SAHADABAD. 
139 
beneath me lay the plain of Sahadabad, green with cultivation, 
but totally encircled by mountains, whose lofty ranges still 
shewed a one unbroken glaring hue; making a contrast, not 
easy to have been harmonized by the pencil of Claude himself. 
At the foot of these burning alps, not merely hot as scarlet, but 
scarlet themselves, spread the flat country ; rich in fields, studded 
with villages, and luxuriant in trees, standing in bowery groups 
by the side of the streams, or overshadowing the low walls of the 
peasantry. High above the rocky Edom, which encircled this 
beautiful vale, towered the black summits of the mountains of 
Ardelaw and Courdistan. To the south-east, a continued suc¬ 
cession of plains stretched away from the eye, till the verdant 
series were lost amongst the lower ranges of distant Louristan, 
which met the rising sun. 
Descending into the vale, we reached the castellated and fine 
village of Sahadabad, about half-past eleven in the forenoon ; 
having marched eight hours over a space of six arduous farsangs 
from Hamadan. The village stands at the base of the hills that 
form the western skirt of Elwund, in the north-east quarter of 
the plain. This celebrated mountain, or rather range, in its 
greatest division extends a long and lofty ridge of about thirty 
miles in a line south-east, where it terminates by its own bold 
steeps, without throwing out any connecting links to other chains; 
but in the opposite direction, it melts into the mountains of 
Courdistan. 
September 19th. — At half-past 3 o’clock this morning, we 
left our quarters at Sahadabad. The road lay along the level 
country, nearly due south, for a stretch of ten miles, about the 
expanse of the plain in that direction, and which, till scorched 
up by the summer heats, produces excellent pasture. At the 
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