É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)

Chapter I.—In Westernmost Färs

Sec. ii] AN ANCIENT MOUNTAIN ROUTE 53 sighted. About a mile beyond the stream junction we passed a small graveyard, manifestly old, with inscribed coffin-shape tombstones. Then crossing to the right bank the caravan track took us past a place pointed out by our Ardakän guides as Anär-bägh

, where a few pomegranate bushes still marked an abandoned old orchard. Beyond this the path left the valley bottom and led up steeply to a small col across a ridge around which the Tang-i-khäs stream turns away westwards in a narrow impracticable gorge. It was on this ascent of close on 200 feet that distinct remains of an ancient walled-up road could be seen more clearly than elsewhere. But a far more conspicuous mark of the ancient route was to be sighted from the col in the shape of the ruined bridge known as Pul-i-mürd, ' the Bridge of the Myrtles ' (Fig. 6). It spans a considerable stream, named Ab-iLäleh on the Survey of India map, which descends from as yet unsurveyed uplands to the north-west of the Pasköhak chain and receives the stream of the Tang-i-khäs in a deepcut ravine more than 1 mile lower down. Of the bridge, the main arch thrown across the rock-bound bed some 30 yards wide has completely fallen ; but the arches of approach, three on the left bank and one on the much higher right bank, over which the height of the central arch was once gained, still survived in fair preservation. The width of the aróh on the right bank was 6 yards, and the breadth of the roadway it carried 3 yards. The pier on which the central arch had rested was strengthened on either flank by a semicircular buttress. The very massive construction with large undressed blocks of stone set in cement and the rounded shape of the arches pointed to