Ibex and Ibex Ground 35 



be none, in the usual sense of the term, for the 

 few scanty streams that exist in this part of Asia 

 reach no sea, but are sooner or later swallowed 

 up by thirsty sands or evaporated into the dry 

 air. Desolate though the appearance of the 

 country is, with its great sweeping plains and 

 ranges of arid hills, it exhibits the curiously deli- 

 cate colouring and transparent, unsubstantial effects 

 only found in the earth's most waterless regions. 



The picture I should like to present to my 

 readers of the haunts of ibex is one of wild rugged 

 rocks, precipitous cliffs, and gloomy gorges. The 

 air bears the scent of no flowers, the sound of no 

 falling water, all is weird and forbidding as the 

 mountains of the moon. And the names of these 

 desolate crags only known to the nomad shepherds 

 who pasture their flocks in the valleys, are they 

 not descriptive? Asperan, 1 "the fairies' mill 

 tower " ; Baran, " the hill of rains " ; Ahangaran, 

 " the hill of ironsmiths " ; Atash khana, " the mount 

 of fires " ; Hazar Masjid, " the range of a thousand 

 mosques." Each one has its legend or story. 

 Many of them recall the days when Persia was 

 a country of fire- worshippers, till the Arabs came 



1 Asperan is now a mere name clinging to some scattered stones, 

 a few springs of water, and the surrounding barren hills, but 

 tradition says that the site is one of an ancient populous city on 

 the main road to Herat, and this is corroborated by the Arab 

 geographers who wrote some eight centuries ago. 



