'THIM DAYS IS GONE' [‎62r] (123/248)

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range and this was no moment
niceties as shootable heads
felled him where he stood,
explaining that I had
i nd i scriminate1y but that my
of each species with the biggest possible
could see no conceivable sense in this,
pass up this heaven-sent opportunity of feeding us
to be regarded as sane.
to talk about such incomprehensible
Meat was what was wanted and I
I had spent sometime on the way up
no desire to slaughter game
object was to shoot only one animal
horns. The company
and I obviously could not
all and expect
The preparation of the meal was the easiest thing imaginable : a
match was put to the bark of a juniper tree which, being
tinder-dry, and having an oily bark, blazed u. p like a beacon
When it had burnt into embers, the meat of the ibex spitted on
twigs of dog-rose with tomatoes and onions, was roasted and made
the most delicious Kababs. (I did my best to discourage the
indiscriminate burning of junipers as these trees are very
slow-growing, and the one we destroyed was probably 2,000 years
old. The area is one of the largest juniper forests outside
Russia and my remonstrances were regarded as more ravings of a
demented F ar an g h i . )
Sitting round the embers after our meal, Ahmed rather coyly
produced his mauser and asked me if I could show him how to work
it. I could; but innocently enguired why he had not asked the
man he got it from how to work it. At this a snigger went round
the circle, and it transpired that the previous owner had been in
no position to give such instructions. He and Ahmed had
encountered one another at a spring in the mountains and Ahmed,
anticipating that the other was very likely to shoot him, had
prudently fired first. Everybody, it was explained, was very
pleased because the other was a much worse outlaw than Ahmed!
Surprisingly the night under the stars was utterly peaceful
although the experience of being woken before dawn with a glass
of vodka was a new one to me.
★★★★ * ★ ** * ★★★
One of my major concerns in making this trip was to find out what
I could about the Persian Turkomans; known as the Yomut, who
inhabit the area around Gumbad-i-Qa bTT s .
As far as I know no Englishman had had any contact with them for
very many years and they seemed to be rather an unknown guantitv
in this part of Persia.
It soon became clear that this was the wrong area to find out
anything about the Turkomans - had one appeared he would have
been shot out of hand! However I was familiar with their
traditional role from the pages of "Haji Baba of Isfahan." They
had made a practice of sending large parties (sometimes numbering
several hundreds) deep into Persia to loot the towns and carry