نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٢‎٩‎٣] (١٨١٤/٥٨٨)

THE NORTHERN PROVINCES
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the silk spun, that first brought Persia within the range of Euro
pean commerce, and that made Gilan the most famous to foreigners
among Persian provinces. Well might Sir Anthony Sheriey, the
adventurous English knight-errant who entered the service of
Shah Abbas in 1600, write of it as follows:—
Gheylan is a country cut off from Persia with great mountaynes
hard to passe, full of woods (which Persia wanteth, being here and
there onely sprinkled with hils, and very penurious of fuell, onely
their gardens give them wood to burne, and those hils, where are
some faggots of Pistachios, of which they are well replenished) ; be-
tweene those hils there are certaine breaches rather than valleyes,
which, in the spring when the snow dissolveth, and the great abun
dance of raine falleth, are full of torrents. The Caspian Sea includeth
this countrey on the east, betweene which and the hils is a continuing
valley, so abounding in silke, in rice, and in corne, and so infinitely
peopled that Nature seemeth to contend with the people’s industry,
the one in sowing of men, the other in cultivating the land ; in which
you shall see no piece of ground which is not fitted to one use or
other, these hils also are so fruitfull of herbage, shadowed by the trees, as
they show, turned towards the sea, that they are ever full of cattell, which
yieldeth commoditie to the countrey by furnishing divers other parts. 1
Finally, above the wooded zone, rise the naked heights of the
mountains, covered with a scanty pasture, frequently veiled in mist,
4. Bare and with snow-streaks rarely absent from their summits,
mountains Thus from the steaming vapour bath by the sea’s edge to
the eternal frost and ice of Demavend, every gradation of climate
and atmosphere may be encountered, alternately enervating the
system and filling it with brisk vitality. In the upper ranges,
tremendous totals or rock-passes are met with, as stiff and neck-
breaking as any in Persia. In the open places of the forest zone
and on the slopes of the mountains above are the yeilaks, or summer
quarters, to which all the richer folk retire from the plains and low
lands in the heat, and to which the nomad villagers who are depen
dent upon herds and flocks, drive their cattle for summer pasture.
A very large proportion of the population is, therefore, migratory
m character; and with them are mingled other wandering tribes,
Population w ^ 10 ^ave become village-settlers, but whom the summer
heats tempt to wander again ; whilst in Gilan bands of
gipsies are not rare. Of the two provinces, Gilan is said to be
the damper, and its people less vigorous and brave ; but I cannot
1 Purchas’ Pilgrims, vol. ii. lib. ix. cap. 2.