368 
PASS OF KINIAGIRID. 
every necessary moveable that belonged to their riders. They 
passed in desultory succession, to the number of one thousand 
men ; and, my Persians informed me, were on their march to 
join the royal army, then collecting, which usually accompanied 
the Shah in his summer encampments, whether they be in 
Khorasan, or towards the more temperate breezes of Sul tan ia. 
The throng of the road, and the burning beams from the 
heavens, made the remainder of the day’s journey almost in¬ 
supportable. But the object of my setting forth would not 
have been answered, had I always given way to the custom of the 
natives at this season, which is travelling by night only. They 
would have had me start a little before sun-set, with a moon, or 
without it; and journeying forward through this indeed cloud¬ 
less clime , and starry sides, not have sought a resting-place till 
sun-rise next morning. Luminous as these nights are, and 
however beautiful might be the occasional effects which their 
long shadows, and silver lights, cast upon the varying lines of 
the mountains, their heights and depths; yet those indistinct 
visions, if I may so term it, of the country, would not have been 
giving me the true picture; which I, therefore, sought of its fair 
unveiled face, in the open sight of day. 
Towards eleven o’clock in the forenoon, we gained the foot of 
the mountains seen from Teheran to the south-west, and which 
form the south-eastern ridge of the Kofflin Kou ; branching a 
little farther, than where we halted, towards the east, where it 
loses itself in the sandy hillocks of the great salt desert. Having- 
crossed a narrow stream, we began to scale the pass called that 
of Kiniagirid, which is both rugged and winding; sometimes 
with its over-arching rocks, affording us shelter from the almost 
vertical sun, but oftener, by their perpendicular sides, collecting 
