Up till now the pace has not been exhilarating.

Two or three miles an hour at most.

It will take some time to reach India at this rate! Four or five hours of this work, and there is no longer a sign of life to be seen on the white waste, saving, about a mile ahead of us, a thin wreath of grey smoke and half a dozen blackened tents--an encampment of gypsies.

Far behind us the tallest minarets of the capital are dipping below the horizon, while to the left the white and glittering cone of Demavend stands boldly out from a background of deep cloudless blue.

Though the sun is powerful--so much so, indeed, that face and hands are already swollen and blistered--the cold in the shade is intense.