dicants are but few in Persia. Alms-giving is a most prominent trait in the Mahomedan character; total want, much less starvation, can never occur amongst them.

Tabreez is sometimes visited with the awful cholera; it devastated the city in the year 1830, and is said to have carried off between thirty and forty thousand people. The plague, too, has sometimes made great havoc at Tabreez, though from all my enquiries I do not find that it has ever raged so destructively as in Turkey. I have been assured that a remedy has been found for this "child of Nemesis." My informant was a military gentleman, long resident in Siberia, where he saw the cure effected. A bullock was slain, the patient stripped, and in complete nudity was wrapped in the warm skin of the animal, from whence he received new life, and gave up disease. How long he remained so attired I know not, but his recovery was said to be complete.

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CHAPTER XX.

CARAVAN TRAVELLING.

THE caravan is an assemblage of merchants and travellers congregating together for mutual protection; for there is always a certain degree of danger when going over the Turkish and Persian soil, which arises from that restless and untamable nomadic population, called Koords, who inhabit the frontiers of those countries,-despising all authority, governed by none. During my stay at Erzroume, they were flying about in all directions, taking advantage of an unarmed population, and almost to the gates of the city, committing their depredations. Thirty travellers had just pre

* It was formerly the custom of the Pasha of this city, on capturing any number of Koords, to send up their heads, salted, in sacks, to Constantinople, to be laid at the gate of the seraglio.

sented themselves, plundered and stripped to the skin.

There being, at length, ready about a hundred and fifty people, we formed our caravan, of the most motley group, both of man and beast, that was perhaps ever assembled. I was the only European amongst them, and consequently an object of the vacant stare of the muleteers, who always afford me much amusement. The leading camel, preceded by a donkey, was adorned with much frippery of coloured beads and bits of glass about the head and ears, the knees, and saddle housings, &c. Of this the "chaoush," or leader of the caravan, is very proud; and as it moves on at funereal pace, there is plenty of time to smoke the pipe of reflection, whilst the sound of the camel bells are sonorously issuing from the ravines. The train sometimes occupies half a mile in length; the day's travel being determined either by the pasture to be found for the cattle, which is free to all comers if it be summer, or to the village supply of provender, if in the winter. As to the travellers' accommodation, that is the last thing thought of, and to sleep with your horse is the general order of the day. I never slept better than in a

warm stable, amidst curry-comb music and clouds of dust. There is generally a small raised platform at one end of it, with a chimney, and this is "the traveller's rest." Then for provisions, bread, milk, and eggs are generally to be found; and the "muffrush," or wallet, ought to contain rice, coffee, sugar, tobacco, &c., or one must go without them. The incidents are rather monotonous-the loading and unloading—mending the packsaddle—bivouacking -the sundry fires for cooking the pilau—the night arrangements. The muleteers have a busy time of it, catching every momentary interval for their favourite tchibook.

At Delli-Baba we fell in with the Turkish troops, and such a rank and file I suppose was never marched to Coventry-bare-legged, badly-slippered, armed and unarmed. (I should observe that at this time, the Russians were invading the Turkish territory, which made it very difficult for a Ferengee stranger to pass on). The moment they saw me, "Ruski" was sounded out, and all the village was in alarm, dogs included, and I was immediately surrounded by rank and file. They thought I was "spying out the nakedness of the land," and nothing was more probable amongst the

ignoramuses, who knew not English from "Ruski;" in fact, they have but one term for all EuropeansFerengee. What was to be done? I sat quietly on my horse, laughing both with and at them. They eyed and pulled me about to see if I was of the same species with themselves, grinning through their leathern coutenances at having made of me "lawful prize."

In the mean time the village divan was summoned, the Agha, or chief, presided, and the colonel of the troops was one of the leading members. I never could find out whether I was tried judicially or court-martially. My friend, the Khan, was amongst them, urging and arguing for my release, and threatening them with his high displeasure, in case they detained me. How that displeasure was to have been expressed I never heard, since we were only five or six of us against a whole village, and rank and file I do not know how many.

I was at length called in, and astonished to find myself of such importance, making quite a noise in the Turkish world. The divan was assembled in a hot stable, with air holes here and there to emit Turkish effluvia, which was of a very varied