Turkman, Oct. 6.

Rising very early on Friday morning to keep my appointment with the ladies of the Governor of Sujbulāk, as well as to obtain a letter from him, I reached the palace entrance a little after sunrise, the hour agreed upon. The walls and gateway are crumbling, the courtyard is in heaps, the glass windows of the façade and towers are much broken, the plaster is mangy—a complete disappointment. The Kurdish guard slept soundly at the entrance; only a big dog, more faithful than man, was on the alert. The Governor was not yet awake, nor the ladies. It would be an “intolerable crime,” the sentry said, to waken them. He looked as if he thought it an “intolerable crime” that his own surreptitious slumbers had been disturbed. It is contrary to Persian etiquette to waken persons of distinction till they please. I waited at the entrance for half an hour and then reluctantly departed, very sorry not to give the ladies the opportunity they ardently desired of seeing a European woman. They had sent word that they had only once in their lives seen one!

The march to the poor village of Mehemetabad was over uninteresting low rounded hills and through a valley without habitations, opening upon a fine plain, at the south-east end of which the village stands. The camping-ground was a green fallow near some willows and a stream.