Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/52

 patch of cultivated ground. Fortunately it was soft falling, so no harm was done beyond the shock, which a pull at my brandy-flask speedily counteracted. The gholam was sent back to fetch a better and more trustworthy horse, whilst we remained for about three-quarters of an hour by the roadside, and watched native travellers — men, women, and children — as well as corpses, in coffins and without coffins, slowly wending their weary way to the sainted spots of Kadamgah and Meshed. At 9.30 we made a fresh start, over an alluvial plain and cultivated ground, studded here and there with trees and villages. For the first fourteen miles the country had a smiling, prosperous look, but the last six miles were over gravelly and stony ground. We reached Kadamgah, where there is a good post-house, a caravanserai, and a shrine of some note, at 11.30. Tradition says that a mark on a large stone at Kadamgah is the foot-print of the holy Imaum Riza, whose shrine is at Meshed. That saint certainly showed excellent taste in halting at Kadamgah, as it is a most picturesque spot, with beautiful trees and rich cultivation, but it is inhabited by Syeds, who