look after me. No doubt these men were put on to me a good deal as spies, but as I had nothing to conceal, I was glad of their company in going through the streets. While I was here there were two regiments and six guns. The infantry were the regiment of Arab-oAjam and the Geroos battalion. I made the acquaintance of the officers, and had long talks with the men. They were encamped outside the south wall, and the prevalence of raised platforms for sleeping showed that they suffered much from fever. The place seems to have no manufactures, and though I hunted everywhere for curiosities, all I could get was a very nice dagger. However, I managed also to pick up a couple of very good Toorkmun carpets here. These are quite different from the Persian carpets in pattern. and colour, though they are made in the same way. The predominating colours are not so bright as the Persian carpets, and consist chiefly of a Turkey red, black, white, and sometimes dark blue. On the 10th, I left Astrabad for Bundur Guz, and marched sixteen miles to Koord Muhulla The road goes due west and is quite level the whole way, at first piercing a very impenetrable thorn jungle, through which a path has been cut, and then through forest. At four miles the village of Aneraj is passed, at six miles that of Vurtan, and at eight miles is Kulla Jan, and then we came to Roshunabad, where there is a mosque, which reminds one very much of a church. At twelve miles we passed the picturesque village of Durra Mean, situated on the hill slope two miles off to the left; at sixteen miles we reached our stage. The country passed through was either dense forest of regular Terai-like character, or else thick bramble jungle with occasional clearings. Of the culturable capabilities of this country, I should say there could be no manner of doubt. Cotton, tobacco, corn and rice, could be produced to any amount, and the lower hills are just the sort of country that tea is grown on in the Darjeeling Terai. But all this requires what I fear it will never get as long as it belongs to Persia, viz., population, good government, capital, and enterprise. This village of Koord Muhulla seems to be very unhealthy. It is surrounded by swamps and terai jungle. While going through it to my manzil, I met two dead bodies being carried, and it gave me an awful turn to see a third being washed in the stream which furnished the drinking water for the village. In the evening the headman came and said six people had died that day; on which I said, that "Moord Kulla," would seem to be a more appropriate name for it than Koord Muhulla, but the pun called forth no response. Though my quarters were as good as they could furnish, I had a "night of it." I never slept one solitary wink. It was a night that might have given infinite pleasure to an entomologist, from the number and variety of the insect world that collected on my poor body, but having myself no mania for insectology it simply drove me almost mad. However, next morning we got off, and going through the same dense jungle, interspersed with swamps and clearings, we came to the village of Guz in about thirteen miles, and thence by a narrow path, through swampy ground and over some very nasty streams with treacherous quagmire bottoms for three and a half miles, when we came out on the shore of the Caspian, and turning to the left, arrived, at about the sixteenth mile, at Bundur Guz, the principal port on the south-east of that sea. Whatever its future may be, the Bundur of Guz is not now an imposing port, either with reference to its public buildings or its commercial establishments. It consists of eight or nine houses, built out of packing cases, and a very dangerous and wretchedly constructed pile pier, which runs out into water deep enough for a ship's boat to come alongside. Besides, there is a caravanserai built on a good plan, which if only kept decently clean, would be comfortable enough. to The "Bullyoos" at Astrabad had told me to go Mirza Sooleiman, whom he said I should find a very good fellow, and very glad to put me up. I found him to be a very good fellow, but I found that if he "put me up," he would have to put his wife up a platform erected on trees, so I declined. Then I went to the Russian agent of the Mercurial and Caucasian S. S. N. Co. Limited; but, finding he did not jump at the idea of having a gentleman in his house, I went to an Armenian merchant who had greeted me on my way in. This man was very civil, and said he would do anything for me, but when he showed me my bedroom, I realized that it was simply a box six feet square, with only one hole six inches square for air, that it was fearfully hot, that, to put it mildly, it had a certain bouquet, and finding I should be depriving him of the pleasure of living in it, I "got out of it," both literally and metaphorically. In despair, I now went to the caravanserai. I had been warned against it, I had been told that the mosquitos were bad and the fleas worse; but I was obliged to stay somewhere, though the smell was somewhat ammoniacal. The rooms were a good size, and I thought I had been agreeably disappointed on the whole. But what I suffered in the two nights I was there, would require |