'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎206] (241/360)

206 THROUGH PERSIA ON A SIDE-SADDLE
as, with a thermometer at 35 0 and an icy wind and sleet
blowing into our faces, we should have been chilled to the
bone in our saddles. After walking for some time, how
ever, we were obliged to mount, as we came upon a large
expanse of fairly deep flood-water, hurrying on its way to
the site of our late camp. During the day we had to cross
the water-shed separating the north from the south
drainage, all the streams and rivers we encountered
henceforth draining southward instead of northward as
before. There were three difficult stone-strewn passes
to be traversed, and we were obliged to walk for the most
part, leading our horses in and out among the boulders.
To me there was something horrible in this sinister-looking
mountain range, so dark and lifeless, full of strange echoes,
every now and again weird sounds striking the ear, not to
be accounted for in any natural way. It appeared to be
an utterly forsaken region, and I can well understand men
going mad if they were forced to wander day by day in
solitudes such as these, where there is never a sign of
animal or bird to break through the awful desolation, the
very vultures and crows seeming to avoid the accursed
ground. Though this march was only twenty-seven
miles in length, yet, on account of the steepness of the
mountain passes, it was one of the hardest we had ever
done. We ourselves were nine hours on the road to our
camping-place, and had to wait until ten o'clock that
night for our bedding and camp equipage. Dead-tired
and soaked through as I was, I had the grace to spare a
little pity for the poor animals that had been marching
for sixteen hours at a stretch and were by no means such
adepts at climbing as their Baluchi relatives, with which
1 became acquainted later on.