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 17 regard for our hard-tried mules, for which it had proved impossible to secure the expected fresh supply of fodder at this stage, obliged us to move on. After a steep ascent from camp the winding track crossed successive ravines of a broad hill spur for close on 3 miles before we caught sight again of the stream crossed at Pul-i-mürd in a deep-cut winding gorge. A steep descent in a rocky gully followed to where a series of narrow terraces lining the left bank of the stream under wooded slopes offered a chance of easier progress for close on 2 miles. Our baggage train crossing the stream was rightly taken along this, the usual track. But the guide accompanying the Surveyor and myself, whom planetable work had kept behind, chose, for some unexplained reason, to lead us by a far more troublesome track on the precipitous right bank. There was, however, compensation for the fatiguing scramble over narrow rock ledges and ladder-like cliffs when we came upon stretches of walled-up road and then a small well-preserved bridge across a deep rocky ravine. It was built exactly like the Pul-i-mürd and obviously dated from the same early period. This alternative, if difficult, track was obviously engineered for the purpose of permitting traffic to be maintained even when the crossing of the stream and the use of the usual route was made impossible for a time by a flood. At a sharp bend of the gorge an impassable spur of limestone had forced the mule train to recross the stream to its right bank. There difficult slopes still remained to be scrambled over for a couple of miles. But when finally the last rocky side spur on the right bank, known as Tul-i-Närak (Fig. 5), had been crossed, open ground lay c