We camped at 3,480 feet, having descended 330 feet in thirty-six miles, an almost perfectly flat stretch except a hillock or undulation here and there. My fever continued so fierce the whole day that I had not the strength to stand up nor the inclination to eat, the exhaustion caused by the very high temperature being indescribable.
We left at 7 p.m., meaning to make another long march. The night was intensely cold, with a terrific wind sweeping from the north-east. Several times during the night, when we came across a tamarisk shrub or two, we halted for a few minutes to make a bonfire and warm our frozen hands and toes. We actually came across a stream of brackish water—four feet broad, and about two to three inches deep—the largest stream we had seen since entering the desert, and having been twelve hours on the saddle to cover only twenty-four miles, camels and men shivering pitifully from the cold, and the latter also from fever, we made camp in a spot where there was an abundance of tamarisks and a deep well, the water of which was fully twenty feet below the earth's surface.
A small basin had been excavated next to the well. We filled it with water by means of a bucket, and it was a real pleasure to see the camels crowding round it and satisfying their thirst of two days. We did not allow them to drink the water of the brackish stream.
The elevation of this camp was 3,890 feet.
CHAPTER X
Intense cold—Dulled sense of taste—Characteristics of the country—Beautiful stones—Clouds of the desert—A salt stream—Icicles on the moustache and eyelashes—Longing for sunrise—Prayers of the camel men—Fedeshk—Ali Murat meets his wife—Opium dens and opium smokers—Effects of smoking opium in excess—Fever-stricken people—Dwellings—An official visitor—Science reduced to practice—Sadek's idea of sunset and sunrise—"Keshk" cheese—Arrival in Birjand.
We left camp at 8 p.m. on the night of November 20th-21st, and by midnight the cold grew intense. The camel men lighted big bonfires all through the night wherever they found a few shrubs, but I was so ill with fever that I had not the strength and energy to dismount from my camel, on which I was shivering with cold although well wrapped up in blankets.
After marching eight miles from our last camp we came to a brackish well where the camel men replenished their water-skins. I was rather interested to see what dulled sense of taste these men of the desert possessed. When I saw them making a rush for this well I thought that probably we had come to fresh water, and on asking them they said this was a well of excellent "sweet water." When I tasted it, it was so salt that it quite made one's inflamed gums and palate smart with pain. I noticed some days later that when we did actually get fairly sweet water they could detect no difference between it and the most brackish water.