FEBRUARY 5 was given up to rest. I slept from half-past six o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon, and before I had finished dinner twilight was coming on again. As usual, I questioned some men who knew the country well. They said that the road from Semnan to Sadfe passes through Mulke, Anjilau, Ser-i-cha, with sweet water, Kal-i-Rishm, Husseinan, Mahallaman, Siengk, and Bursuan, and that it is 20 farsakh long. From Sadfe to Damghan one passes through Kosar or K uh -sar, Mahabad, and Hassanabad, and the distance is 14 farsakh. There are many villages in the district of Kuh-sar. Two farsakh north of Sadfe stand the ruins of an old fort called Kale-ipagale or Kale-i-dukhter, where some time ago silver coins were found and a brazen bowl. The road to Shahrud runs through Turut, Cha-morra, Tut-bené, Cha-jam, Bulend-icha-jam-derre-dai, Cha-bager, Lejené, and Husseinabad. Between the wells Cha-jam and Cha-bager stretches a kevir about a farsakh broad, and there flows at times a rudkhanehi-shur-ab, or stream of salt water. This small subsidiary kevir is said to be elongated from east to west for a distance of 8 farsakh, and is evidently in connection with the salt desert in which I made an excursion in 1890 from Gusheh on the Khorasan road. From Sadfe it is 5 farsakh south or south-west to a salt well called Cha-leges, where some herdsmen feed their camels. Thence runs an old path, now never used and therefore obliterated, to the road we followed through the Kevir. What the Kevir is like to the west they did not know ; there is sahara or biaban,
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