The strain on mind and muscle was almost unbearable, to say nothing of the blinding glare.

Yet one could not but admire, during our brief pauses for rest, the picture before us.

The boundless expanse of sapphire blue and dazzling white, with not a speck to mar it, save where, occasionally, the warm sun-rays had, here and there, laid bare chains of dark rocks, giving them the appearance of islands in this ocean of snow.
At Pitche, the midday station, no horses were to be had; so, notwithstanding that deep snow-drifts lay between us and Kushku Baira, the halt for the night, we were compelled, after a couple of hours' rest, to set out on the ponies that had brought us from Rabat Kerim.
More perhaps by good luck than anything else, we reached the latter towards 9 p.m.A bright starlit night favoured us, and, with the exception of a couple of falls apiece, we were none the worse.

We found, too, to our great delight, a blazing fire burning in the post-house, kindled by some caravan-men.

But there is always a saving clause in Persia.