Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/358

 204 OVER THE ANCIENT BATTLE-GROUND

not know that in a valley across the mountains, six miles southeast of this village, and near the station of Armian, or Armia, on the lower road, there stands an immense plane-tree, which the natives claim to be several thousand years old, and whose enormous branches are fabled to shade the grave of the prophet Jeremiah. The legend is recorded by Shah Nasir ad- Din in his Diary^ p. 98, and he adds that tradition ascribes the name of the place itself, which he gives as Armia^ to that of the prophet Jeremiah (in Persian, ArmiaK)^ though that is, of course, fanciful. ^ Had I been aware of this folk-saga at the time, I might have been tempted to make the detour in order to see the tree, not, so much on account of the legend connected with Jeremiah's name as because of the possibility that this tree, whose shadow extends for ' a hundred miles,' might have some distant bearing upon the much discussed problem of Marco Polo's 'Abre i Sol,' which Houtum-Schindler claims to have been the famous cypress planted by Zoroaster, and not the *sun tree,' as generally supposed. ^

A halt at the old settlement of Maiamai, which is abundantly watered by streams from the lofty rocky mountain that over-

for its huge bastions. The northern ruined structures, of the Sasanian pe-

one was somewhat smaller, though riod, at Isfahan and Abarkuh (see my

about a hundred by two hundred Persia^ pp. 253-261, 342-344), but it

yards square, and was evidently older. would be hazardous to suggest any

Its condition was rather ruinous, but association between those remains of

a part of the Burj, or tower, now Sasanian fire-temples and the ruins

crumbling, still remained in the north- under consideration, west corner. This circular enclosure 1 1 refer to the translation of the

was built of brick, showing traces of a Diary, p. 98, made for me by Dr.

coating of clay and mortar, and was Yohannan. The station is mentioned

crowned by a dome, which had par- (without allusion to the legend) as

tially collapsed. The interior of the Armian by Curzon, 1. 281. structure presented a chamber, each 2 gee Houtum-Schindler, Marco

of whose four sides contained an arch Polo's Travels, in JBAS. 1909, pp.

of brick, solidly backed, so as to form 154-159 ; and compare Jackson, Zoro-

four shallow vaults ; and there was aster, pp 80, 97, 100, 197 ; likewise

also a smaller arch that looked as if Sykes, Sixth Journey, in Geog. Journ.

it might have opened on to a door. I 37 (1911), p. 160. recalled certain resemblances to two

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