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Opium smoking appears to be indulged in to a great extent here, two out of the three chapar men putting in a good portion of their time "hitting" the seductive pipe, and tinkering with their opium-smoking apparatus.
The Koudoum Chapar khaneh is a very fair example of the average Persian post-house. Imagine a small one-storied building, whitewashed, save where wind and rain have disclosed the brown mud beneath. A number of rats scamper away at our approach. I wonder what on earth they can find to eat, until Gerôme points out a large hole in the centre of the apartment.
The quickest mode of travelling in Persia is by chapar, or, in other words, on horseback, obtaining fresh horses at each chapar-khana.
The word chapar signifies in Persian to "gallop," but it is extremely rare to find "chapar post" pony which has any notion of going out of his own pace something between a walk and a canter, like the old grey horse that carries round the lady in pink and spangles in a travelling circus.
In the interior of the country the hard sun-baked soil is usually trackless, so that the aid of a "Shagird Chapar," or post-boy, becomes essential.
If, for instance, the actual distance is six farsakhs, the "chapar distance" will be seven, or seven and a half; the difference between the two is the chapar-jee's modokal; without modokal there is no question but that a Persian would feel himself to be a miserable, neglected mortal. Aradan is another telegraph control station, and Mr.
A cut from this would make an English horse jump out of his skin, but had little or no effect on the tough hides of our "chapar" ponies. The snow is almost up to the knees of the latter as we labour through the gateway and into the narrow street. Where will it be on the Kharzán Pass? Résht is picturesquely situated.
But for these we must literally have starved en route. "Good-bye. Good luck to you!" from the colonel. "En avant!" cries Gerôme, with a deafening crack of his heavy chapar whip. We are both provided with this instrument of torture a thick plaited thong about five feet long, attached to a short thick wooden handle, and terminating in a flat leathern cracker of eight or ten inches.
Not all the chapar horses are the wretched creatures just described, however, and by engaging beforehand the best horses at each station along the route, certain travellers have made quite remarkable time between points hundreds of miles apart.
This chapar, or post-service, is established along the great highways of travel between Teheran and Tabreez, Teheran and Meshed, and Teheran and Bushire, with a branch route from the Tabreez trail to the Caspian port of Enzeli; the stations vary from four to eight farsakhs apart.
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