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A few tiny patches of green peeping out of the yellow sand and brushwood, a wreath of grey smoke rising lazily here and there at long intervals over the plain, a few camels and goats browsing in the dry, withered herbage by the caravan-track, showed that there were inhabitants; but we saw no dwellings, and only one native, a woman, who, at sight of Gerôme, who gallantly rode forward to address her, turned and fled as if she had seen the evil one.
We had as yet passed but two villages three or four low shapeless huts, almost hidden in rock and scrub by the side of the caravan-track, which, as far as Beïla, is pretty clearly defined. On the second day one of the escort had pointed out a dry rocky bed as the river Purali, which is one of the largest in Baluchistán, but, like all the others, quite dry the greater portion of the year.
The cold here in the months of January and February is intense. We passed some curious cave-dwellings in the side of the caravan-track, in which the natives take refuge from the icy blasts that sweep across here in winter. They are formed by digging holes eight to ten feet deep.
We then learnt that a large lion had infested the caravan-track over the pass for some days, and had but yesterday attacked the mail and carried off one of the mules, the native in charge only just escaping by climbing a tree.
A number of square stone towers about thirty feet high, loopholed and crenelated, are visible from the caravan-track between Shiráz and Khaneh Zinián, where we rested the first night. The towers are apparently of great antiquity, and must formerly have served for purposes of defence.
A prehistoric flint knife, with a handle carved from the tooth of a hippopotamus, has been purchased lately by the Louvre, and is said to have been found at Gebel el-'Arak near Naga' Hamâdi, which lies on the Nile not far below Koptos, where an ancient caravan-track leads by Wâdi Hammâmât to the Red Sea.
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