ABSTRACT
With its neighboring province, Kurdistan, to the southwest, Azerbaijan has been exposed throughout history to the invasions of foreign armies, constituting as it has one of the natural avenues of entry to the great Persian plateau from the north and west. The modern highway from Teheran to Tabriz follows, as far as Siah Dohan, twenty-four miles west of Kazvin, the familiar main trunk line from Teheran to Baghdad. The road from Tabriz to Ardebil, some hundred and twenty-five miles in distance to the northeast, lies over the same rolling country which generally distinguishes northern Azerbaijan. Descending from Jamalabad by a precipitous road, one reaches the banks of the Kizil Uzun, and the river itself is crossed by means of an unusually beautiful brick and stone bridge of three elliptical arches. Morier considered it an ancient structure dating from the earliest ages of Mohammedanism.
