had turned its source so that the stream flowed northward into Mazandaran, instead of southward into the district of Kumis, although it seems likely (from what has been noted above) that the decadence of Kumis had begun long before.^ Traces of the dried -up river-bed I saw near Kasimabad when riding towards Frat, and the parched and sterile land in every direction told a pathetic tale of a source of life cut off. Thus cities perish in the East, leaving hardly a vestige to indicate their site. Merv, once queen of Transcaspia, the ancient Margiana, might be cited with a hundred others that have shared the fate of Hecatom- pylos, the erstwhile capital of Parthia.
Frat itself, which formerly enjoyed the advantages of the populous neighborhood, is now hardly more than a village. Disease has joined hands with drought in bringing about its ruin, for cholera has decimated the place, proving even more fatal to its male population than to the women. There were not above twenty or twenty -five houses in all, or scarcely a hundred souls, to make up the quota of inhabitants in this town, which local pride claims to date back to Kayanian times, the era before the great Achaemenian kings. The dwellings of baked yellowish clay looked sickly to me beneath the scorch- ing noonday sun, as did the families that lived in them. But they were kindly disposed and hospitable, giving freely of their limited bounty, in the form of eggs, tea, and bread ; and they made Safar happy by an extra liberal dish of his favorite dugh, a sort of curds and whey. Even my horse found some special exhilaration in the provender he received, for his antics were unusually spirited after his mid-day meal.
We set out in the afternoon upon our homeward way, but there was a sinister smile in the look of some camels we passed on the plain, foreboding evil. They were giving warning that,
1 The name of Shah Abbas is men- ago,' which I heard at Damghan. The
tioned in this connection by Houtum- stream was, therefore, a different one
Schindler, in Zt. Ges. f. Erdkunde, 12. (so also Houtum-Schindler) from the
216, and this agrees with the state- Chashmah-i All River, ment of 'about three hundred years
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