s put out the two left legs at the same
time, and then the two right legs. Their gait is therefore rolling, and
the rider sits as in a small boat pitching and tossing in a broken sea.
Some people become sea-sick from sitting all day bobbing between the
humps, but one soon becomes accustomed to the motion. When the animal is
standing up it is, of course, impossible to mount on his back without a
ladder, so he has to lie down to let me get on him. But sometimes it
happens that he is in too great a hurry to rise before I am settled in
my place, and then I am flung back on to my head, for he lifts himself
as quickly as a steel spring, first with the hind legs and then with the
fore. But when I am up I am quite at home. Sometimes, on the march, the
camel turns his long neck and lays his shaggy head on my knee. I pat his
nose and stroke him over the eyes. It is impossible to be other than
good friends with an animal which carries you ten hours a day for
several months. In the morning he comes up to my tent, pushes his nose
under the door-flap, and thrusts his shaggy head into the tent, which is
not large, and is almost filled up when he comes on a visit. After he
has been given a piece of bread he backs out again and goes away to
graze.

[Illustration: PLATE V. THE AUTHOR'S RIDING CAMEL, WITH GULAM HUSSEIN.]

The ring of bells is continually in my ears. The large bells beat in
time with the steps of the camels. Their strides are long and slow, and
a caravan seldom travels more than twenty miles in a day.

Our road runs south-eastwards. We have soon left behind us the districts
at the foot of the Elburz Mountains, where irrigation canals from rivers
are able to produce beautiful gardens and fruitful fields. The farther
we proceed the smaller and more scattered are the villages. Only along
their canals is the soil clothed with verdure, and we have scarcely left
a village before we are out on the greyish-yellow desert, where withered
steppe shrubs stand at wide intervals apart. Less and less frequently do
we meet trains of asses bound for Teheran with great bundles of shrubs
and bushes from the steppe to be used as fuel. The animals are small and
miserable, and are nearly hidden by their loads. Their nostrils are
cruelly pierced, so that they may be made to go quicker and keep up
longer. They look sleepy and dejected, these small, obstinate donkeys
which never move out of the way. Their long ears flap backwards and
forwards, a