something of sincerity from the accompanying worship of the birds and the sympathetic essence of the awakening day.  Eastward from our camping-ground the trail is oftentimes indistinguishable; but a few loose stones have been tossed together at intervals of several hundred yards, to guide wayfarers across the desert.  A surface of mingled sand and gravel characterizes the way; sometimes it is unridably heavy, and sometimes the wheeling is excellent for a mile or two at a stretch, enabling me to leave the ambling yahoos of the sowars far behind.  Beautiful mirages sometimes appear in the distance —­lakes of water, waving groves of palms, and lovely castles; and often, when far enough ahead, I can look back, and see the grotesque figures of the khan, the mirza, and the mudbake apparently riding through the air.

Perhaps twenty miles are covered, when we arrive at a pile of dead brush that has been erected for a landmark, and find a dilapidated well containing water.  The water is forty feet below the surface, and contains a miscellaneous assortment of dead lizards, the carcasses of various small mammalia, and sundry other unfortunate representatives of animated nature that have fallen in.  Beyond this well the country assumes the character of a broad sink or mud-basin, the shiny surface of its mud glistening in the sun like a sheet of muddy water.  Sloughs innumerable meander through it, fringed with rank rushes and shrubs.  A far heavier down-pour than we were favored with on the plain has drenched a region of stony hills adjacent, and the drainage therefrom has, for the time being, filled and overflowed the winding sloughs.

A dozen or more of these are successfully forded, though not without some difficulty; but we finally arrive at the parent slough, of which the others are but tributaries.  This proves too deep for the sowars’ horses to ford, and after surveying the yellow flood some minutes and searching up and down, the khan declares ruefully that we shall have to return to Beerjand.  As I remonstrate with him upon his lack of enterprise in turning from so trifling a difficulty, the khan finally orders the mudbake to strip off his purple and fine linen and try the depth.  The mudbake proceeds to obey his superior, with many apprehensive glances at the muddy freshet, and wades gingerly in, muttering prayers to Allah the while.  Deeper and deeper the yellow waters creep up his shivering form, and when nearly up to his neck, a sudden deepening causes him to bob unexpectedly down almost over his head.  Hurriedly retreating, spluttering and whining, he scrambles hastily ashore, where his two companions, lolling lazily on their horses, watching his attempt, are convulsed with merriment over his little misadventure and his fright.