Step by step Yakoob went forward to power and honors, until he was chief ruler of Khorassan, and founder of the Saffaride dynasty in the Persian khaleefate. He died A.D. 878, and was succeeded by his brother, Omar II.[24] [24] Price's _Mohammedan History_, II., 229 f. Baron du Tott, the Hungarian French traveler among the Turks and Tatars, tells of his experience in this line with one Moldovanji Pasha, who desired a closer intimacy than was practicable in the brief time the two were to be together. "I had already," says the Baron du Tott, "attended him halfway down the staircase [of my house], when stopping, and turning briskly to one of my domestics who followed me, 'Bring me directly,' said he, 'some bread and salt.' I was not less surprised at this fancy than at the haste which was made to obey him. What he requested was brought, when, taking a little salt between his fingers, and putting it with a mysterious air on a bit of bread, he ate it with a devout gravity, assuring me that I might now rely on him."[25] [25] Baron du Tott's _Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars_, Part I., p. 214, quoted in Bush's _Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures_. Stephen Schultz, in his Travels through Europe, Asia, and Africa, gives this illustration of the binding force of the covenant of salt: "On the 13th of June [1754] the deacon, Joseph Diab, a custom-house clerk, was at table with us. Referring to the salt which stood on the table, he said that the Arabs make use of it as a token of friendship. While they are fond of it, they do not like to place it on the table. On one occasion, when he was with a caravan traveling to Babel [Bagdad], they came into a neighborhood where Arabs were encamped. In the caravan was a rich merchant. Seeing that one of the Arabs was making ready to come to the caravan, he buried his money in the ground, built a fire over it, and then sat down to eat with the others near the fire. When the Arabs arrived they were welcomed pleasantly, and invited to eat. They accepted the invitation and sat down at the table. But when their leader saw the salt on the table, he said to the merchant, 'My loss is your gain; for as I have eaten at a table on which is salt, I cannot, must not, harm you.' When that caravan started on its way, the Arab leader not only refrained from taking what he had intended to demand, but he escorted them without reward as far as the Euphrates, and gave them over into the care of the Pasha of Bagdad, as friends of his prince Achsam. They were now safe."