“At night, the place being full of cats, who attacked the birds, C⸺ shot two and missed two more. They, however, ate one canary, and the wires being broken, C⸺ had to pursue another bird over many roofs, catching him at last unhurt.
“Sunday.—Still no news of mules; sent a ‘kossid’ (or foot-messenger) with a letter to Shiraz asking for steps to be taken to get them out. The man is to get half-a-crown for walking the fifty-six miles in eighteen hours, and to bring back an answer!
“Monday.—Venison for breakfast. We got a welcome present of snow last night, and by laying the top of the table on the bird-cage, succeeded in defying the cats.
“At twelve P.M., Wednesday, having no news of our mules, we engaged two muleteers, started, and in two hours marched to Kawamabad, eight miles, fording the river Bendamir half-way. A fair road. The weather changed here; it was very chilly on arrival, and cool and windy all day.
“Left Kawamabad at six P.M., Thursday, and reached the tomb of Cyrus at twelve, where we rested a little, and ate some fowl, and found the night very cold. The monument is like a huge dog-kennel, of great squared stones, on a stone platform. Ussher states the tomb itself to be forty-three feet by thirty-seven. There are seven stone steps, which diminish in thickness as one ascends. The kennel-like edifice at the top is twenty-one feet by sixteen only; the thickness is five feet. The interior dimensions are ten feet long, seven wide, and eight high. There are no inscriptions. The door is four feet high only. There are the remains of twenty-four columns, six on each side.[34]
“Got to Murghāb, twenty-eight miles, at two A.M. A very long and fatiguing march; several passes. This place is celebrated for carpets, but we failed to obtain any. In the centre of the village there is a large piece of turf like a cricket field—the only piece of turf I have seen as yet.
“Left at six P.M. A bad road, with several passes, till half way, when it became a sort of steppe; here we came on a number of mules grazing: we fortunately sent a man to ask whose they were, and they turned out to be our loads and the missing charwardar,[35] who had passed us when we halted at Sivend.
“Our difficulties will now be much less, as with lots of muleteers we shall get loaded and off quickly, and our bedding mule (which at present carries my fortnightly box, C⸺’s portmanteau, a carpet, two heavy chairs, and a table, a champagne box full of wine, an india-rubber sack full of odds and ends, my little black bag, a heavy cage for Pip, and the birds’ cage a yard long, besides our bedding; and its pack-saddle weighing thirty pounds) will go much lighter: we shall also get our bath, which had gone on with the loads.
“We reached Dehbeed, twenty-six miles, at two; we had soup and fowl on the road, and were very glad to get in. There is nothing here but a chupper-khana, a caravanserai (in ruins), and a telegraph-office. It is delightfully cool and windy, the water, too, is like ice, and very good. Nothing to be got but bread; but we had supplies with us. Left at nine P.M., and over a fair road with two small passes to Konar Khora, twenty-four miles. This is a more lonely place than the last; water only and cucumbers to be got; a post-house and caravanserai (in ruins) the only houses, and nothing nearer than twenty-four miles. The flies so hungry here that they bite and hurt.