'Notes of a journey from Kasreen to Hamadan across the Karaghan country. By J. D. Rees' [‎18v] (41/54)

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NOTES OF A JOURNEY
Half a farsakh. more and the plain is entered, and a new
Persia bursts on the astonished traveller far fairer than Shiraz,
the seat of learning, or Ispahan, the crown of Islam, or Teheran,
the foot-stool of royalty. Here in abundance and without alloy
are all the beauties which few and far between cheer the weary
traveller as he posts or -caravans through the endless plains and
over the everlasting mountains of this vast country.
I wish I could do justice to the view of the approach to
Hamadan on a June afternoon. How different to the neighbour
hood of the capital, desert to the very walls, nay in part within
them. Here, no sooner are the hills left behind than down through
vines you come to Surkhabad, where streams of crystal water
ripple over pebbly beds, past vineyards whose low walls do not
hide the light green foliage that rejoices in a milder sun. Huge
storks strut solemnly about the lanes knowing that no impious hand
will cast a stone at the bird who yearly earns the Haji^s honoured
name. Soft white clover lines the brookside, poppies as else
where mingle gaily with the wheat, thyme scents the air, and in
shady summer-houses slumber the comfortable dwellers in this
eastern Auburn. The river, wonder of wonders in this land of
ruins, is spanned by a neat and useable bridge that does not end
on either side in shallow water, and on the green banks feed -fat
flocks and sprawl lazy shepherds. The orchards are loaded with
fruit, as yet unripe. The labourers are at work in the fields,
their masters asleep, their women invisible, the shady lanes
deserted but for the storks and the children, who love here, as all
over the world, to dam up the water of the little rills and project
it in tiny floods over the path.
Between this and Hamadan are three villages no less beautiful
—Mehrabad, Amirabad, and Shuvareen—renowned for luscious
grapes and situated on a slightly higher level whence the whole
plain can be seen. No doubt long travel over desert wastes in a
burning sun enhanced the concentrated beauty of this scene, but
in no case could it fail to strike the observer. Three successive
ranges of mountains break off from Elwand, the old Orontes,
whose snowy top sparkles under the brightest of suns in the
purest and most cloudless of blue skies. On every side hills
appear to shut in this favoured spot from the outside world, and
at the foot of the highest lies Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana,
hidden in trees. The afternoon sun grows milder, and a breeze,
cooled in its passage over the mountains, ripples over the sea of
tall waving wheat, which is broken only by clumps of fruit trees,
vineyards and villages such as I have attempted to describe.
The climate is no less superior to any other I have expeiienced