264 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



The second day after leaving the mountains, 

 a spire is noticed on the distant horizon, which, 

 as you traverse the thirty odd miles of flat 

 plain that intervene, rises and waxes larger till 

 it dominates the whole scene. In shape rather 

 like some old Scottish tower, rising straight from 

 the bare plain, it seems the very centre round 

 which that remote world revolves, wonderfully 

 impressive in its simple solemnity and size. 

 The hideous iron - roofed buildings at its foot, 

 in which resides the Kussian Commissioner, and 

 the white barrack buildings around, in which 

 are housed his escort, add to the effect by con- 

 trast. This is the Gunbaz-i-Qabus, the "dome" 

 of Qabus, a prince who, as is not unusual in 

 Asia, had no other possible claim to the re- 

 membrance of posterity. 



Passing on from this place, where we met 

 with the usual Eussian kindness and hospitality, 

 we marched in two days to Astrabad, a Persian 

 city that, with its red- tiled roofs amid the dark 

 green of pomegranate scrub and against a back- 

 ground of forest-clad mountain, looked as un- 

 Persian as possible. The two short stages from 



seems to be almost identical with the well-known snow-cock of 

 the Himalayas (Tetraogallus Himalayensis). The authorities, how- 

 ever, refer to it as the " Caspian snow-cock." The Persians have 

 an extraordinary story how this bird defends itself from the 

 attacks of birds of prey, but it would not look well in print. 



