One is soon tired and sleepy after the jolting of the mule and the heat and air, and it is not usual to sit up long after sunset The meal finished, we lay down where we were, upon a somewhat stony ground, and waited for the sleep that comes quickly. But the darvish sat upon his heels and commenced in a low voice chanting in monotone, “La allahu ill’allah,” in rising cadence, drawing deep breaths with a groan, till his voice rang out in the still night. His breath shortened, and the curious exhaustion that accompanies these exercises overtook him, and with a groan he sank motionless upon the ground. Then, after a few minutes he recommenced, “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar,” in sharp staccato, accentuating the last syllable of the word “akbar” so that it fell like a hammer-stroke upon the ear. Again till exhaustion he continued, and once more he rose and started the cry upon “Allah.” After this he lay prostrate and slept where he collapsed, and we slept too. In the manner of caravan travelling it was yet pitch dark when we got under way in the morning, and the sun rose as we arrived at the foot of the ridge and pass, into Bazian--the now evacuated country of the Hamavands. We struggled slowly and painfully up the long and stony ascent, and from the summit looked back again over Sulaimania--whose position was marked in the valley of Surchina by a white streak up the ridge of the opposite range--the road to Panjwin and Persia. A turn behind a rock, and we left it all out of sight, and below our feet lay the narrow valley of Bazian, stretching right and left. Opposite it was bounded by the Bazian range, not high, but rising in a sheer cliff of several hundred feet, shutting in the land and giving the place an air of peaceful seclusion in the bright morning light, which changed to a gloomy prospect when the sun, going west, threw the cliff’s shadow across the plain, and its face appeared a frowning wall, under whose lee the Hamavands had encamped, and from their camps watched the passage of caravans--and victims. Now it was deserted, no smoke curled up quietly in the morning air, no horse neighed, and we had not heard the report of a single rifle since daylight. So, having nothing to apprehend, we picked our way leisurely down the slope, and at the bottom turned to the right along the valley, gradually making our way to the other side towards the pass of Darband-i-Bazian. We passed, as we went along, many a little garden that the Hamavands had left, little neat patches of cultivation on the hill-sides and in the bottom of the valley, which were now bearing fruit, and of which the travellers of another small caravan we had overtaken were busy cutting and carrying away the deserted produce. [Sidenote: BAZIAN]