]70 
R. Burn— The Bakhtiari Hills. 
[No. 3, 
The Ba kh tiari Hills , an itinerary of the road from Isfahan to Shush far .— 
.% Richard Burn. 
[Read November, 1896.] 
My object in this note is merely to give a brief account of the 
little-known route from Isfahan to Shushtar across the Bakhtiari 
Hills. The present state of our knowledge of the curious people, 
inhabiting the country has been fully discussed by Curzon, 1 and a hasty 
journey of fifteen days does not enable me to add much, except a precise 
description of the stages. I may note that Major Sawyer of the 
Intelligence Department has made extensive tours in the Bakhtiari 
Hills, but his valuable report is at present treated as confidential by 
the Government of India. 
October 30th , 1894. Our caravan consisted of Mr. C. N. Seddon of 
the Bombay C. S. and myself, one servant and two muleteers, with three 
riding and three baggage mules. Leaving Julfa, the suburb of Isfahan 
in which most of the Europeans live, at 9 a.m., our road took us 
through a most fertile plain. At 2 p.m. we halted for breakfast by the 
Bagh-i-Wahsh, where a mud wall alone marks the place where Shah 
‘Abbas had his menagerie. Beyond this place, the land is low-lying 
and produces excellent cotton, then being picked. It was 7 P M., before 
we reached our halting place, the large village of Bistajan, 2 where 
the only lodging we could get was in a long cattle shed which we had 
to share with our mules. 
October 31st. This part of the Cahar Mahal is very beautiful. 
The road at first lies close to the Zendarud, the river that flows past 
Isfahan. It was fringed with canars, in all the glory of autumnal 
tints, while rice and cotton were being harvested in the fields close by, 
and the number of villages dotted here and there by the river attested 
the fertility of the soil. Shortly after crossing the river, there is an 
ascent of some hundred feet, and on passing the crest the view is the 
1 Curzon, Persia II c. XXIV. 
2 Stack, Six months in Persia, gives Bizgun in his map, I believe the name 
means “ the twenty tamarisks (aj).” 
