BY ORDER OF THE SHAH

ourselves from the unwavering stare of small boys, while
we ate our luncheon. As usual the staple fare was boiled
eggs, but the D.P. made no comment, and swallowed two
in silence; he who complained at the flavour of his English
eggs when the hens had been fed upon rose petals!

Nomad peasants trudged past us, in voluminous stiff
felt coats, like those worn by Kurds, hats carelessly flung
upon close-cropped hair. Like snails, they carried their
all upon their backs. Behind them trailed women in
coarse black or deep blue cotton cloaks, partially drawn
to hide their faces. Although only three o'clock in the
afternoon, already the mountains were assuming the
purple-blue tinge of evening; and we still had as far to
go as from London to Bristol, over a very different surface.
Ruined khans punctuated the landscape every few hundred
yards. Gradually the hills closed in around us. A small
grey owl on a heap of stones winked a beady eye. The
shepherds of a large mixed flock crouched over a blazing
fire.

A sudden turn and drop came in the road, and we saw
Yezdikast, a large, half-mined village perched precariously
on the edge of a deep gash in the plain, between a wide
stream and sheer rock, buildings shored up by boulders
and stones, and propped with tree trunks which looked as
though they would crash to the ground at any moment.
Wooden balconies stuck out upon horizontal rafters with
no support.

We passed a motor-bus crammed with peasants. A
few years ago it would have been impossible for them to
travel without serious danger, and many would never have
left their birthplace except at the whim of the Shah himself.
We drove through the deepening dusk, soft browns and
greens in the foreground fading into mulberry, grape
purple, and finally into steel blue, against misty grey clouds*
With a stretch of imagination we might almost be driving
over Scottish moors. In the half light of evening the

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