Harunabad does not differ essentially from any other village in South-Western Persia. Dirt and decay have laid their twin grip upon its crooked streets, its tottering mud walls, and ruinous habitations. {95} The inhabitants were as hungry as any other of their class in Persia, and they crowded round the bivouac cookhouses snatching eagerly at any morsel of food that was thrown to them. General Byron, Captain Eve, Lieutenant Akhbar, and I lighted on a couple of rooms in a disused caravanserai, and the local governor, who seemed to bother less about backsheesh than the average of his fellows, procured us some mutton and firewood. Two of his servitors who had brought the supplies were demanding an exorbitant price--the middleman's profit. The Governor, happening to arrive on the scene while the haggling was proceeding, beat the grasping pair soundly in our presence, and promised them a dose of the bastinado on the morrow. Thoroughly abashed by their drubbing, and terrified by the prospect of a fresh one next day, they fell upon their knees, begging for mercy and forgiveness. The General successfully pleaded on their behalf, and they showed their gratitude by kissing his hands, before taking themselves out of range of the still wrathful eye of the Governor. The night was cold, with a tinge of frost in the air. We sat round the fire after supper drying our sodden garments and removing the encrustations of Persian mud which had settled thickly upon them. Sleep came to us easily after the fatigues of the day, and it was with a feeling of deep personal resentment that we heard the Hussars' trumpeter sound the reveille. {96} Most transport mules are longsuffering animals, but they rebel occasionally. The Persian variety was inclined to be peevish, when it came to early rising and taking afresh upon its sturdy back the burden of the day. Those of our supply convoy, when prodded into activity before sunrise, rarely failed to make their displeasure felt by a vigorous protest lodged at random in some part of a charvadar's anatomy. On the morning of our departure from Harunabad the mules showed themselves especially intractable. It could hardly have been because of any deep-rooted affection for the locality itself. However, at the cost of much profanity and shouting on the part of the muleteers, during which grave aspersions were cast upon the character of the mules' ancestors, the rebellious beasts were cowed into submissiveness and our column was soon floundering anew in the mud of the Persian wilderness.