'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎357] (410/714)

the northern provinces
Tribe, one branch ot whom was settled here, and at the fort of
Ak Kaleh on the Gurgan ; and one of whose chieftains raised the
standard of revolt against Nadir Shah and seized the town in
January 1744, while Hanway happened to be residing there,
innocently bent upon the quixotic task of conducting a large
trading caravan to Meshed, and attracting to the English net the
commerce of Central Asia. Nadir Shah took summary venge
ance upon the rebels, and ordered the Kajar stronghold of Kaleh
Khundan in the city to be razed to the ground. The subsequent
rise and ascendency of the Kajar tribe brought Astrabad into a
])ieminence that it had not before enjoyed ; but in this century the
members ot that tribe have been dispersed in positions of mark
throughout the country; whilst Astrabad has acquired another
and more sinister importance as the armed outpost against
Turkoman attack. Of this desultory guerilla warfare I have
before spoken. Its significance has usually been thought sufficient
to justify a Royal Governor at Astrabad, and the province has
suffered in proportion.
The town is at once one of the most picturesque and ragged in
3 ersia. The circuit of its mud walls, flanked with round towers
Present ( ^^' ent led by what was once a deep ditch, is about
•ince ar ' ^ miles ' tlirou ^ 1 wllicl1 four gates admit to the interior.
But walls, towers, and ditch are in a state of like decay;
the forest has encroached almost to the outskirts of the city, and
a jungle of brambles and briars, the favourite haunt of the wild
boar, fills the moat and assails the ramparts. Nor does the city
occupy the whole of the interior space; for here, too, are deserted
and overgrown patches more frequented by wild animals than by
man. Nevertheless, the town is most picturesquely situated; the
wooded slopes of the Elburz descending almost to its gates; and
the outlook from its walls extending over a thick forest for twenty
miles to where, on the west, the Caspian glitters on the horizon;
and on the other, or north-eastern side to the Gurgan or Wolf
River, 1 and the sandy flats of the Turkomans desert. More
picturesque, however, than its own surroundings is the town itself.
Its thatched or red-tiled houses, with roof of high pitch and wide
projecting eaves, the tiles being laid on reeds supported on rafters,
It was from the Gurgan that the ancient Hyrcania was named; the roots hyrc
and Quvg being identical in old Aryan. Hyrcania comprised the Gurgan plain as
far as the Atrek, Astrabad, and the greater part of Mazanderan.