Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/70

 in their neighbours' dominions, view with suspicion and ill-concealed hostility the visit of strangers in Transcaspia, more especially when those strangers are of English blood. Accordingly General MacLean left two small tents standing at Karatagan for his own use on returning that evening, but insisted upon our taking all the rest, together with his best servants, so that we might be independent of a possible offer of Russian hospitality at Dushak in the event of there being no train leaving for Samarcand upon our arrival at the railway station. Very dreary those two little tents looked standing on the borders of the wilderness as we started at nine a.m. in a north-west direction over a barren plain, on which some lean and miserable cattle were affecting to brouse. After four miles we crossed a range of sandy hillocks, and passed in front of the eastern face of the great Persian frontier fortress of Kelat-i-Nadiri. It is a strong, natural fortress, consisting of a plateau enclosed by a chain of heights which form a lofty, precipitous wall, penetrable only by certain paths. This plateau is about eighteen miles long, and from