A⸺’s saddle will give her mare a sore back if she rides her, so she is compelled to ride one of the ponies, a hard trial after the easy and willing mare.
I had the benefit of the mare, as my saddle doesn’t gall. The back was better on arrival than when we started.
Our mules (yabūs, i. e. pack-ponies) are in fair fettle, considering that we have only halted one day at Kashan. To-morrow we strike the great high-road, and we left robber-land yesterday.
The children, the baby included, as yet have not had a day’s illness, and we are all in robust health.
All our rooms have been as yet wind and water tight, and save at Soh (that very hyperborean place) we never had or needed a fire.
We are hurrying on, as the steamer (so they say) leaves Enzelli on the second; and if we do not halt we can get a day there to repack and wash clothes, pay off the servants, hand over my road kit, which Captain W⸺ has bought, get money from Messrs. Ziegler, and start comfortably—Inshallah (please God).
Talking of doors, when we have no doors we nail up two curtains overlapping, if a big entrance, with an extra one crossway over the top if high, and at bedtime we put crossways over the bottom of the curtain our table-top and frame and two chairs, built up so that, if any one attempts to get in, the whole must come down on to a big copper bath with a crash, and so wake us.
I rather pride myself on this arrangement, which is, I fancy, very efficient, and keeps out wind and thieves too.
All the people here are big-headed, big-hatted, big-eared, small-eyed, stupid, chibouque-smoking, Turkish-speaking people, quite different from the smart and polished Persian of the South and Ispahan; but they are honester, not grasping, and in reality more obliging. Instance this morning, my cook asked a man to help him load his mule (i. e. give him a lift with his big saddle-bags).
He replied, “Load him yourself!”