At Sar-i-Yezd I had not been able to obtain fresh horses, so the Yezd
horses had been taken on, with an additional donkey. They had gone
splendidly, and we arrived at Zen-u-din shortly after ten o'clock at
night.

Solitary, in the middle of the desert, and by the side of a salt water
well, stands Zen-u-din (Alt. 5,170 feet). There is a chappar station, and
a tumbling-down, circular caravanserai with massively built watch-towers.
These appeared much battered as if from the result of repeated attacks.

We left our soldier protectors behind here, and two more military
persons, in rags and with obsolete guns, insisted on accompanying us, but
as they were on foot and would have delayed us considerably I paid them
off, a hundred yards from Zen-u-din, and sent them back.

There are mountains extending from the north-east to the south-east, the
Serde Kuh range, and to the south-east they are quite close to the track
and show low passes a mile or so apart by which the range could easily be
crossed. To the west also we have high hills, some three or four miles
apart from the mountains to the north-east, and to the north an open
desert as far as Yezd. We notice here again the curious accumulations of
sand high up on the south mountain side, and also to the south-west of
the mountain range east of us.

[Illustration: Typical Caravanserai and Mud Fort in the Desert between
Yezd and Kerman.]

[Illustration: A Trade Caravanserai, Kerman.]

At ten in the morning, after a dreary ride through desolate country, we
reached the small village of Kermanshah (5,300 feet), where a post
station and caravanserai were to be found, a few trees and, above all,
some good drinking water. From Zen-u-din to Kermanshah, a distance of
sixteen miles (five farsakhs), we had seen only one solitary tree to the
south-west of the track.

We had now rugged mountains about a mile to the west and south-west.
These were ranges parallel to one another, the Darestan mountains being
the nearest to us and the Godare Hashimshan behind them further
south-west.

While I was waiting for fresh horses to be got ready I amused myself at
every station studying the curious inscriptions and ornamentations by
scribbling travellers on the caravanserai and post-house walls.
Laboriously engraved quotations from the Koran were the most numerous,
then the respective names of travellers, in characters more or less
elaborate according to the education of the writer, and gen