koob adam.”  In this brief interchange of disconnected Persian the khan has asked me whether the sowars have stolen money from me, and I have answered that they have not, but that, on the contrary, they are most excellent men, both “trustie and true.”  May the recording angel enter my answer down with a recommendation for mercy!  During this examination the little busby-wearer stands and closely scrutinizes the changeful countenances of the accused.  He thoroughly understands that I am mercifully shielding them from what he considers their just deserts, and he chips in a word occasionally to Aminulah Khan, aside, like a sharp lawyer watching the progress of a cross-examination.  The chief himself, though ostensibly accepting my statement, has his own suspicions to the same purpose, and before dismissing them he shakes his finger menacingly at the sowars and significantly touches the hilt of his sword.  The three culprits look guilty enough to satisfy the most merciful of judges, but, relying on my operation to shield them, they stoutly maintain their innocence.

Some little delay occurs about starting for Furrah, my next objective point on the road to India; the khan explains that all of his sowars have been sent off to help garrison Herat; that the best he can provide in the form of a mounted escort is an elderly little man whom he points out, with an evident doubt as to my probable appreciation.

The man looks more like a Persian than an Afghan, which he probably is, as the population of these borderland districts is much mixed.  Nothing would have pleased me better than to have had Aminulah Khan bid me go ahead without any escort whatever, but next to nobody at all, the most satisfactory arrangement is the harmless-looking old fellow in the Persian lamb’s-wool hat.  Telling him that he has done well in sending his sowars to Herat, and that the old fellow will answer very well as guide, I prepare to take my departure.  My guide disappears, and shortly returns mounted on a powerful and spirited gray.  Aminulah Khan gives him a letter, and after mutual salaams, and “good ahfis,” the old sowar leads the way at a pace which shows him to be filled with exaggerated ideas about my speediness.

Irrigating ditches and fields characterize the way for some few miles, after which we emerge upon a level desert whose hard gravel surface is ridable in any direction without regard to beaten trails.  Numerous lizards of a peculiar spotted variety are observed scuttling about on this gravelly plain as we ride along.  The sun grows hot, but the way is level and smooth, and about ten o’clock we arrive at the oasis of Mahmoudabad, five farsakhs from Ghalakua.  Mahmoudabad consists of a few mud dwellings surrounded by a strong wall, and a number of tents.  Water is brought in a ditch from some distant source, and my faculty of astonishment is once again assailed by the sight of flourishing little patches of “Windsor beans.”  This is the first growth of these particular legumes that have come beneath my notice in Asia; dropping on them in the little oasis of Mahmoudabad is something of a surprise, to say the least.