The Hidden Treasure
is anytliing of a mountain at all, by a gradual revelation of
personality, an increase of significance; until, having wandered
up in its most secret places, you will know it ever after from
the plains, though from there it is but one small blue flame
among the sister ranges that press their delicate teeth into the
evening sky.
After the easy threading of the Gavan gorge, our dry river
lost its name of Garau, turned itself into the (equally non-
existent) River Khirr, and became of so intractable and difficult
a temper in the cleft of a gorge called Suratai that our path
very sensibly left it and climbed on to a wide grassy shelf that
runs, as it were, within the outer cliff rim of the valley along
the greater part of its length. Here for some time we felt
uplifted, looking across on an equal level to the similar and
opposite shelf across the valley, where the treasure of Nushirvan
and a summer house of his are reported under the summits of
Warzarine at a place called Ganjeh, above another steep and
inky gorge.
Our shelf was still cultivated here and there by the Ali
Shirwan, though we saw none of them about. Most of it,
however, was withered grass of summer, on ground gently
undulating, with oak trees here and there. Warzarine filled
the sky behind them. After a while our shelf developed a
small rim of hill between us and the valley: the view was hid-
den: the heat increased: Shah Riza, when interrupted in his
meditations, said we had reached the lands of his tribe, but
seemed vague as to how many hours were still required before
an actual tribesman might be hoped for: the day unrolled
itself into the drowsy light of noon.
We passed a sort of obelisk, a pointed affair on a
pedestal, built of stone and mortar and plastered over,
which the Lurish tribesmen put up either as landmarks
or memorials.
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