Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/443

 passed along valleys and over high hills, where our barometer registered five thousand feet at one point before reaching Fakhr Daiid.^ At last the busy hamlet of Sharif abad was reached, the approach being through fields of poppies, along streams of water, and past a fat graveyard. This station is the last halt before crossing the high ridge of Kuh-i Salam, ' the Hill of Salutation,' as the pilgrims call it, which shuts off Mashad from the impatient view of the travel-worn devotee.

Broad is the path, and rocky is the way, I might add, that leads over this lofty Salamat height; and many is the pious wayfarer that sinks beneath the task of its toilsome ascent be- fore the summit is reached and his sight rewarded by a glimpse of the golden dome of promise. *Ya Ali! Ya Husain! Ya Imam Riza!' he cries out with glad heart, for his eyes have beheld at last the blessed city, and he falls upon his knees in prayer and thanksgiving to Allah for having vouchsafed him the divine privilege. ' May your prayers be heard,' responds the leader of a band of pilgrims that are now returning from their sacred march, with banner unfurled to show that they have kissed the bars that guard the saint's tomb; while some of the party stop to heap up a pile of stones to rival the mass of their accrued merit, or others tear off a rag from their tattered garments to leave as a souvenir of the journey, or to serve as a talisman for their safe home-coming.^

The long and tortuous descent on the other side of the ridge we made at quickened pace, with the glittering dome of the shrine, the gold-embossed minarets of its porches, and the blue- tiled fa9ades of the memorial mosques forming ever a cynosure for our course against the dark mountain background to the north. We pressed forward in haste to reach the city early in the afternoon, and before long were making a circuit to the

1 Query. Is this height the same as ^ On the underlying motives of rag

' Mount Daud in Khuzistan ' men- offerings see Crooke, Popular Beligion

transcribe the Pahlavi name as Davad. ed., 1. 161-164, Westminster, 1896.

�� �