'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.' [‎177] (208/582)

TO GOOLPYEGAN.
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Tcharrah. From the top of this hill, we went down about east-
south-east, over a gentle slope; and following the winding of the
road to south-east and south, we came, in about two hours more,
to the village of Kuddumgah, where we alighted.
The plain, in which this is seated, is nearly of a circular form,
and from seven to eight miles in diameter, surrounded generally
by mountains of slate, from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet
in elevation from their base, and some of the highest summits
perhaps two thousand. In the plain are eight or ten large vil
lages, with gardens, the names of which we did not learn, but
Kuddumgah is the only one that falls in the line of the public
road. There is here a stream of less bitter water than we had
drunk for many days past, and some few hovels near it for the
shelter of passengers, but of the most humble kind.
Sept. 29th.—It had frozen hard during the night, and we had
found it necessary to keep up a blazing fire for ourselves and
horses, who felt equally with us the unexpected severity of the
weather. We therefore suffered the sun to be a full hour high
before we departed, and even then we shrunk within our cloaks
for warmth.
On leaving Kuddumgah, we went up east-south-east over the
side of a sloping land, having high hills near us on our left, and
many villages and gardens in the plain on our right. After tra
velling for three hours on this course, we reached the large village
of Hufta, whose dwellings are secured within a castellated en
closure of a better kind than any we had yet seen, and whose
gardens are more extensive and more productive than most
others which we had passed. It is here that the road from Ker-
manshah and Hamadan to Ispahan joins, and continues the same
all the way beyond this. As we met here a caravan from the last
place, making its halt, we stayed to exchange the news of the
way, and in the mean time regaled ourselves from the gardens
of Hufta with some of the finest-flavoured peaches that we had
yet found in all Persia.
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