The Result Is, Perhaps, Better Explained To The Reader
In The Words Of An Older And More Experienced Observer.
Carless
says - "The scene was singular.
On either side of a wild broken ravine
the rocks rise perpendicularly to the height of four or five hundred
feet, and are excavated, as far as there is footing to ascend, up to
the summit. The excavations are most numerous along the lower part
of the hills, and form distinct houses, most of which are uninjured
by-time. They consist, in general, of a room fifteen feet square,
forming a kind of open verandah, with an interior chamber of the same
dimensions, to which admittance is gained by a narrow doorway. There
are niches for lamps in many, and a place built up and covered in,
apparently to hold grain. Most of the houses or caves at the summits
of the cliffs are now inaccessible, from the narrow precipitous
paths by which they were approached having worn away. The cliffs are
excavated on both sides of the valley for a distance little short of
a mile. There cannot be less than fifteen hundred of these strange
habitations."
The caves of Shahr-Rogan are not the only sights of interest near
Beila. Time, unfortunately, would not admit of my visiting the
mud-volcanoes of Las, situated near the Harra Mountains, about sixty
miles from Shahr-Rogan. The hills upon which these are found are
from three to four hundred feet high, and are conical in form, with
flattened and discoloured tops and precipitous sides.
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