Glimpses of Modern Persia —/ 
R H E (ANCIENT R H AGES ) Remains of a once World-famous City 
clumsy mills, (also heavily taxed) and then 
allowed to pass into the underground water 
system of kanauts , which is centuries old. 
It extends practically all over the country, 
and is of course badly in need ot repair. 
It is from this network of primitive canals, 
devised by some wise monarch of old to 
prevent evaporation, that most of the cities 
and towns are watered, and from it, also, that 
the farmers, lease holders of great proprietary 
estates, flood their impoverished acres for an 
hour or two of an afternoon. 
Where one of these hillside streams breaks 
at the foot of a slope, there is the densest 
and most succulent of herbage; and flowers 
without number and of a million hues make 
the air fragrant far about. It is in such 
places, naturally, that the little village popu¬ 
lations have lingered, and the road thereabouts 
often lies for miles between high-walled 
gardens and orchards, lavish in their produc¬ 
tiveness and furnishing many a heavy don- 
key-load for distant markets. Time and 
labor are worth little, and in the cities there 
is usually an adequate supply of fruits and 
vegetables for those who are in anywise able 
to buy. In the southern regions, where there 
is no rigorous winter, the raising, drying and 
packing of certain fruits is an important 
industry. Even in Tabriz, where in the cold 
months snow lies many feet deep, all through 
the warm season roses are heaped up in the 
bazaars, to be sold for the making of attar. 
This commerce is well under way even in 
May, while yet from the roofs of the city 
one may look up and see the snows heavy 
on the summits of Sahend. 
Roses grow wild within reach of the road¬ 
way’s dust, each bush bent with its burden 
of innumerable blossoms. Even upon 
apparently barren hillsides, without grass 
enough to hide the soil, flowers will be found 
growing in the springtime,—far as the eye 
can see, glorious in color, and hardy enough, 
it would seem, to thrive for a little while on 
the scant nourishment the dissolving snow 
has prepared for them. 
Riding over the wastes of hill and plain, 
you discern the presence of cities and towns, 
not by masses of buildings or the gleam of 
spires. These are of the selfsame yellow 
gray hue as the country itself, but it is by 
the green which towers above the rooftops, 
by the clustered foliage, welcome as an oasis, 
that the traveler knows a city is at hand. 
Once inside the city gates, traversing the 
wretched streets, surrounded by the smells 
and the tumult, one is forced to wonder what 
has suddenly become of all the verdure. It 
seems to have vanished like a mirage. The 
178 
