BUSHIRE TO SHIRAZ. 81 
has been improved. This the Envoy, who had known him before the 
punishment, avers. 
The plain of Khisht seems to form a complete oval, and presented 
stronger marks of cultivation than any part of the Dashtistan which 
we had seen. The Konar bushes were thickly sprinkled by the road¬ 
side, and apparently all over the plain, besides plantations of date 
trees. At Konar-a-Tackta (a village four miles and a half from Khisht , 
and the place where we encamped,) there is a Caravanserai , which has 
lately been erected by one of the wives of Zaul Khan, and is really a 
neat and commodious building. An arched gateway introduces the 
traveller into a square yard, around which are rooms, and behind which 
are stables. There is also a small suite of rooms over the gateway. In 
the centre of the court is an elevated platform, the roof of a sub¬ 
terraneous chamber called a zeera zemeon , whither travellers retire 
during the great heats of the summer, and which in those heats 
is a very refreshing habitation. Behind the building is a tank or 
reservoir for rain-water, which has newly been added, and is not 
indeed yet finished. The whole forms an establishment most ac¬ 
ceptable to travellers, and worthy of the Persian governments of 
a better age. 
On the 23d we rose before the sun, and though in a region so much 
more elevated than the one in which we were on the preceding day, 
the temperature of the atmosphere seemed the same. The sky was 
clouded all over, and some predicted rain. One of our moonshce s, who 
was considered an astrologer, told me that, according to his observa¬ 
tions, “ it would rain, if God pleased ." However, the day passed 
without rain, and the opinion of the astrologer was, at any rate, equally 
indisputable. 
The trumpet, the signal for departure, sounded at twenty minutes 
before eight, and we went off with the usual clatter and parade. The 
course of the road bore N. E.: but when we had rode for about 
four miles its direction was nearly due East. In an hour after our de¬ 
ar 
