The lieutenant is ill
water, a black trickle like spilt ink among the blazing rocks,
with the dusty shadow of one oak tree thrown across it.
But we had hardly begun to take the packs off, when the
lieutenant and his two policemen came up and begged us to
ride a little farther, to some tents on higher ground.
The lieutenant was so ill that he could hardly ride at ail:
he crouched on the saddle, holding my sunshade to protect
him from the sun, and murmuring dolefully at intervals that
he was dying, while his bodyguard rode solicitously before
and behind him.
They led the way, up a small rise, on to the edge of the
open plain of Husainabad, or Deh Bala as it is still more
generally known. Then for the first time since leaving Iraq,
we looked at a flat horizon to the north, where ran the
plateaux west of Kermenshah: long table hills enclosed us
right and left, though so far apart that the impression was
that of openness, given by the level land between. Only a
high massif to the north-west, the Manisht Kuh, still domin-
ated the view. The plain was rich and filled with plough-
land: well-grown oak trees grew there, widely spaced, so
that each tree had sun and earth around it; a warm breeze
came across the level space, driving clouds across a blue sky.
As soon as we topped the rise, our policeman led us from the
track towards the right, and we came to three tents near
together, small and poor under the trees.
The lieutenant collapsed beside one of them, while I with
my party settled down for lunch beside another; and while
the chicken was caught and massacred in the name of Allah,
two cheerful little orphan girls, dressed with all fineries of
beads and bangles, came to chat and experiment, in momen-
tary awe, with the zip fastener of my travelling dress. They
had been adopted by the woman of the tent: she looked at
them smilingly, as if they were her own—but sadly too, for
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