On our journey from the Oxus to Herat, my feigned devoutness visibly decreased in exact proportion as the distance between me and fanatic Bokhara kept increasing. Prayers, ablutions, pious meditations--all became less frequent. My Tartar, no doubt, observed this, but it did not seem to trouble him, and he accommodated himself ungrudgingly to his master. His questions on religion were fewer, but he listened instead with more eager attention to my descriptions and narratives of the foreign land of the 'Frengi,' and the pictures I drew of those marvellous countries of the West. Such lectures as these were usually delivered during our night marches, when we were riding alone in intimate converse, and at some distance from the caravan. The pleasure I felt in being able to talk of my beloved West in a barbarous country, surrounded as I was with dangers in so doing, was not greater than my Tartar's astonishment when he heard that there were towns more beautiful than Bokhara, and countries where it was possible to travel without fear of robbers or of dying with thirst. He was especially struck when I assured him that the 'Frengis,' so far from being the savage, pitiless cannibals, such as they had been represented to him, possessed heart and feeling, and that they were infinitely superior to their reputed character in the East. Under different circumstances he might have doubted the truth of my assertions; but as I, the Efendi, his teacher and master, assured him of these facts, he placed implicit belief in all I told him. No wonder that I was pleased with his thirst for knowledge and his loyalty, and that I in return became greatly attached to my young Tartar. Moreover, he kept as much as possible aloof from the other Central Asiatics, his countrymen, uniting himself more closely to my society. As soon as I perceived--which I could not fail to do before long--that something could be made of the young man, I resolved not to let him leave me, but, if possible, to take him with me to Europe. If such was my determination long before we came to Herat, it was still further strengthened by the brilliant proofs of his attachment and fidelity which he showed to me during our residence in this town. Here, as is already known, my sufferings and privations reached their climax. Totally without means, I had not unfrequently to bear all the torments of hunger; and whenever, at this advanced season of the year, the cold prevented my sleeping during the night, it was my young Tartar who honestly shared with me his poor thin rags, in order to procure for me a warmer covering and a quiet sleep. During these six weeks that we spent in Herat we suffered, indeed, greatly; but I tried to strengthen the courage of my companion by assuring him that we should meet with certain help in Persia. The idea that a pious Sunnite should fare well in the heretical country of the Shiites, appeared to him sufficiently droll; but the child-like innocence of his heart, and his unaffected