Below the rocky paths of this declivity the snow disappears in favor of slippery mud, and the hadji’s wearied charger slips and slides about, to the imminent danger of its rider’s neck; and all the time the slim Turkoman! steed trembles visibly in terror of the old Mazanderan dervish’s whip and his awful threats.  Two miles down the bed of the stream, crossing and recrossing it a dozen times, often thigh-deep, and we emerge upon the gently sloping area of the Meshed Plain, with the yellow beacon-light of Meshed glowing in the mellow light of the evening sun six miles away.

The late storm has been chiefly rain in the lower altitude of the plain, and the day’s sunshine has partially dried the surface, but leaving it slippery and treacherous here and there.  After leaving the bed of the stream the hadji becomes anxious about reaching Meshed before dark, and advises me to mount and put on the speed.

“Inshallah, Meshed yek saat,” he says, and so I mount and bid him follow along behind.  By vocal suasion and a liberal application of his cruel, triple-thonged, raw-hide whip, he urges his well-nigh staggering animal into a canter, lifting his forefeet clear of the ground seemingly by the bridle at every jump.  Suspicious as to his lank and angular steed’s sure-footedness under the strain, I take the very laudable precaution of keeping as far from him as possible, not caring to get mixed up in a catastrophe that seems inevitable every time the horse, goaded by the stinging stimulus of the whip and the threats, makes another jump.  Not more than a mile of the six is covered when I have ample reason for congratulating myself on taking this precaution, for the horse stumbles, and, being too far gone to recover himself, comes down on his nose, and the “hadji and Mazanderau dervish” is cutting a most ridiculous figure in the mud.  His tall lambskin hat flies off and lands in a pool of muddy water some distance ahead; the ponderous saddle-bags, which are merely laid on the saddle, shoot forward athwart the horse’s neck, the horse’s nose roots quite a furrow in the road, and the horse’s owner picks himself up and takes a woeful survey of his own figure.  It is needless to say that the survey includes a good deal more real estate than the hadji cares to claim, even though it be the semi-sacred soil of the Meshed Plain.

The poor horse is altogether too tired to attempt to recover his legs of his own inclination; but, regarding him as the author of his ignominious misadventure, the hadji surveys him with a wrathful eye for a moment, mutters a few awful imprecations—­imported, no doubt, from Mazanderan—­and then attacks him savagely about the head with the whip.  In his wrath and determination to make a lasting impression of each blow given, the hadji emphasizes each visitation with a very audible grunt; and, to speak correctly, so does the horse.  It goes without saying, however, that master and animal grunt from widely different motives; although, so far as the mere audible performance is concerned, one grunt might almost be an echo of the other.