Appreciation of Persia is like a love of olives—an acquired taste. Our first. week in the land of myrtle groves, sweet-scented streams, and oriental splendour was, therefore, not enlivening. We had no' myrtle groves, the streams were anything but sweet-scented, and the villages and towns we saw exhibited as much architectural glory as a decayed Tipperary hamlet. Ronds are practically unknown, and riding, like joking with Scotsmen, is wi'. difficulty." We cycled, however, from the frontier till we found ourselves wedyed in between high and bare red hills with a torrent breaking into a dozen streams, roaring and fuming like angry sirens. It! was four o'clock in the afternoon when we reached the bottom of the pass, which we Imew was nearly five miles long. As we stood debating the method of proceeding, a wild-eyed, panting herdsman came tearing down from the rocks and warned us not to goon. As we were aware he was lying in asserting that the next village was fifteen miles on, and his evident object was to beguile us into his hut, we took no heed. When we signalled we would advance, he took an old-fashioned sword from his girdle—an excellent ornament for an entrance-hall at home—and signified that if it were not our fate to be drowned we would have our throats cut. Whether it was a blessing or a curse that he asked Allah to loose upon our heads we don't know. But he raised his palms on high avd beseeched furiously till we were out of sight.
We walked. There was nothing "else for it—down narrow sheep-track-like paths, over ponderous boulders, skipping over streams here, splashing into them there. Night fell upon us in ten minutes. There was no twilight, but a glorious moon. Its mellowed, silvern radiance lit up one side of the ravine, while the other was plunged in darkness, When we were on the black side we lunged forward like blind horses. The swearing of the troops in Flanders was nothing to the ruddy oaths that broke the stillness of that glen. Even the moon hid abashed behind the only cloud in the sky. Of course the three of us, individually, new exactly the best and proper course. "Keep round to your left and you'll find a place ti cross the stream," shouted one. Silence for three moments. Then an ex-Postulating voice, "Why, you. blankety lank idiot, I'm up to the knees in water." "Oh, that's nothing; give a jump and you'll land all right Jump be hanged do you think I'm going to break my neck Where are you now?" "Up here! Come on, it's all right. No it isn't; go back there's 6 drop of twelve feet." "Well, this is the most lively night I've ever known. My feet are like ice." "You'll be all right when we get to a village." "Yes, when we do." And soon.
Three mortal hours, by three fairly regular-paced watches, did the three of us take to get through' that abhorred pass. When we reached the top we sat down and smoked. We looked round for the lights of a village, but not a light did.we see. "Tt can't be far off, so let us push on," someone said. "There was a well beaten bridle path and at a swinging rate we bumped along. We were chilled to the bone, our lips quivered with the cold, and' we were doubtful whether possessed fingers and toes. All at once from out of the shadow there jumped two horsemen. The gleam of their revolvers shone in the moonlight as their animals swung round. Robbers we breathed to one another, while our courage, like that of Bob Acre's, oozed out ut our finger-tips.
Our enemies careered round us all the time shouting. vociferously. We shouted back at them in bad Russian that we didn't know a word of what they were jabbering about. Asa matter of fact they were in a greater funk than we were, and with mutual side-long, unconvinced glances we edged away from each other. Probably, never having seen a bicycle before, startled out of their wits a the appariti of three silent figures whizzing by, they breathed as freely as we did when they lost sight of the wheeled devils.
Our next trouble was a painful consciousness that we''were bending away to the right when the map distinctly. marked the roud as hearing off to the left. We hada council of war on the bleak hillside, and we decided to follow the path we were on, trusting in Providence that it would lead us to a hut, rather than go-wandering up and down the opposite hillside secking a way that might not exist. - "It's stopping out all night, I'm thinking," said one of us in a disheartened tone. "Anyway, we had better keep on ridinger we shall be frozen to death," said another. And just then the path developed into a mass of boulders and riding was out of the question. There was 'a piercing, icy blast, and every rivulet was frozen. The hope that springs eternal in the human breast received a fillip when one of us descried some huts, We rushed forward. They were square mud cabins with no windows." Not a light did we see nor a voice did we hear. We wandered through the high-walled, very narrow lanes, as though we were ina city of the dead. The clear light, the absolute silence, the yhostliness of it all, produced an eerie sensation, and we felt decidedly creepy. To attract attention, should anyone be visiting the pale glimpses of the moon, we talked loudly. A head emerged from a door and 'a woman screamed. Then folks began tumbling out of their hovels like rats out of their holes. They were the most startling and weird assortment of humanity we had ever come across, more brute than human, curious-visaged, with strange 'Tartar eyes and wellish' teeth. The one word of Persian we knew was. peelaar"—boiled rice, greased with fat. We shouted "peeler" till we were hoarse, and bent our heads over the palms of our hands to intimate sleep. We got them to comprehend. And truly, rough men-of the hills, living like the beasts of the field, they extended to us, benighted foreigners, a warm-hearted has: pitality. 'They had only a wretched hut to give us, but they ransacked their houses to provide us with sheep-skins. 'They hunted for brushwood, which, thrown into an_under ground oven, blazed away like Mephisto-libeles' friendly element" in the Lyceum aust, the smoke escaping from the roof, {while we removed our wet stockings and cooked rice. There was nothing palatable jor inviting about the food, but it was the best they had to give, and we were grateful. And while we sat with our backs to the wall and our feet stretched towards the fire, the rest of the cabin was packed with yelling, excited, pleased villagers. There was only the glare of the crackling wood to illumine the scene. And a strange. one it was. "Isn't it like hell?" questioned Lunn, gazing curiously about.
Before the frosty covering of the hills had yielded to the warm sun rays we were off again in the morning. Sometime' we rode for four or five miles comfortably. Then the path would wander into the bed of a river and would keep there for a mile of more, Tt appeared as though the Persians preferred to jog through gravelly, bouldery, watercourses, instead of keeping to sny {decently hard ground. Where the fi was not too deep we actually had the audacity to ride our Rovers through the Sater. "Is was a damp Sort of proceeding. There were few people on the way and no houses. We came across what must have been, in the days of Persia's glory, magnificent and. sturdy castle. Now it had: fallen to rains, but the great arched entrance still remained, incrusted with beautiful blue: tiles, and Kotanic inscriptions edging the Jeorners. Only once did we meet a formid= able personage.. He was almost Arabic in' attire, with a gorgeous' turban' and coat." His horse was decorated with tinsel and red ribbons, and in his hand he carried an enormous spear. He had no time to use it upon us, for the animal took fright and scampered off, Eat The first Persian town. we reached was Morand. It is hid among trees, and the main street consists of a dozen brooks running its whole length. We were overwhelmed by. the howling' natives, who wanted us to ride over impossible ground; and grew abusive when we declined. We lasked for the caravanserai and advancing in the middle of the whole population, who tumbled over one another's heels in wild confusion, we arrived at a great enclosed yard, and' secured an absolutely bare room over some stables. When we had locked up our machines, we went out to seck food. The bazaar was.a lame, slovenly, dim-lit place, utterly ranting in. bright, colour.
ne chief thing on sale was' tobacco, and, in accordance with Sidney Smith's theory that the inhabitants of the Scilly [Isles maintained a precarious existence by taking in one another's washing, ' the merchants of Morand evidently. subsist selling tobacen to each other. No weights were used in the scales. Pebbles and' cobble-stones answered the purpose sufficiently.. Many a squatting' dealer crooned over the Koran, keeping half an eye askew for likely customers and the main chance. We saw a perambulating barber, strolling through the crowd, on the look-out for unshaven chins; and when he saw one, up went 'a small looking-glass before the face of the offender, so that he might see for himself what a vile creature he was. The culprit usually sidled against the wall, and submitted not only his chin, but the whole of his head, to the razor. Curiosity led one of us to turn over the label of some print cotton goods. It bore the name of a Manchester firm. Thus do British yobds wedge their way into. the utmost corners of the earth.
We fed in a tea-house, and then returned to our dismal chamber at the caravanserai. We stole some wood from the courtyard, and soon had a fine fire. But one side of our apartment was door, and half "the door was holes;-so that while our cheeks were roasted, our backs froze. We put up with the discomfort for half an hour; then with one voice we' agreed': to forsake the caravanserai and go and' sleep in the tea-howse. It' was. warmer there, and more comfortable, though the place was crowded—and accordingly smelt horribly—with inquisitive Maranders. We abandoned ourselves to the infatuation of Persian tea-drinking and-one of us confessed before the night was over that he had thirty-three glasses of the beverage. We had occasion once or twice in the course of the evening to go across the way: to see if our. machines were all right, and the darkness was so great that some rampant Saxon words broke loose. The Persians evidently understood, for the next time we strolled out they had hung the bazaar from' the tea-house to the caravanserai with lanterns.
Everybody forsook business the next morning and followed us out of the town. We were in no mood to go fast, for Fraser was suffering from an attack of rheumatic fever, with throbbing head and aching limbs, so that walking, far less riding, was nigh impossible. With slow and weary steps and many a halt, we got up among the hills and then, as the sick' man
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.