, PERSIAN SCENERY. 149 



a hubbub of claims for 'backsheesh' from various employes, 

 who had, or pretended to have, done something for us. 

 We lunched and rested at Sofian, and then pushed on for 

 Maraud ; but having discovered that there was a second 

 road between the two places, shorter but steeper than 

 that by which we had come, we insisted on taking it. 

 We soon turned off, with the telegraph-wires, up a glen 

 to the right of our old track. Near its head we reached 

 a village, surrounded by verdant pastures, and guarded 

 by huge and very handsome dogs, which barked furiously 

 at us as we passed. Openings in the hills on our right 

 were closed by ridges of splintered crags. Our pass was 

 already in view — a notch in the range before us, to which 

 the road mounted by short steep zigzags ; on our left was 

 a wide pasturage, covered with sheep, and backed by the 

 snowy peak which we had seen from the other road. The 

 view from the top burst on us with unexpected beauty. 

 Looking back, the foreground consisted of fine rocks and 

 ruddy hills ; beyond them lay Tabreez, now thirty miles 

 off, and appearing as a dark-green spot on the plain, 

 from which a long and uniform slope led up to the base 

 of the mountains of Sultan-Dagh ; on the other side 

 Ave looked down on Maraud, and towards the broken 

 ranges which separated us from the Araxes valley, the 

 gap through which, leading down to Djulfa, was plainly 

 visible. At a wayside spring, just below the watershed, 

 we met a native of artistic tastes, who, with an apprecia- 

 tion of landscape beauty very rare in the East, asked us 

 which view we preferred, the Tabreez or the Maraud side? 

 The posthouse at Maraud was full, but we were taken in 

 by a hospitable native, whose house stood in a pretty garden, 

 from which he brought us some red and yellow roses. 

 There were some well-trained standard guelder-rose trees 

 in front of the house. We ha,d a comfortable room, and 

 plenty of coverlets for the night. Our host enquired of 



