Identifier: persiapastpresen01jack (find matches)
Title: Persia past and present; a book of travel and research, with more than two hundred illustrations and a map
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Jackson, A. V. Williams (Abraham Valentine Williams), 1862-1937
Subjects: Zoroastrianism
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company London, Macmillan & Co., ltd.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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s, hollows, and ruined watercourses, with but few signsof life amid the dust of ages. If marked on the map at all, itis designated as the Ruins of Rei, or Rhey (pronounced likeEnglish ray), for Rei is the modern form of Ragha, Rhagse, orRages. Treasure-hunters dig for coins and pottery amid itsdeserted tumuli, and brick-hunters demolish its walls forbuilding-materials to be used in Teheran. In a few places,it is true, the irrigator has restored an ancient aqueduct orcistern and thus converted a sand-heap into a cultivatedplot of ground, but otherwise desolation reigns everywhere. To the modern Persians Rei is known chiefly as the placeadjoining the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim, which is visitedannually by thousands of pilgrims and within whose precinctsthe late Shah, Nasr ad-Din, was assassinated in 1896. Withinthe confines of Rei itself there is also a renowned spring,Chashmah-i All, Fountain of Ali, named after the cousinand son-in-law of Mohammed and therefore more or less sacred. 428
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M- < ANTIQUITY OF THE RUINS AT RE I 429 Upon a hill in a northeasterly direction from Rei is theZoroastrian Tower of Silence, where the Gabars expose theirdead. Among the ruins at Rei there are some which have aspecial interest, and I shall therefore describe them in detail;but one of the chief distinctions of Rei nowadays is that itforms a terminus of Persias only railroad, an insignificant linerunning from Teheran to the mosque of Shah Abdul Azim.Over the six miles of track, with little attention to regularityor punctuality, a train of a few cars is drawn by a mawsheen,as the natives call the engine, having Persianized the Frenchword machine. In visiting Rei, however, experience provesthat it is better to rely on a good horse as a means of transpor-tation rather than trust to this uncertain conveyance, since thedistance can be covered in an hours canter. The road, linedwith caravan after caravan, all on their way to or from thecapital, is not uninteresting, and I felt I had been

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