142 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



Persian marches are always very long, twenty 

 to thirty-five miles, or even more, and towards 

 the end of these longer stages there is a mental 

 and physical yearning for the arrival in camp. 

 I remember one such evening we had been 

 travelling over the dreary country that lies be- 

 tween Seistan and the hills ; our outlook through 

 the day the horizonless plain, our only land- 

 mark, the Koh-i-Kwaja, floating to our right 

 in the air like a monstrous flattened balloon. 

 About the time the sun went down, a red ball 

 of smoky flame in the dust -laden air, we lost 

 the track of our advance party, and found 

 ourselves on soft ground that a little time 

 previously had been under Hamun water. The 

 mules began to labour, and the takht-i-rawan, 1 in 

 which the children travelled, had to be taken off 

 their backs. We too had to dismount and lead 

 our riding camels. The guides were at sea, for 

 not even the most experienced can always predict 

 the state of the shora area that surrounds the 



1 The takht-i-rawan, a kind of mule litter, is a most excellent 

 form of conveyance for those who cannot ride. In these days it 

 has become unfashionable among Persians, the reason for which 

 one appreciates when one sees a whole family with bag and baggage 

 stowed into kajawas slung on either side a single mule. The takht 

 of course requires two mules. Persians are economical people, and 

 their ideas of what a mule can carry are elastic. 



