SHIRAZ TO BUSHIRE. 67 



Hassan a piece of my mind about the absurdity of 

 the whole thing, I would not have done it for a king- 

 dom. "With, some show of reason on my side, I 

 might have argued that a dead hyena could work no 

 sort of charm over a living horse ; that the hyena, 

 having been dead so many years, could not in any 

 manner add to the efficacy of the cure, and a quantity 

 of others that I deemed valid objections. But he 

 Avould only have laiighed me to scorn, and his con- 

 viction would only have become deeper rooted : for 

 previous experience had taught me that in all that 

 concerned horse-flesh, Hassan looked upon me as one 

 of the most hopelessly ignorant of mortals. Before 

 he left me, he regretted that the hyena had been dead 

 and buried for so many years ; had it been otherwise, 

 he would certainly have secured some hairs of the 

 animal's tail, and, with these in his possession, he 

 assured me his Avife would have to record many an 

 " interesting event," and he would have been the 

 happy father of strong and healthy children, whereas 

 at present it was a reproach amongst his friends that 

 Allah had denied to him even a single one of these 

 " dear pledges." 



1st June. On leaving the serai we struck across 

 the plain of Kislit for about a mile in a southerly 

 direction : then commenced another difficult descent, 

 that of the Kotul-e-Maloo, the last of these formid- 

 able mountain -passes. The moon shone down the 

 sides of a lofty precipitous peak that overhung the 



