72 
RHABAD. 
we passed many of its villages ; and, observing some of more 
prosperous appearance than others, found that they were chiefly 
inhabited by Armenians, of the stock formerly brought into these 
parts of the empire by Shah Abbas. Daneyan, and Kandigan, 
were the most conspicuous of these; but all bore signs of in¬ 
dustrious emulation, cultivation covering the landscape as far 
as the eye could reach : corn and castor seemed the leading 
objects of their husbandry. After enjoying this fertile scene, 
and its attendant genial atmosphere for nearly three farsangs of 
our way, we bent more to the north ; turning through an arid 
rocky valley, whose bare and lens-like cliffs, proved a scorching 
contrast to the cooling verdure we had left behind. 
Between seven and eight miles of this sort of purgatory, 
brought us to something of a more grassy track, near the tumb¬ 
ling-down walls of a miserable, thievish looking village, called 
Rhabad. A few of its wretched natives were without the 
gates, scattered about in gipsey-like groups, separating the 
grain from the straw of the present harvest: near them ran a 
small clear brook. In our countries of ample rivers, it would 
have been called “ a poor little half-starved naiad !” but here, 
every rill, or trickling of water from a rock, is hailed like Hagar’s 
fountain. A few willows dipped their branches in this limpid 
stream, and under their shade we took up our quarters. The 
authorities of the village came out to us, but not with any idea of 
welcome. At Rhabad, for the first time in Persia, I experienced 
incivility from a Ketkhoda; indeed, I should call it brutal insult, 
both to the traveller who appeared before him, and to the sove¬ 
reign under whose safe-conduct he presented himself. When 
my two mehmandars, one from His Majesty, and the other from 
the Ameen-i-Doulah, opened to him the firman of the King, 
