xix A SNOWSTORM IN THE DESERT 201
away bit after bit of the field of vision, and wait till it is the turn of our plain.
The ground is excellent—hard, and slightly covered with pebbles, the outermost sweepings from the flat cones of detritus of the higher hills which we are skirting, and only in the neighbourhood of weathered hills can the ground be so firm ; even after pouring rain it would not be slippery. The road has almost come to an end, only a light yellow strip in the grey rubbish shows that we are following a track.
Now the snow clouds are over the plain, and come rolling up like mist from the sea. Siah-kuh has disappeared, but a faint outline of the higher hills is still discernible. And then it begins to snow in small dense flakes, and the fall increases, without, however, the ground becoming white or wet ; dust still rises behind the camels, for below the gravel there is loose loam. The shrubs now stand io to 15 feet apart, and soon even the last path disappears ; the country is now completely level, like the surface of the sea ; not a sign of an undulation, no furrows or subsidences. The snow still increases, and the ground becomes slightly moist. It is quite calm. Now the hills to the south also vanish, and the caravan is the only thing to be seen ; the foremost camels in the long procession disappear like ghosts in the mist. At a place where dry shrubs grow more freely than elsewhere, we halt a while to collect a good supply for fuel ; four large heaps are tied together with ropes and hoisted on two of the camels. My camel has always to lie down before I can scramble on to his back, and this time he gets up quick and elastic as a spring before I am in position, and consequently I am flung over his tail, come down head foremost, and strike Mirza, who falls undermost. However, he gets up uninjured after his crushing, and takes the accident calmly, though the other men laugh at the double fall. A little farther on his camel slips on the moist clay, and comes down slap, and the rider rolls over twice to one side.
This day the temperature never rose above freezing-point, and even at one o'clock was 28.8°, and the snow fell in such quantities that it was quite dusk in the middle of
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