1 64 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



likewise those cavernous pits and hollows that 

 yawn hungrily by the roadside in every Persian 

 town; all to an accompaniment of shouts and 

 objurgations, addressed in turn to his half-broken 

 horses and to the apathetic Persian loafers. So 

 through a labyrinth of narrow streets and gloomy 

 covered bazars, all of wonderful picturesqueness 

 but kaleidoscopic smells, by mosques and mad- 

 rassehs, by the great Jchiaban (or boulevard), and 

 the entrance of the shrine itself with the chains 

 beyond which no unbeliever may pass. Then 

 through the^ city gates, and we emerged into 

 the country and thankfully exchanged the 

 infernal rattle of cobble - stones for the ease of 

 a' road whose appalling ruts were softened by a 

 deep layer of fine dust. 



One might spend an hour worse than at one 

 of the main gates of Meshed watching the people 

 entering the holy city, for as the scene of the 

 martyrdom of the eighth Imam, this city ranks 

 high as an object of pilgrimage to pious Muslims, 

 so much so, that when the pilgrimage has been 

 duly accomplished, the " Zawar " is entitled to 

 prefix to his name the honorific style of Meshedi. 

 At one of the southern gates, besides Persians 

 from distant parts of the Shah's dominions, one 

 would see Indians and Afghans, Baluch, Arabs, 

 and Turks, all in their picturesque and distinctive 



