'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎176] (207/582)

176
FROM HAMADAN
watered by little rivulets ; but still no supplies of water could be
drawn for their agriculture. Grain was now more than tenfold
the price it bore three years since; about a pound and a quarter
English of wheat costing half a rupee, or fifteen-pence sterling !
We ourselves felt the daily expenditure for our horses and our
own food to be increasingly heavy; as from Bagdad to Kermanshah,
four rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. a day covered all our expenses; from thence to
Hamadan, with an additional horse and man, seven rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. were
barely sufficient; and now we found less than half a rupee to
remain out of ten, which had been set apart for the service of
the day. The larger portion of this money was required for
corn and bread: for besides this, a little fruit through the day,
and some boiled rice and butter, or rice and milk, at sunset,
satisfied all our wants. We were thus expending nearly as much
money as the same number of persons might travel comfort
ably for in England, and had not more than the barest neces
saries to sustain life for such a sum.
Sept. 28th.—We quitted Giaour-Se, muffled up in bags and
blankets, to protect ourselves against the cold, and envied the pea
sants their warm sheep-skin coats and jackets, without being able
to purchase one, as my purse seemed likely to be emptied, by the
demand on it for food, long before we should reach our journey's
end, even with the most rigid economy. Our course from hence
lay nearly south, through a continuation of the same plain as we
had passed over yesterday, watered by the same stream coming
from the southward, and equally abounding in good soil, many
villages, and verdant gardens. The high blue slate mountains on
each side of us began now to approach each other, so that the
plain was groov ing progressively narrower ; and after going about
four hours south, we came to its termination, which was formed
by the ends of the two lines of hills meeting each other in a
semicircle.
From hence we went up east over a steep but low hill, which
iorms the pass into another plain, and terminates the district of