ISPAHAN TO TEHERAN. 177 
Several of our horses had been left on the road from excessive 
fatigue. 
The valley of Kohrood extends in a North-Eastern direction; it is 
abundantly watered and wooded beautifully, and every species of fruit 
tree thrives there. The fields are disposed in terraces, and each sepa¬ 
rate plat of cultivated ground is intersected by small ridges raised to 
facilitate irrigation. We had hitherto passed through a country, to 
which so much wood and so much cultivation afforded a very de» 
lightful contrast. The Persians, indeed, admit, that there are few 
Kohroods in the kingdom, and that in summer its verdure is incompar¬ 
able. Our route led through another village in the same valley. 
Close to the road is the tomb of one of the inferior saints of Persia, with a 
pyramidical roof covered with green-lacquered tiles. As we passed near 
it, a little boy, surrounded by a set of his companions, entreated our 
compassion by invoking the name of the holy man in the neighbour¬ 
ing grave. When we had quitted the trees and cultivated grounds, 
we continued to wind in the valley which had then narrowed to a close 
and sometimes difficult pass. This pass, on a bearing of N. SO E. is 
in length about six miles, and is terminated on the left of the road by 
a caravanserai called Gueberabad. Before we reached it, we skirted a 
small artificial lake called the Bund Kohrood , the waters of which are 
supplied by the river of Kohrood , and the melting of the snows of the 
adjacent mountains, and are confined on the N. extremity by a strong 
wall built across the chasm of the valley. A stream, however, oozes 
out from the base, which finally expends itself in the plain about 
Kashan. Gueberabad is at present a ruined village; in former days it 
was peopled, as its name imports, by the Guebres. 
The caravanserai is one of the good buildings of the age of the 
Seffis , and by an inscription on the front appears to have been erected 
by Meer Sakee, one of the generals of Shah Abbas. Here first 
we discovered the plain of Kashaji , bounded by the distant range of 
mountains, of which Demawend formed the most conspicuous and the 
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