258 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



surprised at putting pheasants up in a bog where 

 one would rather expect to find snipe ; but the 

 occurrence should, I suppose, be regarded as 

 a case of atavism. Ibrahim, remembering the 

 swamps and reeds of Seistan, would persist in 

 referring to the bird as "murghabi" (water- 

 fowl)! 



It was October when we passed through this 

 country, and many of the numerous soft patches 

 of bog held snipe. We bagged a few, much to 

 the surprise of the onlooking Turkoman. For if 

 the expenditure of valuable cartridges in shoot- 

 ing pheasants in the air seemed to them ex- 

 travagant folly, the same action with regard to 

 snipe miserable little water-birds weighing not 

 more than a miscal or two apiece, and possibly 

 not even lawful food was nothing less than 

 criminal waste and the act of lunatics. 



We visited a good many of the obahs in the 

 hope of buying a few of the famous rugs woven 

 by the nomad ladies for the adornment of their 

 tents, and got a few bits, smooth as velvet and 

 of those exquisitely soft and harmonious shades 

 of madder and indigo, with whites toned into a 

 delicate cream by years of smoke, that make the 

 old Turkoman carpet one of the most beautiful 

 of Eastern fabrics. The rugs of the Goklan and 

 Yamut sections never quite equalled those of the 



