Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/297

Rh cleaves its way through to the Afghan plain of Jellalabad, only forty miles distant. But beyond the Safed Koh lies—Russia! And upon all that northwestern sky we saw projected the great shadow of the double eagle, rather than the Afghan symbol of the tree.

The gold and ruby mists of the plain soon faded to cold violet shadows and purple darkness, and the flat white roofs around us were indefinite when the great demonstration in the sky was over. The crisp autumn air grew momently sharper as we haggled through the gharry door for a last bargain in Bokhara silk, and drove, that January night, to the dark, cheerless, stone-floored dak bangla which stood a thousand feet above sea-level, north latitude thirty-four degrees, Fahrenheit many less.