The superintendence of my alterations gave me pleasant occupation, and, like Robinson Crusoe, I felt time slip quickly away. But I had hardly been a year in the house when I went home on leave, and ultimately the place was sold by auction for sixty pounds with all my improvements! A friend of mine in 1880 wished to purchase it, but the then owner declined one hundred and sixty pounds for his bargain. About September I had a severe attack of typhoid fever, and became on my convalescence extremely depressed. I could not regain my strength, and I applied for sick leave to England. I was told to march up by easy stages to Teheran and appear before a medical board. I started with my cook and a groom, and each evening I nearly made my mind up to go no further, so utterly done up did I feel. In this depressed condition I arrived at Kashan: here I got a telegram from Colonel S⸺, the Director, telling me that he was leaving Teheran the next day with Sir A. Kemball, the British Resident at Baghdad, who was going home on leave by the last steamer, that of course I could not catch that, and so he kindly invited me to stay in Teheran with him till I was myself again and able to return to duty. This news upset me altogether; I had determined to march to Teheran, and had hoped that by that time I should have got strong enough to post to the Caspian, catch the last Caspian steamer, and so home _viâ_ Russia. So impressed was I with the stupid idea that I must get home to get well, that I made up my mind at once to try and make a push to catch the Colonel and Sir A. Kemball. Tired as I was, I took a post-horse at once—I had not enough money with me to take two (in Persia one carries as little cash as possible). I told my servants to get home as well as they could. I determined to push on _coûte que coûte_. Leaving Kashan at dawn I got to Kūm, twenty-one farsakhs (seventy miles), by ten at night, and I felt fit to die, for I couldn’t eat or drink, my stomach retaining nothing; eighteen hours in the saddle brought me to Teheran, twenty-three farsakhs, or seventy-seven miles. I got to Colonel S⸺’s house, _only to find him gone_. I had a bath, I still could eat nothing; I borrowed money and lay down till the afternoon, when I went before a medical board, who seemed to look upon my quick ride to the capital as a sort of certificate of perfect health, and I feared that my leave would not be granted. However, my appearance, my staring eyes and shaven head were in my favour, and leave was given me; but I was told that, as I must miss the steamer, it was useless. These steamers cease running as soon as the mouth of the Volga freezes, and a telegram had come to say the next one would be the last.