'Report on the North-Eastern Frontier of Persia and the Tekeh Turkomans' [‎106v] (4/50)

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doubtful,, and even if it was true, it would by no means prove him to be a prince of
any sort. He is well known in Persia, and is a man of very doubtful veracity.
Feshark is a series of scattered hamlets, having about 400 inhabitants altogether. On
the 5th October I marched to Mushkinun, distance 18 miles. The country was rather
barren, but very far from being a desert. Many small villages with a little cultivation
round each are passed. Mushkinun is a very ruinous place of 150 inhabitants. I
found very great difficulty in getting shelter. Very few of the houses were habitable.
Formerly it had contained 400 inhabitants, but a very large number had perished
during the years of famine eight years ago. Though I was given one of the best
houses in the village, it bad no door, and the owner said, “ I sold the door for bread in
the famine year.” Few people who were not present during the terrible two years of
famine which Persia endured can, 1 fancy, realize the utter horror and dread of that
time felt by the people. They often speak of it as “ the year of judgment.” In the
richer parts of the country the traces of the famine are bemg effaced, but in this part
of the country, where the soil is naturally barren and the rainfall very scanty, as it
borders the desert, the marks of that time of want are painfully evident."
The next day I marched through a fairly fertile country for*this part of Persia, still
there are miles and miles of utterly barren land. The people, however, make the most
of every drop of water that can be obtained, searching for the springs in the mountains
which to-day bordered the road on both sides, and tunnelling underground canals to
carry the water to their small enclosures, where a few mulberry or willow trees are
grown, and a little barley, also poppies for making opium. I had purposely left the
regular Isfahan and Yazd road for the first tw’o or three days of my journey, as I did
not wish to meet travellers for a few days, until I had got accustomed to my new
clothes, but yesterday I returned to the regular road. I went towards Nain, a town
celebrated for its pottery, both in ancient and modern times. Some of the best of the
faience for which Persia was formerly famous was made in Nain, and the best of
modern Persian pottery is still made in this place. I stayed the night in a very poor
little village called Bullabad, about 15 miles from Nain. I wuis anxious to take the
short cut across the desert from Nain to Tabbas, which I believe has never been
travelled by any European, but I received so bad an account of the scarcity and
saltness of the w^ater that I determined to go by Ardekan to Tabbas, as it is only a
little further, and the desert is not quite so trying by that road. I also wished to avoid
any town in which there was a telegraph office, as I was aware that a description of
every remarkable traveller is sent to the Government at Teheran from each telegraph
office, and there was a telegraph office in Nain. On the 7th October I went back to the
Yazd road and marched through a place called Kudunu, from whence I got good view
of Nain, to the village of Bonwiz, distance 11 miles. There are two villages of the name
of Bonwiz, distinguished as Balah and Picn, viz., upper and lower. A rather curious
mistake is made in the map I have, as the name of the village is written Bonwizbalah,
as if it w r as part of the same name. Bonwiz is a place of some 500 inhabitants, and
did not seem so distressed and poor a place as some of the villages I have passed
through. I actually was able to purchase a small piece of good meat here which was
a luxury. A very curious thing I observed, not only in this village, but in very many
many others in various parts of Persia, is that the smallest streams, sometimes only a
few inches in width, are full of fish, and often fish of a considerable size. Persians
seldom eat fish, there seems to be some prejudice against eating them, and the fish are
unmolested and very numerous. They swarm round the place where the underground
canals are brought to the surface and the stream issues from the kariz or underground
channel, and run in for refuge on the slightest alarm. Many of these fish are blind,
showing that they live in these underground channels and only occasionally- come out
into the light. These fish breed underground in the dark kariz which extend for so
many hundreds of miles in Persia, and probably in the course of a few generations
from the disuse of their eyes lose the power of vision. It w r ould be a very curious
experiment to collect some of these blind fish and try whether the offspring, if bred in
the light, would be produced from the spawn blind or not. Many reptiles would, I
think, be found in these underground kariz, which would also be well worth study bv a
person who was interested in natural history. Marched on the 8th October to
Naugumbaz, distant 12 miles, through a very barren country. At Naugumbaz I
found a Persian regiment with their officers on the way to Teheran, to be mstructed
by the Austrian officers who are at present occupied in training the Persian troops.
I did not stay at Naugumbaz, which is a poor village with a caravanseri and post
horse station, but went on to Chah Nau, 13 miles further. Here there was a very fine
earavanseri and a magnificant covered tank for water lately finished, but the tank; was