Many Arabs from the Lower Euphrates valley are now mingled with the pilgrim throngs en route to Meshed.  They are evil-looking customers, black as negroes almost; they look capable of any atrocity under the sun.  These Arab pilgrims are hadjis almost to a man, coming, as they do, from much nearer Mecca than the Persians; but their holiness does not prevent them bearing the unenviable reputation of being the most persistent thieves.  Abdul knows them well, and when any of them are about, keeps a sharp lookout to see that none of them approach our things.

On the following evening, at a caravanserai near Nishapoor, we meet and spend the night with a French scientific party of three sent out by the Paris Geographical Society to make geographical and geological researches in Turkestan.  The three Frenchmen are excellent company; they entertain us with European news, their views on the political aspect, and of incidents on their fourgon journey from Tiflis.  Among their charvadars is a man who saw me last autumn at Ovahjik.

Much good riding surface prevails, and we pass the night of the 21st at Lafaram.  The crowds that everywhere gather about us are very annoying to K------, whose fever and consequent weakness is hardly calculated to sweeten his temper under trying circumstances.  A whole swarm of women gather to stare at us at Lafaram.  “I’ll soon scatter them, anyway,” says R------; and he reaches for a pair of binoculars hanging up in the fourgon.  Adjusting them to his eyes, he levels them at the bunch of females, expecting to see them scatter like a flock of partridges.  Scattering is evidently about the last thing the women are thinking of doing, however; they merely turn their attention to the binoculars and concentrate their comments upon them instead of on other of our effects, for the moment, but that is all.

In the vicinity of Subzowar we find the people engaged in harvesting the crop of opium.  The way they do it is to go through the fields of poppy every morning and scarify the green heads with a knife-blade notched for the purpose, like a saw.  During the day the milky juice oozes out and solidifies.  In the evening the harvesters pass through the fields again, scrape off the exuded opium, and collect it in vessels.  This, after the watery substance has been worked out with frequent kneadings and drying, is the opium of commerce.  The chief opium emporium of Persia is Shiraz, where buyers ship it by camel-caravan to Bushire for export.  Persian opium commands the topmost prices in foreign markets.

Here every idler about the villages seems to be amusing himself by working a ball of opium about in his hands, much as a boy delights in handling a chunk of putty.  Lumps as large as the fist are freely offered me by friendly people, as they would hand one a piece of bread or a pomegranate; I might collect pounds of the stuff by simply taking what is offered me without the asking.