Before noon the wind veers round and blows for a time right in our faces, and the three men who are riding turn round to have the wind at their backs. If it is calm it feels warm in the sun, though the temperature does not rise above 48.2° at one o'clock. It seems as if winter and spring were contending for the mastery, and as if the latter were advancing from the coasts of the Indian Ocean, where it is a permanent guest, only giving place to a burning summer. But at present winter maintains not unsuccessfully its position in the north. The hills round Jaffaru are the eilak or summer pastures of Tebbes, where it is always fresh and cool compared with the stuffy lowlands round Tebbes. In due time we shall have more heat than we want, and then we shall perhaps look back with regret to the icy cold winds at Khur and Jaffaru.
We are in a broad open longitudinal valley, and when the fall, after having been north-westwards, becomes eastwards, we find that we have crossed a flat cross threshold without noticing it. Now the pink range before us shows up finely but faintly, and on its high crest the snow still remains in fields and patches. Before a large swell in the ground lies Tebbes, so that we have not much farther to go to the great stage on the journey through Iran, this longed-for aim of the two months' journey all the way from Teheran.
After a time the easterly slope of the country becomes perceptible both to eyes and feet. We come to another depression within which Tebbes is situated. West and north of the flat saddle in the longitudinal valley all the drainage channels are directed towards the great Kevir. It was, then, an important watershed we passed ; and, what is most remarkable, the depression we now come to lies lower than the great Kevir. Its bottom to the east-northeast looks dark in patches, and seems to be a smaller subsidiary kevir. The scene now unfolding itself to the east is fascinating in its solemn dreariness. The rosy, snow-clad range beyond Tebbes thins out like mist to perish in the sea on the south, and its outermost spur stands like a projecting cape on the shore.
Beside the way is a cairn, and the men who are walking
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