'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎269] (308/714)

FROM 'MESHED TO TEHERAN
269
invaders in the eighteenth oentnry. The modern city is not a
century old, having been rebuilt and fortified by Ali Yar Khan of
Mazman, one of the rebellions governors in Khorasan in the reign
of Path Ah Shah. A good deal of trade has latterly sprung up in
hebzewar, for it is a considerable centre of cotton cultivation as
well as the local entrepot for the export of wool : and there is'an
Armenian commercial establishment in the town whose occupants
trade with Russia vid Astrabad and Gez,> exporting cotton and wool
and importing sugar and chintzes. A coarse cotton cloth is
manufactured m the bazaars, and rude copper pots are also fashioned
from the produce of three mines in the neighbourhood, which are
reputed to be the richest in North Persia and the proper exploitation
ot which is not unlikely to be undertaken by the Persian Mining
Kights Corporation. Sebzewar is also said to be one of the stronsr-
Jiolds of the Babis in North Persia.
Almost the only object of interest in Sebzewar to a stranger
lies, if a bull may be permitted, outside it. This is an isolated
Minaret ( 't called by the Persians (m their legendary vein)
Khosrugird "f' 2 wllicb stands ab out four miles beyond the
wails ot the present town on the west, but was no doubt
within the limits of the ancient city destroyed by Mohammed Shah
0 Ivhanzm. That cany one should ever have been mystified by this
tow er, which has every feature of Arabic architecture about it,
simply because it has lost the mosque which it once adorned, is
difficult to believe. Riding out to inspect it in the early dawn
1 found the mountain crests both to the north and the south of
the town white with freshly fallen snow, the first of the winter.
Glorious they looked as the rising sun shone on their glistening-
caps, and flushed the purples and reds of their lower skirts.
) Donovan, rather irreverently, but with some justice, compared the
minaret at a distance to a factory An East India Company trading post. chimney; but this illusion is
1 llus route is now being superseded by the new Ashkabad -Kuchan line of
entry m,„ Khorasan, which I have previously described, and whichTb Zh
into easy connection with Sebzewar. g
hnv'p f 18 ^ 80 intelligent ai1 observer as Colonel Val. Baker should
have been seduced thereby to speak ot this -curious old m inuret of burnt brick
zz:iT t z: (C!o f* p ' 166) -h a vf
this fill A ft an " he Confessor or Oenfuoius. O'Donovau, too, regards
prlver L tl aS r Uni ' SU , ea '" rG in PerSian ^"eeture, where the call to
raised in SunuHud * mC °" T 1 qU ' te iff " orin f=' the that it was
district uf P^l, f nd , ,10 t t . ln 1 bhlal b Khosrugird was the chief place of the
district of Beihak, identical with the modern Sebzewar.