'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎260] (299/714)

260
PERSIA
eminent rascals as are most of their brethren. The mosque
stands on a raised platform at the upper end of a large garden
which has once been beautifully laid out in terraces, with flower
beds, and tanks, and channels of running water, and which
though in a state of hopeless decay, is still overshadowed by con
siderable trees. Inside the mosque is a single chamber, entered
by a coffered archway, and covered by a large dome. The sacred
stone is inside ; nor is it surprising to find that the Prophet's foot
marks are of more than ordinary size. All these great men had
huge feet. I have seen Mohammed's footprint in the Mosque of
Omar at Jerusalem, and Buddha's footprint on the summit of
Adam's Peak in Ceylon ; and in view of their prodigious magnitude
I was surprised at the modesty of the Imam Eeza in having been
content with, comparatively speaking, so temperate a measure
ment. The exterior of the dome has once been covered with tiles;
but all these have been stripped or have fallen off, though bands
of a still perfect inscription encircle the drum and adorn the fafade.
From the garden of the mosque the stream flows down the middle
of the roadway past a remarkably stately row of pines, 1 between
the chapar-lxhaneli and a large caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). . Above the shrine,
On a hill some 500 feet above the plain, stand the village and fort
of Ivadamgah, whilst upon a corresponding hill on the opposite
side of the valley which here opens into the mountains, is perched
an old fortress.
An hour after leaving Kadamgah we entered upon the famous
plain of Nishapur, whose praises have been sung by so many
Plain of chroniclers of the past. Its wonders were expressed in
Nishapur multiples of the number twelve. It was said to have
twelve mines of turquoise, copper, lead, antimony, iron, salt,
marble, and soapstone; twelve ever-running streams from the
hills; 1,200 villages, and 12,000 hinats flowing from 12,000
springs. Gone, irretrievably gone, is all this figurative wealth;
but fertile, though far less fertile than legend has depicted, is still
the plain of Nishapur. Not that fertility in these parts, at any
rate in the late autumn, bears the smallest resemblance to its
English counterpart. There is no visible green except in the
square patches, topped with trees, that mark the villages. But
these occur at intervals of almost every quarter of a mile, and the
1 The seeds or cones from which these pines sprang are said to have been
brought by a pilgrim from the Himalayas nearly four hundred years ago.