168 JOUENEYS IN PERSIA LETTER xxv

LETTEE XXV

GAUKHAUD, Sept. 18.

THIS is a difficult journey. The road is rarely traversed
by Europeans, the marches are long, and I am really not
well enough to travel at all, not having been able to
shake off the fever. Cooler days and cold nights are,
however, coming to the rescue.

My Harnadan friends gave me a ladragliah (a parting

escort)—Miss 0. M-------, Mr. Watson, Pastor Ovannes

and his boy, all on horseback; Mrs. Watson and her
baby on an ass; several servants on foot, and Miss

M-------and Mrs. Alexander in a spidery American

buggy with a pair of horses; Dr. Alexander, a man six feet
two inches high and very thin, " riding postilion " on one
of them to get the buggy over difficult places; Ibrahim,
the ladies' factotum, with a gun slung behind him, follow-
ing on horseback. Two of the ladies and the native
pastor stayed at night. It was not a pleasant return to
camp life, for Johannes is quite ignorant of it, and
everything was at sixes and sevens. Nor was the first
morning pleasant, for the head charvadar, Sharban, came
speaking loud with vehement gesticulation, saying that
if I did not march with the big caravan and halt when
it did, they would only give me one man, and added
sundry other threats. Miss M------- scolded him, re-
minding them of their agreement, and Ibrahim told them
that if they violated it in the way they threatened they