'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎280] (321/714)

PERSIA
A few miles beyond we came to a spot known as the
Chaahmeh-i-Gez (or Spring of Tamarisks), where a scanty rivulet
supplies a number of little pools and fertilises some-
Abbasabad , , 1-™ • , • n t t t
patches of grass, ims was a notorious and dreaded
spot in the old days, for hither came the Turkoman robbers to
water their horses after the long mountain ride, and here the luck
less voyager was frequently swooped down upon and caught. It
was close to this spot that Ferrier had a brush with them in 1845.
The end of this stage is the remarkable-looking village-fort of
Abbasabad, which rises in tiers upon an eminence, the lofty front
being pierced with numerous windows and crowned with ruined
battlements. Its inhabitants are the converted descendants of a
Georgian colony of a hundred families, who were transported to
this spot by Abbas the Great three centuries ago, as a link in his
chain of military colonies along the northern frontier. He
assigned them an annual allowance in coin (100 foma7is)and wheat
(100 Jcharvars), which after a while was not paid. In the third
generation, being forbidden to use the Georgian tongue, they are
said to have become Mussulmans; but traces of their mother
language have been detected by some travellers in their dialect.
During the Turkoman reign of terror there was said not to be a
single adult man in Abbasabad who had not more than once been
carried away captive.
A hilly ride over low, barren ridges, and up the gravelly bed of
a valley known as the Dahaneh A1 Hak, brings us to the squalid
village of that name, where a corps of fifty militiamen
were once stationed to guard the road. Through similar
scenery and over undulating ground we mount 1,000 feet since
leaving Abbasabad, and come at length to the magnificent cara
vanserai of Miandasht 1 (lit. mid-plain), whose lofty embattled walls
and projecting towers resemble a vast fortress, and can be seen
for miles. This was the central point of the ' Stages of Terror,
and here, one half the peril over, the pilgrims foregathered to
exchange felicitations or foment alarms. There is an old caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers).
built by Shah Abbas, whose name appears above the gateway; but
the huge castellated structure is a new erection of burnt brick, with
a parapet and walls twenty feet high. A courtyard, in which the
chajpar-kJianeh is located, connects the two, and water is provided
1 Conolly called it Meergundusht; Von Mierop, more correctly, nearly a
hundred years before, Meondasht.
Miandasht