Gerome, ever the Job's comforter, suggested a centipede, adding, "If so, you will probably have to lie up for four or five days." The look-out was not cheerful, certainly, for at Mourghab, the first stage, I had to be lifted off my horse and carried into the post-house.
With some difficulty my boot was cut off, and revealed the whole leg, below the knee, discoloured and swollen to double its size, but no sign of a wound or bite.

"Blood-poisoning," says Gerome, decidedly.

"I have seen hundreds of cases in Central Asia.

It generally proves fatal there," he adds consolingly; "but the Russian soldier is so badly fed." The little man seems rather disappointed at my diagnosis of my case--the effect due to a new and tight boot which I had not been able to change since leaving Ispahan.

Notwithstanding, I cannot put foot to ground without excruciating pain.