At the noise I made the _toptchubashi_ (an officer of artillery),ÁrminiusVambé who was of Persian origin, said something in a whisper to the deryabeghi. Then he took me aside, and telling me that he had gone several times to Stambul, from Tebriz, his native city, he knew very well persons belonging to Roum, and I might be perfectly quiet, as no harm would befall me.
Every stranger must submit to this searching investigation; for as slaves who had become free and were returning home had to pay a tax of two gold pieces at the border, there were many of them who resorted to all kinds of subterfuges and disguises to steal unrecognized over the frontiers. The servant who had taken my passport to the governor soon returned, not only bringing back with him my papers, but a present of five tenghis which the governor had sent me.
I was very sorry to learn that Mollah Zeman, the chief of the caravan going from Bokhara to Herat, was not expected to make his appearance before the lapse of eight or ten days. I consequently left in company of Mollah Ishak to go amongst the Ersari-Turkomans living in the neighbourhood. Here I entered once the house of Khalfa Niyaz, an ishan who had inherited sanctity, science, and authority from his father. He had a cloister of his own, and had obtained a special license from Mecca to recite sacred poems. In reading, he always had a cup filled with water placed by his side, and would spit into the water whenever he had finished reading a poem. The saliva thus permeated by the sanctity of the words he would then sell as a miraculous panacea to the highest bidder.
As we had an abundance of leisure, my faithful mollah and I, we visited the Lebab-Turkomans (viz., Turkomans on the bank). We were given quarters in the yard of an abandoned mosque. In the evening hours the Turkomans would bring with them one of their poetical tales, or a poem out of their collections of songs, and I was in the habit of reading it out aloud to them. It was delightful to have them sitting around me in the stilly night within view of the Oxus rolling onward, they listening to me with rapt attention while I read about the brave feats of one of their heroes.
