124 KERMANSHAH TO TEHERAN. 



preservation of the said caravanserai, the revenue of the 

 two villages must be microscopic ! Yet one more relic 

 is to be seen in the centre of the village in the form of 

 a carved stone capital, or perhaps fire-altar, similar to 

 those already mentioned at Kermanshah. 



Little more need be said of the journey from Kerman- 

 shah to Hamadan. It takes you through an elevated 

 country, along wild valleys and across rugged ridges, 

 where the climate even at this time of the year is apt 

 to be cold and stormy. ^ Five days, or six if you are 

 content with moderate marches, will take you from one 

 town to the other, the distance, given by the muleteers 

 as twenty - six farsakhs, being roughly equivalent to 

 rather more than 100 miles. I reached Hamadan on 

 the 19th March, to find the surrounding country under 

 snow and the town itself a quagmire of filth and slush, 

 and I entered into the feelings of Ker Porter, who, 

 though not expecting " to see Ecbatana as Alexander 

 found it ; neither in the superb ruin in which Timur 

 had left it," has yet put on record that when he did 

 actually behold it, " it was with the appalled shock of 

 seeing a prostrate dead body " I 



The population is variously computed at from 40,000 

 to 80,000, but my host, an Armenian gentleman whose 

 hospitality and kindness I shall long remember, af- 

 firmed that it was not less than 50,000. In 

 'Persia' Lord Curzon gives it as "not more than 

 20,000," but he must have been misinformed, for 

 there has certainly not been an increase of 30,000 

 in the last decade. There is a colony of from 3000 

 to 4000 Jews, and about 50 families of Armenians. 



^ I notice that Layard, travelling here in 1840, found snow on the 

 summits in July. " We were now approaching the loftiest part of the 

 great range of the Luristan Mountains, and the highest peaks were 

 still covered with snow." — Early Adventures. 



