News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-01-08
AN EGYPTIAN VILLAGE.
WHAT A CORRESPONDENT WITH THE
ENGLISH ARMY SAW.
A Village SO Peculiar in Its Construction
That it is Said to Have Been Buiit DS
NOah's Son.

| ENGLISH ARMY SAW.
| A Village so Peculiar in Its Construction
| That IL is Said to Have Been Built Dy
| NOah's Son.
A correspondent with the Afghan
| Commission thus describes an extra
ordinary-lcoking village which ne
passed at the distance of 100 miles from
! Teheran:
'We had not proceeded far on our
way when vestges of the former con-
dition of things met our eyes. 1t was
at a place only 100 miles from Teheran
that we first realized the dreadful state
of danger in which the people had
lived. We found a most remarkable
village at which we encamped. Sup
posing no information could have been
procured, and an archeologist had come
upon it by accident, he would have had
profound puzzle to unravel and ex-
plain. The ZANE of the village is
Lasgird. The people ascribe an i'm
mense antiquity 10 it, and say that Las,
or Last, son of Noah, drew on the
ground the "gird," 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 IL 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
almost the only building material of this
country, 1t should also be recollected
that the one belongs to period of
good architecture, of which it is eel
ebrated monument, while the other may
be said to be entirely destitute of any
pretensions of this kind.
1.-The rude mud walls are thick and
solid all around at the base, and rise
some thirty or forty feet, where there is
q line of doors, with here and there
small window between them. By
means of projecting beams, or branches
of trees, over which smaller branches
laid, kind of gallery is produced, bear
ing strong resemb lance to those simple
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 destruction. So it is
with the galleries of Lasgird-there is
no protection on the edge. Yet we saw
women and children. sheep and goats,
looking arrangement would be hard to
conceive. There are two tiers of houses
all around, and in some places there ap-
peared to be three All had these gal
leries in front, either to communicate
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 use these |
Y,la 4hO sc
while to the women and children it all |
appeared as safe and comfortable as |
if they had been monkeys. OF course
there was no getting up to these gal
leries from the outside; that would have
suited the Turkomans. The means of
going up-was all on the inside In some
cases there are rough steps of mud, and
III others there are inclined planes, half |
ladder and half road, made in the same
way as the galleries. These lead up to
galleries communicating with the houses,
which were an exact repetition of those
on the outside, the only difference being
that they were not so high up, and there
were walls at places which did duty as
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 wo-
man, of at least seventy years of age,
passed me, with child stuck in some
primitive way on her back; q few yards
from me was one of these means of
ascent formed of sticks with the remains
of mud hanging to it. 1t would have
done for fowls to go up to their roosts
upon. She olambered up on this to the
gallery above, but that was not her des-
tinatioD; her house was one up still |
higher in a corner, and to reach it she
had 10 crawl up on the edge of crum-
bling mud wall, not above eighteen |
inches wide; on her left hand was a |
perpendicular descent, enough to make |
any one dizzy, and death at the bottom |
of 1T, if fail should occur; although |
the other side there was only few feet, |
If the old creature had slipped, the
chances are that she would 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 III safety. 1 could not help
thinking that few generations of this
kind of Thing would undo all our develop
ment, and that we would go back again
to our original Simian condition.
1.-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
danger from the Turkomans. These
places were for containing the grain of
the village and for receiving the live
stock of the villagers when a raid
One of a number of wells
was pointed out to US within circle,
and we were told that they had three or
four which were always kept in good
order in the days of danger. There
is only one entrance to this circle, and
that is by small entrance 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 |
Soudan. This stone door of Lasgird is |
a very rude one, being eight inches |
thick in some parts, and it tells its tale |
of the existence of great danger and the |
necessity for protection. Sir Peter |
Lunsden had long conversation with
the Khet Khodah and some of the prin-
cipal villagers, and it seemed that they |
not only ascribed the origin of Lasgird |
to the Son of Noah. 'Nu,' as they called |
niIu, Dut Uney uKeneU tneT strange |
dwelling place to the Ark. Extreme |
theologians, who identify the Church
with the Ark, say all who were in the |
Ark were saved; all without were de- |
stroyed. This was exactly the case with
Lasgird. When a Chupao took place
all who got in were secure; all who were
left outside became victims. A chronic
state of war existed, and this fortified
village was the result. The Govern
ment either could not, or would not, de-
fend the people, and they had to take
means for their own safety"