'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎57] (88/360)

TO THE GOAL OF OUR JOURNEY VIA YEZD 57
it on March 6th, having accomplished two-thirds of our
long journey to Kerman.
It is set in a desert and surrounded by high mud walls
which are obviously needed to resist the encroachments of
the sand piled up in heaps against them, the desert being
a far more insidious enemy to the town than those against
whom the defences were erected in the first instance, and
making the old prophecy that Yezd will one day be
destroyed by sand seem not improbable. Not a tree nor
a scrap of greenery was to be seen, crops having but
a precarious existence in such a light soil, and all the
gardens being hidden from view by high walls. A great
expanse of squalid mud dwellings met the eye, relieved
here and there by lofty minarets and a liberal sprinkling of
the badgirs, which are much needed in a place where the
heat in summer is little short of suffocation for Europeans.
As we reached the environs of the city the road became
worse, with yawning holes at frequent intervals not pleasant
for riders after dark, and we got enveloped in a maze of
winding tracks, here and there coming across caravans of
groaning, grunting camels, sometimes laden with pome
granates which left a rosy trail behind them. Occasionally
we had to wait as the great creatures blocked up some
cross-road, lying down and declining to budge until the
vigorous remonstrances of their owners cleared us a
passage, our horses at first being considerably alarmed at
these encounters.
So, by degrees, we made our way towards the house of
the Fergusons (Mr. Ferguson being British Vice-Consul
and manager of the Imperial Bank of Persia at Yezd), who,
with true hospitality, insisted on putting us all up. One
day they got up a picnic to the Dakhmas, or Parsee places