tice to obey any command he may give or to anticipate his personal
wants. He is a stoutly built, rather ponderous sort of individual, with a
full, rotund face and a heavy, unintellectual, but good-natured
expression; one's first impression of him is apt to be less flattering to
his head than to his heart. He is a person, however, that improves with
acquaintance, and is probably more intelligent than he looks. He seems to
be living here in a very plain and unpretentious manner; no gaudy stained
glass, no tinsel, no mirror-work, no vain gew-gaws of any description
impart a cheap and garish glitter to the place; no gorgeous apparel
bedecks his ample proportions. Clad in the ordinary dress of a well-to-do
Persian nobleman, Heshmet-i-Molk, happy and contented in the enjoyment of
creature comforts and the universal esteem of his people, probably finds
his chief pleasure in sitting where we now find him, looking out upon the
green trees and glimmering waters of the garden, smoking his kalian, and
attending to the affairs of state in a quiet, unostentatious manner. With
a refreshing absence of ceremonial, he discusses with me the prospects of
my being able to reach India overland. The conversation on his part,
however, almost takes the form of trying to persuade me from my purpose
altogether, and particularly not to attempt Afghanistan.

"The Harood is as wide as from here to the other side of the lake yonder
(200 yards); tund (swift) as a swift-running horse and deep as this
house," he informs me.

"No bridge? no ferry-boat? no means of getting across?"

"Eitch" (no), replies the Ameer. "Pull neis, kishti neis."

"Can't it be forded with camels?"

"Shutor neis."

"No village, with people to assist with poles or skins to make a raft?"

"Afghani dasht-adam (nomads), no poles; you might perhaps find skins; but
the river is tund-t-u-n-d! skins neis, poles neis; t-u-n-d!!" and the
Ameer points to a bird hopping about on the garden walk, intimating that
the Harood flows as swiftly as the flight of a bird.

The result of the conference I have been so anxiously looking forward to
is anything but an encouraging picture--a picture of insurmountable
obstacles on every hand. The deep sand and burning heat of the dreadful
Lut Desert intervenes between me and the Mekran coast; the route through
Beloochistan, barely passable with camels and guides and skins of water
in the winter, is not only impracticable for anything in the summer,