MYSTERIOUS HILL. 
167 
At a distance of about 2| fursimgs, on a bearing of N. 46° W., is seen 
distinctly from Koom the hill of Geden Gelmez, which has been fre¬ 
quently mentioned by travellers, and which still retains considerable 
celebrity in Persia. Geden Gelmez are Turkish words, which have the 
mysterious import of “ those who go, never return.” The hill is also 
called the Koh Telism, or the talismanic hill, and is variously described 
by the natives. Some said that many who have attempted to explore it 
have never more been heard of; but others less credulous assured us, 
that though such had been the feeling many years ago, yet in later days 
it had been traversed in all directions, and that men came from it as 
safe as from any other hill. It should seem that it consists of a tract 
almost entirely composed of nitre, which crumbles so easily under 
foot, particularly after rains, that it is dangerous to walk over it: per¬ 
haps it resembles the Hamman Meskouteen, mentioned by Shaw 
in Barbary, and the Sulfavata near Naples. When we left Koom the 
morning was thinly clouded, which gilded by its rising beams gave to 
the sun a splendour seldom seen at this season. We reached Pul Dal- 
lauk. The water of the river that runs in front of the caravanserai 
at Pul Dallauk, is so brackish as to be almost salt; notwithstanding 
which all our cattle were led to it to drink. The Persians say that 
cattle do not refuse to drink of such water, but that they thrive on it 
as well as on fresh, f This corroborates a fact mentioned by Arrian in 
his Periplus of the Euxine, namely, that the Pontic Sea is so much 
less salt than the sea without the Hellespont, that the people who lived 
on the shores of it, led out their cattle to drink of its water, which 
they willingly did. He also adds, “ and experience has shown that 
they thrive better with this than with fresh water.” Herodotus also 
mentions that the beasts of burden in the army of Xerxes drank the 
water of a salt lake. (lib. vii. 109.) 
We pitched our tents near the Haoos Sultan, on the face of a bleak 
* Shaw, vol. i. 274'. Veryard’s Travels, p. 221. 
f The value of salt marshes, that is, ground watered daily by the tide, is well known to 
English agriculturists; and cattle, in the spring of the year especially, thrive better on such 
land than any other. 
