1 8 By Mountain , Lake, and Plain 



vation of vines 1 and pomegranates. The walking 

 is one long struggle over deep ditches and alter- 

 nate ridges, all covered by a tangle of dry vine 

 trailers anything but the going one would 

 choose with a loaded gun in one's hand ! There 

 are also clumps of willows and patches of thorns, 

 the latter of a peculiarly penetrating viciousness. 

 Arrived at the end of each garden, we are con- 

 fronted by a wall, anything from five to ten 

 feet high, and often surmounted by a fringe of 

 thorn. This we have to negotiate somehow or 

 other, and as a score or more of these formidable 

 obstacles have to be crossed in a day's shooting, 

 we all lady included learnt to nip over them 

 with a facility that surprised ourselves. Doors 

 between the gardens certainly exist, but rarely, 

 it seemed, in the walls we wanted to cross. They 

 are, as a matter of fact, only adapted for private 

 use, as each one has a cunningly made bolt 

 actuated by inserting a hand in a hole in the 

 wall, the secret of which the owner keeps to 

 himself. 



The cover being thick, a lot of beaters were 

 necessary, but more always came than were 

 wanted; the chief difficulty in fact was to avoid 

 drawing to ourselves the entire population of 



1 There are, it is said, forty different kinds of grapes grown in 

 Seistan, but they only vary in degrees of sourness or insipidity. 



