'Lord Curzon's Notes on Persia: About 1889-1890' [‎472v] (964/1486)

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about ioo feet above the Zainderud, until it enters the broad track
of Faraidan at Chishal Chashma.*
To the north-west of the Kuh-i-Rang, the same general rule
applies. Every valley (not a gorge) has at least one track for man
and beast, but owing to the more broken nature of the country and
the more brutal manner in which the ranges have been cleft
asunder by the peculiar transverse water system, these tracks com
pare unfavorably with those of the Bakhtiari country to the south
east of the Kuh-i-Rang. Fig is a sketch shewing a section
of one of the roads traversed, perhaps the worst. The track is one
of the main ones, used by the Ilyats.
The remains of what must once upon a time have been a main
road are to be found more or less along the course of the Baznoi
branch of the Diz river.
At Baznoi is to be seen the piers and portion of a masonry
bridge of a 6o-foot span (Photo No. 73). The arch has fallen and
the chasm is now spanned by a superstructure of trees, wicker and
earth. The approaches to this bridge on either bank can still
be traced, and tradition speaks of a broad road having once
followed the bed to the plains.
For want of a known general appellation the country to the
Country. north-west of the Kuh-i-Rang has been
called in this report by the name of Upper
Elam. Of the ancient Elam with its capital of Susan, and the
populated banks of the Kerkha, nothing need be said except that it
lay in the plains at the foot of these hills, only a few days’ march
distant. In summer the plains were, as they are nowadays, in
sufferably hot, whilst this mountainous country is cool, wooded, with
peaks covered with snow. It is not extravagant to suppose there
fore that in those times, even as now, this higher level country was
periodically peopled by the same inhabitants as those who had the
permanent homes in the Lower Elam of the plains. The course
of the river system bursting into the plains below Pul-i-Kul, the
roads even now all converging to that point, the remains of the
road and bridge just referred to, the ruins found near Baznoi a
well-watered beautiful spot at an elevation of 5,000 feet, warm in
anc ^ close, y surr ounded by mountains 10,000 to 13,000 feet,
affording the most, comfortably cool pastures in summer ; point to a
previous communication having existed from time, immemorial and
tend to shew that this country must have been once closely connect-
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