Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/259

 writings of both of whom I was familiar. I can only think that the ruins (' just a jumble of ruins,' I noted in my memoranda) must have changed considerably since Fraser's time, nearly a century ago. He described the stronghold as a structure forty yards square, composed of dark granite, and strengthened by bastions, especially at the gateway in the northern face. Fraser furthermore comments on * the large bricks found among the debris'; and, regarding this fact (rightly, if so) as a sign of age, like the Gabr bricks to which I have referred elsewhere,^ he concludes that there can be no doubt as to the antiquity of the building.2 In similar manner, Eastwick thought that the structure was 'probably 1500 or 2000 years old,' and he observed that its architecture resembled that of the stone strong- hold of Anushirvan at Ahuan.^ I should gladly defer to their judgment, but I have simply stated my impression as I noted it on the spot.

The face of the plain around these ruins was whitened in every direction by the saline efflorescence that so universally prevailed. A mile or more to the east of them, the plain began gradually to contract its expanse, the valley to close in, and the mountains to crowd together their wrinkled and cracked foreheads. Not a vestige of green relieved their bald fronts, and the only memorandum that I recorded here was the fact that the telegraph line makes a short cut by crossing directly eastward over their heights instead of following the tortuous course of the stream as it winds out through the chasm in a more southerly direction. This throat of the gorge, though its jaws are rather narrow, seemed to me far less impressive than that at the west. It opens directly into the plain of Khvar, and we found ourselves in a few minutes out upon its wide expanse. The transit of the Sar-Darrah Pass had taken exactly one hour and ten minutes.*

1 See above, p. 123, n. 3. * The time on my second journey

2 Fraser, Narrative, pp. 294-295. was 1 hr. 15 min.; and the third tran-

Residence^ 2. 140. min,

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