The day was not suitable for outside work, for the wind was high, and light showers fell at intervals. But it was grand to sleep again in my comfortable bed and in my cosy tent, and not to have to lie out on the ground beneath the Caucasian cloak.
February 15 we spent at Khur. I drew a panorama of the district, sketched a few characteristic types, and took photographs. Then I went for a walk through the picturesque and sunny streets of the village, where are sometimes seen small arches spanning the passages without any apparent object. From the lanes you come through a portal to an entrance usually with doors to two courts. There are two mosques, a hammam, and a tower erected on a small mound of sandy earth, and from its top there is a topographical view of Khur and its environs, the palms and the Kevir beyond. Two squares interrupt the labyrinth of lanes ; there is no bazaar, but there is a caravanserai and the ruins of another outside the village. A tepid spring, now 68°, gives origin to a small rivulet, and the kanat of Khur with its ramifications runs through the village where vertical wells are often seen in the middle of the lanes. Quite a deluge of water had yesterday flowed through one street, which after the water had subsided rather resembled a bed of mud. An open space had been flooded, and a newly- newly-laid-out garden had been washed away. The height was the same as at Abbasabad, 2815 feet.
Khur, it seems, has about 500 inhabited houses, besides no small number of deserted huts. The houses are each inhabited by from three to eight persons, so that the inhabitants number about 2500 in all. There are several other hamlets in the neighbourhood, but they are small, containing at most only a dozen huts and some only two. The people of Khur own moo camels, 1200 sheep, which are driven into the village every evening, 15o cows, Too asses, 2 horses, and 2 mules. Their wealth and chief source of support are, however, the palms, which before 1903 amounted to about 10,000. But in that year a great misfortune ravaged the palm groves of Khur. An unusually heavy snowfall was followed by a long spell of icy
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