148 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



a moment a voice lifted in song; then they are 

 gone, swallowed up in the darkness, and the music 

 recedes. Perhaps you drop asleep, but if you 

 wake again an hour later, the faint sweet murmur 

 of the bells is still stealing over the waste. 



The traveller in Persia will do well to stick to 

 his tents. Caravan-sarais exist at practically 

 every stage on every main trade-road, but weather 

 conditions would have to be bad indeed for tents 

 not to be preferable. Of course you may be 

 travelling post-haste, without tents, and in such 

 circumstances you cannot help yourself. Most 

 sarais have pretentious exteriors, but they afford 

 mere shelter : rows of dens opening into an in- 

 describably dirty courtyard, bare walls blackened 

 by smoke, bare floors littered with relics of pre- 

 vious occupants, an English stable a far sweeter 

 place to sleep in. The best I have seen was one 

 on the Kesht-Teheran road, practically the only 

 metalled road in the country. There were rooms 

 with doors, furniture, beds and bedding. The 

 sheets of course were not unsullied, the pillows 

 not without traces of heads of more nationalities 

 than one. But what would you have ? The hotel 

 was popular, guests followed one another, and 

 there was no time to get things washed. It was 

 not that the innkeeper was unmindful of those 

 trifles which go so far to make for real comfort. 



