save where,
occasionally, the warm sun-rays had, here and there, laid bare chains
of dark rocks, giving them the appearance of islands in this ocean of
snow.

At Pitche, the midday station, no horses were to be had; so,
notwithstanding that deep snow-drifts lay between us and Kushku Baira,
the halt for the night, we were compelled, after a couple of hours'
rest, to set out on the ponies that had brought us from Rabat Kerim.
More perhaps by good luck than anything else, we reached the latter
towards 9 p.m. A bright starlit night favoured us, and, with the
exception of a couple of falls apiece, we were none the worse. We
found, too, to our great delight, a blazing fire burning in the
post-house, kindled by some caravan-men. But there is always a saving
clause in Persia. No water was to be had for love or money till the
morning, and, knowing the raging thirst produced by melted snow, we
had to forget our thirst till next day.

[Illustration: POST-HOUSE AT KUSHKU BAIRA]

A pleasant surprise also was in store for us. Two or three miles
beyond Kushku Baira we were clear of snow altogether. Not a vestige
of white was visible upon the bare stony plain. Nothing but dull drab
desert, stretching away on every side to a horizon of snow-capt hills,
recalling, by their very whiteness, the miseries of the past two days.
"Berik Allah!" [B] cried Gerome. "We have done with the snow now."
"Inshallah!" [C] I replied, though with an inward conviction that we
should see it again further on, and suffer accordingly.

The sacred city of Koom [D] is one of the pleasantest recollections I
retain of the ride between the capital and Ispahan. It was about two
o'clock on the afternoon of the 6th of February that, breasting a
chain of low sandy hills, the huge golden dome of the Tomb of Fatima
became visible. We were then still four miles off; but, even with our
jaded steeds, the ride became what it had not yet been--a pleasure.
The green sunlit plains of wheat and barley, interspersed with bars of
white and red poppies, the picturesque, happy-looking peasantry, the
strings of mule and camel caravans, with their gaudy trappings and
clashing bells,--all this life, colour, and movement helped to give
one new hope and energy, and drown the dreary remembrance of past
troubles, bodily and mental. Even the caravans of corpses sent to Koom
for interment, which we passed every now and again, failed to depress
us, though at times the effluvia was somewha