The day’s march is long and dreary, through a country of desert wastes and stony hills.  The only human habitation seen is a small cluster of tents near some wells of water.  The people seem overjoyed at the sight of travellers, and come running to the road with their kammerbunds full of little hard balls of sun-dried mast.  We fill our pockets with these and nibble and chew them as we ride along.  They are pleasantly sour, containing great thirst-quemhing properties, as well as being very nourishing.

The sun goes down and dusk settles over our trail, and still the chief of the sowars and Kiftan Sahib lead the way.  Many of the horses are pretty badly fagged, they have had nothing to eat all day and next to nothing to drink, and the party are straggling along the trail for a couple of miles back.  At length lights are observed twinkling in the darkness ahead.  Half an hour later we dismount in a nomad camp, and one after another the remainder of the party come straggling in, some of them leading their horses.  Both men and animals are well-nigh overcome with fatigue.

The shrill neighing of the ferocious and spirited black stallion is heard as he approaches and realizes that he is coming into camp; he is a glorious specimen of a horse, neither hunger nor thirst can curb his spirit.  He is carrying far the heaviest load of the party, yet he comes into camp at ten o’clock, after hustling along over stones and sand since before daylight, without food or water; neighing loudly and ready to fight all the horses within reach.  The chief of the sowars goes out to superintend the unloading of the black stallion; and soon I hear him addressing the negro in angry tones, supplementing his reproachful words with several resounding blows of his riding-whip.  The wild darkey’s disapproval of these proceedings finds expression in a roar of pain and fear that would do justice to a yearling bull being dragged into the shambles.

The cause of this turmoil shortly turns up in the shape of my wheel, with no less than eleven spokes broken, and the rim considerably twisted out of shape.  Kiftan Sahib surveys ’the damaged wheel a moment, draws his own rawhide from his kammerbund, and rises to his feet.  With a hoarse cry of alarm the negro vanishes into the surrounding gloom; the next moment is heard his eager chuckling laugh, the spontaneous result of his lucky escape from Kiftan Sahib’s vengeful rawhide.  Kiftan Sahib keeps a desultory lookout for him all the evening, but the wary negro is more eagerly watchful than he, and during supper-time he hovers perpetually about the encircling wall of darkness, ready to vanish into its impenetrable depths at the first aggressive demonstration.

The explanation of the negro is that the black horse laid down with his load.  The wheel presents a well-nigh ruined appearance, and I retire to my couch in a most unenviable frame of mind; lying awake for hours, pondering over the probability of being able to fix it up again at Herat.