Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume 1 (of 2) Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to the Nestorian Rayahs

On January 28 there was a tremendous snowfall, and even before that the road to Hamadan, which was our possible route, had been blocked for some days. The temperature has now ri...

The week spent here has passed rapidly. There is much coming and going. My camp is by the side of a frequented pathway, close to a delicious spring, much resorted to by Ilyat wo...

I left Julfa on the afternoon of April 30, with Miss Bruce as my guest and Mr. Douglas as our escort for the first three or four days. The caravan was sent forward early, that m...

Twelve hours and a half of hard riding have brought us here in two days. No doctor could be obtained in Kûm, and it was necessary to bring the sick men on as quickly as possible...

Each day has been completely filled up since I wrote, and this is probably the last here. My dear old Cabul tent, a _shuldari_, also Indian, and a servants' tent made here on a...

The rain at last ceased, and after the _katirgis_ had squabbled for an hour over the baggage, we got off at ten, two days ago, very grateful for shelter and hospitality under su...

Baghdad is too well known from the careful descriptions given of it by Eastern travellers to justify me in lingering upon it in detail, and I will only record a few impressions,...

Whether for "well or ill" the journey to Tihran is begun. I am ashamed to say that I had grown so nervous about its untried elements, and about the possibilities of the next two...

A _shamal_ or N.W. wind following on the sirocco which had accompanied us up "the Gulf" was lashing the shallow waters of the roadstead into reddish yeast as we let go the ancho...

This hospitable house is the residence of the British Agent or _Vakil_ for Kirmanshah, in whose absence at Tihran, his son, Abdul Rahim, performs the duties of hospitality in a...

Kashan is one of the hottest places on the great Persian plateau, but has the rare luxury of a good water supply brought from a reservoir some distance off in the Kuhr[=u]d moun...

plateau of Central Persia and the plains of Khuzistan, has continuous ranges of singular steepness, but rarely broken up into prominent peaks, the Kuh-i-Rang, the Kuh-i-Shahan,...

The house consists of two courtyards, with buildings round them. The larger and handsomer is the _haram_ or women's house, which is strictly enclosed, has no exterior windows, a...

Mr. George Curzon wrote of Julfa: "The younger Julfa is a place wholly destitute of superficial attractions, consisting as it does of a labyrinth of narrow alleys closed by door...

Three weeks have passed quickly by since that terrible ride from Husseinabad. The snow is vanishing from the Shimran hills, the spring has come, and I am about to leave the unbo...

I have seen the last of Kûm and hotels and made roads for many months. So much the better! I had to ride the whole length of the bazars and the city, a mile and a half, but the...

This so far is a delightful journey. All the circumstances are favourable. A friend who was sending his servants, horses, and baggage to Isfahan has lent me a thoroughbred, and...

You will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully expected to have left it a fortnight ago, but unavoidable delays have occurred. My caravan and servants started this morning,...

At five yesterday afternoon Abbas Khan rode in saying that the _taktrawan_, with the orderly much better, was only three miles off. This was good news; a mattress was put down f...

The last day on the Tigris passed as pleasantly as its predecessors. There was rain in the early morning, then frost which froze the rain on deck, and at 7 A.M. the mercury in m...

slabs four feet high by three broad, clouded and veined most delicately by nature. The banqueting hall is of immense size, and the floor is covered with a dark fawn _namad_ thre...