Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/113

 summit of the pass was steeper and even more difficult than the ascent. Our horses being utterly unable to keep on their legs, we were compelled to dismount, and we all slithered and tumbled about on the mountain side for nearly an hour, in a way which would have been ludicrous if it had not been painfully exhausting. Patience and tenacity at length met with their reward, and by sunset we reached the valley in which the village of Ar is situated, where, two hours later, we were joined by our truant chavadar, who was not a little proud of his own performance, and who was much surprised at the objurgations which were heaped on his devoted head for having kept us so long waiting in our soaked and travel-worn clothes, deprived of all the simple little comforts carried on the backs of his pack-horses.

The night which we spent at Ar was the last before reaching the civilisation of Tehran, as we had resolved to cover the thirty-six miles which separated us from our comfortable house in one day, and for this purpose had sent orders that our own riding horses should come