vehs before they sink. Nobody is
injured, beyond the women getting wet; no damage is done worth
mentioning, and as the two heroines of the adventure emerge from their
novel craft, their garments dripping with water, their doleful looks are
rewarded with unsympathetic merriment from the men. Few have been my
wheeling days on Asian roads that have not witnessed something in the
shape of an overthrow or runaway; so far, nobody has been seriously
injured by them, but I have sometimes wondered whether it will be my good
fortune to complete the bicycle journey around the world without some
mishap of the kind, resulting in broken limbs for the native and trouble
for myself.

After a couple of miles the road and the meandering stream part company,
the latter flowing southward and the road traversing a flat, curious,
stone-strewn waste; an area across which one could step from one large
boulder to another without touching the ground. Once beyond this, and the
road develops into several parallel trails of smooth, hard gravel, that
afford as good, or better, wheeling than the finest macadam. While
spinning at a highly satisfactory rate of speed along these splendid
paths, a small herd of antelopes cross the road some few hundred yards
ahead, and pass swiftly southward toward the dasht-i-namek. These are the
first antelopes, or, for that matter, the first big game I have
encountered since leaving the prairies of Western Nebraska. The Persian
antelope seems to be a duplicate of his distinguished American relative
in a general, all-round sense; he is, if anything, even more
nimble-footed than the spring-heeled habitue of the West, possesses the
same characteristic jerky jump, and hoists the same conspicuous white
signal of retreat. He is a decidedly slimmer-built quadruped, however,
than the American antelope; the body is of the same square build, but is
sadly lacking in plumpness, and he seems to be an altogether lankier and
less well-favored animal. For this constitutional difference, he is
probably indebted to the barren and inhospitable character of the country
over which he roams, as compared with the splendid feeding-grounds of
the--Far West. The Persians sometimes hunt the antelope on horseback,
with falcons and greyhounds; the falcons are taught to fly in advance and
attack the fleeing antelopes about the head, and so confuse them and
retard their progress in the interest of the pursuing hounds and
horsemen.

The little vil