118 
VIEW FROM THE PEAK 
less towering heights of Louristan stretched south-east; and, 
linking themselves with the more lofty piles of the Bactiari, my 
eye followed their receding summits, till lost in the hot and tre¬ 
mulous haze of an Asiatic distant sky. The general hue of this 
endless mountain region was murky red; to which, in many parts, 
the arid glare of the atmosphere gave so preternatural a bright¬ 
ness, that it might well have been called a land of fire. From the 
point on which I stood, I beheld the whole map of the country 
round the unbroken concave : it was of enormous expanse; and, 
although from the clearness of the air, and the cloudless state of 
the heavens, no object was shrouded from sight, yet, from the 
immensity of the height whence I viewed the scene, the luxu- 
riancy of the valleys was entirely lost in the shadows of the hills; 
and nothing was left visible to the beholder from the top of El- 
wund, but the bare and burning summits of countless mountains. 
Not a drop of water was discernible, of all the many streams 
which poured from their bosoms into the plains beneath. In my 
life, I never had beheld so tremendous a spectacle ; it appeared 
like standing on the stony crust of some rocky world, which 
had yet to be broken up by the Almighty word, and unfold to 
the beneficent mandate, the fructifying principles of earth and 
water, bursting into vegetation and terrestrial life. The great 
Salt-desert terminates the horizon on the east, but it is only dis¬ 
tinguishable through the openings of the high serrated range of 
mountains which run down from Room to Ispahan. That quarter 
of the view, though in reality the most arid, by some inexplicable 
effect of the time, did not present so awfully barren and scorched 
an appearance as the western chains. Indeed, if it were wished 
to fix upon a spot in order to shew the dominant character of an 
Asiatic landscape, the peak of Elwund might be chosen as the 
