1831.] 
Overland Journey to India. 
351 
once, and finally halted from 2 to 5 in the morning, at a spring of delicious water, 
rising from a plateau of fine grass. The hills were apparently of volcanic origin ; 
being formed of differently composed rocky strata, irregular and of various colours. 
On some of the narrow flats between the hills grew excellent grass, and here and 
there a small tree. We marched away from the spring N. E. In an hour we got 
upon the plain again, and halted near some Guz bushes, with which we made a 
fire to dry our clothes and bedding by 10 . We travelled the whole day across a 
barren white plain, on which there was not a blade of grass, — not a weed i in 
parts the surface was encrusted with salt, and the bones of a camel which lay 
bleaching in the sun, were the only sign we had of any other one’s having passed 
over so waste a place. Before us was apparently a forest, but when we neared 
it at evening, we found only large bushes growing in deep sand, with here and 
there a stunted tree, so much had the mirage deceived us, although we had 
become accustomed to its illusion. A cuckoo was singing on the decayed branch 
of a small tree : we saw some beautifully colored paroquets, the body green, 
head and wings of a rich brown color ; and desolate as the scene was, there was a 
beauty about it in the stillness of broad twilight. Occasionally, during our journey, 
we had started a hare from a bush ; many antelopes bounded across the plain, and 
the desart rat (an animal rather slighter than a common rat, with a tuft 
on the tip of its tail, and which springs with four feet like a kangaroo), was every 
where common. At sunset we left the hard plain, and by a heavy sandy road 
between weedy bushes, kept on our course till half past seven, when we came to a 
large pond of water called Chin Mohamed, where we halted all night. 
May 2 d . — As we were about to resume our route, a party of Turkman horse- 
men came upon us at a gallop, one of whom we recognized as the brother of our 
Gurgdn host ; another as the brother of our guide Pirvvali ; the other two were 
ill looking villains, whom we had not seen before. They had ridden, they said, to 
our assistance, one Sultan Mohamed having set out with a party to rob and mur- 
der us, and we must turn aside with them to a place of safety. Though we saw the 
lie on their countenances, we felt our helplessness in the desart ; so told them that 
as we were their guests, we would of course go where they thought fit to con- 
duct us. 
They led us back for four days and nights, nearly the road we had come ; at 
one time affecting kindness, at another displaying their ill-feeling towards us; 
convincing us that their story was false, and that we had them only to fear. 
They avoided all camps, and were joined by 2 others On the road. Early on the 
morning of the 6tli, we came to a large burying ground, where were many large 
stuccoed gumbaz (domes) in good repair ; round one of them (not to be out of 
fashion,) we performed Zedrut 11 , because a black slab (supposed to have fallen 
from heaven with the holy one now in the Cdbaa), was fixed in the wall out- 
side. Cufi characters were cut on a stone within, ot which the Syud could 
only read Bismillah, probably the opening verse of the Koran. 
Hence we marched five miles west, and passed close by the south wall of the 
ruined city Meshid-i-Misrean. It was four-square, each face of somewhat 
10 These lulls are called Aujiri. About 30 miles distant on our left was a range of 
higher hills called Balkfin. We learnt that there were several springs and much ver- 
dure in them, and that many Turkmans lived in them during the summer. 
11 The ceremony of walking round a sanctified place, which is supposed to >alance 
many sins. My friend feared that they were compounding for thatot killing us, and 
that they had come there to make the deed “ hallal as the Wahabee pirates thought 
they did by exclaiming «* Allah ho Acber,” when they cut their victim s throat*. 
