The tomb is in a small garden. On one side is a mosque. This may be approached through a court filled with blind or crippled mendicants, the perseverance of whose applications would put to shame those of the same profession in Rome or Naples. In the front of the tomb is the famous Senghi murad (stone of desire), which has been tolerably ground away and made smooth by the numerous foreheads of pious pilgrims that have been rubbed upon it. Over {196} the tomb are placed several rams' horns and a banner, also a broom that served a long time to sweep out the sanctuary in Mecca. Attempts have also been made upon several occasions to cover the whole with a dome, but Baha-ed-din, like many other saints in Turkestan, has a preference for the open air, and every edifice has been thrown down after a lapse of three days from its first erection. Such is the tale told by the Sheikhs, descendants of the saint, who keep watch in turn before the tomb, and recount, with impudence enough, to the pilgrims that their ancestor was particularly fond of the number seven. In the seventh month he came into the world, in his seventh year he knew the Koran by heart, and in his seventieth he died. Hence also the contributions and gifts laid upon his grave are to have the peculiarity that they must not be anything else than multiples of seven or the number seven itself. A quarter of a league from the tomb of Baha-ed-din, in an open field, is that of Miri Kulah, the master and spiritual chief of the former. But the master is far from enjoying the same honour and repute as the disciple. {197} CHAPTER XI. BOKHARA TO SAMARCAND LITTLE DESERT OF CHÖL MELIK ANIMATION OF ROAD OWING TO WAR FIRST VIEW OF SAMARCAND HASZRETI SHAH ZINDE MOSQUE OF TIMOUR CITADEL (ARK) RECEPTION HALL OF TIMOR KÖKTASH OR TIMOUR'S THRONE SINGULAR FOOTSTOOL TIMOUR'S SEPULCHER AND THAT OF HIS PRECEPTOR AUTHOR VISITS THE ACTUAL TOMB OF TIMOUR IN THE SOUTERRAIN FOLIO KORAN ASCRIBED TO OSMAN, MOHAMMED'S SECRETARY COLLEGES ANCIENT OBSERVATORY GREEK ARMENIAN LIBRARY NOT, AS PRETENDED, CARRIED OFF BY TIMOR ARCHITECTURE OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS NOT CHINESE BUT PERSIAN MODERN SAMARCAND ITS POPULATION DEHBID AUTHOR DECIDES TO RETURN ARRIVAL OF EMIR AUTHOR'S INTERVIEW WITH HIM PARTING FROM THE HADJIS, AND DEPARTURE FROM SAMARCAND. _Hinc quarto die ad Maracanda perventum est . . . Scythiae confinis est regio, habitaturque pluribus ac frequentibits vicis, quia ubertas terra non indigenas modo detinet, sed etiam advenas invitat_.--Q. Curtii Rufi libb. vii. et viii. [Bokhara to Samarcand]