a day, and so arranged our marches as to arrive, if possible, on the same day at Bushire. The day fixed for our leaving was the 25th May. By eight o'clock on that morning carpets were rolled up and stowed away, saddle-bags were packed, and the tea-kettle the most indispensable of your travelling-kit in Persia, always the last thing left out, and the first thing unpackedwas finally tied upon the last muleload. The gholaum, solemnly muttering a Bismillah, led the way through the gate; we followed in a cloud of dust, the servants on their horses, and the mules with their muleteers clattering after us. You might have seen that every horse's tail was ornamented with a small turquoise-coloured bead. I observed that my own especial favourite riding-horse carried one also in his mane. Some dozen or so of hairs were passed through the bead, then turned back, and thus securely fastened. Now, if it had come to pass that any old woman, even granting she were the ugliest and most malicious of her sex, had looked upon us as we rode forth, the glance of her evil eye would have been turned off from us by these turquoise-coloured beads as effectually as is the dagger-point by the steel cuirass. So at least my groom told me, when I asked him one day what was the meaning of these ornaments. This said groom was a singularly silent, gloomy-looking individual. He had his own peculiar way of doing everything. Any remonstrance of mine against his odd fancies I found of not the slightest avail. What I thought was a strange whim of his, was the saving up the blood of a hare that had been shot. Hares are very scarce in Persia, but now and then I did manage to shoot one on the line of march. Whenever this happened, my groom looked upon it as a most auspicious event. It was one of the few occasions on which he really appeared pleased. With a grim smile of joy he would instantly fasten upon the hare, and,

drawing forth a little leathern case, which I believe he kept expressly for the purpose, he would most scrupulously treasure up in it every drop of blood that was obtainable. The first time I saw him thus engaged I felt. curious to know for what purpose he was taking such infinite trouble. He informed me, with an air of mystery, that the blood of a hare, sprinkled on the barley that was given in the evening to a horse, would greatly increase his courage, and add much to his powers of endurance. On several occasions I tried to persuade him that, in my humble opinion, such a belief was founded on error; but I never succeeded in shaking his faith one bit. Another fancy of his was that my horse should wear an ornament in the shape of a leathern collar bedecked with silver, and with some verses of the blessed Koran sewn inside of it: this, he declared, would most assuredly keep the horse fat, and drive off all manner of diseases. As such an ornament was much at variance with my own ideas as to what was proper, I told him that really I could not hear of such a thing; and after much remonstrance on his part, I finally triumphed. But I believe this was the only single instance in which I persuaded him to let me do as I wished regarding my own horses.

We were in the saddle, as I said before, by eight o'clock, a much later hour than is usual for the morning start in Persia. But we proposed making only a short march that day, and the mid-day heat we were to pass at the house of a Swedish doctor, the only European resident at Shiraz. Oddly enough, my companion, after having travelled over for the last two years Southern Europe, Asia Minor, and Persia, met his first fellow-countryman at Shiraz. What the doctor's name was I forget, but his history, in a few words, was this: He had been thirteen years in Persia. He had left his own country when quite a lad, and had wandered through

Turkey and Persia. Having been brought up for the medical profession, he was eventually attached as a doctor to the Persian army, and he had served with it in that capacity the greater part of his sojourn in the country. His house was situated in the opposite quarter of the town to that in which we were, so to reach it we had to make our way through the crowded bazaars. The gholaum rode in front of the party. With the zeal of new office, he rained down blows upon the heads and shoulders of the unoffending crowd in a manner that was truly startling to witness. He carried a long hazel wand for the express purpose, and he used it like a fiend. At the same time he poured forth upon them a torrent of abuse. "Whose dogs are you, to stand in the road of the favoured guests of the Prince?" Rah bideh!"-"Give way;" "Your father's graves are defiled;" "Your mothers are burnt." And with every downward blow, he roared out a "goorumsauk," a word it is best to leave untranslated, as it sounds far more sonorous in the Persian than in the English language. As our knees and our horses' chests pushed a road through the sea of heads, I observed an old wizen-faced man with a long grey beard. From the make of his clothes, and his dark face, I saw at once he was a native of India. He had perched himself on the ledge of a stall of the bazaar. As we approached, he defiantly slapped his breast, and shrieked out in Hindustani that he had just arrived from Lucknow, and that he had seen the English, men, women, and children, slaughtered there, and lying dead in heaps; that the streets were a guz deep with their accursed blood. He wore the green turban, proclaiming him to be a Syud, a descendant of the Prophet. The gholaum, probably on this account, and also that he did not understand a word that was said, did not favour the old villain with the stick, which I inwardly prayed he

would do. The doctor, arrayed in his Persian costume, received us with great civility at his gate. Two or three of our servants were admitted with us; the rest, with the mules, went off to a neighbouring caravanserai. A Persian breakfast, with its dishes swimming in grease and smothered in onions, followed by trays of fruits and sweetmeats of various kinds, was the entertainment provided us by our host. This Homeric abundance, with its accompanying pipes, gave us steady occupation for at least two hours. The doctor produced some Shiraz wine of his own make it was the veriest vin ordinaire I ever drank. However, we drank it with a fortitude that was worthy of a better reward than the anguish and torment which subsequently we were fated to endure. How bitterly we repented us of our civility! Our host was married to a young Armenian lady, but as he had quite adopted the manners and customs of the country in which he had so long sojourned, we were not graced with her presence; but from the opening and shutting of the venetians of a window on the opposite side of the yard, and from a cloud of white drapery that was dimly discernible through them, I strongly suspected that the light of the good doctor's harem was there watching with curiosity the movements and appetites of the strangers.

As the sun dipped towards the naked rocky hills that bound the valley on the west, we prepared for a start. Our good host, wishing to see the last of us, insisted upon riding out of the city with us. He amused us by speaking of his experience with the Persian army when on service. He said the men were good enough, and of such wonderful endurance and obedience that under good officers they would do anything. He informed us that he was the only European with the Persian forces when they made their night attack on Sir

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James Outram's force at Boorasjoon; indeed, he gave us to understand that he planned and led the attack himself; and if it had not been for ces coquins d'officiers qui ne se battent jamais," as he said, and who ran at the first fire of our troops, we should have suffered considerably.

On our dismounting to take leave of the hospitable doctor, he produced a flat-shaped bottle which he had carried, stowed away in one of his saddle-bags. He declared that our finishing the contents of it between the three of us, before we shook hands to say good-bye, would give him infinite pleasure. Indeed, he seemed to think that friends could not part in any orthodox way but this. The bottle contained, as I found out afterwards to my cost, arrack, and very strong arrack into the bargain. One sip, which I took in the spirit of good fellowship, sent the tears gushing into my eyes, and I lay gasping on the ground, like a trout on a river's bank. The two Swedes drank it like so much water. At length, after many protestations of mutual friendship, we bid the good doctor a final adieu. He returned to his Persian home; we turned our horses' heads towards the village where we purposed remaining for the night. The road led through a well-cultivated plain, and heavy golden crops of the bearded wheat waved like a sunlit ocean in the evening breeze. To the right we could see the long lines of the Mesjid-i-Verdeh gardens, sweeping close up to the base of the mountains that bound the valley on the northern side. We rode about four miles to the village of Koosan, a small place of about one hundred houses. There was no caravanserai, so the gholaum, who had ridden on in front, had prepared for our occupation a small house at the corner of the village. The inhabitants had, as a matter of course, been summarily ejected. We found the family huddled up together on a house-top adjoining. Poor people! they were evidently under the apprehension

that we should appropriate, or otherwise dispose of, the household gods and provisions, which were all scattered about in the rooms and yards, just as they had left them; for they had been ordered to decamp at a moment's notice by the ruthless gholaum. The Reesh-Suffeed, the greybeard of the family, at length came forward. In trembling accents he told us that their house and all it contained were at our entire disposal, and that he himself was our humble slave. We assured the old gentleman that our servants would not be allowed to touch anything in the house; and, presenting him with a few silver pieces, he went away quite contented. We were on the point of sitting down to our hardboiled eggs and cold fowl, when the sound of a horse galloping attracted our attention. We were on the flat terrace on the top of the house. Thence we could see a horseman galloping as if for dear life. He was approaching us from the direction of Shiraz, leaving a long line of dust behind him. He pulled up immediately in front of our door. The Pardoner, who had subsided into rather a secondary position in the presence of the all-commanding gholaum, took advantage of his momentary absence to assume the questioning of the stranger. rushed out of the gate, and, seizing the horseman by the knee, commenced eagerly to question him. "In the name of the Prophet, whence come you?" "Has the Prime Minister had the stick?" Or, "Has the 'Antelope' (the reigning monarch's favourite wife, so called) born a son and heir into the world, that you ride in such desperate haste?" The horseman threw himself out of the saddle; and, being anxious to keep up a few minutes longer the curiosity which his arrival was evidently exciting amongst our servants, he could only prevail upon himself to answer to their eager inquiries, that "God was the only God, and that Mohammed was his Prophet." At length he opened his saddle-bags, and brought

He

forth two closed metal dishes. Then, seeing that our eyes were upon him, he threw himself down upon the ground; and, with an eye to future "bucksheesh," he put on the appearance of a man quite overcome with his exertions. The dishes were a present from the kind doctor. One contained a baked fowl, hidden in rice and raisins, still smoking hot; the other a pasanjan, the chef-d'œuvre of the Persian cuisine, the secret of which, like Philippe's "Crameuski à la Polonaise," is beyond the ken of non-culinary mortals. Whilst we were at dinner, little ragged rosy - faced children came tripping along the neighbouring house-tops, and took up points of observation near us. Beyond them were groups of veiled women, whispering together, and peering curiously at us through their thick white veils.

We passed the first few hours of darkness in convulsed but futile attempts to sleep. The floor seemed to be alive: we found to our cost-at least I found to mine, for I believe the Swede slept as soundly as ever he did that there were other inhabitants of the house besides the family of the old greybeard.

May 26th.-We were in the saddle some hours before daybreak. My companion the Swede was bent on an early start this morning, and I was only too anxious to bid adieu to my lively and tenacious friends of the night. The Swede had a wonderfully persuasive way of his own of rousing the muleteers from their slumbers, and of getting them to work in packing away the loads. No matter how long the day's march had been, or how short the night's rest, he was always brisk and lively at the hour agreed upon for getting up. He had a most enviable way of jumping at once into the full possession of his faculties, and of his trousers and boots. With him it appeared to be all the work of a moment. There was no moody silence, no general obfuscation of the intellect, with its accompanying crossness and irritability. He was no

sooner on his legs-which in some mysterious manner made their appearance already booted and breeched-than he would spring towards a great bundle of felt cloths, carpets, saddles, and et ceteras, and with an accompaniment of sacrés, would dance a double-shuffle upon and around it. The great mass would instinctively heave at his approach, and then shape itself into servants and muleteers. The Swede, ever active, would blow up the embers of last night's fire, and wave the little black coffee-pot over them, in a manner that suggested the idea of a petite tasse being ready before we started. A cold bright moon was shining, and by its light we could make out on our left the jagged scarped summit of the Moolleh-Sirdeh Mountain. The road ascended across a stony plain, and led us, just as day was breaking, to a ruined caravanserai called Kinaradgah. Around this the hills closed in abruptly. Below was a brawling mountain-torrent, which we crossed by a ruined bridge. There was no sound or appearance of human or animal life, and the bare hills around and the ruins formed a dreary and desolate scene. Through the dim light of the morning we took our last view of the valley of Shiraz, and then commenced a long tiresome ascent. It took us about two hours to get to the top of this, and then we found ourselves overlooking a hilly broken country, well covered in the hollows with bush and shrub, principally the thorny mimosa. At a distance of about twenty-two miles we approached a fine stream of water with a broad jungly bed. This, we were told, was the Karahautch river. The road kept along the left bank of it till we arrived at Khanazeneeoon. The village consisted of about a dozen rude miserable hovels; the caravanserai we found completely in ruins. Provisions were scarce; but the gholaum's threats and the Pardoner's krans-a silver piece worth about 10d.-made some bread and some bruised barley-straw to appear. There were some patches

of cultivation near the village; and judging from the backwardness of the crops, and the crispness and chilliness of the morning air, I should say this place was at least one thousand feet higher than Shiraz. There was no great heat in the middle of the day, as we had experienced during our stay at Shiraz. In the evening a man rode up to the serai, and was very anxious to persuade us to allow him to be our guide to the ruins of Shahpoor. The stranger was a square-built powerful man, and from his dress we supposed he belonged to some Eliaut tribe. His beard was dyed a bright red, and this, added to a treacherous thievish eye, did not altogether give him the appearance of a man whose services one would be anxious to enlist as a guide in a lone desert place, as the ruins of Shahpoor were described to be. The ruins were still three marches distant, so we gave "Red Beard" to understand that there was plenty of time to consider the matter, and that at Kauzeroon we should determine whether we would visit the ruins or not, this being still an open question, as they lay some distance off our direct road. Red Beard and the gholaum then had an argument as to the distance of the ruins from our road. The gholaum was as anxious that we should not go as Red Beard that we should. One said the distance was only a "meidanee asp"-a few minutes' gallop; the other vowed it was at least two days' march. In the heat of the argument they called each other some horrible names, and Red Beard fingered his dagger in a manner truly ominous. However, he finally withdrew; and when he was safe out of hearing, the gholaum waxed bold as a lion, and informed us that the stranger belonged to a tribe of plundering Eliauts who had lately occupied the pastures around the ruins. These Eliauts, he said, would watch their opportunity, and, should we visit the ruins, they would attack us, and most inevitably cut our

throats. Whether the gholaum was right in his suppositions, or whether it was merely with a view to keep us on the straight road, and so give himself and his horse less to do, I know not. Red Beard, except to untie his horse from the gate of the serai, never appeared to us again. We saw the last of him as he jogged quietly away over the hills, in the golden light of the setting sun.

27th. We had a march of twentythree miles before us, so we were in the saddle by 3 A.M. The gholaum had warned us the evening before that this was a march of some danger, as it lay through a lonely uninhabited country. It was only after considerable remonstrance on his part that he would consent to start so many hours before daybreak. He declared that, if he did start so early, we took all responsibility on our own shoulders. The Swede consoled him with the reflection, that if anything did go wrong, the first shot fired by us would be at his (the gholaum's) head. To make our party as formidable in numbers as possible, some dozen or so kecheeckchees or guards from the village were hired. These were to accompany us for the first twelve miles of our march, as this was considered the portion of it on which we were most liable to attack. As day broke we forded the Kharahautch river. The increasing light showed us the persons of our guards, whom as yet we had only heard pattering along through the darkness by our horses' sides. There were about a dozen of them, wildlooking fellows, with close-fitting felt caps stuck on the top of their matted locks. They were all armed with a long matchlock, a pistol, and a sabre each. Their clothes, for the most part, hung in rags over their large brawny frames. With a sort of coarse sandal on their feet, they strode sturdily along over the stony road. As long as the darkness had hid surrounding objects from our view, our servants had ridden along in silence. If they did venture