196 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



of many a Persian brave, for the boast of having 

 slain a Turkoman quocunque modo confers, if 

 believed, unique name and fame. 1 As Kipling 



says 



" The wildest dreams of Kew 

 Are the facts of Khatmandu," 



and also, I may add, of Khorassan. 



Our yuz-hashi showed himself a typical Persian in 

 one respect. The grain, he told us, was ready, but 

 his instructions had said nothing about baggage- 

 animals to carry it on. People were just then 

 busy, and animals could only be got by paying 

 about three times the normal rate of hire. This 

 difficulty was met by engaging ponies at the 

 yuz-bashi's exorbitant rates to carry our stuff 

 as far as the first shooting - camp, whence we 

 would take it forward by dog marches on our 

 own baggage-animals during the halts for shoot- 

 ing. The yuz-bashi, however, was by no means 

 defeated. He next discovered that his orders had 

 said nothing about sacks in which to carry the 

 grain, and these of course were only purchasable 

 at rates which would have been immoderate if 

 they had been made of silk. Of course, all the 

 poor man wanted was to show us that his favour 



1 The reader may perhaps remember the chaosh in 'Haji 

 Baba,' who acquired a great reputation for courage "for having 

 cut off a Turkoman's head whom he had found dead on the road " ! 



