from human habitations, but accessible to the corpse-eating dogs and birds.' The location recalled that of the dakhmah at Ajmere in India, and the structure resembled the Parsi Towers of Silence at Bombay in being round in shape, about thirty feet in height, and covered with a cement which gives it the whitish color noticeable in the Bombay towers.1 It was repaired some years ago, as were the dakhmahs at Yezd, through an expenditure of funds supplied by the Parsis of India for the amelioration of the Zoroastrians in Persia.2 Unlike the Bombay towers, it has no door, because, as the Zoroastrians in Teheran told me, they are afraid that the Mohammedans may desecrate the place. The corpse is lifted over the wall by means of ladders and ropes or a chain, as I learned from the Rev. L. F. Esselstyn, a missionary, who had helped to lift into it the dead body of one of his servants, who was a Zoroastrian. I ascended higher up the hill to a point where I could see the interior of the tower. The pāvis, or receptacles for the bodies, were arranged after a rectangular method and not radiated in the wheel-like fashion of the Parsi dakhmahs. I could see no bhandar, or central pit, in which to deposit the skeleton after the flesh had been stripped from the bones, but I was told by those who had been inside the dakhmah that there was a place to which a few steps led down, and this might have served as an astodān, or repository for the bones. The whole arrangement appeared to me rather primitive and less systematic and up-to-date than in the Bombay Towers of Silence. I may add that there was no evidence anywhere of a sagri, or shrine, for a perpetual lamp to burn near the place of the dead.

As we galloped homeward toward Teheran, the sun began to cast long shadows from Mount Damavand, the great peak of Alborz, the Avestan Hara Berezaiti, whose snowy cap and frowning front loomed skyward to the height of nearly twenty

1 See the accompanying photograph of the tower and also the distant view

of this dakhmah given above, p. 403.

2 See p. 397, above.

THE DAKHMAH AT REI

441

thousand feet. No wonder it looked sullen at its ceaseless task in crushing beneath its ponderous bulk for ages, as legends tell, the giant monster Zohak, or Azhi Dahaka, lest he escape from his chains and tyrannize the world. Only in the eleventh millennium will the mountain be relieved from duty, for then the hero Sama Keresaspa will waken from his sleep, slay Zohak, and usher in the dawn of a new era.

But soon we were entering the gates of the capital, and my thoughts were turned from ancient legends and ancient ruins to themes of the present.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THROUGH MAZANDARAN TO THE CASPIAN SEA

'To the sea-shore he gan his way apply,

To weete if shipping readie he mote there descry.'

SPENSER, Faerie Queene, 5. 12. 3.

I HAD been a week in Teheran and had especially enjoyed my visit because I had accomplished most of the immediate purposes I had in view. Though loath to depart, I found the time demanded my leaving if I were to carry out my plans for visiting Central Asia. The official calls had been made, and the requisite papers obtained from governmental sources to enable me to travel freely in Transcaspia and Turkistan; the adieus to my friends had been said; and the minor arrangements for the journey had been completed. Yet to say farewell to Persia without delays is always impossible, and although the carriage, horses, and driver were at the door, it took an endless amount of time and ado before the baggage was lashed to the wagon and the start made for the Caspian Sea which we hoped to reach on the second day — inshallah, God willing!'

Another hour had elapsed before we came to the outer poststation of the city, near the Kazvin gate. A long delay occurred here to remind me again that we were still in Persia. Each piece of luggage had to be taken off the rickety vehicle, weighed with a precision that could come only from a desire to exact the utmost shāhi for every ounce of baggage and extract an additional bakhshish, and then the packages were slowly lashed in place again upon the conveyance.

The fare and toll rate for this uncomfortable journey of some 240 miles in a rattle-bang old brougham was about 70 tomans (dollars), a sum that seemed exorbitant considering the dis