'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎42] (73/360)

THROUGH PERSIA ON A SIDE-SADDLE
good. The shackles of civilisation are left behind. There
are no trains or steamboats to be caught, no crowded
hotels to stop at. The traveller leaves one guest-house after
another without regret; camp after camp is pitched and
then struck, inducing a constant eagerness to press on and
reach the next stage of the march. And yet there is no
hurry about it all. The caravan halts at the pleasure of
its master, and stops as long as he chooses, the tent-life
making the journey one delightful picnic. And the charm
of the life is increased tenfold to those who love horses,
and who travel, as we did, with their own animals. In the
East the horse becomes a friend. It will often follow its
master like a dog, will wander about camp unpicketed,
strolling up to beg for a bit of bread or sugar, and is, in
short, such a comrade that the traveller gets into the habit
of spending all odds and ends of time in the congenial
occupation of ' looking at the horses.' Usually his last
thought at night is to see if they are all comfortably
wrapped up in their thick felts, and his step is the signal
for a low neighing from his equine friends, those lying
down not attempting to get up, so confident are they of
his good intentions.
Then, again, the great solitude of Persia strikes the
imagination. Days may pass without coming across a
village or meeting an inhabitant. Man seems indeed a
small thing, as the caravan slowly crawls over some vast
plain always encircled by peaks, flushed with many a shade
of madder or mauve, standing up, sharply silhouetted
against the intense blue of the great cloudless vault above
them. Such a complete contrast to the bustle and hurry
of the West—a contrast between lands, in one of which
time is money and in the other of no account at all—forces