In The Mean Time, We Busied Ourselves With Breakfast And A
Cup Of Steaming Cocoa, For A Long Ride Was Before Us.
It was still
bitterly cold, with a strong north-easter blowing.
The thermometer
marked (in the sun) only one degree above zero.
Rustemabad, a collection of straggling, tumble-down hovels, contains
about four or five hundred inhabitants. The post-house, perched on
the summit of a steep hill, is situated some little distance from
the village, which stands in the centre of a plateau, bounded on the
south-west by a chain of precipitous mountains. The country around is
fertile and productive, being well watered by the Sefid Roud (White
River). Rice is largely grown, but to-day not a trace of vegetation is
visible; nothing but the vast white plain, smooth and unbroken, save
where, here and there, a brown village blurrs its smooth surface, an
oasis of mud huts in this desert of dazzling snow.
An exclamation from Gerome suddenly drew my attention to the
postmaster, who stood at the open doorway, my pelisse in hand. I was
then unused to the ways and customs of the Persian peasantry, or
should have known that it was but labour lost to make one spring at
the old idiot, and, twining my fingers in his throat, shake him till
he yelled for mercy. Nothing but a thick stick has the slightest
effect upon the Shah's subjects; and I was, for a moment, sorely
tempted to use mine. The reader must own that I should have been
justified.
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