LETTEE XVI

ALI-KUH, June

Two days before we left Chigakhor fierce heat set in,
with a blue heat haze. Since then the mercury has
reached 9 8° in the shade. The call to " Boot and Saddle "
is at 3.45. Black flies, sand-flies, mosquitos, scorpions,
and venomous spiders abound. There is no hope of
change or clouds or showers until the autumn. Greenery
is fast scorching up. "The heaven above is as brass,
and the earth beneath is as iron." The sky is a merciless
steely blue. The earth radiates heat far on into the night.
" Man goeth forth to his work," not " till the evening,"
but in the evening. The Ilyats, with their great brown
flocks, march all night. The pools are dry, and the lesser
streams have disappeared. The wheat on the rain-lands
is scorched before the ears are full, and when the stalks
are only six inches long. This is a normal Persian
summer in Lat. 32° N. The only way of fighting this
heat is never to yield to it, to plod on persistently, and
never have an idle moment, but I do often long for an
Edinburgh east wind, for drifting clouds and rain, and
even for a chilly London fog! This same country is
said to be buried under seven or eight feet of snow in
winter.

On leaving Chigakhor we crossed a low hill into the
Seligun valley, so fair and solitary a month ago, now
brown and dusty, and swarming with Ilyats and their
VOL. II B