At five the same afternoon I mounted, having a bottle of claret, the only thing I could take, a tin of soup and some tea with me, also a brandy flask. I knew my only chance was to keep on. As I came to each stage I found the time Sir A. Kemball and Colonel S⸺ had preceded me was greater and greater, _but they slept_—I did not—I kept on, with the feeling that, as Giles Hoggett says, “it’s dogged as does it.” I rode all night and got to Kasvin, twenty-five farsakhs (eighty-eight miles), in fourteen hours. Here I had a difficulty in getting horses. The liberal presents given by Colonel S⸺ and his party had roused the extortionate feelings of the holy man in charge of the post-house (he was a Syud and a noted rascal). At first he would not give me horses at all, telling me there were none, and to go and rest, as I was ill; but I was determined. I submitted to the swindle of paying five kerans for a so-called permit for horses; this I carefully kept, promising myself to administer a thrashing should I ever return. This I had the satisfaction of doing, when in robust health, some five months afterwards. And I duly thonged the Syud, to his astonishment and disgust, for I was so changed he did not recognise me. He then of course called me “aga” (master) and held my stirrup when I mounted. After a delay of about four hours I got away from Kasvin, and I was now gaining on the party in front; but I was doubly unfortunate: the Colonel’s large party took seven horses, and more if they could get them, and I was preceded by the courier, who, a hale man, had started two hours in front of me. Thus the horses I got were doubly tired, but I kept on with the obstinacy of a sick man, though at times I think I was half delirious. I could eat nothing, and the only thing that had passed my lips since leaving Kashan, where I took soup, was a little claret; an attempt to breakfast in Teheran had made me very ill indeed. I arrived at a post-house, got two new horses, gave a present to my former guide, and on I went. I was too ill to talk, and my disinclination to speak caused an amusing incident at one place. The guide, thinking me a “new chum” who did not understand the language, amused himself the greater part of the stage by calling me “rascal,” “dog,” “son of a burnt father,” etc. This same fellow stole my matches and emptied my claret-bottle. I could have wept, but was too ill to thrash him or even remonstrate.