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 sides, or ride there, as I did when I went on horseback. The point of this memorandum from my note-book is clear when compared with the passage just quoted from Pliny.

After the distance of a mile or more, the pass begins to widen considerably, and gradually forms a small plain, perhaps three miles broad at its greatest expansion, but enclosed on all sides by hills. These heights are of a brownish and greenish color, sometimes of a purplish tinge, and they are without a trace of verdure. Their geologic formation presents a peculiar appear- ance, as their sides are generally streaked or ribbed with per- pendicular bands that resemble clay rather than rock, and sometimes contain a pebbly deposit. We commented upon their unusual aspect, and I have since seen it remarked upon by others. Fraser, for example, in speaking particularly of the hills at the entrance, notes that they are of ' an earthy consist- ence,* and he speaks of their showing ' the rock bursting occa- sionally from their surface in very fantastic forms ' ; ^ while O'Donovan describes the heights of the pass in general as ' tall cliffs of gypsum and ferruginous rock.'^ Shah Nasir ad-Din, when he passed through the gorge on his pilgrimage to Mashad in 1866, made a special observation upon them. He wrote in his Siydhat-i Shah, or * Diary of the Shah's Journey,' as follows : —

the fact that they have few stones, and especially because they are frequently visited by rains, there have been produced deep parallel furrows, and [con- sequently] they have a different appearance from other mountains.' •
 * The mountains on the sides of the valley are like strong walls. From

The Shah's observation, * not like other rocks,' might again be compared independently with Pliny. A trained geologist would have known, as we did not, whether the pass had changed materially in its physical conditions since the days of Alexander

1 Fraser, Narrative, p. 294. Teheran (lithographed), 1286 a.h, =

2 O'Donovan, Merv, 1. 368. 1869 a.d. The words relating to the 8 From Nasir ad-Din Shah's Siyd- furrowed appearance of the rocks

hat-i Shah (Diary of a Journey to are in Persian : khutut-i mutavdziah Mashad and Afghanistan), p. 32, '■amikah la-ham rasidah.

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