Autumn in the North of Persia is a gloriously fine season, almost spring-like in many ways, and, indeed, it is called there the 'second spring.' The landscape then, though nearly barren of verdure, has a beauty of its own in warm soft colours, and the atmospheric effects on the hills and distances, evening and morning, are of wonderfully delicate tones and tints.

The prominent feature in the landscape near Tehran is the grand cone-shaped Mount Demavend, about forty miles to the north-east, which shoots up 19,400 feet above ocean-level, and overtops all the surrounding heights by 6,000 feet or more.

It stood out bold, cold, and clear against the blue sky, and looked beautifully white with a fresh covering of new snow, and it was more than usually distinct, from being clear of the cloud-crown it usually wears.

In the evening the massive peak presented a splendid appearance, looking as in a white heat from the shine of the setting sun, which, though lost to view below the horizon, yet lighted up the old volcano.
Demavend has long been asleep, but the great earthquakes of 1891, 1893 and 1895 in Astrabad and Kuchan to the eastward, and Khalkhal in the north-west, show that its underground fires are still alight.

The scene of the last is about one hundred miles north-east of the old volcanic region of Afshar, remarkable for its remains of vast 'cinter' cones, formed by the flowing geysers of long, long ago, and which were shattered and scattered by some mighty explosion, when the great geysers boiled up and burst their walls.