re face of the country covered with dense jungle, the northern slopes
of the Elburz Mountains present a striking contrast to the barren,
salt-frescoed foot-hills facing the south hereabout. Here, as at Resht,
the moisture from the Caspian Sea does for the province of Mazanderan
what similar influences from the Pacific do for California. It makes all
the difference between California and Nevada in the one case, and
Mazanderan and the desert-like character of Central Persia in the other.

In striking and effective contrast to the general aspect of death and
desolation that characterizes the desert wastes of Persia--an effect
that is heightened by the ruins of caravansaries or villages, that are
seldom absent from the landscape--are the cultivated spots around the
villages. Wherever there is a permanent supply of water, there also is
certain to be found a mud-built village, with fields of wheat and barley,
pomegranate orchards, and vineyards. In a country of universal greenness
these would count for nothing, but, situated like islands in the sea of
sombre gray about them, they often present an appearance of extreme
beauty that the wondering observer is somewhat puzzled to account for; it
is the beauty of contrast, the great and striking contrast between
vegetable life and death.

These impressions are nowhere more strongly brought into notice than when
approaching Aradan, a village I reach about five o'clock. Like almost all
Persian towns and villages, Aradan has evidently occupied a much larger
area at one time than it does at present; and the mournful-looking ruins
of mosques, gateways, walls, and houses are scattered here and there over
the plain for a mile before reaching the present limits of habitation.
The brown ruins of a house are seen standing in the middle of a
wheat-field; the wheat is of that intense greenness born of irrigation
and a rich sandy soil, and the mud ruins, dead, desolate, and crumbling
to dust, look even more deserted and mournful from the great contrast in
color, and from the myriad stems of green young life that wave and nod
about them with every passing breeze. The tumble-down windows and
doorways form openings through which the blue sky and the green waving
sea of vegetation beyond are seen as in a picture, and the ruined mud
mosque, its dome gone, its windows and doorways crumbled to shapeless
openings, seems like a weather-beaten skeleton of Persia's past, while
the ever-moving waves of ver