Morning journal and courier., 1885-01-01
A Great Asfatic Highway.

l and the Caspian will be left on the west
 The road we go along is celebrated high ! way. From the most ancient times down to l the present day it has been the great road 1 from the West to the East; from Europe to | Central Asia, to Hindoostan and far Cathay | Since the date of Vasco de Gama the wealth of produce carried must have declined and l yet in the face of the greatest obstacles it is | still highway of commerce. We pass long | caravans of camels laden with heavy bur dens on our march. The condition of Cen I tral Asia and it's marauding Turcomans has ! done much to make commerce impossible | along this highway. That is now thing of ] the past, and as the route becomes safe the ! transport of the produce of all the countries | it leads to will be revived. The policy of the | shah and his government may be against rail ways, but the iron horse will come in due l time in spite of opposition. A line from Tif1is to Teheran is talked of; that will link l the capital of Persia with Batoum. Let this become an accomplished fact, and it's contin- | uation on to Shahrud, Nishapur, Meshed and Herat will surely follow. The railway from ! India is already across the Indus, and is be- ing made on to Quetta It requires no great l amount of prophetic vision to tell what will be the result, and the result may not be so ! far distant when this old road will become ! again, under new conditions, at least one of ! the great highways to the far East.
 All the towns and villages we passed are walled in with towers and gates which are shut at night. At Samnan there are some 1 large inclosures outside the gates of the town; the walls are very high. We noticed small doors of stone not over three feet in height. These stone doors speak for them selves and tell their tale. There towers in many of the fields. These were for the | nnnI1a in of ! when there was no time to reach the village. l The workers in the fields, by squeezing them selves through the narrow opening in the ! bottom, which could be closed with stone, might thus escape, and the Turcoman would ! lose his prize The mills here, which are driven by water, are on the outside of the village, and I notice that each of them has a ! mud tower as 6 refuge when an Alaman | came along. It is said that some of the gov | ernors the frontier, who could have ! stopped raids, allowed them to pass west | ward, in order to catch them on their return laden with the spoil they had captured. This ! was profitable to the governor, who thus bagged everything. Cases of this kind must have been exceptional, or it would soon have stopped the traffic. The raiders would have ceased if they seldom or never managed to get back to their own country again. The ! whole credit for the suppression of this sys- tenn is due to Russia. It has been her move ment into Central Asia which has enabled her to lay the strong hand upon it and it now no longer exists. The movement into Cen tral Asia which suppressed these raids has also led to the necessity for defining the Ali ! ghan frontier, so that this mission is not quite unconnected with the past state of af- l fairs, of which we have seen such marked evidence along the road we have come.
 In the East ruins are expected, and infer ences cannot always be made from them. Here, where all buildings are of mud, it is | ,4s 1o :,,1-. oG o.,, When man dies the son avoids the fathers house; the son builds a new one and the old one is left to tumble down. This adds much to the appearance of general decay in Persia. Along the road we have marched the tumble-d down state of things is great, ! Much of it is, no doubt, owing to the de- structive visits of the Turenmans. Peace ! will now reign along this great highway and | it must have an effect for the better on every 1 thing In some of the larger places, which from their size may be called towns build l ing was going on, and this is a sure sign of l improvement. It is rot so long since there was only one post with letters on this road in the month; now there is post every week between Teheran and Meshed. That one man on horse can carry in one bag whole weeks correspondence for such space of l ground does not say much for the extent of business or the letter=writing habits of the l population. Still, it is better state of
 
 fact evidence of improvement A road in the East does not mean way that | is embarked where the ground is low or hollow, that high places have been cut down; neither does it mean that rivers and streams have been bridged. It is word signifying that it is track over which people are in the habit of passing from one to another. It is a trail or series of trails made by the feet of men and beasts as they have gone over the soil. Such is the high | way over which we have travelled. The road I is good one, but that only means the ground is level. There are very few bad bits between here and Teheran, and the bad bits are comparatively easy. A very little labor would make it good road, and wheeled ve- hicles could pass along it's whole length. The I making of a railway would also be work of | little difficulty. Numerous culverts would | be required for the irrigation streams, but ! there is no river to bridge or valley to re- quire a viaduct neither is there anywhere l spot where tunnel would have to be made. There are ascents and descents, but they are ! gradual The line ought to be cheap one. l The road is at present thronged with pill ' grims on their way to Meshe1. l suspect \ that they are not yet free from lear of the Turcomans, far they travel in large parties \ men, women and children. As rule they start in the evening end reach the caravanse- \ raj in the early morning, and have thus the I daylight to cook their food, for washing ! themselves or their clothes, and other neces- I sary work connected with long journey We hear the men, after they have said their ! prayers in the evening and are about to start, | all raise their voices to the highest pitch to- 1 gether and give a long continued shout, ! which has wild harmony in it. This they I do three or four times. As they are all Shi- l as it may be assumed that the words of this 1 musical chorus are something in praise of | Ali.
 All the way from Teheran to this place we ' have had the Elburz range of mountains on | the north. These separate us from the Gas plan. On the south is the great Salt desert, | which the maps has one or two thin lines across it, marking the only lines of traffic l which pass over the inhospitable space. The mountains on the other hand seem nothing < but bare rock and barren soil, burned up by | their southern exposure; still from them | comes sufficient supply of water to irrigate | the strip of fertile land through which we 1 have passed. It is somewhere in these noun l tains, in valley not far from here, where ! the 'sOld Man of the Mountains" the foun- ! der of the Assassins, had his castle. The | name of.the place was Lahyamoot, or 'sWith- out death" It was what the Persians call 8 paradise or place of delight, and the Old were either beyond death or that it had no terrors for them, It is related that visitor on one occasion wanted some proof of the devotion of Hassan Subbah's disciples. They were standing at the time on the walls of the castle. Hassan told one of them to leap from the walI-it was done instantly and the man was dashed to pieces as he fell beneath. Bench and Bar CorraIed by Bandits. From the Cleveland Herald.l
 Judge Mckinney of this city has received from his fellow jurist, Chief Justice Wade of Montana, a letter relating an interesting epi- sode of judicial life in the western wilds. The letter is dated Boulder City, October A, and reads as follows: 'sLast Monday was the day appointed for the October term at this place, the county seat of Jefferson county, 45 miles from Helena I went to the town of Jefferson by rail and thence to Boulder City by stage coach, twelve miles over the
 Prickly Pear range of mountains Six mem
 bers of the Helena bar were with me, includ-
 ing the prosecuting attorney for this district,
 whom will call the colonel, as that is the
 name he goes by here. Other passengers