Of course this notice by the English traveller interested me very much. Kan Djan (the Khandjan mentioned in my book) had not the slightest idea of my disguise. He and the other Turkomans imagined me to be a genuine, pious, and inspired Osmanli from Constantinople, from whom many people begged letters of introduction to the Ottoman Embassy at Teheran, letters which I willingly gave. Two of them were given back to me after my return, by Haidar Effendi, then ambassador at the Persian Court, and I treasure them as valuable mementos. There is no doubt there would have been little hope for me had my identity been discovered, and I learned later from pilgrims who stopped at Khandjan how vexed the Turkomans were at being cheated out of such a windfall. But they were certainly much mistaken, for though the Shah, at the instance of the Emperor Napoleon III., had to pay 12,000 ducats ransom for Monsieur de Bloqueville, who was captured at Merv while in the Persian service, no one would have paid a penny for my ransom; and as, on account of my infirmity, I was useless for the slave market, a strong ass being worth more than a lame Hadji, it would not have been worth while to capture me. Quite recently I heard of the third effect of my incognito in Afghanistan, and I must own I was not a little astonished. Readers of my book about my travels may remember that I had a strange adventure in Herat, when the governor of the province, Prince Yakub Khan, a son of Shir Ali Khan, then Emir of Afghanistan, who had already seen many Englishmen, distinguished my European features from those of all my Tartar companions, and tried to unmask me. That he should have found me out has always been a marvel to me, for in the poor student, in whose eyes only hunger and misery were visible, there was really very little to show European origin. Now the mystery has been solved. Yakub Khan, who succeeded to his father's throne after so many vicissitudes, was so unfortunate that at the very beginning of his reign the English ambassador, Sir Louis Cavagnari, with his whole suite, was murdered by a fanatic mob in Kabul. Upon this the English took possession of his capital. Yakub Khan was taken to India as prisoner, and in the escort which accompanied the dethroned prince was Colonel Robert Warburton, a very able officer, and decidedly the one who best knew the border tribes, and who had been posted for years at the entrance to the Khyber Pass. This officer (later Sir Robert Warburton), after his return to England, published his experiences in a book entitled _Eighteen Years in the Khyber (1879 to 1898), with Portraits, Maps, and Illustrations_. London: John Murray, 1900. In this book we read on pp. 89-90 the following:--