Laleh Chdk pass
hut of boughs to enjoy the open air away from the village.
It is a charming trait in Persia that anyone you meet
understands the pleasures of a picnic and will make the
best of all the trees and brooks and grassy places that
they have.
We rested here till the worst of the heat was over, and
then climbed upward among fields where the corn was cut,
stacked in round heaps with the heads towards the centre,
and covered with leaves and stones against the birds. The
peasants were about, gathering it in to the threshing-floors,
and ready to pause and greet us as we passed. The little
stream, hidden in its sunken bed by a tunnel of trees, kept
on our right side, until we reached the level of Razigird,
and forded it, and began to climb in a bare dull landscape
streaked with strata of light-green rock and outcrops of
white limestone here and there. The stream, which they
had called Pile Rudkhaneh, the Big River, in the plain
below, now appeared on our other side, coming out of a
steep uninhabited valley with clumps of willow trees and
planes but no cultivation. Here it changes its name and
becomes Pas Duzd, the Track of Thieves.
A little parallel range of foothills with grassy lands behind
them runs between the main range and the Qazvin plain.
We looked down on these, and on the gardens of Qazvin
and its minarets beyond, nearly invisible in the distance.
The track to the Simiar Pass was on our right, hidden from
us by the round and shapeless contours of our range. Round
us were many flowers as we rose higher, dianthus and thisdes
of various kinds, thyme, borage, a tiny forget-me-not on
a long stalk, and many others I did not know. And we
met company all the way—men from the Shah Rud valley
bringing loads of melons to the Qazvin market—for this is
one of the lesser passes for local traffic only, and the strong