Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1884-12-25
FOUNDED BY NoaHs SON.
a Remarkable village OF Mud
Houses I'm Asia.

the Afghan commission thus describes
an extraordinary-lookin village which
he passed at the distance OF 100 miles
from Teheran:
"We had not proceeded far on our
way when vestiges of the former condi-
ton of things met our eyes. It was at
| place only 100 miles from Teheran that
we first realized the dreadful state of
danger in which the people had lived
We found most remarkable village at
which we encamped. Supposing no in
formation could have been procured, and
an archaologist had come upon it by ac-
cident, he would have had profound
puzzle to unravel and explain. The
name Of the village is Lasgird. The peo-
pie ascribe an immense antiquity to it,
and say that Las, or Last, son of Noah,
drew on the ground the sgird, " or circle,
which is the plan Of the structure. The
hero Of this legend is not very familiar
to Biblical scholars in the West, but he
is not unknown in Afghanistan. The
colosseum at Rome, although an oval,
would convey some idea of the general
appearance of Lasgird, only it must be
conceived as built of mud, which is al
most the only building material of this
country. 1t should also be recolleeted
that the one belongs to a period of good
architecture, Of which is celebrated
monument while the other may be said
to be entirely destitute of any preten-
sions of this kind.
eThe rude mud walls are thick and
solid all round at the base, and rise
some thirty or forty feet, where there is
line of doors, with here and there
small window between them. By means
of projecting beams, or branches of
trees, over which smaller branches are
laid, kind of gallery is produced, bear
ing strong resemblance to those sim
pie forms Of birds nests which are
formed of sticks placed on the upper
branches of trees The wonder is, how
the eggs do not roll over, or that the
chicks do not tumble down to destruc-
ton So it is with the galleries of Las
| gird-there is no protection on the edge.
| Yet we saw women and children, sheep
and goats, upon them-a more frail and
dangerous-looking arrangement it would
be hard to conceive. There are two tiers
/ of houses all round, and in some places
there appeared to be three. All had
these galleries in front, either to com
municate with the next house, or, as
some did not communicate, they were
only of use to come out upon to sit, or
work, or for the children to play upon;
to US these places seemed the brink of
destruction, while to the women and
children it all appeared as safe and COM
Portable as if they had been monkeys.
Of course there was no getting up to
| these galleries from the outside; that
| would have suited the Turkonlans.
The means of going up was all on
the inside. In some cases there are
rough steps of mud, and in others
there are inclined planes, half lad
der and half road, made in the same way
as the galleries. These lead up to gal
Ieries communicating with the houses,
| xrbsoI r.,ara ~, await ra,,att+inr af fhaoo
on the outside, the only difference being
that they were not so high up, and there
were walls at places which did duty as a
parapet, hence the certainty of falling
over, did not seem quite SO great from the
inside as on the outside While looking
at this strange structure from one of
these upper galleries, an old woman, of
at least seventy years of age, passed me,
| with child stuck in some primitive way
on her back; few yards from me was
one Of these means of ascent formed Of
| sticks with the remains of mud hangin,
| to it. 1t would have done for fowls to
go to their roosts upon. She clambered
up on this to the gallery above, but that
was not her destination; her house was
one up still higher in corner, and to
reach it she had to crawl up on the edge
of a crumbling mud wall, not above
eighteen inches wide; on her left hand
was perpendicular descent, enough to
make any one dizzy. and death at the
| bottom of it, if fall should occur; al
though the other side there was only a
few feet, if the old creature had slipped,
| the chances are that she wonld have rolled
down. and fallen over the gallery with
the baby on her back. The old lady
went up very steadily, and reached her
crows nest in perfect safety.
''The dwellings of the people were all
in the upper part of the great circle, and
the center was filed up with strange
moss structures, which are now falling
to decay, as there is no longer any dan
ger from the Turkomans. These places
were for containing the grain of the vii
lage and for receiving the be stock of
the villagers when raid occurred. One
Of number of wells was pointed out to
us within circle, and we were told that
they had three or four which were al
ways kept in good order in the days of
danger. There is only one entrance to
this circle, and that is by small en-
trance scarcely four feet in height, to
which there is stone door working
with pivot and socket similar to the
ancient stone doors found in the Hauran
and other parts of the Soudas. This
| - L.. = L a.as.;,.a L = ..s,-.. y. ls-