PERSEPOLIS TO ISPAHAN. 
143 
encampment. We then turned an abrupt promontory of the high 
land on the right, and, for the remainder of the march, travelled 
nearly due East, between mountains whose brown and arid sides pre¬ 
sented nothing to cheer or enliven the way. As we approached 
Kemeen (a distance of fifteen miles from Sewand) we were greeted by 
all the inhabitants of the village, who exhausted their whole ingenuity 
to do honour to the Envoy. They fired frequent vollies, created an 
immense dust, broke vases of sugar, beat drums, blew trumpets, and 
themselves made loud and shrill shrieks. In return for all this, hand¬ 
fuls of money were thrown among them. Among the many per¬ 
formers was a lad who preceded us, twirling a stick about with great 
agility between his fingers; in this exercise he persevered so intently 9 
regardless of all the pressure of the animals and the crowd, that at 
length the nose of the Envoy's horse received the full force of his art. 
The Derveish of the Hqfizeea overtook us here to ask the present which 
had been promised to him. As he had been empowered to receive it at 
Shiraz , the Envoy conceived that his errand was a fraud, and dis¬ 
missed him therefore, paying his expences back, with an order for the 
sum if it should not have been already paid. 
19th. An easterly breeze, which sprung up this morning, rendered 
it extremely cold, and depressed the thermometer to 30°. We travelled 
between the bases of two abrupt chains of mountains, for about two 
miles against the wind; when we took a sudden direction to the 
North, in which we continued generally until we came to Moorgh-aub 9 
a distance of fourteen miles, according to our reckoning. The pass 
through the mountains, in a military point of view, presents most 
admirable means of impeding the progress of an enemy. At the 
distance of two miles from Moorgh-aub , I turned on the left from the 
road, to examine some ruins which I had noticed. Proceeding over 
the ploughed fields, which nearly overspread the whole of this plain, I 
came to the bed of a river lying in a North and South direction, and on 
its banks a village called Meshed Omoun. There is here a fort, and a 
few low houses, in which females only were left, as all the men had 
