However this may be, they seemed to me to be a fine, honest lot of people, and their then Governor, Malekneas Khan, certainly was not deficient in politeness and florid compliment, for he sent me a letter addressed “To the great English doctor, he who _sits_ in the presence of princes.” On my return I passed through Myedesht, some seven farsakhs from Kermanshah, celebrated for its horses. Here I bought a strong three-year-old horse for four hundred kerans (sixteen pounds). My stud had now got to five, for my patients kept me in corn and fodder, so all an animal cost me was his price and pay of groom. I used to take long rides each day, and we always managed, the groom and I, to tire all five horses over the turf. In fact, after dispensary hours there was little else to do, for there were only two signallers here, of whom I did not see much, as when one was on duty the other was sleeping. Captain Chambers, who was newly appointed to the Persian Telegraph, now arrived, and it was a change for the better to have a companion. He received orders to buy mules for the Indian Government, for use in the Abyssinian war, and purchased some three hundred. Hardly was the mule-buying over, when orders came that the line from Teheran viâ Hamadan and Kermanshah, was to be handed over to the Persians; and I received orders to march across country to Ispahan, to which station I was now appointed. We started—Mr. Hughes, clerk in charge of Kermanshah office, and his wife; Sergeant Hockey, Line Inspector, and his wife; and two signallers, all of whom, with myself, were transferred to the Ispahan section. We went as far as Kangawar upon the post-road towards Hamadan, and then turned off on a less-known route to Ispahan, viâ Khonsar and Gūlpigon. Nothing particularly noticeable occurred till we got to a large village called Gougas, where we had to make a day’s halt to rest the mules. The spring was well advanced, and the whole plain showed heavy crops. What, however, interested us was the quantity of ruined kanaats, or underground watercourses, these teemed with pigeons; some of them were of a depth of seventy feet. The greater part of the irrigation of Persia is carried on by systems of underground tunnelling, called “kanaats.” A well is dug, generally on the slope of a range of hills, until water is reached; then, a few feet above the bottom of this well, a tunnel is made some four feet high and two wide, having its outlet in a second well, and so constructed as to have a very slight fall towards well No. 2. Should the ground be soft these tunnels are lined by large oval hoops of baked pottery, two inches thick and a foot wide. By placing these continuously the prime cost of the tunnel is much increased, but the expense for repairs is very much less; the great charge being the annual clearing out that the tunnels, unless lined, require, the soil falling in and blocking them, and the fall of water being lost by accumulations of the settlings of mud and sand.