A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistán

great white drifts barred the entrance-gates of the Consulate. About eight o'clock our host made his appearance, and, waking me from pleasant dreams of sunnier climes, tri

nd difficult pass, was blocked with snow, and the village

a journey fraught with cold, hunger, and privation, and take it easy for a few days, with plenty of food and drink, to say nothing of cigars, books, and newspapers, in the snug cosy rooms of the C

y be done on the Government post-roads, of which there are five: from Teherán to Résht, Tabriz, Meshéd, Kermán, and the Persian Gulf port, Bushire. These so-called roads are, however, often mere caravan-t

about twenty English miles; but the Persian farsakh is elastic, and we often rode more, at other times less, than we paid for. Travel is c

-horses have been sold for some vice which nothing but constant hard work will keep under. Kickers, rearers, jibbers, shyers, and stumblers are b

ifty miles a day after leaving Teherán, covering, on one occasion, over a hundred miles in a little over eleven hours. This is good work, considering the ponies

bout him. It was pitiful to see the poor wretch, with bare legs and feet, shivering and shaking in the cutting wind and snow. The ponies,

r setting out without saddle-bags crammed with good things: cold meat, sardines, cigarettes, a couple of

luck to you!"

ort thick wooden handle, and terminating in a flat leathern cracker of eight or ten inches. A cut from this would make an English horse jump out of his skin, but had little or no effect on

es, apple orchards, and garden-girt villas, half hidden by roses and jasmine. But this was hardly a day for admiring the beauties of nature. Once out of the suburbs and in the open country, nothing met the eye but a dreary wilderness of white earth and sullen grey sky, that boded ill for the f

was considered a very good one, and was much frequented by Europeans in summer-time-presumably, judging from the holes in the roof, for the sake of coolness. Let me here give the read

ey can find to eat, until Ger?me points out a large hole in the centre of the apartment. This affords an excellent view of the stables, ten or twelve feet below, admitting, at the same time, a pungent and overpowering odour of manure and ammonia. A smaller room, a kind of ante-chamber, leads out of this. As it is partly roofless, I seek, but in vain, for a door to shu

ead appears at the window. There are only two horses available for the next stage, but a third has been sent for from a neighbouring village, and will shortly arrive. As

of the morning, luckily, for the stage is a long one, and we have a

or sixty camels and half a dozen men. The latter exchange a cheery "Good night" with my guide. Slowly the ungainly, heavily laden beasts file past us, gaunt and spectral in the twilight, the bells die away on the sti

ass appears, completely barring the pathway, on the white snow. Closer inspection reveals a dead camel, abandoned, doubtless, by the caravan we have just passed, for the carcase is yet warm. With considerable difficulty, but aided by the hard slippery groun

ool of liquid mud, from which I was, with some difficulty, extricated wet through and chilled to the bone. The discomfort

he black, ill-smelling mud had penetrated to the innermost recesses of my saddle-bags, which did not tend to improve the flavour of the biscuits and chocolate that consti

dry my clothes, a somewhat uncomfortable process, as it entailed my remaining three-parts naked for half the night in an atmosphere very little above

ly light in the place, shone out of the darkness. The poor fellow was so stiff and numbed with fatigue and cold that I had to lift him off his horse and carry him into the post-house. He was a sorry object, but I could not

him, with strict injunctions to take it outside, beat it well with a stick, and bring it back to me to brush. In the mean time, we busied ourselves with breakfast and a cup of

tands in the centre of a plateau, bounded on the south-west by a chain of precipitous mountains. The country around is fertile and productive, being well watered by the Sefid Roud (White River). Rice is largely grown, but

is throat, shake him till he yelled for mercy. Nothing but a thick stick has the slightest effect upon the Shah's subjects; and I was, for a moment, sorely tempted to use mine. The reader must own that I should have been justified. It was surely enough to try the patience of a saint, for the old imbecile

matter, for it was frozen as stiff as a board. "It will make a better riding-jacket now," said Ger?me, consolingl

lmon-fishing. About six miles from Rustemabad is a spot called by the natives the "Castle of the Winds," on account of the high winds that, even in the calmest weather, prevail there. Although, out on the plain, there was a scarcely perceptible

summer and winter, increasing in force till sunset, when they abate, to rise again the following dawn. On some occasions horses

rove of olive trees, lay the pretty village, with its white picturesque houses and narrow streets shaded by gaily striped awnings. It was like a transformation-scene, this sudden change from winter, with its grey sky and cold icy blast, to the sunny stillness an

l of food at Menjil while t

gerous wound. It is only found in certain districts, and rarely met with south of Teherán. The virus has been known, in some cases, to bring on typhoid fever, and one European is sai