Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/23

 for us, any and every horse which we might wish to have. In justice to the naibs, it must be said that they obeyed their orders to the letter, and when the resources of their own stables broke down, as they occasionally did under the strain of having to supply five good horses, they unceremoniously, and in the most high-handed manner, impounded for our use the best horses to be provided in the village.

On the 6th of March, leaving our children in charge of their excellent nurse, Smith, we started from the British Legation, Tehran, early in the afternoon, under the best auspices. The weather was fine, but cool and cloudy, and we were accompanied through the town to the Khorassan Gate by a large party of friends on horseback. Following the usual Persian custom of making but a short journey the first day, in order that every body and every thing may shake down comfortably into their places, we arranged to halt the first night at the station of Kabut Gumbuz, twenty-four miles from Tehran. Major Wells, who, with M. Rakofsky, had resolved to accompany us one stage out of the twenty-four between Tehran and Meshed, had sent on his cook to