Descent on Alisbtar
side and one white-clad shepherd, with his flock on the slope
of a hill.
This low, long ridge is called the Firuzabad Pass, and we
knew we had crossed the watershed when we came to a little
stream welling out from rocks on our left hand. The water
was velvety and bright as a bird's eye, and ran down towards
Alishtar; and we followed and came in the sunset to the open-
ing of the plain and to a little colony of tents on its western
edge.
Here under the open awning of the chief tent we waited
while the Khan was told of our arrival. The Lurs, like the
little girl with the curl, are very nice when they are nice, but
when they are not they are horrid—and one rarely knows which
it is going to be. There is an anxious interval when one
conies to a strange tribe and waits to see. This anxiety is
not confined to the stranger: I noticed that all my native
guides shared it, and used to hasten to explain my presence
with an empressement that could only be described as apologetic.
On this occasion the explanation was accepted with reserve.
The cunning little green eyes of our host wandered from me
to my kit-bag with an obvious thought behind them, while
he made no effort at conversation.
Time is the great factor on these occasions. We sat in
silence and watched the twilight, while the smoke from its
many tents floated like mist over the plain. Goats and ewes
were coming to be milked; their shuffling feet and low hal£-
bleatings filled the air with a sense of evening peace. A tree
showed like lace against the distance, and the new road, going
diagonally across to the gap of Khurramabad, lost itself in the
dusk. Our horses crunched chopped straw out of the mud-
built mangers close beside us—oats being mostly unobtainable
in the country: they tossed their heads with a little jingle of
bells now and thea. And in the eastern sky the mountain of