ath my
clothes are one hundred Russian gold Imperials, the money obtained in
Teheran for the journey through Turkestan and Siberia to the Pacific.
Though sleeping with the traditional one eye open and my Smith & Wesson
where it can be readily used, there is little apprehension of being
robbed, owing to their obligation to take back the receipt for my safe
delivery to Heshmet-i-Molk.

It is the weather-changeful period of the full moon, and about midnight a
clap of thunder rolls over the desert, and a smart shower descends from a
small dark cloud, that sails slowly across the sky, obscuring for a brief
period the moist-looking countenance of the moon, and then disappears. A
couple of hours later a rush of wind is heard careering across the desert
toward us, accompanied by a wildly scudding cloud. The cloud peppers us
with hailstones in the most lively manner, and the wind strikes us almost
with the force of a tornado, knocking over the bicycle, which I have
leaned against a clump of shrubs at my head, and favoring us with a
blinding fusilade of sand and gravel.

It rains and hails enough to make us wet and uncomfortable, and the
mudbake gets up and kindles another fire. In a short time the squally
midnight weather has given place to a dead calm; the clouds have
dispersed; the moon shines all the brighter from having had its face
washed; the stars twinkle themselves out one by one as the gray dawn
gradually makes itself manifest. It is a most lovely morning; the
bruising hailstones and the moistening rain have proved themselves
stimulants in the laboratory of the wild-thyme shrubs, setting free and
disseminating a new supply of aroma; and while until now the voice of
animate nature has been conspicuous by its absence, the morning vespers
of song-birds seed almost to be issuing, like flowers, from the ground.
There is an indescribable charm about this morning's experience on the
desert; dawn appears, the moon hangs low-suspended in the heavens, the
birds carol merrily, and every inspiration one takes is a tonic to
stimulate the system. Half an hour later the sun has risen, the
song-birds have one and all lapsed into silence, the desert is itself
again, stern, silent, uncompromising, and apparently destitute of life.

Total depravity, it appears, has not yet claimed my worthy escort for its
own entirely, for while saddling up their horses during this brief
display of nature's kindlier mood they call my attention to the si