e basin was a solitary hut, which rejoiced in the name of Kort.
These great commotions of nature are interesting, but to any one given to
sound reflection they are almost too big for the human mind to grasp.
They impress one, they almost frighten one, but give no reposeful, real
pleasure in gazing upon them such as less disturbed scenery does. The
contrasts in colour and shape are too violent, too crude to please the
eye: the freaks too numerous to be comprehensible at a glance. Here we
have a ditch with sides perfectly black-baked, evidently by lava or some
other hot substance which has flowed through; further on big splashes of
violent red and a great variety of warm browns. The eye roams from one
spot to the other, trying to understand exactly what has taken place--a
job which occupies a good deal of one's time and attention as one drives
through, and which would occupy a longer time and study than a gallop
through in a post landau can afford.

At Agha Baba we were again on the old track, quite flat now, and during
the night we galloped easily on a broad road through uninteresting
country till we reached Kasvin, 185 _versts_ from Resht.

Kasvin, in the province of Irak, is a very ancient city, which has seen
better days, has gone through a period of misfortune, and will in future
probably attain again a certain amount of prosperity. It is situated at
an altitude of 4,094 feet (at the Indo-European telegraph office), an
elevation which gives it a very hot but dry, healthy climate with
comparatively cool nights. The town is handsome, square in form, enclosed
in a wall with towers.

The governor's palace is quite impressive, with a fine broad avenue of
green trees leading from it to the spacious Kasvin rest-house. This is
by far the best rest-house on the road to the Persian capital, with large
rooms, clean enough for Persia, and with every convenience for cooking
one's food. Above the doorway the Persian lion, with the sun rising above
his back, has been elaborately painted, and a picturesque pool of
stagnant water at the bottom of the steps is no doubt the breeding spot
of mosquitoes and flies, of which there are swarms, to make one's life a
misery.

[Illustration: Making a _Kanat_.]

The palatial rest-house, the governor's palace, a mosque or two, and the
convenient bath-houses for Mahommedans being barred, there is nothing
particular to detain the traveller in Kasvin.

One hears that Kasvin occupied at one tim