The Former Is About Six Hundred
Tons, And Carries Four Krupp Guns; But The Latter Is Little Better
Than A Steam-Launch.
Both have been at anchor for about four years,
and are practically unseaworthy and useless.
We embarked at nine o'clock, in a boat pulled by eight men. The
crossing of the Mourdab is at times impossible, owing to the heavy
sea; but this time luck was with us, and midday saw us at Peri-Bazar,
where there is no difficulty in procuring riding-horses to take one
into Resht. The country between the two places was formerly morass and
jungle, but on the occasion of the Shah's visit to Europe about twenty
years ago, a carriage-road was made - not a good one, for such a
thing does not exist in Persia - but a very fair riding-track (in dry
weather). We reached Resht wet to the skin, the snow having ceased and
given way to a steady downpour of rain.
Resht bears the unpleasant reputation of being the most unhealthy city
in Persia. Its very name, say the natives, is derived from the word
_rishta_, "death." "If you wish to die," says a proverb of Irak, "go
to Resht!" The city, which had, at the beginning of the century, a
population of over sixty thousand inhabitants, now has barely thirty
thousand. This certainly looks as if there were some truth in the
foregoing remarks; and there is no doubt that, on the visitation of
the plague about ten years ago, the mortality was something frightful.
A great percentage of deaths are ascribed to Resht fever - a terrible
disease, due to the water and the exhalations from the marshes
surrounding the city.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 30 of 226
Words from 7675 to 7958
of 60127
