tself no
trifling luxury in a country of scanty camel-thorn and tezek. Whenever
the prying curiosity of the occupants of neighboring menzils impels them
to visit our quarters, to stand and stare at me, my friend the hadji
waxes indignant, and, waving a stick of firewood threateningly toward
them, he pours forth a torrent of withering and sarcastic remarks. Once,
in his wrath, he hops lightly off the menzil floor, seizes an individual
twice his own size by the kammerbund, jerks him violently forward, bids
him stare until he gets ashamed of staring, and then, turning him round,
shoves him unceremoniously away again, pursuing him as he retreats to his
own quarters with vengeful shouts of "y-a-h!"

To a few eminently respectable travellers, however, the hadji graciously
accords the coveted privilege of squatting around our fire and chatting.
Being himself a person who dearly loves the music of his own voice, he
holds forth at great length on the subject of himself in particular,
dervishes in general, and the Province of Mazanderaii. Like a good many
other people conscious of their own garrulousness, the hadji evidently
suspects his auditors of receiving his statements with a good deal of
allowance; consequently, when impressing upon them the circumstance of
his hailing from Mazanderan--a fact that he seems to think creditable in
some way to himself--he produces from the depths of his capacious
saddlebags several dried fish of a variety for which that province is
celebrated, and exhibits them in confirmation of his statements.

It is genuine wintry weather, and with no bedclothes, save a narrow
horse-blanket borrowed from my impromptu friend, I spend a cold,
uncomfortable night, for a caravanserai menzil is but a mere place of
shelter after all. The hadji rises early and replenishes the fire, and
with his little brass teapot we make and drink a glass of tea together
before starting out.

At daybreak the hadji goes outside to take a preliminary peep at the
weather, and returns with the unwelcome intelligence that it is snowing.

"Better snow than rain," I conclude, as I prepare to start, little
thinking that I am entering upon the toughest day's experience of the
whole journey through Persia.

Before covering three miles, the snow-storm develops into a regular
blizzard; a furious, driving storm that would do credit to Dakota.
Without gloves, and in summer clothes throughout, I quickly find myself
in a most unenviable pli