ladies.
From the pass above Amiriya we looked back over a mounting array of peaks, ranges, and buttresses to the white cone of Demavend in the top of the sky; and forward over a plain of boundless distances, where mountains rippled up and sighed away like the wash of a tide, dark here, shining there, while shadow and sunshine followed their masters the clouds across the earthâs arena. Trees of autumn yellow embowered the lonely villages. Elsewhere, desert; the stony black-lustred desert of eastern Persia. At Samnan, while the ladies drank tea in a brick caravanserai, I heard of an old minaret, which I found before the police found me. When they did, I ate sorrow, as the expression is, that I could stay no longer in their beautiful city, and we drove away into the dusk. âCome with us to Meshedâ, said the driver, who was a negro, offering a price which indicated friendship. Obstinately, I descended at Damghan.
There are two circular grave-towers in that place, which are inscribed and dated as built in the XIth century, and are constructed of fine but loosely mortared café-au-lait brick. A ruined mosque, known as the Tarikh Khana or âHistory Houseâ, is even older; its round squat pillars recall an English village church of the Norman period, and must have inherited their unexpected Romanesque form from Sasanian tradition. The whole of Islamic architecture borrowed from this tradition, once Islam had conquered Persia. But it is interesting to see the process beginning thus crudely, before it attains artistic value.
The police, good-natured fellows, began to faint with hunger as I kept them out beyond their lunch-time. Late in the afternoon, a lorry came in from the west, and they bundled me on to it as the only hope of their getting a meal that day. We reached Shahrud at eight, and are to leave at midnight.
That admirable institution, the Persian caravanserai, has refused to be ousted by modern transport. Garages are everywhere, certainly. But they reproduce the old plan. This consists of a quadrangle, as big as an Oxford college, and defended by huge doors. Near the doors, beside the arched entrance, are rooms for cooking, eating, communal sleeping, and the transaction of business. Round the other three sides are rows of smaller rooms, which resemble monastic cells, and accommodation for horses and motors. Comfort varies. Here, in the Garage Massis, I have a spring bed, a carpet, and a stove; and have eaten a tender chicken, followed by some sweet grapes. At Damghan there was no furniture at all, and the food was lumps of tepid rice.
Nishapur
(4000
ft
.),
November 14th
.âOne can become a connoisseur of anything. Never in all Persia was there such a lorry as I caught at Damghan: a brand new Reo Speed Waggon, on its maiden voyage, capable of thirty-five miles an hour on the flat, with double wheels, ever-cool radiator, and lights in the driverâs cabin. Mahmud and Ismail are making record time from Teheran to the Indian frontier. They ask after my health every five minutes, and want me to go right down to Duzdab with them.
Dawn, like a smile from the gallows, pierced the gusty, drizzling night. I ate a bit of cheese, and the other side of the chickenâs breast from Shahrud. Two stunted willows and a tea-house hove out of the murky desert. Mahmud and Ismail went inside, to greet other cronies of the road. I dozed where I sat.
At Abbasabad we huddled over a fire, while the people of the place tried to sell us beads, cigarette-holders, and dice, of a soft grey-green stone. They wore scarlet Russian blouses, and are descended from Georgiancolonists planted by Shah Abbas. Then on, against the wind and wet, over the grey hummocky wastes. The grey zeppelin clouds drive low and fast. The grey infrequent villages are desolate of people. Clustering round their ruined citadels, those ancient shapes, the bee-hive dome and ziggurat, are melting in the rain. They have melted thus since the dawn of
From the pass above Amiriya we looked back over a mounting array of peaks, ranges, and buttresses to the white cone of Demavend in the top of the sky; and forward over a plain of boundless distances, where mountains rippled up and sighed away like the wash of a tide, dark here, shining there, while shadow and sunshine followed their masters the clouds across the earthâs arena. Trees of autumn yellow embowered the lonely villages. Elsewhere, desert; the stony black-lustred desert of eastern Persia. At Samnan, while the ladies drank tea in a brick caravanserai, I heard of an old minaret, which I found before the police found me. When they did, I ate sorrow, as the expression is, that I could stay no longer in their beautiful city, and we drove away into the dusk. âCome with us to Meshedâ, said the driver, who was a negro, offering a price which indicated friendship. Obstinately, I descended at Damghan.
There are two circular grave-towers in that place, which are inscribed and dated as built in the XIth century, and are constructed of fine but loosely mortared café-au-lait brick. A ruined mosque, known as the Tarikh Khana or âHistory Houseâ, is even older; its round squat pillars recall an English village church of the Norman period, and must have inherited their unexpected Romanesque form from Sasanian tradition. The whole of Islamic architecture borrowed from this tradition, once Islam had conquered Persia. But it is interesting to see the process beginning thus crudely, before it attains artistic value.
The police, good-natured fellows, began to faint with hunger as I kept them out beyond their lunch-time. Late in the afternoon, a lorry came in from the west, and they bundled me on to it as the only hope of their getting a meal that day. We reached Shahrud at eight, and are to leave at midnight.
That admirable institution, the Persian caravanserai, has refused to be ousted by modern transport. Garages are everywhere, certainly. But they reproduce the old plan. This consists of a quadrangle, as big as an Oxford college, and defended by huge doors. Near the doors, beside the arched entrance, are rooms for cooking, eating, communal sleeping, and the transaction of business. Round the other three sides are rows of smaller rooms, which resemble monastic cells, and accommodation for horses and motors. Comfort varies. Here, in the Garage Massis, I have a spring bed, a carpet, and a stove; and have eaten a tender chicken, followed by some sweet grapes. At Damghan there was no furniture at all, and the food was lumps of tepid rice.
Nishapur
(4000
ft
.),
November 14th
.âOne can become a connoisseur of anything. Never in all Persia was there such a lorry as I caught at Damghan: a brand new Reo Speed Waggon, on its maiden voyage, capable of thirty-five miles an hour on the flat, with double wheels, ever-cool radiator, and lights in the driverâs cabin. Mahmud and Ismail are making record time from Teheran to the Indian frontier. They ask after my health every five minutes, and want me to go right down to Duzdab with them.
Dawn, like a smile from the gallows, pierced the gusty, drizzling night. I ate a bit of cheese, and the other side of the chickenâs breast from Shahrud. Two stunted willows and a tea-house hove out of the murky desert. Mahmud and Ismail went inside, to greet other cronies of the road. I dozed where I sat.
At Abbasabad we huddled over a fire, while the people of the place tried to sell us beads, cigarette-holders, and dice, of a soft grey-green stone. They wore scarlet Russian blouses, and are descended from Georgiancolonists planted by Shah Abbas. Then on, against the wind and wet, over the grey hummocky wastes. The grey zeppelin clouds drive low and fast. The grey infrequent villages are desolate of people. Clustering round their ruined citadels, those ancient shapes, the bee-hive dome and ziggurat, are melting in the rain. They have melted thus since the dawn of
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