LETTER xvn SICK FOLK 27

LETTEE XVII

CAMP GAL-I-GAV, KUH-I-RANG, July 2.

Dima we ascended to high tablelands, having the
snowy Zard Kuh ever in sight, one nameless peak being
at present pure white, and descended into and crossed
the Shorab, a fertile valley, on one side of which is the
famous cleft called Ear Kanun, an artificial gash across
a spur of the Kuh-i-Eang of the same name. After
winding among mountains we descended on the Karun,
whose waters, clear, rapid, and peacock-green, fertilise a
plain of fine flowery turf lying at the base of hills, with
another branch of the Karun between them and the Zard
Kuh.

It is a lovely plain, bright and smiling, contrasting
with the savage magnificence of the Zard Kuh, which
comes down upon it with its peaks, chasms, and
precipices, and glittering fields of unbroken snow.
It was given up to mares and foals, but green platforms
high above, and little hollows in the foot-hills were
spotted with Ilyat tents, and in the four days which
we spent there the camps were never free from Ilyat
visitors. The Sahib came in the first evening with one
man badly hurt, and another apparently in the first stage
of rheumatic fever. A small tent was rigged for this poor
fellow, who was in intense pain and quite helpless, with a
temperature of 104°, and every joint swollen. The usual
remedies had no effect on him. I had had a present of