g faces, and dirty masses of coarse black hair. Most are
covered with skin-disease, so we push on ahead, but are caught up, for
the loathsome creatures get over the ground with extraordinary speed.
A handful of "sheis" [A] stops them, and we leave them swearing,
struggling, and fighting for the coins in a cloud of dust. Then on
again past villages nestling in groves of mulberry trees, past more
vineyards, maize, and barley, and peasants in picturesque blue dress
(save white, no other colour is worn in summer by the country-people)
working in the fields. Their implements are rude and primitive enough.
The plough is simply a sharpened stick covered with iron. The sickle
is used for reaping. Threshing is done by means of an axle with thin
iron wheels. If such primitive means can attain such satisfactory
results, what could not modern agricultural science be made to do for
Persia?

Sunset brings a cool breeze, which before nightfall develops into a
cutting north-easter, and we shiver again under a bourka and heavy fur
pelisse. Crossing a ridge of rock, we descend upon a white plain, dim
and indistinct in the twilight. The ground crackles under our horses'
feet. It is frozen snow! A light shines out before us, however, and
by ten o'clock we are snug and safe for the night in the
telegraph-station of Deybid.

These sudden changes of temperature make the Persian climate very
trying. At this time of year, however balmy the air and bright the
sunshine at midday, one must always be prepared for a sudden and
extreme change after sunset. The Plain of Deybid was covered with snow
at least two feet deep, the temperature must have stood at very few
degrees above zero, and yet, not five hours before, we were perspiring
in our shirt-sleeves.

"Mashallah!" exclaims Gerome next morning, shading his eyes and
looking across the dazzling white expanse. "Are we, then, never to
finish with this accursed snow?" By midday, however, we are out of it,
and, as we subsequently discover, for the last time.

We had up till now been singularly fortunate as regards accidents, or
rather evil results from them. To-day, however, luck deserted us, for
a few miles out of Deybid my right leg became so swollen that I could
scarcely sit on my horse. The pain was acute, the sensation that of
having been bitten by some poisonous insect. Gerome, ever the Job's
comforter, suggested a centipede, adding, "If so, you will probably
have to lie up for four or five