I was unexpectedly fortunate in finding that the bright weather had freed the road over the pass from snow, and I had a perfect day, with still air, for that part of my ride.
About halfway between Kasvin and Resht the road passes through the extensive olive-groves of Rudbar, which for many centuries has been the centre of a flourishing olive-oil and soap business.

There are about sixty villages in the district engaged in this industry; they possess from eighty to one hundred thousand trees, each yielding on an average from six to nine pounds' weight of fruit a year.

The olive as a fruit-tree has been known in Persia from a comparatively early period, and it is not surprising to hear the villagers ascribe quite a fabulous age to some of the old trees, just as in Italy some olives are credited with an equally astonishing antiquity.
To me it has appeared that the habit the olive has of sending up new stems from the root of an old trunk--just as the chenar sycamore does in Persia--may have made the old trees become young again, and thus present, to succeeding generations in the villages, the look of the same old trunks.Messrs.Kousis, Theophylactos and Co., of Baku, have obtained a concession for pressing and refining olive-oil in this district, and I observed the buildings which they are erecting for their business rising on the right bank of the river there.
Near Rudbar commences the thick growth of various hard-wood trees, which flourish well in the damp soil of the Caspian slopes and lowlands, and in November their foliage was surpassingly lovely, with many warm tints, from delicate red to deep russet and shades of shot-green and brown.

On some of the high, thickly-wooded hills, the different colours ran in well-defined belts, showing where particular kinds of trees had found most favourable soil, and had grasped it to the exclusion of all others.
About forty miles from the Caspian coast I fell in with rain and mud--such mud as cannot be realized without being seen.

I embarked at Enzelli on board a small Russian steamer, the _Tehran_, which had taken the place of one of the usual large vessels employed on the mail-service.