flourishing little town, and as we walked down one of the main streets we saw the inhabitants popping out of their little mud houses, like rats out of their holes, in order to perform their morning ablutions in a narrow stream running down the centre of the roadway.
We started at seven with excellent horses, accompanied to the outskirts of the town, through the busy little bazaars, by two mounted telegraph gholams. Our road lay south-west by south, following the caravan road for three or four miles, then, bending to the right, it crossed the Shahrûd plain, passed several villages, and crossed cultivated ground with watercourses. After twelve miles, the far side of the valley was reached, whence the read ascends between low hills for eight miles, when the highest point is reached, after which a winding descent of another eight miles brought us to the village of Armian (twenty-eight miles in four hours), a picturesquely situated but poor and dirty village on the bank of a stream, with walnut-trees and orchards. The weather was bright but cool, with a northerly breeze, and we elected to
