Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/27

 part of which we were engaged in an exciting chase after a stray jackal, we reached the Persian telegraph station of Avadân. Here we received a telegram from Major Wells, giving us news of the Wallers' movements in India, and we sent messages to Tehran, with our compliments to the Amin-ed-Dowleh and the Moukbar-ed-Dowleh, ministers respectively of Posts and Telegraphs. From Avadân we passed several villages, and traversed an alluvial plain, which was eventually replaced by a gravelly desert. We passed through a large district covered with a white substance of a salt nature, used by the peasants as manure, and which is probably a kind of nitrate. We reached the village of Deh Namek, i.e., the salt village, shortly before eleven. It is a very miserable place, consisting of about fifty poor huts round an artificial mound, where the water, from its close proximity to the Great Salt Desert is very brackish, and where there are no supplies of any kind.

At Deh Namek we met with our first difficulty in connexion with horses. We required five, and only four were forthcoming. After much useless wrangling, we were obliged to take