The Hidden Treasure
it was a very poor family, and the brother had just gone off
as a soldier the day before: we had met him on the track
with the riflemen of Saidmarreh. I distributed safety-pins,
for their gowns had no fastening at the neck, and this gift
in itself would have been considered as an ample equivalent
for our luncheon.
Before leaving, I crossed to the lieutenant's tent, and found
him so ill that I suggested riding on to send a doctor from
Husainabad; but he refused, and only consented to change
mounts with Shah Riza, so as to recline on the pack-saddle
and baggage, while I took his horse and set out as the leader
of the expedition, feeling sorry for my captor, but rather
amused at riding thus into the enemy's stronghold. The
policeman from Kermenshah came with me to show the
way.
The capital of Pusht-i-Kuh was still a movable city of
tents three years ago, with only a fortified building or two
of the Vali's to give it dignity. In 1931 the government
rebaptized it and started to build a town. When I arrived,
four or five straight boulevards were already laid out, from
the police barracks at one end, an old building with round
corner towers, to the new Governor's palace at the other.
There were about twenty shops, and a square at the bottom
of the hill, where a tall, unfinished pedestal in the middle of
an ornamental waterless moat was waiting for a statue of
the Shah. The whole place lies on a very gentle slope, on
the track that inserts itself between the masses of Manisht
Kuh and Shalam close behind. The houses along the
boulevard were one-storied and most of them unfinished;
the streets were dumping grounds for masons. The
original city of tents had not yet removed itself, but stood
in dingy compact rows, like seaside bungalows, outside and
around the newly erected splendours.
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