I envied the sleep of my companions, and as that was all I could do, I returned to the platform.
The dawn was appearing in the east.

Here and there were the ruins of the ancient city, a citadel girdled with high ramparts and a succession of long porticos extending over fifteen hundred yards.

Running over a few embankments, necessitated by the inequalities of the sandy ground, the train reaches the horizontal steppe.
We are running at a speed of thirty miles an hour in a southwesterly direction, along the Persian frontier.

It is only beyond Douchak that the line begins to leave it.

During this three hours' run the two stations at which the train stops are Gheours, the junction for the road to Mesched, whence the heights of the Iran plateau are visible, and Artyk where water is abundant although slightly brackish.
The train then traverses the oasis of the Atek, which is an important tributary of the Caspian.