At the watering resort
rocks had been surrounded by stones to the height of a couple
of feet, as enclosures for the visitors to lodge in.
We made a tour of inspection, and having selected the most
promising of these abodes, with a big boulder to shelter it
from the south, we rigged up my litde tent for shade, spread
the quilt on the ground, and settled down to the making of
tea and the discussion with our fellow-pilgrims of what the
waters do to one's inside, as it might have been Aix-les-Bains
or Baden.
On the whole it was a more cheerful place than these, made
so by the very simplicity of things: rock and grass and air
and water were all the ingredients of the landscape, so light
and pure that the very thought of sickness was hard to enter-
tain. And the people were pleasant mountain folk from Tala-
ghan and Kalar Dasht, out for a holiday and ready to make
friends with all the world. I thought I had little enough
luggage with me, but when I saw how these travelled, riding
two days from their houses into the mountain solitude with
nothing but a litde bread and cheese in a handkerchief and a
samovar for tea, I felt ashamed of all the paraphernalia spread
about me on the ground.
Here I first saw the headdress the young women wear in
Kalar Dasht, a circlet made of small silver leaves sewn on to a
band, with perhaps a turquoise at the centre, worn at a rakish
angle over one temple under the kerchief. I bargained for
one of them and had almost got it, when The Refuge of Allah,
a silent but outraged witness of the negotiations, remarked
that two shillings was a monstrous price for such a bauble,
took it from my unwilling hands and flung it back to the lady,
filing her to our mutual chagrin that the matter was closed,
By this time the sun was straight overhead; not a cranny in
the valley was hidden from its rays except the small space
under my tent.
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