quitoes were doubled, and we had the chance of meeting a tiger or two
as well. Then came some more deserts, and then some more mountains; and
so at last we got to the capital of the country--a big mud-walled town
called Tashkent, or Stone Village--I suppose because there is not a
single stone within twenty miles of it.

All this while, Murad (for so my Tartar was named) had been like a man
of stone. He never complained; he never smiled; he never got angry. When
our food and water ran out; when the sand-flies and mosquitoes bit us
all over; when we lost our way on the prairie at midnight in a pouring
rain; when the jolting of our wagon bumped us about till we were all
bruises from head to foot; when we had to sit for hours upon a sand-heap
waiting for horses, with the sun toasting us black all the time; when
our wheels came off, or our camels ran away--honest Murad's heavy,
mustard-colored face never changed a whit. At every fresh mishap he only
shrugged his shoulders, saying, "It is my _kismet_" (fate); and when he
had said that, he seemed quite satisfied. I never even saw him laugh but
_once_. That once, however, I had good reason to remember; and this was
how it happened.

On getting to Tashkent we took up our quarters at a native hotel
(_caravanserai_ they call it there), where we were kindly allowed a
stone floor to sleep on, provided we brought our own beds and our own
food along with us. However, we were pretty well used to that sort of
thing by this time; so I got out my camp-kettle, and proceeded to make
tea, while Murad, like Mother Hubbard in the song,

"Went to the baker's to buy him some bread."

By this time our daily mess of food had become a _mess_ in every sense.
Bumped and jolted about as we had been, it was no uncommon thing for me
to find my bottle of cold tea standing on its head with the cork out, my
soda powders fraternizing with the salt and pepper, and my brown loaf
taking a bath in the contents of a broken ink-bottle, the splinters of
which would be acting as seasoning to the mashed remains of a Bologna
sausage. I was not surprised, therefore, to discover a piece of
chocolate half buried in my last packet of tea, and by way of experiment
I decided to boil the two together, and try how they agreed.

But apparently they didn't agree at all, for I had hardly taken a sip of
my first tumbler[1] when I became aware of the most horrible and
astounding taste imaginable, as if a whole apothecary's