CHAPTER XV
OVER THE ANCIENT BATTLE-GROUND OF THE WARS BETWEEN IRAN AND TURAN
♦ Is Iran's pride then gone for ever, Quench' d with the flame in Mithra's caves ? '
— Moore, Lalla Bookh.
The stages of our next twenty-four hours' journey bore the ominous name of the 'Marches of Terror/ a title gained them by the cruel forays of the Turkomans, who from time immemo- rial have poured down from the north through the passes along the route and have deluged the plain in blood. A part of the tract to be traversed, moreover, was the scene of some of the fiercest battles between the remote ancestors of these same sons of Turan and the Iranians, almost three thousand years ago, when victory finally lighted on the standards of the Zoroastrian faith. Today not one follower of Zoroaster's ancient creed treads the historic roadway, and only a few traces of the old foot- steps can be discovered, so thoroughly has Islam blotted out every vestige ; yet there may be a grim nemesis in the fact that at these points the Moslem pilgrims themselves, on their journey to Mashad over this same route, have been obliged, for a thousand years and more, to guard their bands by armed escorts against the old-time marauders, though doubtless they gain additional religious merit from the perils incurred on the way. The dan- gers of the route have been graphically portrayed by all trav- elers who have passed over it down to the day when Turkistan, or Turan, came into the hands of Russia, a generation ago, and Persia found relief at last from her inveterate foe.^
1 On the Turkoman forays see, for ConoUy (1830), Journey to the North example, Fraser (1822), pp. 347-360 ; of India, 1. 229-231 ; Terrier (1845),
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