More about the Bujnurd Sheep 1 99 



ing and almost down-like in parts, while elsewhere 

 there were steep ravines, some wooded, some of 

 the bare, sandy kind that sheep love to take their 

 repose on. There was water in abundance on the 

 hillsides ; springs at the bottoms of the valleys, 

 and streams that babbled over stony beds or 

 coursed sluggishly amongst masses of reeds. Our 

 camps were generally pitched near one of these 

 brooklets, and after breakfast had been eaten by 

 the light of candles and a roaring fire of logs, 

 D. and I would go out in different directions, 

 returning in the evening to either the same place 

 or to where camp had in the meantime been 

 removed. 



It was sad to see this well-watered, well-timbered 

 country, probably the fairest in the whole of 

 Persia, absolutely bare of habitations. Traces 

 exist in plenty to show that this has not always 

 been its condition. 1 On the highest ridges one 

 comes across circles of moss-covered stones, prob- 

 ably the ruins of watch-towers, and, curiously 

 enough, hollows that seem to be the remains of 

 dew-ponds such as one sees on the South Downs 

 in England, while stone-littered areas at the foot 

 of the hills mark the sites of ancient villages. 



1 Major Sykes, the eminent Persian authority, identifies this 

 country with ancient Parthia, and certain sites west of the Gurgan 

 gorge as those of the capitals, Paras and Dara. 



