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Updated: May 15, 2025
Leaving at 8 a.m., we managed to reach the summit of the Koudoum by two o'clock next day, when we halted to give the horses a rest, and get a mouthful of food. Our Persian friend had returned to Koudoum after the first half-mile, during which he managed to get three falls, for the poor man had no notion of riding or keeping a horse on its legs.
It was midnight before the mud on them was sufficiently dry to brush off, as I fondly hoped, in the morning. Gerôme did not turn up till one o'clock a.m., his horse not having arrived at Koudoum till past seven. He had lost his way twice, and had almost given up all hopes of reaching Rustemabad till daylight, when my fire, the only light in the place, shone out of the darkness.
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 discomfort was bad enough, but, worse still, my sable pelisse, the valuable gift of a Russian friend, was, I feared, utterly ruined. It was nearly nine o'clock when we reached Rustemabad, to find rather worse quarters than we had left at Koudoum.
From here, not so many years ago, it was the custom to execute adulterous wives. "Pas de chance, monsieur," was Gerôme's greeting as I entered the caravanserai. "The Koudoum Pass is blocked with snow, and almost impassable. What is to be done?" Mature deliberation brought but one solution to the question: Start in the morning, and risk it.
Although dressed in the thickest of tweeds and sheepskin jacket, sable pelisse, enormous "bourka," and high felt boots, it was all I could do to keep warm even when going at a hand gallop, varied every hundred yards or so by a desperate "peck" on the part of my pony. The first stage, Koudoum, five farsakhs from Résht, was reached about three o'clock in the afternoon.
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