Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/313

 the old city that answers, after all, to the throb of life in her streets or in the covered bazars, through which one wanders, to stop now at a sweetmeat-seller's booth, then to hurry past the rattle of the brassbeaters and the noisy ironworkers, and again to glance at the cloth- dealers, asquat by their goods, while the purchasers crowd their way among donkeys, horses, and camels. All this recalled to my mind a memorandum about Damghan made by the Oriental geographer, Yakubi, over a millennium ago (891 A.D.). He wrote : —

son of Amir and grandson of Kuraiz, during the califate of Othman, son of Affan, in the year thirty of the Hijra (650 a.d.). Its people are of the Ajami Persian stock, and are most skilful in making garments of wool and dirhams, and is included under the revenue taxation of Khorasan.' ^
 * Damghan is the chief city of Khorasan, and was conquered by Abdallah,

A century later another Arab writer, Mukaddasi (985 A.D.), described the town, though in less complimentary terms, as follows : —

' Damghan is a small city, with a gravelly waste around it. The baths are poor, and the market-places are not good, nor can it boast of many men of importance ; but it has a good climate. In the most populated section there is a small place upon which stands a citadel with three gates, namely, the Bab ar-Rai, the Bab Khurasan, and the Bab. . . [the name is omitted in the text]. It has two market-places, an upper and a lower. Above the Ribat, or fortified place, of Apavah, Dahistan, and Ibna as-Sabil, there is a small turbid pool whose measure neither rises nor falls. On the main street (of Damghan) there is a mosque with water-tanks like those at Marv and Semnan, and on the street of the market-place there is a fine mosque. The water fills the tanks of these alternately, so that the tanks are emptied and filled in turn.' »

Much more favorable were the comments of Mis'ar Muhalhil a few years earlier (941 a.d.) : —

day and night. There is a wonderful construction, due to Kisra (King
 * Damghan is a large city, and abounds in fruits. The wind blows there

1 See Yakubi, ed. De Goeje, Bibl. 355-356. The passage (translated for Geog. Arab. 7. 296. me by Dr. Yohannan) is obscure in

2 See Mukaddasi, ed. De Goeje, 3. one or two details.

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