At daybreak on the morning of departure the charvadars wake us up by pounding on the outer gate and shouting “hadji” to Abdul Abdul lets them in, and the next hour passes in violent and wordy disputation among them as they load up their horses.

All three have purchased new Asterabad hats, big black busbies much prized by Persians from beyond the mountains.  The acquisition of these imposing head-dresses has had the effect of increasing their self-esteem wonderfully.  They regard each other with considerable hauteur, and quarrel almost continually for the first few miles.  E puts up with their angry shouting and quarrelling for awhile, and then chases them around a little with the long hunting whip he carries.  This brings them to their senses again, and secures a degree of peace; but the inflating effect of the new hats crops out at intervals all day.

Our road from Asterabad leads through jungle nearly the whole distance to Bunder Guz.  In the woods are clearings consisting of rice-fields, orchards, and villages.  The villages are picturesque clusters of wattle houses with peaked thatch roofs that descend to within a few feet of the ground.  Groves of English walnut-trees abound, and plenty of these trees are also scattered through the jungle.

During the day we encounter a gang of professional native hunters hunting wild boars, of which these woods contain plenty, as well as tigers and panthers.  They are a wild-looking crowd, with long hair, and sleeves rolled up to their elbows.  Big knives are bristling in their kammerbunds, besides which they are armed with spears and flint-lock muskets.  They make a great deal of noise, shouting and hallooing one to another; one can tell when they are on a hot trail by the amount of noise they make, just as you can with a pack of hounds.

We reach our destination by the middle of the afternoon, and find the place a wretched village, right on the shore of the Caspian.  We repair to the caravanserai, but find the rooms so evil-smelling that we decide upon camping out and risking the fever rather than court acquaintance with possible cholera, providing no better place can be found elsewhere.  This serai is a curious place, anyway.  All sorts of people, some of them so peculiarly dressed that none of our party are able to make out their character or nationality.  A dervish is exhorting a crowd of interested listeners at one end of the court-yard, and a strolling band of lutis are entertaining an audience at the other end.  There are six of these lutis; while two are performing, four are circulating among the crowd collecting money.  In any other country but Persia, five would have been playing and one passing the hat.