'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎122] (157/714)

122
PERSIA
the foot of the mountain range. Here we entered the bed of a
broad but empty torrent that clove a winding passage in the wall
March to rock. Coming, after a mile or more, to a plain where
Boighor t W o gorges converged, we followed that to the right,
and proceeded up a mountain valley to the village of Oghrah,
picturesquely situated upon a rocky slope at its extremity. Here
we procured a guide, following whom we plunged into a deep and
narrow gorge that cut straight into the heart of the rock wall,
as though some Titan's axe had slashed a savage gash in the solid
stone. Its walls were absolutely perpendicular, and shaped in
parts by the storms of centuries into windy buttresses and towers,
while at the bottom brawled a stream, which had hollowed pools
in the rock, and up and across the bed of which it was with
difficulty that our horses could be persuaded to climb. The
formation and the scenery of this magnificent gorge, whose walls
were in receding terraces, are a precise reproduction on a minia
ture scale of the little known but unequalled canon of the
Colorado River, in Arizona. After two hours' marching in this
splendid defile, we scaled the right or east side, and followed a
line over the mountains in a north-easterly direction, crossing a
second sweep of hills, and emerging upon another valley, richly
watered both by springs and streams, and tilled by the villagers
of Maresh. This was the most remarkable of the mountain
villages that I saw. Clinging to the side of the steep rock, its
houses were built entirely of stone, rudely quarried and loosely
put together, the ruins of an old stone castle frowning from a
peak above the whole. It was a sombre-looking place, even in
the full blaze of the sunshine. Here we again turned northwards,
and after climbing another ridge of hills descended upon yet
another valley, commanded by the romantic village of Boighor.
There we halted for the night, having been on the march for nine
hours; although, owing to the extraordinarily rugged ground, we
had probably not covered more than twenty-four miles.
After we had encamped I heard that the peasant who had
guided us in the afternoon had, while returning to his village,
The guide been overtaken and soundly thrashed by a Persian sowar In the East India Company army and later Indian Army, an ordinary native cavalryman or mounted cavalryman. .
beaten H e had, apparently, told my muleteers that he expected
this chastisement for showing us the way. But three hrans were
too tempting a bait to be resisted. One of my men overheard
the howls of the poor wretch, and watched the soldier beating