1 66 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



oblong bundle, whose shape it was impossible to 

 mistake, balanced across his saddle - bows. He 

 was performing the last pious duty of son to 

 father. But Meshed is far from being a resting- 

 place for the poor bones. As soon as the grave 

 falls in, or even before that, the site is taken for 

 a new arrival, so that the populations of the 

 cemeteries are hardly less shifting than those 

 of the sarais. One could imagine the streets 

 thronged at night with outraged and indignant 

 ghosts ! Whether this is so or not I do not 

 know ; the sacred city is not a good place for 

 Europeans to wander about in after dark. Curi- 

 ously enough, however, one hears little of "the 

 pestilence that walketh in darkness " ; for Meshed, 

 that flagrantly disobeys every sanitary law that 

 has been laid down since the days of Moses, is 

 rather a healthy place ! 



So predominant in the minds of the wayfarers 

 on the roads to Meshed is the one great object, 

 that the usual salutation, Salam Alaikum, 

 "Peace be with you," is dropped, and instead 

 one hears, " May your pilgrimage have been 

 accepted," and the reply, "Pray for us." But 

 men are not the only pilgrims. A common sight 

 on all the roads converging on Meshed are 

 solitary boulders, large and round, lying in the 

 fairway, and one is told that these also are 



