'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎345] (396/714)

TEHEEAN
consists of a crater filled with snow and ice, a horizon of 50,000
square miles is unrolled in clear weather. This is what Mr
Stack, in 1881, had to say of the view
The crater is some 200 yards in diameter, girt with a ring of yellow
rocks of nearly pure sulphur, exhaling a pestiferous smell. The hollow
is entirely filled up with snow. From the rocks Teheran can be seen,
and the Kohrud Mountains 160 miles south of it; the Great Kavir
can he dimly perceived through its haze of heat to the south-east;
w lie to the north a faint blue field under the horizon—stretches the
Caspian behind the cloudy forests of Mazanderan. On the right hand
and on the left were mountains of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet in height ;
we over-looked them all with.their thinly-scattered snows. But what
a lifeless prospect ! Teheran so many miles away, and all the rest
mere desert and crag and desolation, with here and there a village lost
on the bare mountain-side.
I now pass to the environs of Teheran on the south, and shall
conclude this chapter with some brief notes about the sole localities
Southern that there invite attention—viz. the shrine of Shah Abdul
Azim, the remains of Rhey, or Rhages, and the ruins of
A eramin. A Persian city—much more a Persian capital—is ill off
that cannot boast of some noted imamzadeh, or saint's tomb
(literally, descendant of an Imam), to serve as an object of pil
grimage and magnet of attraction. Teheran is thus endowed in
respect of the mausoleum and sanctuary of Shah Abdul Azim.
Reposing beneath a golden-plated dome, whose scintillations I had
seen from afar while riding towards the city, the remains of
this holy individual are said to attract an annual visitation of
300,000 persons. I find that most writers discreetly veil their
ignorance of the identity of the saint by describing him as ' a holy
Mussulman, whose shrine is much frequented by the pious Tehe-
ranis.' It appears, however, that long before the advent of Islam
this had been a sacred spot, as the sepulchre of a lady of great
sanctity, in which connection it may be noted that the shrine is
still largely patronised by women. Here, after the Mussulman
Journal of the R.G.S. vol. viii. p. 109; by R. T. Thomson and Lord S. Kerr,
in 1858, in Proceedings of the B.G.S. vol. iii. p. 2; by R. G. Watson, in ibid.
vol. vi. p. 10,5; and by E. Stack, Six Months in Persia, vol. ii. cap. vii. For
further information, vide a learned lecture by Dr. Tietze, ' Vulcan Demavend,' in
the Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft fur Erdlmnde zu Berlin, 1878 ; and Frh. v.
Carl Rosenburg, ' The Lar Valley and Demavend ' in Mittheil. der K. und K. Geogr.
Gesell. Wien, 1876, pp. 113-142. Compare Sir W. Ouseley, Travels, vol. iii. pp.
328-384 ; and De Filippi, Viaggio in Persia, p. 2(17.