ome," says the messenger, "for the Khan of Bostam has arrived to pay the
New Year's salaam to the Prince, and the Prince wants you to show him the
bicycle."

"'Must come!' Tell the Prince that when the sahib gets fairly started, as
he is now, with his bicycle, he wouldn't turn back for the Shah himself."

The messenger looks glum and crestfallen, as though very reluctant to
return with such a message, a message that probably sounds to him
strangely disrespectful, if not positively treasonable; but he sees the
uselessness of bandying words, and so turns about, feeling and looking
very foolish, for he addressed us very boldly and confidently before the
whole crowd when he overtook us.

A few small streams have to be crossed on leaving Shahrood for the cast;
splendid rivulets of clear, cold water in which there ought to be trout.
After these streams the road launches at once on to a level camel-thorn
plain, the gravelled surface of which provides excellent wheeling. An
outlying village and caravanserai is passed through at a couple of
farsakhs, where, as might be expected in the "district of terror," are
hundreds of the little towers of refuge. This village would be in a very
exposed position, and it looks as though it is but just now being rebuilt
and repopulated after a period of ruin and desertion. Beyond this village
the towers of refuge and other signs of human occupation disappear; the
uncultivated desert reigns supreme on either hand; but the wheeling
continues fairly good, although a strong headwind somewhat impedes my
progress. Beyond the level plain and the lower hills to the north are the
snowy heights of the Elburz range; a less ambitious range of mountains
forms a barrier some twenty miles to the south, and in the distant
southeast there looms up a dark, massive pile that recalls at a glance
memories of Elk Mountain, Wyoming; though upon a closer inspection there
is no doubt but that the densely wooded slopes of our old acquaintance of
the Rockies would be found wanting.

Twenty miles of this level plain is traversed, and I find myself gazing
curiously at a range of mica-flecked hills off to the right. These hills
present a very curious appearance; the myriads of flakes of mica
scattered all about glitter and glint in the bright sunlight as if they
might be diamonds, and it requires but an easy effort of the imagination
to fancy one's self in some strange, rich land of the "gorgeous East,"
where precious je