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 shut out the icy cold blast.  Further search in the guest-room reveals six large windows, or rather holes, for there are no shutters, much less window-panes.  It is colder here, if anything, than outside, for the draughts are always at once; but we must in Persia be thankful for small mercies.  There is a chimney, in which a good log fire, kindled by Gerome, is soon blazing.

Lunch and a nip of the colonel’s vodka work wonders, and we are beginning to think, over a “papirosh,” that Persia is not such a bad place after all, when the Shagird’s head 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 night is falling fast, I set out with the Shagird for the next station, Rustemabad, leaving Gerome, who has already travelled the road and knows it well, to follow alone.

It is still snowing fast, but my mount is a great improvement on that of the morning, luckily, for the stage is a long one, and we have a stiff mountain to climb before reaching our destination for the night.

We ride for three hours, slowly and silently, over a plain knee-deep in snow.  About half-way across a tinkle of bells is heard, clear and musical, in the distance.  Presently a large caravan looms out of the dusk—­fifty 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 still wintry air, and we are again alone on the desolate plain—­not a sign of life, not a sound to be heard, but the crunching of snow under our horses’ feet, and the occasional pistol-like crack of my guide’s heavy whip.

It is almost dark when we commence the ascent of the mountain on the far side of which lies Rustemabad.  The path is rough and narrow, and in places hewn out of the solid rock.  Towards the summit, where a slip or false step would be fatal, a dark shapeless mass 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 ground, we drag it to the brink of the precipice, and send it crashing down through bush and briar, to fall with a loud splash into a foaming torrent far below.  During this performance one of the ponies gets loose, and half an hour is lost in catching him again.

So the journey wore on.  Half-way down on the other side of the mountain, my pony stumbled and shot me head first into a pool of liquid mud, from which I was, with some difficulty, extricated wet through and chilled to the bone.  The discomfort was bad enough, but, worse still, my sable pelisse, the valuable gift of a Russian friend, was, I feared, utterly ruined.