Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume VIII, No. 5 [‎55v] (113/154)

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FROM TEHERAN TOWARDS THE CASPIAN.
hucksters came round regularly to buy them, as well as salted salmon. He was.
much interested in our rods, flies, minnows, and tackle, and quite expected to see
us haul out lots of fish, though August, he admitted, was the time when the rivers
get clear and the pools yield their supplies, whether to the spear at night or o
line by day. No hooks on lines are used on these occasions. The Laird said that
he got on an average sixty salmon a season, varying from fourteen to twenty-five
pounds each. We started whipping the milky waters of the river as soon as the sun.
<r 0 t behind the mountains, our native friend showing us the pools where the salmon
lay, and the spots where the brushwood and trees along the bank would allow of a fly
being thrown. These two requirements for success did not often coincide, and the
Laird looked quite crestfallen when told that some deep swirl was unapproachable with
a fly. At length, as a fly would not entice, a minnow was put on, and the ground
gone over again. Just as it was beginning to get dusk, at a lovely spot where the
river, passing a huge rock, formed a magnificent run, a fish was hookei. e
Laird, though delighted that this proof of his veracity had at length been vouchsafed,,
was not a bit over-excited, managed the landing-net like an old hand, and eventua y
brought a salmon trout to bank, weight about fifteen ounces. The fish was Iree
when landed ; probably it was accidentally hooked, and had not seen the minnow
in the turbid water. In any case, it was the first salmon trout that had been
killed with a rod in a Persian river flowing into the Caspian.
The next day, the 27th, we made an expedition northwards, down the river for
a two hours’ sharp ride. The scenery was magnificent. The river, ever headlong,
had a more open valley, allowing of groves of stately alders here and there. T-he
cultivation climbed higher up the slopes. Villagers in all directions were gathering
the harvest, and stacking the corn on platforms raised to such a height that the cattle
could find shelter underneath, whilst the straw could not be stolen. W ild grape
vine, figs, and pomegranates were in all the nooks, from which rills of water in many
places crossed the road. Thick hedges of thorny stuff guarded the way on either
side, and gave an impression of there being some sense of care and industry in the
tillers of the soil, though this was dissipated by the sight of clumps of thorns dotted
about amidst the crops. This charming foreground was even surpassed by the more
distant views. We could now see far above the mountains that shut in the river. On
its right bank forests clothed them as far up as the snow and cold of winter permitted..
Above the forests grassy rounded slopes, fit pastures for deer, ibex, and moufflon,
carried the eye to summits where snow still clung even in the month of June.
On the left bank the country was less steep, so clusters of mud huts could
be seen here and there. Veritable snowy ranges formed the background far away
to the south.
Further north, as the valley opened out the vegetation became more sparse, as-
though we had reached a belt where the rain-clouds seldom touched, but passed
over to break on the higher ground. Further still away to the north, thick forest
was again visible, clothing all the mountains, which rose to a considerable altitude*
We lunched in a grove of ancient alders on an island in the river near to the mosque
of Bandi, with its roof of picturesque shingle, showing we were near a forest laud,,
and one where the ordinary mud roof of Persia was unable to cope with the rainfall.
Reluctantly we returned northwards; time would not permit of our pushing down
to the sea. That evening a try was again made for fish, but without success. The
28th found us climbing up the Hezar Champ, and a terrible climb it proved. The-
black butterflies were gay as ever, and a Bohemian wax-wing visited us at lunch,
which we ate in the shade of Gasteiger Khan’s tunnel.
That night we pitched our tents near our former camping-ground of Valiabad,
and the next day pushed over the Kendevan pass and down the Laura valley to-