Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/318

 ��DAMGHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS

��Another spring in the same vicinity, the Chashmah-i Bad, or ' Fountain of the Wind,' is not without a characteristic legend. A popular belief holds that if anything foul is thrown into its water, a mighty cloud will arise and a severe storm ensue. The folk have plenty of tales to tell in support of their belief, and for this reason they try to keep the fountain unpolluted. ^

��which obstructs the channel, it opens two courses with divided waters. Af- ter this its torrent, made more violent by the ruggedness of the rocks over which it runs, falls headlong into the earth. For three hundred stadia [about 33 miles] it flows subterraneously, but again emerges as if from a sep- arate source and occupies a new channel, broader than the former, and spreads to a width of thirteen ( !) stadia, and once again, crowded be- tween narrower banks, pursues its course. Finally it falls into another river, called the Kidagnus. The na- tives affirm that whoever is cast into the cavern, which is near the source, reappears again where the other mouth of the river opens. Alexander caused two persons to be plunged into the place where the waters enter the earth, and those who were sent to watch saw their bodies discharged where the river broke forth again.'

Diodorus Siculus, History, 17. 75, gives a somewhat similar descrip';ion : ' Alexander went a distance of a hun- dred and fifty stadia [about 16 1 miles] and encamped near a high rock. At its base there was a cave where a divinity might dwell, from which issued a large river, called Stiboetes. This flows in an impetuous course for three stadia [^ mile], and then is cleft in two by a breast-shaped rock, be- neath which is a huge chasm. The river dashes down into this with a great roar and foam from its encoun-

��ter with the rock. It runs underground for three hundred stadia [33 miles], and then comes forth again into the open air.'

The phenomenon so graphically, if possibly exaggeratedly, described by these two classic vn-iters appears to be associated in some way with a tun- nel that is mentioned by an Arab writer as being near Tak, in the vicin- ity of Damghan ; this will be brought out later in th3 chapter on Tak. See also Marquart, Untersuchungen, pp. 52-55, in which pages the route of Alexander in this neighborhood is fully discussed ; cf. p. 186, below.

1 See Eastwick, Journal, 2. 161, and Melgunoff, Das sudliche Ufer des kaspischen Meeres, p. 144. Numerous details about this spring are found in other writers. For some added refer- ences I have to thank my friends Dr. Louis H Gray and Dr. George L. Hamilton. From Kazwini there is an account quoted in the anonymous Tuhfat al-ghard'ib, foil. 302 b-332, see British Museum Add. 37. 261 (Rieu's Cat. 871), see also Vullers, Lexicon Persicum^ s.v. bdd-khdni, p. 161 ; Clavijo (Jan. 12, 1406), Narrative, tr. Markham, p. 182 (Hakluyt Society) ; Abu '1-Fazl, in connection with the exile of Humayun at Shah Tahmasp's court in 1644 (cf. Price, Chronological Betrospect of Mohammedan History, 3. 840-841) ; and Frazer (1821), Nar- rative, p. 312-313. Similar stories are told about a well at Ghaznah, Afghan-

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