The country of the Malikshabi
in ploughed land by the stream, and rested here for many
hours while the chicken, now considered a necessary part of
my menu, was being caught, decapitated, plucked, speared
on a peeled stick, and finally roasted over the fire. Bread was
made for us, and a lengthy negotiation for a new mule was
started by Shah Riza, with an opening burst of eloquence on
the sufferings caused by his mare: the Seyids o£thelmamzadeh,
who own the ground around, sat in a judicial circle: a brown
mule was finally produced with a new muleteer: and after
parting regretfully with our smuggler, we eventually got
away at one-thirty, wading up the limpid waters of the stream.
The whole country of Pusht-i-Kuh is divided by a long and
high range, running north-west and south-east like a wall:
its two chief peaks, called Walantar1 and "Warzarine, are a
little lower and a litde higher than 9,000 feet respectively,
but it is not their height so much as the general unbroken
massiveness of the ridge, keeping to about 7,000 or 8,000 feet
for many miles with never a break worth speaking of, which
gives its prestige to the range. Its far snows are seen from
the desert of Iraq on a clear winter day, and for many months
when the snow lies, the Malikshahi on one side, and the Bedrei
on the other cannot meet—a difficulty which, judging from
what they say one of the other, cannot distress them.
For this great mountain we were making, winding now in
a corridor of rocks and shadows up the canyon of die Pir
Muhammad stream. Maidenhair grew in the clefts. Above,
high up, leaning into the sky, were trees. Two women
stood and called down from the edge, their heavy turbans and
loose sleeves etched and foreshortened against the blue like
some Venetian ceiling. And as we crossed at intervals among
the white boulders, we looked into clear water with fish in
it, whisking transparent tails.
1 or Waland Tar.
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