the
last thing I should have expected to hear, never having read of
travellers hearing them anywhere in Central Asia, nor yet having heard
them myself before. But there is no mistake; for ere we pass Kafir Kaleh,
I hear the familiar notes again and again.

The road is a decided improvement over anything we have struck since
leaving Herat, and by noon we arrive at Karize. For some inexplicable
reason the Sooltan of Karize receives our party with very ill grace. He
looks sick, and is probably suffering from fever, which may account for
the evident sourness of his disposition.

Mohammed Ahzim Khan is anything but pleased at our reception, and as soon
as he receives the receipt for my delivery makes his preparations to
return. I don't think the Sooltan even tendered my escort a feed of grain
for their horses, a piece of inhospitality wholly out of place in this
wild country.

As for myself, he simply orders a villager to supply me with food and
quarters, and charge me for it. Mohammed Ahzim Khan comes to my quarters
to bid me good-by, and he takes the opportunity to explain "this is Iran,
not Afghanistan. Iran, pool; Afghanistan, pool neis." There is no need of
explanation, however; the people rubbing their fingers eagerly together
and crying, "pool, pool," when I ask for something to eat, tells me
plainer than any explanations that I am back again among our pool-loving
friends, the subjects of the Shah. As I bid Mohammed Ahzim Khan farewell,
I feel almost like parting--from a friend; he is a good fellow, and
with nine-tenths of his inquisitiveness suppressed, would make a very
agreeable companion.

And so, here I am within a hundred and sixty miles of Meshed again. More
than a month has flown past since I last looked back upon its golden
dome; it has been an eventful month. My experiences have been exceptional
and instructive, but I ought now to be enjoying the comforts of the
English camp at Quetta, instead of halting overnight in the mud huts of
the surly Sooltan of Karize.

The female portion of Karize society make no pretence of covering up
their faces, which impresses me the more as I have seen precious little
of female faces since entering Afghanistan. All the women of Karize are
ugly; a fact that I attribute to the handsomest specimens being carried
off to Bokhara, for decades past, by the Turkomans. The people that
assemble to gaze upon me are the same sore-eyed crowd that characterizes
most Persian villages;