sides, or ride there, as I did when I went on horseback. The point of this memorandum from my note-book is clear when compared with the passage just quoted from Pliny.
After the distance of a mile or more, the pass begins to widen considerably, and gradually forms a small plain, perhaps three miles broad at its greatest expansion, but enclosed on all sides by hills. These heights are of a brownish and greenish color, sometimes of a purplish tinge, and they are without a trace of verdure. Their geologic formation presents a peculiar appear- ance, as their sides are generally streaked or ribbed with per- pendicular bands that resemble clay rather than rock, and sometimes contain a pebbly deposit. We commented upon their unusual aspect, and I have since seen it remarked upon by others. Fraser, for example, in speaking particularly of the hills at the entrance, notes that they are of ' an earthy consist- ence,* and he speaks of their showing ' the rock bursting occa- sionally from their surface in very fantastic forms ' ; ^ while O'Donovan describes the heights of the pass in general as ' tall cliffs of gypsum and ferruginous rock.'^ Shah Nasir ad-Din, when he passed through the gorge on his pilgrimage to Mashad in 1866, made a special observation upon them. He wrote in his Siydhat-i Shah, or * Diary of the Shah's Journey,' as follows : —
- The mountains on the sides of the valley are like strong walls. From
the fact that they have few stones, and especially because they are frequently visited by rains, there have been produced deep parallel furrows, and [con- sequently] they have a different appearance from other mountains.' •
The Shah's observation, * not like other rocks,' might again be compared independently with Pliny. A trained geologist would have known, as we did not, whether the pass had changed materially in its physical conditions since the days of Alexander
1 Fraser, Narrative, p. 294. Teheran (lithographed), 1286 a.h, =
2 O'Donovan, Merv, 1. 368. 1869 a.d. The words relating to the 8 From Nasir ad-Din Shah's Siyd- furrowed appearance of the rocks
hat-i Shah (Diary of a Journey to are in Persian : khutut-i mutavdziah Mashad and Afghanistan), p. 32, '■amikah la-ham rasidah.
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