but to behold the saints of Khiva, Bokhara, and
Samarcand. He had now been waiting a
year in Persia, and he thanked God for having
at last granted him fellow-travellers such as
they were, with whom he might proceed on his
way, and accomplish his purpose.

The Tartars were amazed at the proposal,
and were more sure than ever that he who could
make it was really a dervish; but they honestly
warned " Reshid Efendi" of the perils of the way.
Mr. Vámbéry persisted, and was accepted as a
fellow-traveller by the chiefs of the dervish caravan.
His friends at the embassy said he had
trusted himself to men who would kill him or sell
him for the smallest coin, but as he believed otherwise,
and was resolved to go, the Turkish envoy
received the hadjis, spoke of Reshid Efendi's
designs in terms corroborative of his own
representations, recommended him to the hospitality
of his new fellow-travellers, and promised them
that they might look for a return for any service
done to an Efendi, a servant of the Sultan, who
is the acknowledged chief of true believers.
Then he asked for a list of the persons in the
caravan, and made to it, on the part of the
embassy, a handsome donation of fifteen ducats.

Hadji Bilal had two adopted sons with him,
who were too heavy a burden on his resources;
one of them was quartered on the new traveller
as " famulus," to make the bread, and brew the
tea, and help to dispose of them when they were
ready. Mr. Vámbéry made up his mind to put
complete faith in the good intentions of this
hadji, showed him what money he was taking for
the expense of the journey, and was instructed
by him to avoid all character for wealth, shave
his head, wear a poor costume of Bokhara, and
dispense with as much as possible—say,
bedclothes, linen, and so forth—in preparing his
small outfit. Then he was taken to the
caravanserai where his two dozen fellow-travellers
were lodged, fourteen in one little cell, ten in
another, all filthy and ragged, many with nothing
but the beggars' staff to help them on their
journey. He disturbed their attentions to their
vermin, was received by them hospitably, had
to drink with them a large Bokhariot bowl of
green tea without sugar or milk, to break bread
with each individually, and embrace him. Then
they all sat in a circle to discuss what route
they were to choose.

So, on the morning of the twenty-eighth of
March, the start was made from the caravanserai
in Teheran. Those of the pilgrims who could
afford it had hired a mule or an ass to the
Persian frontier; the others, with their date-
wood staves in their hands, were eager for the
signal of departure. The wretched clothing
they had worn in Teheran was holiday costume;
each now wore his real travelling dress of a
thousand rags fastened round the loins by a
cord. All were assembled. Hadji Bilal raised
his hand for the parting benediction, and hardly
had every one seized his beard to say " Amen,"
when the pedestrians rushed out of the gate
and strode away to get the start of those who
were mounted.

On they went, chanting hymns and reciting
verses from the Koran. There was Hadji Bilal
with his two adopted sons, aged five-and-twenty
and sixteen; there was Hadji Yusaf, a Chinese
Tartar peasant, who had with him a ten-year-old
nephew and eighty ducats, but his wealth was a
secret, and he hired only one horse, on which he
and his boy rode in turn; there was Hadji Amed,
a poor mollah, who had only his staff to depend
on; and there was the equally poor Hadji Hasan,
who had lost his father on the journey, and was
going home an orphan. Another poor hadji had
lost both father and brother on the journey.
There was also Hadji Yakoub, professional
beggar; and Hadji Kurban, who, as a knife-
grinder, had traversed the whole of Asia, had
seen not only Constantinople and Mecca, but
also Thibet and Calcutta, and had twice crossed
the Kirghish Steppes to Orenburg and Taganrok.
Other of the hadjis were, a Chinese soldier; a
commission merchant: one who, whenever he
had shouted Allah two thousand times, fell into
a state of ecstatic blessedness called by the
unbelievers epilepsy; a youth of fourteen,
suffering heavily all the way from feet which had
been badly frozen in the snow of Hamadan; and
Hadji Sheikh Sultan Mahmoud from Kashgar,
an enthusiastic young Tartar of the family of a
renowned saint of his native place, who had
visited at Mecca the tomb not only of the
prophet, but of his own father: a poet who
had yearned towards Mecca and had died
there.

On the fourth day, the caravan reached
Firazkah, at the foot of a mountain crowned by
an ancient fortification. There begins the
province Mazendran. Next day, after three or
four hours' journey, they reached the mouth of
the great defile properly called Mazendran,
luxuriant with the magnificent green of primeval
forests. This defile leads to the shores of the
Caspian; where it ends, on the northern side,
immense woods mark the limits of the Caspian
shore. Here, at the night-halt in a forest of
box-wood, two tigers were disturbed at the
spring by the young people who went to fetch
water. As for the jackals, they were so
numerous and fearless, that, all night long, men had to
defend with their hands and feet, their shoes
and their bread-sacks. From Sari, the capital
of Mazendran, horses were hired for the day's
journey to the Caspian, over marshes and
morasses that cannot be traversed on foot, and so,
after two days' rest, the pilgrims advanced to
Karatipe, by the water-side. Here Mr.
Vámbéry was received with his friend Hadji Bilal
in the house of an Afghan of distinction, who
was himself hospitable enough; but he had in
his household an Afghan scapegrace and opium-
eater named Emir Mehemmed, who had seen
enough of Europeans to be sure that Dervish
Vámbéry was neither Turk nor Asiatic. At
first this man tried to entrap the disguised
Hungarian savant into travel with himself
through the great desert. He had travelled, he
said, for the last fifteen years to and from Khiva,
and perfectly knew the country. Dervish