A Journey to the Valley of the Assassins
I gave him the pencil, and he went: we were all polite
to him: but two days after, when 'Aziz happened to men-
tion the people whom his religion commands him to curse,
he added after the names of Abu Bekr, Omar, and Yezid:
" And the man to whom you gave 'the pencil, him I curse
also." I then realized his feelings in the matter.
" He was a stranger in the valley," said 'Aziz. " He had
no business to ask you for anything."-'
We came to Garmrud in the sunset. An immense
precipice which closes it in at the back and through which
the Alamut River finds a narrow cleft to enter, was shining
like a torch in the last sunlight. The flat houses on the slope
at its feet were also made rosy in the glow. No more
stupendous exit could be imagined for the Assassins' home.
Here was the second mountain of which the travellers spoke
to Marco Polo: and there above it, " that none without his
licence might find their way into this delicious valley,"
at the top of 3,000 feet of sheer rock, stood the castle of
Nevisar Shah to which no Frank, so they told me, had ever
climbed.
Anyone who wishes for scientific information about these
matters is referred to the classics on the subject of the
Assassins, Von Hammer Purgstall, Guyard, etc.; to Mr.
L. Lockhart's article in Vol. XIV of the Bulletin of the School
of Oriental Studies; to Mr. Ivanow's paper, and to my own
itinerary in The Royal Geographical Society's Journal, of
January, 1931, What I write here is for pleasure, for other
people's, I hope, but, in any case for my own, for it is always
agreeable to go over the wandering days. History and
geography, arguments and statistics are left out: I mention
the things I like to remember as they come into my head.
My stay in Garmrud was among the best of diem, for
the whole village received me as a friend and made me as
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