THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



bad humor. The}' were talking of the 

 meanness of the caravan men when some 

 of the Afghans were seen coming toward 

 the spring with buckets in their hands. 



"Ah," said one of our Turkomans, "I 

 know what we can do. We will not let 

 them get any water until they sell us 

 some bread." 



Accordingly our men all got out their 

 guns and stood around the spring to warn 

 the Afghans off. At first the Afghans 

 thought it was a joke, and so did we. 

 They went off apparently to get some 

 flour, but it soon appeared that they had 

 no intention of satisfying the needs of 

 our men. On the contrary they came 

 strolling back to the number of fifteen or 

 twenty, not carrying food, but grasping 

 something long and hard under their long 

 gray gowns of wool. Evidently they had 

 brought their guns and meant to fight if 

 necessary. It was a case of food against 

 water. To allow a quarrel to arise there 

 in the wilderness would have been sui- 

 cidal. We called our men to their senses 

 and let the Afghans get what water they 

 needed. 



During the next hour or two we made 

 friends with them, and then they volun- 

 tarily offered us some bread. The) 

 method of cooking it was very different , 

 from that employed in the oases, where 

 ovens of mud shaped like beehives, with a 

 hole in the top, are heated with a fire of 

 weeds, and the dough is stuck against the 

 inside of the hot oven, where it hangs 

 until it is so far cooked that it falls down 

 into the ashes. The bread of the Afghan 

 caravan was cooked by heating small, 

 round cobblestones in the fire and then 

 poking them out and wrapping dough an 

 inch thick about them. The balls thus 

 formed were again thrown into the fire 

 to be poked out again when cooked. 

 The bread tasted well there in the desert, 

 although in civilized communities the 

 grit and ashes would have seemed unen- 

 ■ durable. 



After good-fellowship had been es- 

 tablished the Afghans actually sold us 

 some flour. The camp where we used it 

 a little later happened to be beside the 

 sandy bed of a trickling salt stream, 



which was drinkable in winter, but abso- 

 lutely unusable in summer, when evapo- 

 ration is at its height and the salt is con- 

 centrated. 



"See," said one of our Turkomans, as 

 we dismounted, "here is some sand. To- 

 night we can have some good bread." 



When some dry twigs had been gathered 

 he proceeded to smooth off a bit of the 

 cleanest sand and built upon it a hot fire. 

 When the sand was thoroughly hot he 

 raked off most of the coals and smoothed 

 the sand very neatly. Meanwhile one of 

 the other men had made two large sheets 

 of dough about three-quarters of an inch- 

 thick and eighteen inches in diameter. 

 Between these he placed a layer of lumps 

 of sheep's tail fat, making a huge round 

 sandwich. This was now spread on the 

 hot sand, coals mixed with sand were 

 placed completely over it, and it was left 

 to bake. Now and then an edge was 

 uncovered, and a Turkoman smelled it 

 appreciatively and rapped on it to see if 

 it was yet cooked. When the top was 

 thoroughly baked the bread was turned 

 over and covered up again. It tasted 

 even better than the Afghan bread, after 

 it had cooled a little and the sand and 

 ashes had been whisked off with a girdle. 

 The Turkomans are so accustomed to life 

 in the sandy desert that they think it im- 

 possible to make the best kind of bread 

 without sand, while the Afghans, who live 

 in the stony mountains, think that cobble- 

 stones are a requisite. 



The Afghans, like the Persians, have 

 developed some of their worst character- 

 istics largely by reason of the hardness 

 of the physical conditions under which 

 they live. The experiences described 

 above took place on the borders of the 

 Desert of Despair, a place where men and 

 animals die of hunger and thirst and their 

 companions have no pity. The caravan 

 with which our men tried to quarrel was 

 about to return across the northern edge 

 of the desert with salt from the Lake 

 of Khaf to be sold in Afghanistan. 

 They reported that on the outward jour- 

 ney they had been delayed and two of 

 their number had died of hunger. 



