But this was hardly a day for admiring the beauties of nature.

Once out of the suburbs and in the open country, nothing met the eye but a dreary wilderness of white earth and sullen grey sky, that boded ill for the future.

The cold was intense.

Although dressed in the thickest of tweeds and sheepskin jacket, sable pelisse, enormous "bourka," and high felt boots, it was all I could do to keep warm even when going at a hand gallop, varied every hundred yards or so by a desperate "peck" on the part of my pony.
The first stage, Koudoum, five farsakhs from Resht, was reached about three o'clock in the afternoon.

This was my first experience of a Chapar khaneh.