The Portland daily press., 1885-01-23
The Same Day for Bsth.
(Rockland Free Press.)
Ancient Lasgird.
A Queer-LOeking Village said TO have
becn Fexnded by "a som of Noah.
(London Daily News J

NAohoon Oaliy NoWssJ
Our special correspondent with the Afghan
Commission thus describes an extraordinary
looking village which he passed at the dis
tance of 100 miles from Teheran:
I'VE al not proceeded far on our way
when vestiges of the former condition of
things met our eyes. 1t Was at place only
100 uiles from Teheran that we first realized
the dreadful state of danger in which tue
p ople had lived We found a most remarka-
bic village at which We encamped. Suppos-
ing no information could have been pro-
cured. and an arch@ologist had come upon
1t Dy accident, be would have had profound
puzzir to unravel and explain. The name
of the village is Lasgrd. The people as
cribe an immense antiquity to it, and say
that Las or Last, son of Noah, drew on
the ground the grid" or circle which is the
plan of the structure. The hero of this
legend is not very familiar TO Biblical schoi-
ars in the west, but he is not unknown Ia
Afghan stan. The Coliseum at Rome. al
though an oval, would convey some idea of
the general appearance of Lasgird, only II
the only building material of ,hs country,
1t should also be recollected that the one be-
longs to period of good architecture, of
which it is a celebrated monument, while
the other may be said 20 be- entirely destitute
of any pretensons of this kind.
The rude mud walls are thick and solid all
around at the base, aud rise some 80 or 40
feet, where 10 q line of doors, with here and
there small window between them, Bv
means Of projecting beams, or branches of
trees, over which smaller branches are laid.
o kind of gallery is produced, bearing a
strong esemblance to thos simple forms of
birds nests which are formed of seicks
placed on the upper branches of trees. The
wonder 70 how The eggs DO not roll over, or
that the chicks do not tumbls down to de-
struct'on. So 1t 10 with the galleries of Las
grd-there is no protection on the edge,
Yet we sa" women and children, sheep and
goats, upon them. A more frail and Danger
Gus looking arrangement 1t would be hard to
conceive of. There are two tiers Of houses
all around, and in some places there ap-
peared to be three. All had these galleries
in front, either to communicate with the
next house, or, as some did not communi-
cate, they were only of use to out upon to
sit or work, or for the children to play upon
to use these places seemed the brink of des-
truction, while to the women and children
it all appeared as safe and comfortable as il
they had been monkeys. Of course there
was no getting up to these galleries from the
outside; that would have suited the Turko-
mans. 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 ladder and half road, made in
the same way as the galleries. These lead
up to galleries communicating with the
houses, which are an exact repetition of
those on the outside, the only difference be-
ing 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 woman of at least 70 wears
of age passed me, with child stuck in some
primitive way on her back; few wards
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 90 up to their roosts upon. Sue clam
bered up on this to the gallery above, but
that as not her destination; her house was
one up stlll higher in corner, and to reach
il she had to crawl up on the edge of a
rumblng mud wall, not above Is inches wide;
on her left hand was perpendicular de-
scent, enough to make 0ne dizzy, and death
at the bottom of 1t, If fall should occur;
although on the other side there was ouly
few feet, f the old creature had slipped tue
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, aud reached her crows nest in
perfect sa'ety. could not help thinking
thai lew generations of this kind OF thing
would undo all our development, and that