Ibex 5 i 



that for seven years his arms were held in 

 check. 



From the south end of the lake a thin white 

 tentacle straggles out and meanders southward, 

 then upward towards the horizon, where it is 

 lost in the salt marsh of Zirreh, a faint splash 

 of shivering white in the purple mist. The 

 whole prospect is one of utter and hideous 

 desolation. From the rock bracket overhanging 

 space on which you are sitting, you notice 

 that the edge of the table hill is cracked and 

 fissured and its stone walls carved and pot- 

 holed. In the forefront towers a rounded but- 

 tress, whose holes and hollows are so distributed 

 as to present from a little distance the semblance 

 of a gigantic human skull, whose hollow orbits 

 look out over the desert towards Seistan. On 

 what transformations has that grim figure looked 

 down ! Instead of a desert of wind-driven sand, 

 once a sea thundered against the rocks below. As 

 the ages pass the waters dry up, recede, and give 

 place to a fertile plain with habitations of men. 

 Cities rise and crumble into dust. It is the golden 

 age of Persia's heroes. But a strange blight is 

 creeping over the face of the earth. Lakes and 

 rivers shrink and disappear, and grassy plain fades 

 into sandy wilderness. The land is in the grip 



