1834.] Georgia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. 589 



is given in my work on Chaldaea, published in 1829, by Colburn. The 

 stream appeared about thirty yards wide ; its waters were rapid, and 

 occasioned great difficulty, and no short time in getting the mules 

 over. On embarking, the ferrymen pushed off the raft, and rowed it 

 with sufficient ease, till they got into mid channel ; when we were car- 

 ried with the greatest rapidity along with the stream to a consider- 

 able distance. During the whole time the boatmen were shouting, 

 *' God preserve us," and one of them, who was very alert, managed to 

 bring us to a shoal near the bank, when he leaped into the river, and 

 contrived to stay our course, to admit of our casting the horses and 

 mules adrift, and so lightened the boat, as to disembark us on the bank. 

 They then re-crossed the stream, after towing the raft to a certain 

 height, up the southern bank, and far beyond the point of embarkation 

 on the opposite shore. Two miles below this ferry, the stream is 

 generally fordable, as the waters have become shallow by expansion ; 

 and I was told, that in the depth of winter, it freezes so hard, as to 

 admit large kafilahs to cross its surface, though from the apparent 

 rapidity of its course, I should be inclined to doubt this information. 

 The Jakantu flows into the sea of Shahx, and is a branch of the 

 Kizil Uzan*, the banks of which river became the scene, a few years 

 ago, of the mysterious murder of the celebrated traveller Browne ; and 

 although His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley, was 

 in the country, and in fact, very close to the neighbourhood of this 

 sad catastrophe at the time it occurred, yet (strange to relate) no reso- 

 lute and determined measures were taken for the apprehension of the 

 perpetrators. I have not the least hesitation in saying, that his Ma- 

 jesty of Persia was accessary to this murder ; indeed, it was the cur- 

 rent opinion in the country at the time : but unfortunately, our charac- 

 ter was not then in very high estimation at court. Mr. Browne's 

 ultimate object was to investigate that magnificent country, Khora- 

 san. The present Shah appears determined that no traveller shall have 

 his real protection, if their journey is in that direction. Although Mr. 

 Fraser has presented us with a very valuable account of some parts 

 of it, yet his sufferings were great, his obstacles almost insurmoun- 

 table, and his treatment infamous. For this our travellers have to thank 



* This river is the Amardus of Ptolemy, and is supposed to have been the 

 Gozen of Scripture. Its present appellative is descriptive of the yellow hue of 

 its waters. Its course is both tortuous and rapid, and being augmented by seve- 

 ral streams from the neighbourhood of the village of Banna, which is seated in 

 the north-eastern branch of the Kurdistan mountains, it sweeps along through 

 an Alpine country, till it enters Ghilan ; where rushing onwards through a beau- 

 tifully wooded country, discharges itself into the Caspian Sea, a little to the 

 eastward of Resht. 



