'Report on Kurdistan' [‎23r] (50/220)

I
->
35
is a skuil of great dimensions. Many people who have, out of curiosity, visited
the place relate that near the coffin are very large footprints which reappear as
soon as defaced.
“Past this place one goes through a stone door to a room with many doors,
and every door leads by many steps to other rooms, some upstairs, some
downstairs, and it is absolutely necessary for visitors to take straw to strew
on their way so as to find their way out again.
“ The late Riza Guli Khan Yali visited this place with a crowd of attendants with
lights and provisions. For two whole days he walked about the place, but Mahmud
Khan, his uncle, having got lost and only being found with great difficulty, the party
returned to light again. Amongst other wonderful things this party saw was
a bazaar, like a blacksmith’s bazaar, in which were bars of iron, 10 feet long and
i zar thick, but they were falling to pieces with rust; and in other places were bales
of goods which fell to pieces on being touched. ”*
Tilehkuh.
A district about 18 farsakhs to the north-west of Senna. It numbers 24 vil-
Tilehkuh lages. The inhabitants are unruly and quarrelsome
and number 4,240 souls. The governor of the district
has no fixed residence. Cultivation : spring and autumn crops. Tobacco (tutun)
is also cultivated. Water- supply from springs. Many gardens have of recent years
been planted. Asl Maliat, 1,506 tumans. The inhabitants are Sunni Shat’is.
Khurkhureh.
A district about 18 farsaJchs north-west of Senna.
It numbers now about 50 villages, but boasted some
years ago of over 90.
One of the villages is known as East and has a good mosque and takieh built
Bagt about 400 years ago in which Shaikh Ibrahim is
buried. This is now a place of pilgrimage. The
village numbers 80 houses.
Another village is Mulanabad which numbers 50 families. The inhabitant’
are descended from the great Shaikhs of the country
and one of their ancestors, Shaikh Hasan, is buried
in this village, his tomb being surmounted by a cupola. His mother is buried
close by, and he ordered that anybody coming on pilgrimage to his tomb should
first visit his mother’s.
Khurkhureh is a village of about 50 families, on the side of a mountain known
by the same name. Down this mountain asOeam
rushes with great noise, which sound is reproduced in
the onomatopoetic name of the neighbouring village Khurkhureh. The village
of Khurkhurc-h is 2 farsaJchs distant from Vashehdareh, a village not far from
the Turko-Persian frontier. From the village of Khurkhureh to that of Keilu
in that of Saral it is 4 farsakhs, the road passes at 2 farsakhs the village of
Surmusi.
Khurkhureh.
MiTanabad.
Khurkhureh.
* “ From Afshar we cross the pass of Mahi-Bulak to Sainkaleh. On the right of
the road are the grottoes of Karaftu. They are a score of excavated rooms with many
winding passages. Over the entrance is a Greek inscription. Ker Porter, who de
scribed these grottoes in detail, supposed thev w^ere used for the initiation of neo
phytes in the religion of Zoroaster.’’ — (S. G. Wilson —Persian Life and Custom-.)
E 2