114 THE PERSIAN POST-ROAD. 



eartli, witli perhaps a thin column of smoke issuing from 

 it, shows the position of each house. 



The men wear the great sheepskin coat and the conical 

 fur hat, tlie women dresses of crimson-lake hue, which lit 

 up wonderfully the dull green landscape. Every half-hour 

 we came to a weird group of ruddy tombstones, averaging 

 six feet high, and often delicately carved ; they resemble 

 upright sarcopaghi in shape. These strange graveyards 

 make much more show than the villages. Companies of 

 camels, their day's work done, and their heavy cotton- 

 bales ranged in a circle, sauntered lazily about in search 

 of herbage. Gaily-feathered birds perched on the tele- 

 graph-wires, which were our constant companions and 

 guides, scarcely cared to fly away as we passed. It was 

 hard to realise that it was scarcely twelve hours since we 

 had left a town supplied with every European luxury. 



The seventh station was a mere Tartar hut with a larg-e 

 underground stable. The post-horses had first to be 

 driven in from the steppe, and then harnessed ; a party of 

 very meri-y-looking natives did both in less time than an 

 ordinary postmaster would have taken in examining a 

 ' podorojno,' and reflecting what he should write on the back 

 of it. Night was now coming on, and we quickened our 

 pace. Lighted by a rising moon we cantered over the 

 plain, passed a large stream, flowing towards the Kur, by 

 a crazy bridge, and five minutes afterwards alighted, stiff 

 and weary, at the door of the large posthouse of Aksta- 

 finsk, situated at the junction of the Erivan and Elizavet- 

 pol roads, and 110 versts from the capital. Unluckil}^ for 

 us, a large detachment of troops, on a roadmaking expedi- 

 tion, had halted here for the night, and the resources of 

 the house were employed in providing for the comfort of 

 the officers, who occupied all the accommodation. Under 

 such circumstances we, who wore neither official caps nor 



