Such became his leniency that an increasing stream of eager and devout pilgrims began to be admitted at the gates of the fortress. Among them was the dauntless and indefatigable Mullá Ḥusayn, who had walked on foot the entire way from Ma_sh_ad in the east of Persia to Máh-Kú, the westernmost outpost of the realm, and was able, after so arduous a journey, to celebrate the festival of Naw-Rúz (1848) in the company of his Beloved. Secret agents, however, charged to watch ‘Alí _Kh_án, informed Ḥájí Mírzá Aqásí of the turn events were taking, whereupon he immediately decided to transfer the Báb to the fortress of _Ch_ihríq (about April 10, 1848), surnamed by Him the Jabál-i-_Sh_adíd (the Grievous Mountain). There He was consigned to the keeping of Yaḥyá _Kh_án, a brother-in-law of Muḥammad _Sh_áh. Though at the outset he acted with the utmost severity, he was eventually compelled to yield to the fascination of his Prisoner. Nor were the kurds, who lived in the village of _Ch_ihríq, and whose hatred of the _Sh_í’ahs exceeded even that of the inhabitants of Máh-Kú, able to resist the pervasive power of the Prisoner’s influence. They too were to be seen every morning, ere they started for their daily work, to approach the fortress and prostrate themselves in adoration before its holy Inmate. “So great was the confluence of the people,” is the testimony of a European eye-witness, writing in his memoirs of the Báb, “that the courtyard, not being large enough to contain His hearers, the majority remained in the street and listened with rapt attention to the verses of the new Qur’án.”