Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/42

 neighbouring houses, from the roof of which the inhabitants watched all our proceedings with irritating pertinacity, until they were driven off by threats and imprecations. It was a lovely, balmy, spring-like evening, but there was an ominous look in the setting sun, which portended a coming storm, though we little dreamt of what was actually in store for us.

Next morning, Saturday, March 15th, on getting up at 4.30 a.m., we found the wind blowing hard from the east and the sky gloomy and overcast. The stage that we had before us was a long one, thirty-two miles, and in view of this I had taken the precaution to send the horses belonging to Mihr some miles ahead to await our arrival upon those which we had ridden the night before. Our track lay over a gravelly and sandy soil, and as soon as we got clear of the village and cultivated grounds of Mihr, we found the easterly gale blowing up into our faces clouds of blinding dust, through which glared fitfully the struggling rays of the half-hidden sun. More than once the violence of the storm took away our breath, and at times it seemed as if the horses could scarcely make