strophe of which was first sung for them by their grey-bearded chief. With eye and ear so occupied, I soon forgot my fatigue. My friend was obliged positively to force me to enter a booth, and, after the precious Shivin (a kind of tea) was poured out, wishing to profit by the ecstatic feeling in which he found me, he asked me, chucklingly, 'Now, then, what do you say to Bokhara Sherif (the noble)?' 'It pleases me much,' I replied; and the Central Asiatic, although from Khokand, and an alien enemy, as his nation was at that moment at war with Bokhara, was nevertheless delighted to find that the capital of Turkestan had made such a conquest of me, and gave me his word that he would show me its finest features in the course of the following days. [Baha-ed-din, Great Saint of Turkestan] In spite of the costume, strictly Bokhariot, which I had this day assumed, and of my being so tanned by the sun that even my mother would have had a difficulty in recognising me, I was surrounded, wherever I appeared, by a crowd of inquisitive persons. Ah! how they shook me by the hands, and how they embraced me; how they wearied me to death! An immense turban [Footnote 45] crowned my head, a large Koran hung suspended from my neck; [Footnote 45: The turban, it is well known, represents the pall that every pious Musselman must bear on his head as a continual memento of death. The Koran only enjoins a pall (Kefen) having a length of 7 ells. But zealots often exceed the measure, and carry about on their heads 4 to 6 such palls, thus making altogether from 28 to 42 ells of fine muslin.] {175} I had thus assumed the exterior of an Ishan or Sheikh, and was obliged to submit to the _corvée_ which I had so provoked. Still, I had reason to be contented, for the sanctity of my character had protected me from secular interrogations, and I heard how the people about questioned my friends, or whispered their criticisms to each other. 'What extreme piety,' said one, 'to come all the way from Constantinople to Bokhara alone, in order to visit our Baha-ed-din!' [Footnote 46] 'Yes,' said a second, 'and we, too, we go to Mecca, the holiest place of all, to be sure, with no little trouble.' But these people (and he pointed to me) having nothing else to do, their whole life is prayer, piety, and pilgrimage.' 'Bravo! you have guessed it,' I said to myself, delighted that my disguise was becoming so pregnant of consequence. And really I was, during my whole stay in the capital of Turkestan, not once an object of doubt or suspicion to the people, in other respects cunning and malicious enough. They came to me for my blessing; they listened to me when, on the public places, I read to them the history of the great Sheikh of Bagdad, Abdul Kadr Ghilani. They praised me, but not a farthing did I ever get from them; and the semblance of sanctity in this nation presented a singular contrast with the genuine piety and benevolence of the Khivan Ozbegs.