ent the greater part of the day in orgies with their
friends, when, what with opium smoking and what with being stuffed with
food and saturated with gallons of tea, they are dead tired.

Abortion seldom occurs naturally, and is never artificially procured,
owing to the local laws. Women do not experience any difficulty during
labour and operations are unheard of.

The umbilicus of children, here, too, as in Western Persia, is tied at
birth in two or three places with a common string, and the remainder cut
with a pair of scissors or a knife. A mid-wife, called _daya_, is
requested to perform this operation. Abnormalities of any kind are
extremely uncommon.

CHAPTER XX

Laid up with fever--Christmas Day--A visit to the
Amir--Hashmat-ul-Mulk--An ancient city over eighty miles
long--Extreme civility of Persian officials--An unusual
compliment--Prisoners--Personal revenge--"An eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth"--Punishments and
crime--Fines--Bastinado--Disfigurement--Imprisonment--Blowing
criminals from a gun--Strangling and decapitation.

It was my intention to remain in Sistan only four or five days, but
unluckily my fever got so bad--temperature above 104 deg.--that,
notwithstanding my desire to continue the journey, Major Benn most kindly
would not allow me. I was placed in bed where, covered up with every
available blanket, I remained close upon three weeks. The tender care of
Major and Mrs. Benn, to whom my gratitude cannot be expressed in words,
the skilful treatment of Dr. Golam Jelami, the Consulate doctor,--not to
speak of the unstinted doses of quinine, phenacetin, castor-oil, and
other such delightful fare, to which may also be added some gallons of
the really delicious water of the Halmund river,--at last told upon me
and eventually, after twenty-one days of sweating I began to pull up
again and was able to get up.

The fever was shaken off altogether, but strange to say, whether it was
that I was unaccustomed to medicine, or whether it was due to the
counter-effects of the violent fever, my temperature suddenly went down
and remained for several months varying from two to three degrees below
normal. Medical men tell me that this should mean physical collapse, but
on this point I can only say that I have never in my life felt stronger
nor better.

I was just out of bed on Christmas Day, when the Consulate was decorated
with flags, and Major Benn in his unifor