National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Overland to India : vol.1 |
CH. XV IN THE CAPITAL OF THE KAJARS 153
toll, as we used this road for not more than two-thirds of a mile. Scattered gardens announce the proximity of a Oh town, and we pass Dervash Imamsadeh Hussein and a a mosque of the same name, and then Meshid-i-Shah and its minarets come in sight. The graves of the guristan lie
so closely together and leave such a narrow space free that the wheels pass over some of the tombstones. Then it is not much farther to the blue pretentious mehmankhaneh or inn yard, which has undergone no change since I saw it last in the company of Count Claes Lewenhaupt and the other members of King Oskar's mission to Shah Nasr-ed-din, in 189o.
At Kazvin I have still 90 miles before me to Teheran ; but the road is divided into stages, where horses can be changed in the Russian fashion, so that one can drive straight through. Though I arrived late in the evening I intended to continue my journey after an hour's rest ; but I was informed while I was eating my dinner that a daughter of the Shah had just come in from Hamadan and demanded all the twenty-eight horses the station had at command. My suggestion that the princess could certainly not be so heavy that she could not manage with twenty-four horses had no effect on the superintendent, who regretted that I must wait till the next day. But as the man was also impudent in the consciousness of his power, with the help of the telegraph I soon brought him to his senses ; and he politely informed me that horses and carriage would be ready within an hour, a statement
which pro-
portions from me the question if the princess's pro
portions had suddenly diminished.
It was eleven o'clock when I started on the 90 miles which still separated me from the capital of the Kajars, in a comfortable and handsome covered carriage. The moon shines brightly, but on this dreary road there is nothing to see, and I can slumber quietly in my corner. The only thing that interrupts the monotony is the huge caravans that pass with goods between Resht and Teheran, and are the thread on which the town, in commercial affairs, hangs. Kazvin has not lost by the changed direction of the great trade-routes, for as the Trebizond trade passed
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