There was a certain flower which I long had wished to
study in its mutations from the singular forms appearing
on the southern slopes of the Elburz--Persia's mountainous
chain that extends from Azerbaijan in the west to
Khorasan in the east; from thence I would follow its
modified types in the Hindu-Kush ranges and its migrations
along the southern scarps of the Trans-Himalayas--
the unexplored upheaval, higher than the Himalayas themselves,
more deeply cut with precipice and gorge, which Sven Hedin
had touched and named on his journey to Lhasa.

Having accomplished this, I planned to push across the
passes to the Manasarowar Lakes, where, legend has it,
the strange, luminous purple lotuses grow.

An ambitious project, undeniably fraught with danger;
but it is written that desperate diseases require desperate
remedies, and until inspiration or message how to rejoin
those whom I had loved so dearly came to me, nothing
less, I felt, could dull my heartache.

And, frankly, feeling that no such inspiration or message
could come, I did not much care as to the end.

In Teheran I had picked up a most unusual servant; yes,
more than this, a companion and counselor and interpreter
as well.

He was a Chinese; his name Chiu-Ming. His first thirty