Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/33

 this town being unpleasantly notorious by reason of the presence within its walls of a peculiarly poisonous kind of bug, the 'gherib gez,' we applied to the Persian telegraph clerk for shelter in the telegraph station. Our request was most courteously acceded to, and two rooms were placed at our disposal, looking into a small square containing a few sorry shrubs and a tank with exceedingly dirty water. We found Damghan to be a hot and deadly dull place. In the course of the afternoon we strolled about among the narrow lanes which do duty for streets, but saw nothing except high earth walls and dilapidated mud houses, on the roofs of which a March sun was beating almost as fiercely as an August sun in England. The small children stared at and ran away from the inquisitive strangers, whilst the latter pitied them for having to live the whole of their lives at Damghan.

We dined as usual at seven, and eight o'clock found us stretched on our straw mattresses.

Our road on the following day, March 11th, lay east by north, over even, alluvial ground. One of the horses brought round for our party