نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٢‎٩‎٢] (١٨١٤/٥٨٦)

THE NORTHERN PROVINCES
361
*icei s
nial e is Sa y
f at lua ch, and
e ’ 18 n °t a bad
have merited
h® adjoining
nd here I s h a n
atureg and pr 0 -
g to individual
these provinces
°f the Caspian,
summits of the
-3,000 feet. It
e g‘ioiij however
influence, will
btfler be divided
stinguished and
ces, where they
5 we are at once
ible but uniform
.de in an earlier
>f the prevalent
have combined
dn of sandhills,
and from 200
er side of these
ins, surcharged
ce a way to the
oons, where the
irsery of humid
urrent has with
)ming resistance
lake useless for
waters, succeed
.e most notable
western, < U1C ^ 0
mur the cogn^
J banks of these
backwaters are overgrown with a dense jungle of aiders, ashes,
planes, poplars, willows, and such timber as loves a saturated soil.
Through this jungle the rivers and streams come down from the
mountains, farrowing a bed that is alternately a swamp, a torrent,
or a quicksand, and in the rainy season spreading themselves out
into sluggish morasses. Pestilential vapours rise from the rotting
vegetable matter; every manner of reptile infests the swamps, and
a cloud of mosquitoes and insects spins in the air.
From the very brink of these maritime lagoons the jungle
stretches inland to the mountain base, which is sometimes at
2 . Jungle a distance only of two miles, at others of twenty,
arable Through the dense undergrowth the stranger picks his
way with the aid of a guide, by intricate pathways
known to the villagers only. And yet in the heart of this mal
arial forest clusters of cottages are hidden away beneath the trees;
and every now and then occur considerable clearings devoted to
the cultivation of sugar, cotton, or rice. No European could live
for long in these damp low levels, where there is no elasticity in
the air, and an ever-present sense of suffocation; but their native
population is sedentary, and though liable to rheumatism, ague,
diopsy, ophthalmia, and other eye diseases, does not appear to
be hereditarily stunted or weak. What the acclimatised Mazan-
derani or Gilani, however, can stand, is perilous even to other
Persians. There used to be a proverb which, parodying a well-
known Italian saying, might be translated : Vedi Gilan e mori •
and over two hundred years ago we find Tavernier and Chardin
recording that 4 The air is so unwholsom that the People cry of him
that is sent to Command here, Has he robb’d, stolen, or murder’d,
that the King sends him to Guilan ? ’ Fraser, after penetrating
foi a second time, in 1834, from end to end of this maritime belt,
could pass no more lenient verdict upon it than this:—
Bengal in the rains, Hemerara in the wet season, Bombay in the
monsoon these were the recollections that suggested themselves to my
mind; and yet I think Mazanderan far more unpleasant than either . 1
From the marshes and jungles of the plain, however, we pass
to a region of surpassing beauty and splendour. The skirts of
the Elburz descend in great wooded slopes and buttresses towards
the sea; and between their spurs lie the most romantic glens
and ravines. It is difficult to count, much less to classify, the
1 A Winter’s Journey, vol. ii. p. 464.