PERSIA 
L IKING southward from some high point in the Elburz 
Range, a panorama lies before one of endless plains, varying 
from /«/, meaning true desert, to dasht , the name given to 
plains of a less starkly arid kind; dry and treeless certainly, but 
sprinkled here and there with insignificant shrubs and camel - 
thorn, nature’s apology for vegetation in adverse circumstances. 
Splashes of white, shivering in the mirage, where once were lakes, meander- 
ing ravines where once flowed rivers, sandy beaches where in ages gone 
by rolled seas. Jagged hills rise sharply in chains and islands, and fade 
away into the faint, irregular line of the horizon. Imagine thrown over 
the whole a transparent veil of those vague half-tones of colour that lend 
a magic to earth’s driest regions, and you will have a picture typical of the 
plateau of Iran; its plains roamed over by gazelle, its stony hills the 
dwelling-places of ibex and wild sheep. 
Turning round and facing north, what a change wrought by rain-laden 
winds! Up to your feet the hill -sides are clothed with deep green forest, 
and no bizarre tropical growth either, but good, honest, homelike kinds 
of trees, oak and ash and elm, maple, hazel, sycamore and many another. 
Along the crest line, grey naked crags burst through the green and mark 
the boundary between the well watered Caspian provinces and the parched 
hinterland. The straight line of horizon is that of the blue Caspian, or, 
further east, the sands of Turkestan. In the air the sound of water, the 
murmur of bees, while from the forests below may come the roar of a 
tiger, the call of the maral stag or the crow of a cock pheasant. 
Let us take first a glance at the game of the central plateau. When the 
writer first went to Persia, he was told by one who had some experience 
of the country that every plain held gazelle, every range ibex and urial, 
and the dictum is not far from the truth; but the qualification should be 
made that Persian plains are very broad and the ranges very long. 
Gazelle are of two kinds: the Persian (G. subgutturosa ), a graceful beast 
with black, polished horns running up to fifteen inches or so in length, 
and a rather smaller gazelle with less lyrate horns, called Kennion’s 
gazelle ( G . fuscifrons). The females of the latter are horned, of the former 
hornless. The Persian gazelle is common all over the country and is no 
doubt the same beast that is found in most parts of Central Asia; while 
Kennion’s is only known to exist in Persia’s south-eastern corner, its 
58 
