faced Beluch _sawars_, with luxuriant black hair and beard, and
white turbans and cloaks. This being a minor station, there were only two
_sawars_ and no animals, whereas at stations like Girdi there were a
_duffadar_ in charge, four _sawars_, two attendants, two camels and two
horses.

Some three miles south-east of Nawar more ruins could be seen, a small
tower and three large square towers with north and south walls in great
part blown down, but with eastern and western walls standing up to a
great height. A separate domed building could also be observed a little
way off.

Perhaps one of the most interesting natural sights on the journey to the
Beluchistan frontier was the great salt river--the Shela--which we struck
on that march, six miles from Nawar. It was by far the largest river I
had seen in Persia, its channel being some 100 yards wide in places. It
came from the mountains to the south-west, where thick salt deposits are
said to exist, and at the point where we crossed it its course was
tortuous and the river made a sharp detour to the south-east. All along
the watercourse extensive sediments of salt lined the edge of the water,
and higher up, near the mountains, the water is said to be actually
bridged over by salt deposits several inches thick.

Most interesting incrustations of salt were visible under the water,
especially at the side of the stream, where, with the reverberation of
the sun's rays, most beautiful effects of colour were obtained in the
salt crystals. The following were the colours as they appeared from the
edges of the stream downwards:--light brown, light green, emerald green,
dark green, yellow, warm yellow, deep yellow, then the deep green of the
limpid water.

The river banks on which we travelled were about 60 feet high above the
actual stream, and owing to a huge diagonal crack across our track we had
to deviate nearly half a mile in order to find a way where my camels
could get across. The Shela proceeds along a tortuous channel in a
south-easterly direction, enters Afghan territory, and loses itself, as
we shall see, in the south-west Afghan desert.

It is said that when, which is now but rarely, the Hamun-Halmund is
inundated, the overflow of water from the lake so formed finds its way by
a natural channel into the Shela, which it swells, and the joint waters
flow as far as and fill the Shela Hamun or Zirreh in Afghanistan, which
is at a lower level than the Hamun-Halmund. When