Early in the evening we reach the city of Asterabad, which we find totally different from the sombre, mud-built cities of the interior.  The wall surrounding it is topped with red tiles, and the outer moat is choked with rank vegetation.  The houses are gabled, and roofed with tiles or heavy thatch, presenting an appearance very suggestive of the picturesque towns and villages about Strasburg.  The streets are narrow and ill-paved, and neglect and decay everywhere abound.  The cemeteries are a chaotic mass of tumbledown tombstones and vagrant vegetation.  Pools of water covered with green scum, and heaps of filth everywhere, fill the reeking atmosphere with malaria and breed big clouds of mosquitoes.  The people have a yellowish, waxy complexion that tells its own story of the unhealthiness of the place, without instituting special inquiry.  One can fairly sniff fever and ague in the streets.

Much taste is displayed in architectural matters by the wealthier residents.  The walls surrounding the little compounds are sometimes adorned with house-leeks or cactus, tastefully set out along the top; and, in other cases, with ornamental tiles.  The walls of the houses are decorated with paintings depicting, in bright colors, scenes of the chase, birds, animals, and mythological subjects.

The charvadars lead the way to a big caravanserai in the heart of the city.  The place is found to be filled with a miscellaneous crowd of caravan people, travellers, merchants, and dervishes.  The serai also appears to be a custom-house and emporium for wool, cotton, and other products of the tributary country.  Horses, camels, and merchandise crowd the central court, and rising fifty feet above all this confusion and babel is a wooden tower known as a tullar.  This is a dilapidated framework of poles that sways visibly in the wind, the uses of which at first sight it is not easy to determine.  Some of the natives motion for us to take possession of it, however; and we subsequently learn that the little eyrie-like platform is used as a sleeping-place by travellers of distinction.  The elevation and airiness are supposed to be a safeguard against the fever and a refuge from the terrible mosquitoes, of which Asterabad is over-full.

An hour after our arrival, Abdul goes out and discovers a Persian gentleman named Mahmoud Turki Aghi, who presents himself in the capacity of British agent here.  As we were in ignorance of the presence of any such official being in Asterabad, he comes as a pleasant surprise, and still more pleasant comes an invitation to accept his hospitality.