A pleasant gallop of under an hour brought us to Pasingan.  It was hardly possible to realize, riding through the warm evening air, for all the world like a June evening in England, that but two days before we had well-nigh been frozen to death.  Had I known what was in store for us beyond Kashan, I might have marvelled even more at this sudden and welcome change of climate.

The guest-chamber at Pasingan was already taken by a Persian khan, a rude, blustering fellow, who refused us even a corner; so we had, perforce, to make the best of it downstairs among the rats and vermin.  Devoured by the latter, and unable to sleep, we rose at the first streak of dawn, saddled two of the khan’s horses, and rode away to Sin-Sin before any one was astir.  The poor Shagird, whom we had to threaten with a severe chastisement if he did not accompany us, was in a terrible state.  The bow-string was the least he could expect when the khan came to know of the trick we had played him.  An extra keran at Sin-Sin, however, soon consoled our guide.  He probably never returned to Pasingan at all, but sought his fortunes elsewhere.  Persian post-boys are not particular.

Kashan is distant about fifty-two English miles from Pasingan, and lies south-east of the latter.  The caravan track passes a level tract of country, sparsely cultivated by means of irrigation.  Persian soil is evidently of the kind that, “tickled with a hoe, laughs with a harvest.”  Even in this sterile desert, covered for the most part with white salt deposits, the little oases of grain and garden looked as fresh and green as though they had been on the banks of a lake or river.  But the green patches were very few and far between, and, half-way between the post-stations, ceased altogether.  Nothing was then visible but a waste of brown mud and yellow sand, cut clear and distinct against the blue sky-line on the horizon.  It is strange, when crossing such tracts of country, to note how near to one everything seems.  Objects six or eight miles off, looked to-day as if you could gallop up to them in five minutes; and the peak of Demavend, on which we were now looking our last, seemed about twenty miles off, instead of over one hundred and fifty.

Kashan was reached on the 7th of February.  At Nasirabad, a village a few miles out of the city, there had been an earthquake that morning.  Many of the mud houses were in ruins, and their late owners sitting dejectedly on the remains.  Earthquakes are common enough in Persia, and this was by no means our last experience in that line.  Commiserating with the homeless ones, we divided a few kerans among them, in return for which they brought us large water-melons (for which Nasirabad is celebrated), deliciously flavoured, and as cold as ice.