'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎248] (287/714)

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PERSIA
not, however, work the system himself. That would be a shocking
violation of all Persian usage. Each road is farmed to a publican,
probably some merchant or wealthy person, who pays a certain sum
per annum to the Minister for the privilege. He then provides
the servants and animals at each station, and makes as much money
out of the business as he can ; the only check upon his parsimony
being the fear of losing his contract in favour of a higher bidder at
the end of the year. It is not surprising, therefore, that the post-
houses are mostly in a state of extreme and disgraceful dilapida
tion, or that the horses are among the sorriest specimens of the
equine race that were ever foaled. The system is a vicious one,
and it is hard to say whether the traveller or the poor brutes
whom he is compelled to Hog along are the more to be pitied.
Let me, however, endeavour to balance the pains and the
pleasures, if any there be, of chapar riding, so as to arrive at a fair
verdict. The system has been variously described bv
Pros and * J J
cons of the travellers according to their tastes, endurance, and fortune,
as an exhilaration, a tedium, or a torture; and there is
perhaps something to be said for each opinion. Much depends
upon the extent to which the road adopted is travelled upon, and,
in consequence, supplied ; something upon the season of the year
or the weather encountered; a good deal upon the luck of the
voyager. The route between Meshed and Teheran is but little
traversed (except by pilgrims, who move in Jcafilahs, or caravans),
and there are accordingly .not above five or six horses, sometimes
less, at each station. These I found to be for the most part under
fed, broken-down, and emaciated brutes, with ill-regulated paces,
and open sores on their backs that sometimes made it almost un
bearable to bestride them. The best that were supplied to me
would anywhere else be classified at a low level of equine medio
crity. To ride the worst was a penalty to which any future Dante
might appropriately condemn his most inveterate foe in the lower
circles of hell. Subsequently, however, upon the Teheran-Shiraz
line, which is more travelled upon and better provided, I found a
larger number and a superior quality of animals. They were
generally tolerable and sometimes positively good; and when I
succeeded in covering by their means an average of between eight
and nine miles in the hour throughout the day, when they invariably
cantered and sometimes galloped, it can be imagined that a day's
ride of from seventy to eighty miles may become quite endurable,