Mazendran had its charms even for my companions. Their feelings found expression in regrets that this lovely Djennet (paradise) should have become the possession of the heretical Shiites. 'How singular,' said Hadji Bilal, 'that all the beautiful spots in nature should have fallen into the hands of the unbelievers! The Prophet had reason to say, "This world is the prison of the believers, and the paradise of the unbelievers.'" [Footnote 6] [Footnote 6: 'Ed dünya sidjn ül mumenin, ve djennet ül kafirin.'] {27} In proof, he cited Hindoostan, where the 'Inghiliz' reign, the beauties of Russia which he had seen, and Frenghistan, that had been described to him as an earthly paradise. Hadji Sultan sought to console the company by a reference to the mountainous districts that lie between Oosh (boundaries of Khokand) and Kashgar. He represented that place to me as far more lovely than Mazendran, but I can hardly believe it. [Zirab; Heften; Tigers and Jackals] At the station Zirab we came to the northern extremity of the mountainous pass of Mazendran. Here the immense woods begin, which mark the limits of the shore of the Caspian Sea. We pass along a causeway made by Shah Abbas, but which is fast decaying. Our night quarters--we reached them betimes--was Heften, in the middle of a beautiful forest of boxwood. Our young people started off in quest of a good spring of water for our tea; but all at once we heard a fearful cry of distress. They came flying back, and recounted to us that they had seen animals at the source, which sprang away with long bounds when they approached them. At first I thought they must be lions, and I seized a rusty sword, and found, in the direction they had described, but at a good distance off, two splendid tigers, whose beautifully-striped forms made themselves visible occasionally from the thickets. In this forest the peasants told me that there were numbers of wild beasts, but they very rarely attacked human beings. At all events, we were not molested by the jackals, who even dread a stick, but which are here so numerous that we cannot drive them away. There are jackals throughout {28} all Persia; they are not uncommon even in Teheran, where their howling is heard in the evenings. But still, they did not there approach men, as they did here. They disturbed me the whole night long. I was obliged, in self-defence, to use both hands and feet to prevent their making off with bread-sack or a shoe. [Sari]