'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎361] (414/714)

THE NORTHERN PROVINCES 3 61
backwaters are overgrown with a dense jnngle of alders, ashes
planes poplars, w. lows, and such timber as loves a saturated soil
-Inongh this jungle the rivers and streams come down from the
mountains, furrowing a bed that is alternately a swamp, a torrent
into T" and m tlie raln y sea «m spreading themselves out
uggish morasses. Pestilential vapours rise from the rot tin .n
vegetable matter; eve 17 manner of reptile infests the swamps anl
a cloud of mosquitoes and insects spins in the air
From the very brink of these maritime lagoons the iun^le
stretches inland to the mountain linco v," i • •
mountain base, which is sometimes at
and Ungle rpj 1Sta f ce 0ri ^ of two mil es, at others of twenty,
arable trough the dense undergrowth the stranger picks his
i W£ !f W1 ^ t]lG aid of a g ul de 5 by intricate pathways
known to the villagers only. And yet in the heart of this mal
arial forest clusters of cottages are hidden away beneath the trees •
and every now and then occur considerable clearings devoted to'
the cultivation ot sugar, cotton, or rice. No European could live
for long m these damp low levels, where there is no elasticity in
ie air and an ever-present sense of suffocation; but their native
population is sedentary, and though liable to rheumatism, ague
dropsy ophthalmia, and other eye diseases, does not appear to
be hereditarily stunted or weak. What the acclimatised Mazan-
deram or Gilam, however, can stand, is perilous even to other
ersians. There used to be a proverb which, parodying a well-
known Italian saying, might be translated : Fedi Gilau e mori ■
and over two hundred years ago we find Tavernier and Chardin
recording that ' The air is so unwholsom that the People crv of him
that is sent to Command here. Has he robb'd, stolen, or murder'd
that the King sends him to Gnilau?' Fraser, after penetrating
01 a, second time, m 1834, from end to end of this maritime belt
could pass no more lenient verdict upon it than this
Bengal m the rains, Demerara in the wet season, Bombay in the
mons oon t}l e the recollections that suggested themselves to my
r and yet I think Mazanderan far more unpleasant than either. 1
From the marshes and jungles of the plain, however, we pass
o a region of surpassing beauty and splendour. The skirts of
ie Elburz descend in great wooded slopes and buttresses towards
uie sea ^ and between their spurs lie the most romantic dens
an ravines. It is difficult to count, much less to classify, the
1 A Winter's Journey, vol. ii. p. 464.