232 
TEHERAN. 
from Teheran is about forty miles,' to the base of the first mountain is 
reckoned fourteen miles. We had seen it when it was at least one 
hundred and fifty miles from us; and were told indeed, as I have remark¬ 
ed before, 1 that it might be seen from the top of the minaret of the 
Mesjid Shah, at Ispahan, a distance of two hundred and forty miles. 
It is visible from Resht, and generally along all the south of the Caspian 
sea; and it is therefore very credible that that sea, which is not more 
than forty miles from the base, may be seen from the summit, of Dema¬ 
te end. But, according to some accounts, no one ever gained the top; 
according to others, there is a horse-road through the whole ascent. I 
was told at Tabriz, by a man of Mazanderan, that he himself knew 
several who had reached the summit; and, indeed, that Derveishes, led 
by the information of their books, resorted thither from India to cull a 
certain plant convertible into gold, and tinging with a golden hue the 
teeth of the sheep that feed upon the mountain. At the foot of the 
Albores are many villages and pleasure-houses, and much cultivation; 
all the rest of the country in that direction is a blank with scarcely 
a shrub. 
On the east side of the plain of Teheran there is an elevated road of 
a fine bottom running N. and S. which seems to have been con¬ 
nected with the city of Rey. On the 4th of March we visited the 
ruins of Rey. They are situated about five miles in a south direction 
from Teheran, and extend as far as the eye can reach over the plain, 
E. and W. To the E. at the foot of a projecting range, which branches 
from the Albores, are the remains of the citadel; consisting of walls 
and turrets, built of mud bricks, which in most places are distinguished 
with difficulty from mounds of earth. The mass of the height, on 
which it is erected, seems rather of earth than of rock. Near the foot 
of the citadel stands a tower, which by our hasty calculation may be 
about fifty feet in height. It is built of a very fine species of brick, 
cemented by mortar. Its exterior is arranged in twenty-four trian¬ 
gular compartments, the base of each being about five feet, giving a 
