CARAVANSARY OF KINIAGIRID. 
369 
his heat to all the fervour of an opening oven. So much for 
the way up, but the descent on its southern brow, delivered us 
at once to the furnace of the day, by leading us forth on an 
immense plain, without a leaf of shade. The sky had not a 
cloud, and I felt, rather than thought of the bold metaphor of a 
brazen heavens. This was a fire I had not been accustomed to 
stand, and, yielding to necessity, was even gladder than my 
companions, to find our quarters so early in the day as three 
o’clock. 
We halted at a commodious caravansary, the erection of the 
present king ; and situated so close to the village of Kiniagirid, 
as only to be separated from it by a pretty little brook. It is 
distant from Teheran about five farsangs. Spacious as the 
building was, we found it overflowing with the troops travelling 
thither; yet a room was provided me, in honour of the royal 
firman ; though it had not the same power to spread my board, 
or fill the mangers of my cattle. Such an especial grant, not 
annulling the privilege which the keeper of the caravansary had 
purchased, by a composition with the agents of His Majesty, 
to pay to the crown two hundred tomauns annually, for an 
absolute exemption from these sort of hospitable imposts; and 
an exclusive right, in his little neighbourhood, of selling pro¬ 
visions, provender, &c. &c., to all persons lodging within the 
walls of his jurisdiction. Thus, as our sovereigns of two or three 
centuries ago, used to eat up their toll on their subjects by a 
yearly progress, with a train to boot, over all the great estates in 
the kingdom ; so the Persians, sometimes, do the same by proxy; 
making the stranger, who visits their dominions, the consumer of 
the tribute, which the monarch himself neither puts into his 
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VOL. i. 
