We camp with the Dusan
of a fever chart. It was called Kuh Siah, the Black Mountain,
and continued the formation we had already seen in the
valley helow Garau: here, as there, it was broken at intervals
by black ravines. The Larti and Hindimini, the two tribes
we meant to visit, lived each in one of these ravines, under the
shadow of the mountain wall. Between us and them, across
the open stretch of plain, were white and red small salty hills,
untidily scattered in a straggling line. Our track, dotted
through the afternoon by wayfaring labourers, made straight
for them, passing in the open plain a little cemetery with
domed tombs, and the obelisk memorials of which the Lurs
are fond.
The Dusani guide was near his own home, but the darkness
threatened us before he could hope to reach it, and no one is
willingly out in this country in the dark. As the sun sank, we
stopped to water our horses at the only spring in the neighbour-
hood, the Eye of Bitterness, which slips into a green hollow
out of a cavern in the limestone hills. It is good plentiful
water, and cold, with a slight salty taste, not unpleasing.
After leaving it, we wound among the hillocks. The plough-
land ceased; we came into a grassy downland; and on an emi-
nence found a Dusani camp, just as the last women were
shouldering their goatskins at a water-hole below in the
dusk.
Here was no question of a doubtful welcome, for our
Dusani was among his own people, and Sa'id Ja'far was also
a man of consideration and well known, though of a different
tribe. The place was high and windswept: from the tent
door it looked out westward to Warzarine, and east to the
open valley spaces beyond whose horizon the invisible
Saidmarreh flowed. To the north we could see the day's
travel, and the hill where the treasure was, and ridges in
Lakistan beyond.
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