women of the castle, and the parasites were
provided with a constant change of abode.

Probably what astonished me most was to see a young damsel climb up a
tall tree in the best monkey fashion, with successively superposed arms
and legs stiff and straight, not round the tree, mind you, and using her
toes for the purpose with almost equal ease as her fingers.

The foot-gear of the men was interesting. They wore wooden-soled clogs,
held fast to the foot by a string between the big toe and the next, and
another band half way across the foot. Some of the men, however, wore
common shoes with wooden soles.

CHAPTER III

An abandoned caravanserai--Fantastic hill tops--No water--A most
impressive mountain--Sediments of salt--A dry river bed--Curious
imprints in the rock--A row--Intense heat--Accident to our supply
of eggs--The end of a meeting--Misleading maps--Haoz Panch--The
camel-man's bread--Lawah.

Again we left camp shortly before midnight, and ascended continually
between mountains until we reached a pass 7,250 ft. above the sea, after
which we came upon the abandoned caravanserai of Abid (pronounced Obit).
On descending, the way was between high vertical rocks, and then we found
ourselves among hills of most peculiar formation. The sun was about to
rise, and the fantastic hill-tops, in some places not unlike sharp teeth
of a gigantic saw, in others recalled Stonehenge and the pillar-like
remains of temples of Druids. In this case they were, of course, entirely
of natural formation. Although there was no water in the valley into
which we had descended, we camped here owing to the camels being very
tired, and I took the opportunity of climbing to a neighbouring hill
(6,300 ft.) in order to obtain a panoramic view of the surrounding
country.

To the South-East, whence we had come, were low and comparatively
well-rounded mountains with two narrow valleys separated by a
flat-topped, tortuous hill range. To the north-east of my camp was a high
and most impressive mountain, the upper portion of which appeared at
first almost of a basaltic formation, with vertical quadrangular columns,
while the lower portion of the mountain, evidently accumulated at a later
period, and slanting at an angle of 45 deg., displayed distinct strata of
light brown, a deep band of grey, then dark brown, light brown, a thin
layer of grey, and then a gradation of beautiful warm burnt sienna
colour, getting rich