That, at least, is the price our host charged--probably more than half again its real value.
The winegrowers of Hamadan have many difficulties to contend with; among others, the severe cold.

In winter the wine is kept in huge jars, containing six or seven hundred bottles.

These are buried in the ground, their necks being surrounded by hot beds of fermenting horse-dung, to keep the wine from freezing.

But even this plan sometimes fails, and it has to be chopped out in solid blocks and melted for drinking.
Kharzan has a population of about a thousand inhabitants.

It was here that Baker Pasha was brought some years ago in a dying condition, after being caught in a wind-storm on the Kharzan Pass, and lay for three days in the house we were lodging at.