Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1902 — PEEPS INTO PERSIA. [ARTICLE]

PEEPS INTO PERSIA.

or the Strange Sights Seen by a Traveler, Sir Clemente It. Markham presided over a largely atteuded meeting of members of the Royal Geographical Society at Burlington Gardens, when an Interesting paper, describing his fourth journey In Persia, and illustrated by lantern views, was read by Major P. Molesworth Sykes. As the journey lasted three years and three months, and the paper was practically a diary of the whole period, with notes on the people and their country, nothing like a complete summary can be given. Major Sykes was in the Government service, and was employed chiefly about the frontier of Persia, and our own sphere of Influence in Baluchistan. Now he was Engaged in pursuing the bandit murderers and helping to spread the “pax Brltannlca;’’ now in surveying new trade routes and giving them a send-off by organizing caravans of Oriental carpets and silks; now in improving the postal and telegraph services. Much of the ground he covered was on the route taken by Alexander the Great, and Major Sykes had been able to identify many of the spots visited by that monarch. He also found frequent relics of Rustum, the legendary hero of Persian romance, who was so strong that when his enemies started an avalanche down the mountain against him, he turned it aside with his foot. Many strange and weird sights were encountered by Major Sykes In his travels in this little-known Eastern land. Once he saw on the barren coast of the Persian Gulf a place where some subterranean sulphurous eruption had so poisoned the water that the fish had flung themselves out on the shore, and a pathway had to be made over them or it would have been Impossible to land. He scaled a great mountain 12,000 feet high, where all was ice till near the summit, when the ground grew so hot as to burn the boots, and was full of holes blowing off steam and sulphur with a noise like a huge locomotive. He surveyed valleys full of the ruins of ancient civilizations, which had vahished because some giant river had waywardly changed its course. In another mountain, named Chlnishk, he entered n winding cave miles in length, guarded by a deformed dwarf, and with skeletons in perfect preservation ranged along gallery after gallery. He passed through waterless deserts of unbearable heat, where the wind will obliterate the tracks in a few minutes. The lecture and lantern views showed in striking fashion what Important work is now being done to render trade and travel safe and to foster the production and exchange of wealth where formerly all was given up to robber bands and the pitiless desert.—London News.