CHAPTER XIV
AMONG HISTORIC SITES
' Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills
Mingling their flames with twilight on the verge
Of the horizon.'
— Shelley, Alastor.
With the help of commands, threats, coaxings, and bakshish, in varying proportions according as they proved effective, we managed to have everything ready for an unusually quick start from Damghan on our easterly road. Our servant, Agopian, was promptly in his place in the baggage-vehicle ; our own seats were resumed in the phaeton ; and off we started with khudd hdfiz^ 'good-by,' from the head of the caravansarai as we drove out into the plain long before the sun had risen.
Daybreak revealed an immense expanse before us to the east, with the distant ranges of mountains, which we had constantly kept on the right and on the left throughout the journey, now all aglow with the flaming dawn. At times the plain was merely a stretch of barren sand incrusted here and there with salt ; again it took on the rich brownish tinge that means fer- tility, and then a series of villages, surrounded by green fields, brightened the level sweep as far as the eye could scan. The peasant farmer, a descendant of the vdstrya fshuyant^ or agri- culturist in Zoroaster's day, could be seen at work ; and to his activity in ancient times was largely due the prosperity once reigning in the historic sites through which we were to pass.
In about an hour's time we were passing a settlement of con- siderable antiquity, though in ruinous condition, called Bosta-
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