'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎145] (180/714)

FKOM KXCHAN TO KELAT-I-NADIRI 245
plain 10rSe ' 1 SPed aS qUiCkly aS 1 COllkI 0Ver the interven ^g
Nobad Geldi and I were galloping in front, and the old red-
tailed charger was showing the best of his speed, when, ceasW
Accident to ]iear the clattei ' of the rest of the party behind me I
to the turned round to see what had befallen. At a distant
cavalcade n 0 / Wi ^ , ' fl) uiMdiice
. 0 . " yards Gregorys horse was lying on its back
furiously kicking its heels in the air. Its load lay scattered in
every direction on the ground. The unhappy Armenian was
slowly extracting himself from under the horse and ruefully
rubbing his knee. Ramzan Ali Khan, also on foot, and covered
with dust, was seen careering over the plain after his horse, which
was disappearing in an opposite direction. It appeared that
Gregory's animal, overtired, and unable, with its heavy load, to
keep the pace at which we were going, had stumbled and fallen
on the top of Gregory; and that the Afghan, dismounting in order
to extricate his colleague, had received a kick on the head which
knocked him over. All was soon right again, and, leaving the
slow movers to follow at their own pace, I pushed on. At five
miles from the town we came to a massive high-backed bridge,
of eleven arches, spanning the slender current of the Keshef Rud. 1
The bridge, which is called Pul-i-Shah (King's Bridge), looked
ridiculously out of proportion to the attenuated volume of the
stream, which was only about twenty-five feet in width, and was
barely moving. The ramps of the bridge had originally been
paved with big cobbles, but, in common with all good work in
Persia, these had for the most part disappeared, and the ruined
causeway was better adapted to break legs than to save them.
Continuing for a mile, we reached the enclosure of the tomb
of Khojah (or Khwajah) Rabi, a holy man who is variously reported
Tomb of as ^ eeri the personal friend and the tutor of Imam
Khojah Reza, and whose body, in order to be near that of his
sainted companion, was interred in this spot. The
tomb is surrounded by a garden, in which there is abundance of
trees, and which is entered by a lofty gateway containing rooms
^ 1 This river, (Keshef, old Persian Xas// = Tortoise) called also Ab-i-Meshed
(Water of Meshed) and sometimes Kara Su (Black Water), rises in the Chashmeh-
i-Gilas, a marsh between Chinaran and Hadkan. and, collecting the drainage of
the Meshed Valley, passes by the gorge of Ak Derbend (White Defile) to Pul-i-
Khatun (Lady's Bridge), on the Russian frontier, where it joins the Heri Rud,
and in conjunction with the latter forms the Tejend.
VOL. I. L