xtent here, two out
of the three chapar men putting in a good portion of their time "hitting"
the seductive pipe, and tinkering with their opium-smoking apparatus.
They only have one outfit between them; both of them are half blind with
ophthalmia, and the bane of their wretched existence seems to be a
Russian candle-lamp, with a broken globe, that persists in falling apart
whenever they attempt to use it--which, by the by, is well-nigh all
the time--in manipulating the opium needle and pipe. Observing them
from my rude shake-down, after supper, bending persistently over this
broken, or ever-breaking lamp, their sore eyes and shrunken features, the
suzzle-suzzle of the opium as they suck it into the primer and inhale the
fumes--the indescribable odor of the drug pervading the
room--all this would seem to be a picture of an ideal Chinese opium
den rather than of a chapar-khana in Persia.

A broken bridge and miles of deep mud not far ahead has been the burthen
of information gathered from the villagers during the afternoon, and the
chapar-jee urges upon me the necessity of employing men and horses to
carry me and the bicycle across these obstructions into Nishapoor.
Preferring to take my chances of getting through, however, I pay no heed
to these warnings, well aware that the chapar-jee's interest in the
matter begins and ends in the fact that he has horses to hire himself.

In imitation of my example yesterday, I wander off the proper road again
this morning, taking a road that leads to an abandoned ford instead of to
the bridge, a mistake that is probably a very good one to have made when
viewed from the stand-point of mud, as my road is at least the shorter
one of the two.

A wild-looking, busby-decked crowd of Khorassani goatherds from a
neighboring village follow behind me across the level mudflats leading to
the stream, vociferously clamoring for me to ride. They shout
persistently: "H-o-i! Sowar shuk; tomasha! tomasha!" even when they see
the difficult task I have of it getting the bicycle through the mud. I
have singled out a big, sturdy goat-herder to assist me across the
streams, of which I learn there are two, a mile or thereabout apart, and
his compatriots are accompanying us to see us cross, as well as being
impelled by prying curiosity to see how many kerans he gets for his
trouble. The first stream is found to be arm-pit deep, with a fairly
strong current. My sturdy Khorassani crosses over first, to try