nder over.

The colonel produces a bottle of excellent Shiraz wine and a box of
Russian cigarettes. The ladies have become sufficiently Orientalized to
number among their accomplishments the smoking of cigarettes. They are
delighted at meeting us, and are already acquainted with the main
circumstances of my misadventure in Afghanistan. Camp-stools are brought
out, and we spend a most pleasant hour together, before continuing on our
opposite courses. The wondering natives are almost speechless with
astonishment at the spectacle of the two ladies sitting out there, faces
all uncovered, smoking cigarettes, sipping claret, and chatting freely
with the men. It is a regular circus-day for these poor, unenlightened
mortals. The ladies are charming, and the charm of female society loses
nothing, the reader may be sure, from one's having been deprived of it
for a matter of months.

The colonel's lingual preference is German, Mrs. G------'s, French, and
the daughter's, English; so that we are quite cosmopolitan in the matter
of speech. All of us know enough Persian to express ourselves in that
language too. In commenting upon my detention by the Afghans, the colonel
characterizes them as "pedar sheitans," Madame as "le diable Afghans,"
and Miss G------as well, "le diable" in plain yet charmingly broken
English.

The next day, soon after noon, we roll into Shahrood, where B------
discharges his fourgon and we engage mules to transport us over the Tash
Pass, a breakneck bridle-trail over the Elburz range to the Asterabad
Plain and the Caspian.

A half-day search by Abdul results in the employment of an outfit
comprising three charvadars, with three mules, a couple of donkeys, and
riding horses for ourselves. A liberal use of the whip by R on the
charvadars' shoulders, awful threats, and sundry other persuasive
arguments, assist very materially in getting started at a decent hour on
the morning following our arrival. The bicycle is taken apart and placed
on top of the mule-packs, where, in remembrance of its former fate under
somewhat similar conditions, I keep it pretty strictly under
surveillance.

The Asterabad trail is a steady ascent from the beginning; and before
many miles are covered, scattering dwarf pines on the, mountains indicate
a change from the utter barrenness that characterizes their southern
aspect. One lone tree of quite respectable dimensions, standing a mile or
so off to our left, suggests a special point