remains of a pilaff on the ground, but no men.  The firing had done it.  One and all had turned tail and fled.  The position was not pleasant, for V——­ was naturally absolutely ignorant of the road.  ‘They will come back,’ he thought, and patiently waited.  But sunset came, then night, then the stars, and still V——­ was alone, utterly helpless and unable to move backwards or forwards.  At sunrise a head was shoved into his tent.  But it had a red fez on, not an astrakhan bonnet.  It was one of the Bagdad escort.  The Turks laughed heartily when they heard the story.  ’It must have been us,’ they said; ’we had nothing to do, and were practising with our revolvers.’  In the mean time the Persians returned post haste to Kermanshah, and evinced great surprise that V——­ was not with them.”

“‘He was the first to fly,’ said the sergeant.  ’I am afraid he must have lost his way, and fallen into the hands of the robbers.  If so, God help him.  There were more than fifty of them.’”

“J——­ ’s anecdote was followed by many others, coffee was succeeded by cognac and seltzer, Gerome gave us some startling Central Asian experiences, and we talked over men and things Persian far into the night, or rather morning, for it was nearly 2 a.m. when I retired to rest.”

“I hope you’ll sleep well,” said J——­, as he led the way to a comfortable bedroom looking out on to the needle-like peaks of the Kotal Doktar, gleaming white in the moonlight.  “By the way, I forgot to tell you we usually have an earthquake about sunrise, but don’t let it disturb you.  The shocks have been very slight lately, and it’s sure not to last long,” added my host, as he calmly closed the door, and left me to my slumbers.

I am not particularly nervous, but to be suddenly aroused from sleep by a loud crash, as if the house were falling about one’s ears; to see, in the grey dawn, brick walls bending to and fro like reeds, floors heaving like the deck of a ship, windows rattling, doors banging, with an accompaniment of women and children screaming as if the end of the world had arrived, is calculated to give the boldest man a little anxiety.  I must at any rate own to feeling a good deal when, about 6 a.m. the following morning, the above phenomena took place.  As prophesied, “it” did not last long—­eight or ten seconds at most, which seemed to me an hour.  Not the least unpleasant sensation was a low, rumbling noise, like distant thunder, that accompanied the shock.  It seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth.

“We have them every day,” said J——­ at breakfast, placidly, “but one soon gets used to them.”  My host was obliged to acknowledge reluctantly that this morning’s shock was “a little sharper than usual”!  It was sharp enough, Gerome afterwards told me, to send all the people of Kazeroon running out of their houses into the street.  Common as the “Zil-Zillah” [D] is in these parts, the natives are terrified whenever a shock occurs.  The great Shiraz earthquake some years ago, when over a thousand lost their lives, is still fresh in their minds.