as of the great school of free-thinking philosopher
Sofis, whose observance of the ordinances of severe and joyless life is
notedly lax.

The weather was lovely as we journeyed over the Kasvin plain to Tehran,
towards the end of September. Autumn in the North of Persia is a
gloriously fine season, almost spring-like in many ways, and, indeed, it
is called there the 'second spring.' The landscape then, though nearly
barren of verdure, has a beauty of its own in warm soft colours, and the
atmospheric effects on the hills and distances, evening and morning, are
of wonderfully delicate tones and tints. The prominent feature in the
landscape near Tehran is the grand cone-shaped Mount Demavend, about
forty miles to the north-east, which shoots up 19,400 feet above
ocean-level, and overtops all the surrounding heights by 6,000 feet or
more. It stood out bold, cold, and clear against the blue sky, and
looked beautifully white with a fresh covering of new snow, and it was
more than usually distinct, from being clear of the cloud-crown it
usually wears. In the evening the massive peak presented a splendid
appearance, looking as in a white heat from the shine of the setting
sun, which, though lost to view below the horizon, yet lighted up the
old volcano.

Demavend has long been asleep, but the great earthquakes of 1891, 1893
and 1895 in Astrabad and Kuchan to the eastward, and Khalkhal in the
north-west, show that its underground fires are still alight. The scene
of the last is about one hundred miles north-east of the old volcanic
region of Afshar, remarkable for its remains of vast 'cinter' cones,
formed by the flowing geysers of long, long ago, and which were
shattered and scattered by some mighty explosion, when the great geysers
boiled up and burst their walls. Here is seen the Takht-i-Suliman, a
ruined fort of very ancient date, which local tradition describes as one
of King Solomon's royal residences, shared by his Queen, Belgheiz (of
Sheba), whose summer throne is also shown on a mountain height above.
This ruin incloses a flowing geyser of tepid sea-green water, about 170
feet deep, the temperature of which was 66 deg. when I visited the place in
1892. Near it is the Zindan-i-Suliman (Solomon's Dungeon), an extinct
geyser, 350 feet deep. It shows as a massive 'cinter' cone, 440 feet
high, standing prominently up in the plain. This district was visited
and fully described by the late Sir Henry Rawlinson, and a further
a