372 
TRACTS OF SALT. 
May 15th. To-day, as usual, we were on horseback by five 
o’clock. Our road pointed direct south, where numerous and 
wide spaces covered with salt, spread over the plain, white and 
even as snow. They were not a mere surface, like the sprinkling 
of a hoar frost, but the saline particles lay on the ground nearly 
half an inch thick, smooth and level as a mirror. And, indeed, 
these lucent tracts of the desert resemble a mirror in more 
ways than one ; reflecting the sun with almost the power of a 
lens, and sometimes producing optical delusions, more ex¬ 
traordinary than any that ever were represented in a magic-glass. 
In this way we journeyed forward, full three farsangs more, be¬ 
fore we arrived at the south-western edge of the plain ; which was 
bounded by the new ridge of hills we were to cross. At their 
foot, we found part of the shell of a caravansary, just begun, by 
order, and at the expense of the Ameen-i-dowlah, the second 
minister in the empire. It bids fair to possess every conve¬ 
nience usual in the best places of the sort; and is to have water 
conveyed to it by means of kanaughts, from a great distance 
amongst the hills ; but notwithstanding this care, the stream 
will be almost useless; for when I tasted it, at the source, it was 
more than brackish. The well-spring was far on, amidst the 
rocks, in the road over the hills; which we lost no time in 
mounting, and were as much disappointed as the Ameen-i-Dowlah 
may hereafter be, at finding the little fount savour so much of 
the soil through which it flows. 
Having passed these bladeless heights, we descended into 
another plain, which showed something of a tinge of vegetation ; 
and reached our menzil , the caravansary of Poohl-Dowlak, about 
ten o’clock in the forenoon; having marched a distance of four 
farsangs, or sixteen miles. Here our eyes were refreshed by the 
