CHURCH OF MAR SHALITA, KOCHANES.

JOURNEYS

IN

PERSIA AND KURDISTAN

INCLUDING A SUMMER IN THE UPPER KARUN
REGION AND A VISIT TO THE
NESTORIAN RAYAHS

By MRS. BISHOP
(ISABELLA L. BIRD)

HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
AUTHOR OF 'SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS'
'UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN,' ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES—VOL. II.

WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1891

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN VOLUME II.

LETTER XVI

Ali-kuh, June 12.

Two days before we left Chigakhor fierce heat set in, with a blue heat haze. Since then the mercury has reached 98° in the shade. The call to "Boot and Saddle" is at 3.45. Black flies, sand-flies, mosquitos, scorpions, and venomous spiders abound. There is no hope of change or clouds or showers until the autumn. Greenery is fast scorching up. "The heaven above is as brass, and the earth beneath is as iron." The sky is a merciless steely blue. The earth radiates heat far on into the night. "Man goeth forth to his work," not "till the evening," but in the evening. The Ilyats, with their great brown flocks, march all night. The pools are dry, and the lesser streams have disappeared. The wheat on the rain-lands is scorched before the ears are full, and when the stalks are only six inches long. This is a normal Persian summer in Lat. 32° N. The only way of fighting this heat is never to yield to it, to plod on persistently, and never have an idle moment, but I do often long for an Edinburgh east wind, for drifting clouds and rain, and even for a chilly London fog! This same country is said to be buried under seven or eight feet of snow in winter.

On leaving Chigakhor we crossed a low hill into the Seligun valley, so fair and solitary a month ago, now brown and dusty, and swarming with Ilyats and their