In taking servants, take men who have travelled before: men who know their business, and to whom travelling is no trial, soon learn their duties and your ways, and after the second stage do all that they have to do with great regularity. Men who may be good servants in a city, on the road if they have never marched are quite helpless—they are for ever tumbling off their mules, dropping and leaving things behind, always tired, always asleep, and ever grumbling. Drop them as soon as you find them out, let some one else have the pain of breaking them in and making men of them. An old man (or middle-aged one) who has never travelled is hopeless; a boy may learn.

The cook should be a good one and one who is used to the road, and a man of even temper. Pity and spare him, for his trials are many—all day on his mule, the rest of the twenty-four hours in the smoke and blowing up a fire of, as a rule, damp wood, he barely gets his well-earned rest of four hours. Promise him a good present on the arrival at destination, humour him, let him make a little profit, and let him give you his accounts. Make him always have hot water and soup ready, and always cold fowl or meat in his bags, and he should be prepared to cook a hot breakfast at an instant’s notice in twenty minutes on a bare desert plain, with the wood and water he has with him, and without shelter of any kind.

In choosing a horse for the road it must be remembered that beauty is nothing. Great strength and health with quick and easy walking powers are needed, and a smooth action; the beast should be in good health, with a healthy back and clean feet, and a good feeder; he above all things should have a long stride and no tendency to trot; his paces being a walk, an amble, and a canter, he should not be lazy or a puller; his temper should be good, that he may be taken near the mules; and unless he be sure-footed, and never cuts, he is useless for marching purposes. He should not be too young or at all delicate, the more of a cob he is the better; greys should be avoided, and above all white hoofs, or even one white hoof.

He should be shod the day before leaving, but the hoof left as long as possible. The Dayrell bridle, being also a head-stall, is good for marching.

In starting it is very needful to secure a respectful and respectable muleteer, and having got him, to protect him from the exaction of ten per cent. of his total hire by the servants; let him feel that you are his friend.

All the kit that is required on the journey, as tables, chairs, food, clothes, and liquor, should be on one or two mules, not all mixed up on many, with things that are not needed till the journey’s end.

On the groom’s mule (which should be a good one in order to come in with the master’s horses) should be all the horse-clothing, head and heel ropes, etc., and full nose-bags, so that the horses may get a good feed on arrival (of chaff).

With the cook’s should be all their kit, a little dry fire-wood, knives and forks, and tea: with the head-man on a good horse, a snack, water, wine, matches, money, and a big whip, and the rugs and wraps. A whip is needful, as one is liable to be mobbed or insulted.

A good supply of tinned provisions should be taken, dried fruits, rice, flour, sago, tinned milk, and chocolate and milk, and some soups and vegetables in tins. The wine should be strong, to bear dilution. One bottle of brandy we took as a medicine; it arrived unopened.

In the foods the great thing is to get variety. Butter should be melted and run into a champagne bottle for cooking purposes, while fresh and good butter may be bought in each large town and carried in tins salted, for four stages, or more if in winter.

Small tent carpets are needed, large ones are useless, and two small ones are better than one of larger size, as they fit in better, or carpet two rooms. A small broom is needful. Copper pots for cooking, and enamelled iron cups and tin plates as being less bulky than copper are required. Bottles when emptied should be repacked to avoid smashes; all bottles should be in straw envelopes. Short carriage candles are good and need no candlesticks—being thick they stand upright.

A table should be made of a board three feet long by two and a half wide, with a cross piece near each end underneath; this is merely laid on cross trestles held together by a string.

Folding chairs, not camp stools, should be taken, and they should be strong and covered merely with canvas; thick stuff gets wet, and keeps so. The best chair is with a buckle, so as to raise for dining, or lower for lounging; by putting on a movable foot-piece of two small iron rods and a bit of canvas, a fair and very comfortable bedstead is produced, and no mattress needed. No mattresses should ever be used, but as coarse chaff is procurable everywhere, large bags should be taken, the size of a mattress, half filled with it, and shaken down; these beds are warm (and cool in hot weather), fairly soft, and hold no insects. Pillows must be carried; linen pillow-cases are best.

All “jims,” such as naphtha stoves, spirit lamps, air cushions, cork mattresses, iron bedsteads, are practically useless, as they are either so light as to smash, or so heavy as to be a nuisance. Everything should be of the commonest and strongest materials.

Bullock trunks are the best kind of clothes box, but should have no straps (the straps are always stolen), but strong brass hasps for two padlocks for each trunk are a very good thing, as locks sometimes open from a severe jar. As for bed-clothes, sheets are a great comfort; I never travelled without them; they should be also carried through Russia. Red or Vienna coloured blankets are the best, and should be carried in a “mafrash band,” or big carpet waterproof trunk; the carpets should be laid over all, and these with the man on top of them keep the bedding dry. These mafrash bands serve also to hold all odds and ends.

Bread should be taken on from each stage, as it may not be got or be very bad at the next, and when not wanted is gratefully accepted by the servants. A double supply should be got at each large town, as it is always good there.

At the big towns, too, very good “bazaar Kabobs” of chopped meat (they are eaten hot), also biscuits and dried fruits, may be had. The tea must be Indian, as that sold in Persia is very inferior.

Milk, as a rule, can only be got at sunset, and a tin or two of it is useful.

It is always better to go to a post-house, or chupper-khana, than to a caravanserai, as the noise of mules and camels is avoided, and the loud cries which resound on the arrival or departure of a caravan, which generally takes place at midnight or dawn.

Avoid night travelling if you can, but if you must do it, always start before midnight. When alone and unarmed keep within hail of your caravan, or keep at least one servant with you. It is easy to miss both caravan and road. If you have a swift horse it does not much matter.

See that your horses get their corn, and that they eat it; also that they are rubbed down when unsaddled, and are properly groomed two hours after feeding; also watered night and morning. Examine their backs, shoes, and hoofs each morning, and never take your groom’s word as to backs.

Insist on your saddlery, stirrups, and bits being bright each day.

Carry a big hunting crop and lash; even if you don’t mean to use it, the sight of it prevents rudeness. Unless the part you are in is disturbed, arms are as a rule needless.

Boots and breeches are only needed in autumn and winter, otherwise Bedford cord trousers, or pantaloons, and shoes are better; no straps. Boots, if worn, should be very large, with low heels, and well greased daily with resin ointment, or Holloway’s.

Spurs save one’s temper and arms with a very lazy horse, but otherwise are a nuisance.

A knife with corkscrew and straight blade, a tin-opening blade, and a leather-borer, is a good and needful thing.

Money should never be carried; one’s servant should keep it, save a few kerans.

In very cold weather it is as well to put on a big pair of coarse country socks over one’s boots, and to twist a bit of sheepskin, with the hair on, round the stirrup iron; these precautions keep the feet warm.

A sun hat or topi is of the first necessity; also thick and strong loose-fitting gloves (old ones are best) of buckskin.

A change of trousers or breeches, in case of a soaking, should be kept with the head servant, who should always have matches. Bryant and May’s are the best, and with three of their matches a cigar or pipe can be lit in any wind: they sell a tin outer match-box which is very useful, as one cannot crush the box; this, with one’s knife, pipe and pocket-handkerchief, should be one’s only personal load.

Oxford shirts, grey merino socks, and a cardigan of dark colour, complete the equipment; the last is a sine quâ non.

A Norfolk jacket is best for outer garment. No tight-fitting thing is of any use.

On arrival tea should be the first thing, the kettle being got under way at once; then carpets spread, chairs and table brought, mattresses filled and laid, beds made, and fire lit if cold. Make tea yourself in your kettle, and make it strong; never let your servants make it, as they either steal the tea or put it in before the water is boiling, so that they may get a good cup, and you, of course, get wash.

A Persian lantern should be taken of tin and linen (this shuts up) for visiting the stable at night, and another for the cook to use.

Water should always be carried both to quench thirst, and for a small supply lest at the next stage water be bad or salt.

Smoked goggles are a necessity.

A puggree of white muslin should be used for day marching.

A big brass cup can be taken in a leather case on the head servant’s saddle-bow; it acts as cup or basin.

No English lamps should be used, as they always get out of order.

It is wise before starting to see that the cook’s copper utensils are all tinned inside. A copper sponge-bath and wash-basin are needed. Plates and dishes all of tinned copper.

A few nails are required to nail up curtains, stop holes, etc.