ravelling at a great pace. Two men on other camels were
despatched after them, and we had to resign ourselves to a delay of
another day.

Curiously enough, there was a sudden change in the temperature, and the
thermometer in the sun only registered 105 deg., which made us feel quite
chilly after the 140 deg. and 150 deg. of previous days. Our camp was at an
altitude of 3,810 ft. (at the foot of the Naiband Mountain).

Sadek took the opportunity of the delay to set everything tidy, and we
had a great washing day. He sent for a barber in the village to trim his
hair and beard. The Naiband Figaro was an extraordinary creature, a most
bare-faced rascal, who had plenty to say for himself, and whose peculiar
ways and roaming eyes made us conceal away out of his sight all small
articles, for fear that he should walk away with them. He carried all
the tools of his trade around his waist in a belt, and ground his razor
first on a stone which he licked with his tongue, then using his bare
arms and legs for stropping purposes, as snapshotted in the accompanying
photograph.

The camel men--on whom he was first requested to experiment--he shaved,
splashing their faces with salt water during the process, but Sadek, the
next victim, produced a cake of soap with which he luxuriously lathered
his own face, and which the barber scraped gradually from the chin and
cheeks and every now and then deposited the razor's wipings on his
patient's head.

We were able to buy some fresh water skins, and this time they were
really water tight. The natives, naturally, took every advantage of us in
the bargains, but we were able to purchase a lot of fresh provisions,
which we needed badly, and men and beasts felt none the worse for our
compulsory halt.

In the middle of the second night we were waked up by some distant
grunts, and the camel men jumped up in great glee as they had recognised
the beloved voices of some of their strayed camels. A few minutes later,
in fact, the whole eleven were brought back by the two men who had gone
in search of them. They had found them some twenty miles off.

From Lawah to Naiband we had come practically due north, but from this
camp to Birjand the way lay due east for the first portion of the
journey. At 160 deg. b.m. (S.S.E.) in the desert rose a high mountain.

We had everything ready for our departure, but the camel men were in a
dreadful state as some villager had told them that the news had spread
that