ofter matter having been enclosed in
the rock and having gradually disappeared, and also a perfect cast of a
large tibia bone. On other rocks were footprints of large animals,
evidently made when the lava was soft.

On returning to camp I found a general row going on between Sadek and the
camel men--my own and those of the other caravan who had asked permission
to travel with me. There was no water at this camp, and only salt water
could be procured in small quantities some distance away. The intense
heat had played havoc with some of my fresh provisions, and we
unfortunately had an accident to the load of eggs which were all
destroyed. A great many of the chickens, too, had gone bad, and we were
running rather short of fresh food. The caravan men said that it was
impossible to go on, because, this being such a dry year, even the few
brackish wells across the desert would be dry, and they refused to come
on.

The greater part of the evening was spent in arguing--everybody except
myself shouting himself hoarse. At midnight, the usual hour of our
departure, the camel men refused to pack the loads and continue across
the desert. At 1 a.m. they were preparing to leave me to return to
Kerman. At 1.30, my patience being on the verge of being exhausted, they
most of them received a good pounding with the butt of my rifle. At 1.45,
they having come back to their senses, I duly entertained each of them to
a cup of tea, brewed with what salt water we had got, on a fire of camel
dung, and at 2 a.m. we proceeded on our course as quietly as possible as
if nothing had happened.

We still followed the dry river bed among hills getting lower and lower
for about three miles on either side of us, and at last we entered a vast
plain. We went N.N.W. for some twelve miles, when by the side of some low
hillocks of sand and pebbles we came upon a caravanserai, and an older
and smaller structure, a large covered tank of rain water (almost empty)
which is conveyed here from the hills twelve miles off by means of a
small canal.

To the S.S.E. we could still see the flat-topped mountain under which we
had camped the previous day, and all around us were distant mountains.
The flat plain stretching for miles on every side had deep grooves cut
into it by water flowing down from the mountain-side during the
torrential rains and eventually losing themselves in the sand.

On the English and some of the German maps these dry grooves are marked
as