ntry have been cleared of reeds and useless
vegetation, and converted into paddy fields, the natives irrigating the
country in a primitive fashion.

It is nature that is mostly responsible if the crops are not ruined year
after year, the thoughtless inhabitants, with their natural laziness,
doing little more than praying Allah to give them plenty of rain, instead
of employing the more practical if more laborious expedient of
artificially irrigating their country in some efficient manner, which
they could easily do from the streams close at hand. Perhaps, in addition
to this, the fact that water--except rain-water--has ever to be purchased
in Persia, may also account to a certain extent for the inability to
afford paying for it. In 1899, for instance, rain failed to come and the
crops were insufficient even for local consumption, which caused the
population a good deal of suffering. But 1900, fortunately, surpassed all
expectations, and was an excellent year for rice as well as cocoons.

We go through thickly-wooded country, then through a handsome forest,
with wild boars feeding peacefully a few yards from the road. About every
six farsakhs--or twenty-four miles--the horses of the carriage, and those
of the fourgon following closely behind, are changed at the
post-stations, as well as the driver, who leaves us, after carefully
removing his saddle from the box and the harness of the horses. He has to
ride back to his point of departure with his horses. He expects a present
of two krans,--or more if he can get it--and so does the driver of the
fourgon. Two krans is the recognised tip for each driver, and as one gets
some sixteen or seventeen for each vehicle,--thirty-two or thirty-four if
you have two conveyances,--between Resht and Teheran, one finds it quite
a sufficient drain on one's exchequer.

As one gets towards Kudum, where one strikes the Sefid River, we begin to
rise and the country gets more hilly and arid. We gradually leave behind
the oppressive dampness, which suggests miasma and fever, and begin to
breathe air which, though very hot, is drier and purer. We have risen 262
feet at Kudum from 77 feet, the altitude of Resht, and as we travel now
in a south-south-west direction, following the stream upwards, we keep
getting higher, the elevation at Rustamabad being already 630 feet. We
leave behind the undulating ground, covered with thick forests, and come
to barren hills, that get more and more important as w