'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎94] (127/714)

94
PERSIA
small pool and watered a few straggling poplars and willows.
The two remaining farsakhs to Kuchan were Mlfarsakhs, and it was
a little past noon when I arrived. For three-quarters of an hour
beforehand I had seen the town and its orchards and vineyards lying
far below in the midst of a broad valley, like a footprint of red mould
upon a sandy floor. The limits of the highly cultivated ground
around the town were distinctly marked ; and it was as though
some giant, stepping over the earth, had planted one big foot in
this desolate hollow of the worlds surface, which had stiaightway
burgeoned and blossomed under the magic touch. On the north and
south the valley was confined by rolling ranges which stretched away
towards Shirwan in the west and eastwards in the direction of
Meshed. Within about two miles of the town, and at the last
swell of the hill before descending into the plain, I struck the main
road again, and galloped briskly towards the walls. About a mile
therefrom a bridge with a single high arch and no attempt at a
parapet spanned the then waterless channel of the Atiek. A
flock of goats was standing in the dried-up bed, and sipping the
little remaining moisture in a few stagnant pools. A few dusty
poplars fringed the banks of the vanished stream. On the other
side vegetation was general and even prolific. Orchards of peaches,
mulberry, apricot, and pomegranate were yellowing under the fall
of the vear. The enclosures were thickly planted with vines
straggling in irregular double rows with broad deep irrigation
trenches for the water between, and presenting an appearance
very unlike the trim precision of the vineyards of Bordeaux. The
industrial energy of Kuchan seems to be specially devoted to the
manufacture of wine, and in a scarcely less degree to its consump
tion, a genial immunity which the Shiah Mahometans have never
been slow to claim for themselves from the stern asceticism of the
Sunni dogma.
By this time I was much surprised to have met no carriage or
deputation from the Khan, in view of the recognised reception
oiven to strangers at Persian seats of government, and of the
1 That this is the main stream of the Atrek I do not think there can be any
doubt. It rises in the defile of Tabarik below the Allah-o-Akbar range, about
twenty miles to the south of Kuchan, and is sometimes called Tabarik as far ab
that place. Valentine Baker claimed to have discovered the real source in a pool
called Kara Kazan (Black Cauldron), close to Shirwan. But he can only have
ignored the upper course of the river, because at that time it must have been
dry.