rything. Only four cabbages out of
hundreds that were planted had survived, and these were carefully nursed
by Mrs. Benn for our Christmas dinner. Unluckily, on Christmas Eve a cow
entered the enclosure and made a meal of the lot!

Another garden is being started, but great difficulty is experienced in
making anything grow owing to the quantity of salt in the ground and the
terrific winds. Poplars have come up fairly well under shelter of a wall,
but no tree can hope to stand upright when it attains a height where the
wind can reach it. In fact, what few trees one sees about near
Sher-i-Nasrya are stooping southward in a pitiful manner.

The Consul's horses and those of the escort are kept out in the open.
They are tethered and left well wrapped up, wearing nearly double the
amount of covering to protect them from the heat during the hot summer
months that they do in winter, on the principle explained in previous
chapters. It is not possible to keep them in stables, owing to the
terrible white fly, which has a poisonous sting. When out in the open the
flies and mosquitoes are blown away by the wind.

It was satisfactory to find that, although the Government did not see its
way to furnish the Consulate with a wall for the protection of the Consul
and his wife, whose personal property was constantly being stolen, an
allowance was at once granted with instructions to build at once a high
wall all round the Consulate when one of the Government horses was
stolen!

This wall, a wonderful bit of work, was put up in a fortnight, while I
was in bed with fever, and on my getting up from bed I had the surprise
of finding the Consulate, which, when I had arrived, stood--a few lonely
buildings--in the middle of a sandy plain, now surrounded by a handsome
mud wall with a most elaborate castellated, fortress-like gate of Major
Benn's own design. The wall encloses a good many acres of land; it would
be rash to say how many! This has given rise among the natives to the
report that a new city is rising near Sher-i-Nasrya, called Trenchabad,
or Trench's city.

Major Benn is to be complimented on the wonderful work he succeeds in
getting done with comparatively little expenditure for the Government,
and there is no doubt that he manages to impress the natives and to keep
England's prestige high. He imported from Quetta a flagstaff, in pieces,
which when erected measured no less than 45 feet, and on this, the
highest flagstaff in Persi