deep in the fine sand.
There were a good many Guebres about, mostly employed in carrying manure
on donkeys. One of them, who was just returning from one of these
errands, addressed me, much to my surprise, in Hindustani, which he spoke
quite fluently. He told me that he had travelled all over India, and was
about to start again for Bombay.

[Illustration: Halting at a Caravanserai.]

[Illustration: A Street in Yezd, showing High _Badjirs_ or Ventilating
Shafts.]

Some "_badjir_"--high ventilating shafts--and a minaret or two tell us
that we are approaching the town of Yezd--the ancient city of the
Parsees--and soon after we enter the large suburb of Mardavoh, with its
dome and graceful tower.

A track in an almost direct line, and shorter than the one I had
followed, exists between Isfahan and Yezd. It passes south of the Gao
Khanah (Salt Lake) to the south-east of Isfahan.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Yezd--Water supply--Climate--Cultivation--Products--Exports and
imports--Population--Trade--Officials--Education--Persian
children--Public schools--The Mushir school--The Parsee
school--C.M.S. mission school--The medical mission--The
hospital--Christianizing difficult--European ladies in
Persia--Tolerance of race religions.

Yezd is the most central city of Persia, but from a pictorial point of
view the least interesting city in the Shah's empire. There are a great
many mosques--it is said about fifty--but none very beautiful. The
streets are narrow and tortuous, with high walls on either side and
nothing particularly attractive about them. Curious narrow arches are
frequently to be noticed overhead in the streets, and it is supposed that
they are to support the side walls against collapse.

There is not, at least I could not find, a single building of note in the
city except the principal and very ancient mosque,--a building in the
last degree of decay, but which must have formerly been adorned with a
handsome frontage. There is a very extensive but tumbling-down wall
around the city, and a wide moat, reminding one of a once strongly
fortified place.

To-day the greater portion of Yezd is in ruins. The water supply is
unfortunately very defective and irregular. There are no perennial
streams of any importance, and all the irrigation works are dependent on
artificial subterranean canals and kanats, and these in their turn are
mostly subject to the rain and snow fall on the hills sur