wind, so that 4500 palms were frost-bitten. Therefore, a time of dearness and scarcity now prevailed in Khur, and a man of wheat, which used to cost 2 kran, now fetched 5. This year, however, a good harvest was hoped for from the remaining 5000 palms. The dates are sold in the northern districts, and with the price flour is bought ; wheat and corn are grown but not sufficient for the needs of the village. The palms are planted in rows within mud walls, and the ground between the trees is sown with wheat and barley, which was now fresh and beautifully green, and the palms seemed to grow up out of the finest carpet. Pomegranates, pistachios, melons, beet, vegetables, and cotton are also grown here.
Khur lies almost on a peninsula in the Kevir, quite on the shore of the sea of salt desert, which extends its dark brown and white belt to the north of it. It is astonishing to see this thriving and luxuriant palm garden so near the dreadful salt desert as much as it is also to see snow-clad heights in the home of palms. These are very great and surprising contrasts.
From Khur also run a bundle of routes in different directions, as for instance, to Yegark-Tahrabad, to GermeMehriyan, to Halvan, Aruzun, Jandak, Cha-melek, and Ferrukhi, as well as to Tebbes, Yezd, and Biabanek. It was particularly interesting to hear of a direct road from Khur also through the Kevir to Halvan, but it was said not to have been used for ten years previously. I found, however, some men who had travelled by this route and could give some information. It was reckoned to be 24 farsakh long, all in the Kevir except the last farsakh before Halvan. The reason it had been abandoned was that the salt slabs had been tilted up in many places into walls blocking the way. Three farsakh to the north-east from Khur the river-bed Rudkhaneh-i-ab-i-nemek or " the salt water river " is encountered ; it is a continuation of the salt stream we crossed south of Abbasabad, and which is there called Mil-i-divun. The road follows its course for a distance of 3 farsakh, whereupon the stream disappears into a hole in the ground, which is never filled, however abundant the flow of water may be.
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