As we climbed slowly down, Perce, who was coming last, started three enormous boulders, which crashed below. As Johnny leapt aside one missed him by only a few inches. Half the descent was successfully accomplished, but the ground beneath fell sheer away; so we went a few hundred yards in an up-stream direction on our own level. Coming round a rocky spur a wonderful sight met our gaze. Beyond us the cliff curved round in a shallow crescent. It was of soft yellow sandstone, and contained two large uninhabited cave-villages, about two hundred yards apart. With the passing of centuries the cliff had worn away, revealing a honeycomb of square caves. The larger village must have had ten or twelve stories of rooms connected up by some form of staircases inside, but we did not see them. The smaller one had two stories laid bare, but it was not as well finished as the other. The entrances to the village were Roman arches: under these ran a short passage leading to the door itself, which was rectangular in shape. In some cases the one archway contained two doors. The finest arch was carved on both sides, with crude paintings on it. From the foot of the villages a very steep pathway ran down to the river-bed below. This we followed, and a quarter of an hour later arrived at the bottom. Here was the most delightful sight we had seen since our start from Yozgad: green and shady trees lining the grassy bank of a murmuring mountain stream. The water was ice-cold and as clear as crystal--a merit when we thought of the stagnant cattle-wallows from which we had had to drink. It was too tempting to leave at once. We found what we thought was a secluded spot, and here we first of all arranged our packs so that each of us had an equal weight to carry after the morning's purchases. Then we bathed. The joy of that bathe after seventeen days was indescribable, and worth many a hardship. A bridle-path ran along the edge of the stream, and unfortunately any one who happened to pass would be able to see us. As luck would have it, an old man rode by on a donkey while we were engaged in giving our socks a much-needed wash. When he had gone we looked at each other and heaved a sigh of relief, for he had not even glanced in our direction; but when he rode past us again twice in the next twenty minutes and still failed to look at us, we thought it was time to move. Hastily filling our water-bottles and chargals, we started to climb the other side of the ravine. The chargal, an extra weight of ten pounds and hard to carry, changed hands twice before we got to the top, from where the view of the cave-villages was very fine.