'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎237] (276/360)

WITH PERSO-BALUCH BOUNDARY COMMISSION 237
tombs lay on the ground, flat mud slabs, two or three placed
one above another, and there was usually a hole in the
roofs by which to admit light. Other mausoleums had an
ante-chamber, in one of which we perceived traces of blue
and red frescoed patterns, and the remnants of the blue
and white tiles which had been embedded as a frieze under
the line of the dome, while a third sort had an upper
chamber, evidently reserved for the head of the house,
servants and inferior members perhaps being interred on
the lower floor.
The mausoleum we passed when riding into Jalk had
greater attempts at ornamentation than any of the others
that we visited.
Round its walls were a series of low, recessed arches in
which were rough plaster bas-reliefs of horses, camels, and
elephants, much like the early attempts of a child, so
unlike were they to any of the animals in their normal
state. Above these quaint figures were rude frescoed
patterns in blue and magenta, entirely lacking in form
and symmetry, and so unfinished that they gave us the
idea that they might be the tentative efforts of some
amateur artist who was perpetually leaving off one crude
design after another in disgust Inside this particular
mausoleum a big mass of pebble and mud concrete roofed
in the vault of the king or chieftain once buried here, and
two or three holes gave access to the rifled tombs inside,
which, to judge from the quills strewn about, were now
tenanted by porcupines.
From the bare hills surrounding Jalk we got extensive
panoramas of the country. Below us lay the villages
peeping out with their grey fortresses and ochre-coloured
mausoleums from among the lovely palm-trees, the date-