The whole company inhabited the tents in common, expecting that the Khan's Kervanbashi would come up as soon as possible, and that we should commence our journey through the desert. The delay was painful to us all. I became alarmed on account { 78} of the decrease of my stock of flour, and I began at once to diminish my daily allowance by two handfuls. I also baked it without leaven in the hot ashes; for the produce is greater, it remains longer on the stomach, and hunger torments one less. Fortunately we could make short mendicant excursions; nor had we the least reason to complain of any lack of charity on the part of the Turkomans of Etrek, who are notwithstanding the most notorious robbers. We passed, indeed, very few of their tents without seeing in them two or three Persians heavily laden with chains.
It was also here in Etrek, in the tent of a distinguished Turkoman named Kotchak Khan, that I encountered a Russian, formerly a sailor in the naval station at Ashourada. We entered the above-named chief's abode, to take our mid-day repose; and scarcely had I been presented to him as a Roumi (Osmanli), when our host remarked; 'Now I will give thee a treat. We know the relation in which the Osmanlis stand with the Russians: thou shalt behold one of thy arch-enemies in chains.' I was forced to behave as if I was highly delighted. The poor Russian was led in, heavily chained: his countenance was sickly, and very sorrowful. I felt deeply moved, but was careful not to betray my feelings by any expression. 'What would you do with this Efendi,' said Kotchak Khan, 'if you encountered him in Russia? Go and kiss his feet.' The unfortunate Russian was about to approach me, but I forbade, making at the same time the observation, I had only to-day begun my Gusl (great purification), and that I did not want to render myself unclean by my contact with this unbeliever; that it would even be more agreeable to me if he disappeared immediately from before my eyes, for that _this_ nation { 79} was my greatest aversion. They motioned him to withdraw, which he accordingly did, throwing at me a sharp look. As I learnt later, he was one of two sailors from the new station at Ashourada; the other had died in captivity about a year before. They had fallen into the hands of the Karaktchis some years previously, in one of their night expeditions. Their government offered to ransom them, but the Turkomans demanded an exorbitant sum (five hundred ducats for one); and as during the negotiation Tcherkes Bay, the brother of Kotshak Khan, was sent by the Russians to Siberia, where he died, the liberation of the unfortunate Christians became matter of still greater difficulty; and now the survivor will soon succumb under the hardships of his captivity, as his comrade has done before him. [Footnote 18]