nly to be
ambling along at a fairly good pace, even on these poor, half-starved
animals, which could not in all honesty be considered to afford perfect
riding. Indeed, if there ever was a society for the prevention of cruelty
to animals, it should have begun its work along the Persian postal roads.
The poor brutes--one can hardly call them horses--are bony and starved,
with sore backs, chests and legs, with a bleeding tongue almost cut in
two and pitifully swollen by cruelly-shaped bits, and endowed with
stinking digestive organs and other nauseous odours of uncared-for sores
heated by the friction of never-removed, clumsy, heavy pads under the
saddles. It requires a pretty strong stomach, I can tell you, to ride
them at all. Yet the poor devils canter along, when they do not amble,
and occasionally gallop clumsily on their unsteady, skeleton-like legs.
So that, notwithstanding everything, one generally manages to go at the
rate of six or seven miles an hour.

If the horses at the various post-stations have just returned from
conveying the post-bags, an extra sorry time is in store for the
traveller. The poor animals are then so tired that they occasionally
collapse on the road. I invariably used all the kindness I could to these
wretches, but it was necessary for me to get on, as I intended to proceed
in the greatest haste over the better known parts of Persia.

It is important to see the horses fed before starting from all the
post-houses, but on many occasions no food whatever could be procured for
them, when, of course, they had to go without it.

Changing horses about every 20 to 28 miles, and being on the saddle from
fourteen to twenty hours out of the twenty-four, I was able to cover long
distances, and kept up an average of from 80 to 120 miles daily. One can,
of course, cover much greater distances than these in one day, if one is
fortunate enough to get good and fresh horses at the various stations,
and if one does not have to keep it up for a long period of time as I had
to do.

From Sin Sin we go due south along a flat trail of salt and mud. We have
a barrier of mountains to the south-west and higher mountains to the
south. To the south-east also a low ridge with another higher behind it.
To the north we leave behind low hills.

Sin Sin itself is renowned for its water-melons, and I, too, can humbly
certify to their excellence. I took a load of them away for the journey.

From here we began to see the