The crowd at Kishlag are good-natured and comparatively well-behaved. In
reply to their questionings, I tell them that I am journeying from Yenghi
Donia to Meshed. The New World is a far-away, shadowy realm to these
ignorant Persian villagers, almost as much out of their little,
unenlightened world as though it were really another planet; they
evidently think that in going to Meshed I am making a pilgrimage to the
shrine of Imam Riza, for some of them commence inquiring whether or no
Yenghi Donians are Mussulmans.
The weather-clerk inaugurates a regular March zephyr in the east, during
the brief halt at Kishlag; and in addition to that doubtful favor blowing
against me, the road leading out is lumpy as far as the cultivated area
extends, and then it leads across a rough, stony plain that is traversed
by a network of small streams, similar to those encountered yesterday at
Sherifabad. To the left, the abutting front of the Elburz Mountains is
streaked and frescoed with salt, that in places vies in whiteness with
the lingering-patches of snow higher up; to the right extends the gray,
level plain, interspersed with small cultivable areas for a farsakh or
two, beyond which lies the great dasht-i-namek (salt desert) that
comprises a large portion of the interior of Persia.
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