"عبر بلاد فارس على سرج ركوب جانبي" [‎٤‎١] (٣٦٠/٧٢)

CHAPTER IV
AS FAR AS KASHAN
I t appears to me that the East either powerfully attracts
or as powerfully repels those who have left the West for
the first time. Most real travellers, however, succumb to a
charm which is somewhat difficult to describe, as it is the
mixture of many things that makes up the undoubted
fascination of the whole. Probably there is a spice of the
nomad in every one, and, if so, Persia is the very land to
call it forth. There is a great sense of freedom in travelling
week after week across vast plains, where often the only
sign of life is the withered scrub which at night will do
duty for firewood, the traveller ever pressing forwards to
some range of superbly coloured hills which must be
surmounted in the future.
Day after day the sun's rays shine down from a deep-
blue heaven, in which there is seldom a cloud, and pierce
through an atmosphere so pure that every seam and fissure
in peaks, several miles off, may be clearly distinguished.
The air blows free and untainted across the deserts, an
air so fresh and exhilarating that it feels almost like
champagne in the blood, warding off fatigue, and endowing
the wayfarer with such vigour that he is enabled to enjoy
everything thoroughly, taking the bad along with the
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