We kept on at a smart canter, only stopping to fix or shift the loads of the various animals. As soon as we were a mile or two from the station the shargird ceased to lead the baggage-horse; he had been compelled to do so till then, as he would have turned back. The cantering through the cold air was exhilarating; and now I had time to look at the country—_Persia at last!_—which I was to inhabit for three years certain. I found that the road, if such it could be called, simply consisted of a number of tracks across country, which ran along irregularly side by side, formed by the wear of strings of mules and camels; there was no road _in our sense of the term_; in fact, the judicious thing seemed to be to go as straight ahead as one could, avoiding bad bits by a curve, and keeping to the most worn portion of the track, unless it was deep in mud or water. The ponies did not require much urging, and I found it expedient to keep my big chupper whip quiet, till I had learnt how to use it with ease and effect. This whip is provided with a short stick of hard and heavy wood, covered with leather, and having a big loop of the same, that it may hang at the wrist when not in use. The lash is a round one of four thongs of Hamadan leather plaited, and is from four to seven feet long; when the latter, it is reduced in actual length to about three and a half feet by plaiting the lash from the stick downwards for about two feet; it ends in a knot, and beyond this are two flat pieces of leather some six inches long, which the expert keeps flicking under the horse’s nose; thus, without hurting the horse or tiring himself, letting him be aware of the punishment in store for the lazy being at hand. The stages are from three to eight farsakhs in length, a farsakh being in the rough three and a half miles; they vary in different parts of the country, and are especially long between Teheran and Hamadan, some of the seven-farsakh stages being, in the opinion of those who have been often over them, thirty miles and more. The average stage is, however, five farsakhs, and from one large city to another, as Tabriz to Teheran, Teheran to Ispahan, or Ispahan to Shiraz, this reckoning holds good. As a rule, a very short stage has a very bad road, a very long one a good one; but this is not invariable. The first and last stage of a long journey, too, is as a rule a very short one, as Persians like, in marching, to have the first stage a short one, that omissions may be replaced before definitely starting, and the caravan got together well outside the town. The last stage being a short one enables friends to receive them, makes it easier to put on good clothes and to brush up after the journey—in fact, to arrive in a presentable condition.