ad to an outlying village. This happy commencement of a new day is
followed by a variable road leading sometimes over stony or gravelly
plains where the wheeling varies through all the stages of goodness,
badness, and indifference, and sometimes through grazing grounds and
cultivable areas adjoining the villages.

Scattered about the grazing and arable country are now small towers of
refuge, loop-holed for defense, to which ryots working in the fields, or
shepherds tending their flocks, fled for safety in case of a sudden
appearance of Turcoman marauders. But a few years ago men hereabouts went
to plough, sow, or reap with a gun slung at their backs, and a few of
them reaching the shelter of one of these compact little mud towers were
able, through the loop-holes, to keep the Turcomans at bay until relief
arrived. The towers are of circular form, about twenty feet high and
fifteen in diameter; the entrance is a very small doorway, often a mere
hole to crawl into, and steps inside lead to the summit; some are roofed
in near the top, others are mere circular walls of mud. On grazing
grounds a lower wall often encompasses the tower, fencing in a larger
space that formed a corral for the flocks; the shepherds then, while
defending themselves, were also defending their sheep or goats. In the
more exposed localities these little towers of refuge are often but a
couple of hundred yards apart, thickly dotting the country in all
directions, while watch-towers are seen perched on peaks and points of
vantage, the whole scene speaking eloquently of the extraordinary
precautions these poor people were compelled to adopt for the
preservation of their lives and property. No wonder Russian intrigue
makes headway in Khorassan and all along the Turco-inan-Perso frontier,
for the people can scarcely help being favorably impressed by the
stoppage of Turcoman deviltry in their midst, and the wholesale
liberation of Persian slaves.

The town of Damghan is reached near noon, and I am not a little gratified
to learn that the telegraph-jee has been notified of my approach, and has
stationed his farrash at the entrance to the bazaar, so that I should
have no trouble in finding the office. This augurs well for the reception
awaiting me there, and I am accordingly not surprised to find him an
exceptionally affable youth, proud of a word or two of English he had
somehow acquired, and of his knowledge of how to properly entertain a
Ferenghi. This l