160 
ISPAHAN. 
plain is well irrigated by dikes cut from the Zaiande-rood , a river which, 
in its course from the West, waters the whole country. It rises from 
the Baktyar mountains, passes through Ispahan , and finally expends 
itself in the deserts of sand to the S. E. The Persians indeed have an 
idle belief founded on a more idle tradition, that it resumes its waters 
from the sand, constitutes the river which we crossed at Daidakee , and 
discharges itself at last into the sea at Rohilla: a connection as they 
still assert, ascertained by one of their Kings, who threw a marked 
board into the place of the disappearance, and found it again in the 
stream at Daulakee. Two etymologies are assigned to the name; one 
from ZaiandS, spurting, breaking from the ground, (jaillir;) the other, 
from Zende , lost, alluding to its failure in the sand; the termination rood . 
in either case is, river. Like every other part of the kingdom, the 
country round Ispahan is almost destitute of timber; and the surface is 
a most arid field for the researches of a botanist. The vivid rock 
of the mountains is lost at the point where their roots intersect 
the plain below. 
We estimated the distance from Ispahanek to Ispahan at two 
fursungs , or six miles. We proceeded over the hills in regular proces¬ 
sion ; the Envoy having taken every precaution that the Mission, with 
which he was charged- from the Throne, should be received with the 
the fullest attention and respect. With this view it became his express 
object, that the Governor of the city, Abdullah Khan, (son of 
Mahomed Hussein Khan, the King's Second Minister) should 
come out himself to meet him. As he had been led to understand that 
this was a point already settled, he was surprised to hear by a message 
which he received when he was on the road, that the Governor refused 
to accede to his wishes, unless he first received a letter to that effect 
from the Envoy himself. In consequence we made a temporary halt; 
and the Envoy wrote a note, stating, that although he thought himself 
entitled to such a mark of attention from the Khan as an office of friend¬ 
ship only, yet, as the bearer of a letter from his master the King of 
England, to his Persian Majesty, he could not for a moment doubt, that 
