Another Larti guve
roll-top desk, and sticking out about half an inch all round in
proper mountaineering fashion. They were too big for
me, but Shah Riza in his emphatic way asked if it was not his
profession to fit clothes on to anyone at all, and pulled out of
his tobacco box an enormous packing needle which had
already served to mend my skirt when torn by the dogs.
With his Pahlevi hat tilted at an incredibly rakish angle over
one eye, he sat in the shadow of the porch of leaves, sewing
round and round the opening of the^mz until it consented to
dangle more or less tenaciously round my ankle. It looked
something like a snowshoe when finished, and later on amused
the Governor of Pusht-i-Kuh when I called on him. Seven
krans, or 15. 2d.9 was the price of this pair of shoes.
"We were still occupied over this business, and hearing from
the Malikshahi about graves in the lands of the Beni Parwar,
when the old man returned, hospitable and cheerful, and
evidently with no idea that we might have expected to find
him true to his appointment.
" You have been waiting?" said he. " It does not matter.
To-morrow we will go and dig." And he was just sitting
down to a few glasses of tea and conversation when I ruffled
him by assuring him that we were going off to dig that very
moment, before the darkness fell.
He gave in with a good enough grace, and after looking
about among the tombstones of the old city, and coming to
the conclusion that they were certainly Moslem, and not to
be touched, we found another grave at the cliff's foot, on die
side opposite to that of the day before. The old man dug
hopefully. The results were identical. The same narrow
shaft, built rectangularly of flat stones: the skeleton lying with
head to the west: two sharp stones, not flint but pointed like
flints, under the head and at the knees, and nothing else at all.
The bones were intact, and I took the skull, and wrapped it