The post-house was warm at any rate, being windowless.
Patchinar was evidently a favourite halting-place, for the dingy walls of the guest-room were covered with writing and pencil sketches, the work of travellers trying to kill time, from the Frenchman who warned one (in rhyme) to beware of the thieving propensities of the postmaster, to the more practical Englishman, who, in a bold hand, had scrawled across the wall, "_Big bugs here!_" I may add that my countryman was not exaggerating.
There was no difficulty in getting horses the next morning.

The post, which left for Resht before we were stirring, had left us seven sorry-looking steeds, worn out with their previous day's journey through the deep snow-drifts of the Kharzan.

By nine o'clock we were ready to start, notwithstanding the entreaties of the postmaster, whose anxiety, however, was not on our account, but on that of the horses.
"I don't believe I shall ever see them again!" he mumbled mournfully, as we rode out of the yard.

"And who is to repay me for their loss?
You will be dead, too, before sundown, if the snow catches you in the mountains!" But there seemed no probability of such a contingency.

The sky was blue and cloudless, the sun so bright that the glare off the snow soon became unbearable without smoked goggles.