'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎282] (323/360)

THROUGH PERSIA ON A SIDE-SADDLE
so we sent horses to meet them, and awaited their arrival
in a state of high expectancy.
At last they appeared, hardly able to stagger into the
house, both so wasted away from the effects of the
malignant Shusteri fever that I should hardly have known
them for the same men who had left us in such health
and spirits only a fortnight before. They had been
obliged to live in the midst of what Layard describes
as "the most pestilent town in Persia," and had been
forced to retire to the sardabs, or underground chambers,
vault-like and ill-ventilated places, in order to escape the
intense heat, which rose inside the house to n8° at 8 a.m.
and to 120° and even 128° during the course of the day.
They had had a narrow escape of being attacked by
Arabs when coming down-stream on the Skushan, the
little vessel having laid up for the night at Shillalia, near
several great mekalahs loaded with grain. A band of
Arabs, returning with the spoil of a village that they had
just sacked, fired several shots at the vessels from the
steep river-bank, but they were not suffered to pass un
challenged, for the deck-passengers of the Shushan all
turned out to be well armed, and it was an affair of moments
to barricade the decks of the steamer with bales of wool.
Nor were the white-robed Arabs in charge of the mehalahs
behind-hand. They screwed up their courage by chanting
a wild song of battle, and. breaking into a weird dance,
brandished their weapons to such good effect that the
Arabs on the warpath took their departure, evidently
considering discretion the better part of valour.
And now we hoped that orders would come for us to
start on our longed-for journey through the Baktiari
hills to Isfahan and then Tehran. My brother had