The place was alive with snipe. I went to the left, or more open side, and was over my ankles in a moment. My enthusiastic friend was in to his knees. We blazed away, and were getting on well, when my friend lost his ramrod. Persia being a very dry place, all wood shrinks, and it had probably slipped out. There was nothing for it but to take the cleaning-rod from the case and use that; the difficulty was how to carry it, as we were firing frequently, and he didn’t want to unscrew it. My friend had no belt, and so thrust it down his back, between his shirt and waistcoat. We began again, and were soon in the thick of them. We had now got to the widest part of the swamp; I was separated from my guest by deep water-holes, and was looking at him when with a shout he suddenly disappeared, and it was evident he was in a water-hole. I rushed out and ran round the head of the swamp to his assistance; the servants were out of call. When I got there he was nearly done for; he had fallen head foremost into a hole, and could not get out, as the reeds gave way when he pulled them, and there was only a bottom round the edge of soft mud. The loading-rod had _somehow got down his back_, and he could not get hold of it, while it crippled him; and he had a very white face indeed when I helped him out by holding my gun out to him. He had lost his gun, but my groom dived and brought it out. I wished him to canter home at once, but he did not like to be seen in the pickle he was in—mud, _green_ mud, from head to foot; and he insisted on waiting till his man brought a change. This took an hour, and the day, though bright, was cold and windy. So there he stood in his wet clothes, his teeth chattering, trying to keep himself warm by jumping; but his struggles in the water-hole had so weakened him that he could hardly stand. Of course he had a severe go of intermittent fever, which laid him up for a fortnight. In after excursions he was content to leave me the right or dangerous side, which I from habit was able to safely travel in. Pierson and I visited a magnificent palace which was in course of construction by the Imād-u-dowlet. Some idea of its size may be given when I say that there was stabling for two hundred horses. In Persia, when a man passes fifty, he begins to be seized with a mania for building, but he takes care not to _finish_ the works he undertakes, being thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of his own death _in case of the completion of the edifice_.