceding evening it had rained, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Our ride, therefore, was rendered muddy. From Péréh we entered some mountains of easy access; which, about ten miles before we reached Zauviéh, opened into a plain surrounded like a basin by mountains, on all sides gradually inclining to the centre. On entering the plain, high on the right on the declivity of the mountain, is the village of Selawan; and on the left a small village called Khoré; and on the turn of the road towards it, are two stone lions among some rude and ancient tomb-stones. The greater part of the population of the plain is composed of Armenians. To the West are very high mountains, the tops of which were covered with snow, and their roots, when we passed by, were nearly concealed by the heavy clouds that rested upon them.
The snow was melting, and frequently streams were pouring from the mountains. Yet the difference of the temperature of the air here, and that which we had experienced within a few days, was very sensible; and before sun-rise it was piercingly cold. The plain was cultivated in all parts. The whole of the soil, over which we passed, was of the finest brown mould; so that, excepting some summits of the mountains, the country was one universal carpet of verdure.
We met a large party of the Elauts or wandering tribes, composed mostly of women and children, who were travelling to a fresh encampment. One of the women, who had the care of two children, had dismounted; and the extreme agility with which she got on her horse again, without any other aid than her own hands and feet, shewed how much she was accustomed to this sort of life.
We sent forwards our Mehmandar to desire that tents might be pitched for us, because we had been advised to avoid the village on account of the plague, which sometimes visits these parts. Accordingly we found four tents pitched for us, two of horse-hair, (the real Kara Khader of the Eels), and two white tents, rude enough indeed, but so delightfully situated in the plain, surrounded by corn fields, that we quite revelled in the exchange.
We had not long taken possession of our humble encampment, when a storm of thunder, lightning and hail overwhelmed us, in a manner which completely destroyed all the comfort of our interior arrangements. Hail-stones fell in numbers which entirely filled every corner of our tent, and so large, that measuring one I found it to be an inch in diameter, and so strongly congealed that they lay on the ground undiminished in size, until the sun once more broke out and dissolved them. The hills near us received a new covering of snow, shewing their summits as the storm rolled away, in sublime grandeur. The peasants told us, that this weather was very common to them. Although this was but an ungracious beginning to a pastoral life, yet I must own that to me it still had so many delights compared with the confinement of houses, that with all the present disadvantages I would willingly prefer it to a residence in the towns of Persia. Among its enjoyments is that of its freedom from vermin, from which (particularly fleas) we had hitherto suffered so much; not that the people are singularly dirty, but the creatures are the usual productions of the place and season. A Persian who was conversing with us in our tent, on seeing my servant beating a coat with a cane to clean it of the vermin which it had collected at the former stage, very gravely asked, “Pray what crime has that coat committed, that makes the Frangee beat it so?”
June the 6th. The quantity of rain that had fallen during the course of the day had completely saturated the greatest part of our clothes and baggage, and materially increased the weight of the lading of our mules. Thanks to God, it did not rain in the night; and we slept soundly till about an hour before the break of day, when we quitted our black tents for the village of Cara-ainéh. The distance, on a bearing of N. 20 W. is called five fursungs; but though we were nearly six hours on the road, I shall not reckon it at more than eighteen miles, because we were delayed in our progress by the mud, which the rain and hail had created. We took a turn to the Eastward from our encampment, and came to a village called Iekaftee, on the borders of a mountain torrent swoln and rendered so rapid by the late storms, that two or three of our mules had nearly been carried away by its violence. On the right of the road (at the distance of five miles from our last station) is a spring dammed up, except at an aperture in one of its corners, through which a small quantity of water is permitted to ooze out, called in Turkish, Ak-bolagh, or “white spring:” and three miles further, and distant from the road two miles, on the left, is a collection of a few wretched hovels called Kurkendéh, surrounded by cultivated fields. About this spot the road was formerly so infested with the Curdistan robbers, that it was never passed without danger: but since Prince Abbas Mirza has had the government of Aderbigian in his hands, he has so completely expelled the freebooters from their haunts, that no district is now so safe. We traversed a pass formed by the gradual meeting of the roots of the mountains, and then entered an oval plain, extending, on a rough calculation, in length eight miles from N. to S, and three in breadth. The village of Cara-ainéh, our Menzil, is here immediately seen, and is easily marked by a square fort, which, rising from the midst of its miserable huts, appears a palace in comparison. This village is the chief of a Mahalé of the same name, composed of about twenty-one villages, the principal of which are Hiderlou, Nabekandi, Gelish Acha, Sedel, Zaiveh, and Ak-dezeh. From Cara-ainéh there is a road to Van, a distance of fifty miles, on a bearing of S. W.
We had now reached the dregs of Persia. Beyond Khoi and Péréh both the habitations and the people bore an appearance of misery, indicative of a neglected country. This deterioration is probably inseparable from the borders of two states, which are ill-defined as to territory and actual property. None but the Ket Khoda had a decent coat, and all the rest were in tatters and beggary.