Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/44

, and where the cultivation of cotton is greatly on the increase. The 'manzil,' or station house, where we lunched, is a very shabby one for so important a town as Sabziwar, and enjoys an unpleasant notoriety for thieving and plundering. The Persian telegraph clerk, who called on us during luncheon, brought us some Tehran telegrams and conveyed messages for us to our distant friends. He invited us to pay him a visit at his house in the telegraph station on our way out of the town, and to this proposal we assented. At 2.30 we mounted fresh horses, and riding slowly through the crowded and busy little bazaars, reached the telegraph office, where we were received with a rather amusing attempt at pomp and solemnity. On being ushered up the stairs, at the top of which we were received by our host and several of his friends, we entered a long room, at the far end of which we found two chairs, placed side by side. Upon these we seated ourselves like kings upon their thrones, whilst our entertainers crouched in Persian fashion on the floor, and an inquisitive crowd, pushing and hustling at the open door, stared to their heart's content at the strange