Camps of the Bronze Age
behind her, could face poverty with a brave face, looked at
them tolerantly, understanding and despising.
Next morning we were late again in starting. We had
decided to dig among the graveyards of the Beni Parwar,
since our Malikshahi friend had a brother staying here who
knew of a site, and our host also told of places in the plain
where graves with jars had been found, and beads and bronzes.
At the last, however, there was great reluctance and an
hour's delay before we could get off, and then the two men
came with nothing but their hands to dig with, and had to go
back for their ineffective tools. I started ahead down the valley,
keeping to our path of two days before, and coming out again
where the slope descended, free of trees to the plain.
A little stream, the Ab-i-Makula, runs in spring through the
lands of the Beni Parwar and Dusan and into the Saidmarreh
out of sight, but it is nothing of a stream, and vanishes com-
pletely in summer. The crops of all this tilled ground depend
on rain alone, and the far-spaced camps get their water from
muddy holes in the ground.
Here, however, the people of the Bronze Age lived, and
their camps or graves can be found everywhere on the slopes
of the small gatch hills that ripple the surface of the plairu We
tried two places and found chipped flints, evidently brought
from a distance, splinters of bronze, rough red pottery and
mortar, and a squared stone, probably used for dressing
skins or as a loofah. There were no bones, and dim lines of
dwellings appeared under the surface of the ground. But
my party was discouraged by the size of the boulders to be
dislodged. The morning was hot already in the open land;
and the men's ridiculous pickaxe continued to separate itself
from its handle and to require longer and longer interludes
for its mending. Promise of pay had no charm for one who
had already sixpence in his pocket from the Larti digging: