nging
of the birds and the grateful perfumery in the air. The germ of goodness
still lingers within their semi-civilized conception of things about
them; they are the children of Nature, and are profoundly impressed by
their mother's varying moods. Their prostrations toward Mecca and their
matutinal prayers to Allah seem to gain something of sincerity from the
accompanying worship of the birds and the sympathetic essence of the
awakening day. Eastward from our camping-ground the trail is oftentimes
indistinguishable; but a few loose stones have been tossed together at
intervals of several hundred yards, to guide wayfarers across the desert.
A surface of mingled sand and gravel characterizes the way; sometimes it
is unridably heavy, and sometimes the wheeling is excellent for a mile or
two at a stretch, enabling me to leave the ambling yahoos of the sowars
far behind. Beautiful mirages sometimes appear in the distance
--lakes of water, waving groves of palms, and lovely castles; and
often, when far enough ahead, I can look back, and see the grotesque
figures of the khan, the mirza, and the mudbake apparently riding through
the air.

Perhaps twenty miles are covered, when we arrive at a pile of dead brush
that has been erected for a landmark, and find a dilapidated well
containing water. The water is forty feet below the surface, and contains
a miscellaneous assortment of dead lizards, the carcasses of various
small mammalia, and sundry other unfortunate representatives of animated
nature that have fallen in. Beyond this well the country assumes the
character of a broad sink or mud-basin, the shiny surface of its mud
glistening in the sun like a sheet of muddy water. Sloughs innumerable
meander through it, fringed with rank rushes and shrubs. A far heavier
down-pour than we were favored with on the plain has drenched a region of
stony hills adjacent, and the drainage therefrom has, for the time being,
filled and overflowed the winding sloughs.

A dozen or more of these are successfully forded, though not without some
difficulty; but we finally arrive at the parent slough, of which the
others are but tributaries. This proves too deep for the sowars' horses
to ford, and after surveying the yellow flood some minutes and searching
up and down, the khan declares ruefully that we shall have to return to
Beerjand. As I remonstrate with him upon his lack of enterprise in
turning from so trifling a difficulty, the khan finally or