50 JOURNEYS IN PEBSIA LETTER xvni

mits, irrigated rolling valleys and plains, with deep rifts
indicative of streams, and some Magawe villages.

Our route lay across the most scorched and gravelly
part of the upper slopes of a wide valley, scantily
sprinkled with blue eryngiums and a woolly species of
artemisia, a very repulsive region, where herds" of camels,
kept for breeding purposes, were grazing. On the other
side of this valley a spur of the fine mountain Jalanda
projects, and on it are the two villages and fort of
Kalahoma, the residence of Taimur Khan.

We halted below the hill while a spring was being
searched for, and I was sitting on horseback eating my
lunch, a biscuit in one hand and a cup in the other.
I have mentioned the savagery of the horses, and
especially of Hakim, who has become like a wild beast.
He was standing fully four horse-lengths away from
me, with his tail towards me, and the guide had let go
his bridle, when there was a roar or squeal, and a
momentary vision of glaring wild-beast eyes, streaming
mane, and open mouth rushing down upon me and tower-
ing above Screws head, and the next thing I remember
is finding myself on the ground with my foot in the
stirrup and three men lifting me up.

I was a good deal shaken, and cut my arm badly, but
mounted again, and though falling on my head has given
me a sickish headache for two days, I have not absolutely
required rest, and in camp there is no use in " making a
fuss "—if indeed there ever is.

I shall not have pleasant memories of this camp.
The tents were scarcely pitched before crowds assembled
for medicine. I could get no rest, for if I shut the tent
the heat was unbearable, and if I opened it there was
the crowd, row behind row, the hindmost pushing the
foremost in, so that it was 8 P.M. before I got any food.
Yesterday morning at six I was awakened by people