A Journey to the Valley of the Assassins
business takes them along remoter ways: who suddenly find
enchantment on their path and carry it afterwards through
their lives with a secret sense of exile.
I did not think of this, however, nor of anything nor
anybody: the loveliness of the world being enough in itself.
I sat in the sun and rested my eyes in the sight of the hills.
How hillmen love them everywhere. 'Aziz and the
guide, lazily contented, stretched among the wind-flattened
juniper, pointed to the mountains by their names.
" There is pasture," said 'Aziz; or " Here is water."
" There you will find ibex in winter," or " There is the
pass to Talaghan."
The long saddles and sharp ridges, the black gorges and
far vaporous snows began to group themselves in friendly
lines.
We returned in the afternoon to Garmrud and rested,
and were treated like heroes by the village, who do not
often climb to Nevisar Shah.
Towards sunset I wandered out along the bank of the
stream, and looked back at the cliff and the climbing houses
against it, and wondered how the Mongols got into the
valley, which is north of and off the usual route from
Bokhara and Khorasan—the great route which saw the
flight and death of Darius and the march of Alexander's
men. Until the sixteenth century, when Shah Abbas
built the causeway along the Caspian shore, the region
between the sea and the great road must have been almost
impossible for any army. Only a native and popular leader,
wishing to cross north Persia unperceived, might use it and
—like Bahram Gur with the White Huns—fall like a thunder-
bolt on the enemy from behind the screen of the Elburz.
This valley with its great walls should have been im-
pregnable: north of it, over the passes, the country was so
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