the dome, most had only a single aperture, the door. The majority of the
inhabitants seemed quite derelict and lived in the most abject poverty.

A few yards north-east of the castle were some rock habitations. There
were three large chambers dug in the rock side by side, two of one single
room and one of two rooms _en suite_. The largest room measured twenty
feet by twelve, and was some six feet high. In the interior were
receptacles apparently for storing grain. The doorway was quite low, and
the heat inside suffocating. Curiously enough, one or two of these
chambers were not quite straight, but formed an elbow into the mountain
side.

At the sides of the row of cliff dwellings were two smaller doors giving
access to storehouses also dug in the rock. I was told that the natives
migrated to this village during the winter months from October till one
month after the Persian New Year, while they spend the remainder of the
year higher up on the mountains owing to the intense heat. Firewood,
which is scarce, is stored piled up on the top of roofs, whence a little
at a time is taken down for fuel, and prominent in front of the village
was a coarse and well-fortified pen for sheep. Wolves were said to be
plentiful in the neighbourhood, and as I was sitting down writing my
notes a shepherd boy ran into the tower to say that a wolf had killed one
of his sheep.

Both from men and beasts there seemed to be little safety near the
village, according to the natives, who invariably took their
old-fashioned matchlocks with them when they went to work in their
fields, even a few yards away from the castle.

One peculiarity of this village, which stood at an altitude of 6,180
feet, was that nobody seemed to know its name. The people themselves said
that it had no name, but whether they were afraid of telling me, in their
suspicions that some future evil might come upon them or for other
reasons, I cannot say.

The natives were certainly rather original in their appearance, their
ways and speech, and as I comfortably sat under the big tree and watched
them coming in and out of the castle-village, they interested me much.
Donkeys in pairs were taken in and out of the gate to convey manure to
the fields, and old men and young came in and out carrying their
long-poled spades and matchlocks. Even little boys were armed.

The men reminded one very forcibly, both in features and attire, of the
figures in ancient Egyptian sculptures, of