KUMI. 
71 
Koom. Proceeding in our course, we wound in a north-western 
direction up the steep side of the rocky acclivity that forms the 
angle of the two valleys ; and continuing our march over an 
exceedingly bad and stony road for nearly three farsangs, beheld 
ourselves, as it were, in a vast ocean of mountains ; their inter¬ 
minable ranges extending, on our left, in a line with the eleva¬ 
tion we had attained, while their various billowy heads resembled 
nothing so much as the waves of some preternatural sea, arrested 
in their course, and petrified to marble. Having gained the 
highest point of our ascent, we began to descend on the opposite 
side, and came down into a plain more extensive than any we 
had lately crossed, with numerous villages chequered with trees, 
scattered over its level ground. We also found two cheering little 
streams, winding round the gentle undulations which, at intervals, 
varied the surface of the plain kom being perfectly flat. Their 
course was eastward, and we crossed them frequently in our 
straight-forward path in a western direction. Our menzil was to 
be Kumi, one of the pretty shaded hamlets I had admired at a 
distance; and which we approached by the picturesque addition 
of a fine bridge of three arches, thrown over the bed of a dry 
river. This place is distant four farsangs and a half from Gil- 
paigon ; and, with the plain on which it stands, is considered 
in the district of Kanarah. The peasants of Kumi told me, 
that upwards of sixty villages, in as respectable a condition as 
their own, animate this fine stretch of country ; and, if they are 
correct, we must consider it nearly equal in population to that 
ot Ispahan. 
September 6th.—We started from Kumi, (where my escort 
took their leave,) by five o’clock in the morning ; our road lying 
across the plain in a direction north 45° west, in pursuing which 
