'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎281] (322/714)

FROM MESHED TO TEHERAN
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from three large abamhars, or subterranean reservoirs, to which:
access is gained by steep flights of steps.
Beyond Miandasht occurs what was formerly the most perilous
part of the journey. The road winds in and out of low passes
Dahaneh-i- between rounded knolls, where every turn discloses a
Zaidar hidden hollow, and where every elevation might hide an
ambuscade. The hills are bare and stony, or clad only with a
diminutive scrub. They are alive with partridges, in pairs or in
small coveys of five or six, which were so tame that they ran
along the road and crouched till one was within a dozen yards. 1
Here is the peculiarly noted Dahaneh-i-Zaidar, the gully by which
the Turkomans usually descended to make their attack, and at
its mouth was the small, now dismantled, fort of Zaidar, where was
a garrison of fifty regulars. On emerging from the hills we see
before us the twin-peaked mountain 2 above Maiomai, and, skirting
its northern base, reach the village of that name, where is a fine
caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). , built by Shah Abbas II., and some superb old
chenars. It was in the hala-khaneli of the posthouse at Maiomai,
which I occupied, that O'Donovan was besieged by an infuriated
band of Arab hajis, and had rather a narrow escape; and it was
in the caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). that Dr. John Cormick, for many years chief
physician to Abbas Mirza, died of typhus in 1833.
The next march, from Maiomai to Shahrud, forty-one miles,
used to be the longest in Persia, and has been bewailed by many
Armian v ^ ctl ' ms - for postal purposes, it has now been
divided by the station and chafar-khaneh of Armian.
The first part of the road, along the base of the same mountain-
range, is very stony. Two small villages are passed, each dependent
upon a single small rill, whose passage from the mountains can
be traced by a thin line of poplars. Armian is picturesquely
situated on a hill-side, with an abundant stream flowing down the
road just outside the posthouse door, and subsequently fertilising
a series of well-kept terrace-plots below the village. The first
1 This is the Itahh, or ordinary red-legged partridge. There are also in Persia
the hahli-i-darah (variously explained as ' royal partridge,' or ' partridge of the
defiles') ; the durraj, the black partridge of India, commonly called the fran-
colin ; the tihu, or sand partridge, which, as Fraser said,' runs like the very devil; '
Vaejirufti, or bush partridge ; the liaM-i-clnl, or grey partridge; and the hahhri-
Tiara, or baMr-gltirreh , the sand-grouse.
2 Fraser climbed this mountain in 1834, and found two very ancieni, ruined
forts on the highest peaks.— Winter's Journey, vol. ii, pp. 154-164.