two, it is true, are very dangerous routes. We must, nevertheless, select one of these, and we wish, therefore, to ask your friendly counsel.' [The Author determines to join the Hadjis] We had now been nearly an hour in conversation. It was impossible not to like their frankness, and in spite of the singular lineaments marking their foreign origin, their wretched clothing, and the numerous traces left behind by their long and fatiguing journeys--all which lent a something forbidding to their appearance--I could not refrain from the thought. What if I journeyed with these pilgrims into Central Asia? As natives, they might prove my best Mentors: besides, they already know me as the Dervish Reshid Efendi, and have seen me playing that part at the Turkish Embassy, and are themselves on the best understanding with Bokhara, the only city in Central Asia that I really feared from having learnt the unhappy lot of the travellers who had preceded me thither. Without much hesitation, my resolution was formed. I knew I should be questioned as to the motives that actuated me in undertaking such a journey. I knew that to an Oriental 'pure sang' it was impossible to assign a scientific {13} object. They would have considered it ridiculous, perhaps even suspicious, for an Efendi--that is, for a gentleman with a mere abstract object in view--to expose himself to so many dangers and annoyances. The Oriental does not understand the thirst for knowledge, and does not believe much in its existence. It would have been the height of impolicy to shock these fanatical Musselmans in their ideas. The necessity of my position, therefore, obliged me to resort to a measure of policy, of deception, which I should otherwise have scrupled to adopt. It was at once flattering to my companions, and calculated to promote the design I had in view. I told them, for instance, that I had long silently, but earnestly, desired to visit Turkestan (Central Asia), not merely to see the only source of Islamite virtue that still remained undefiled, but to behold the saints of Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand. It was this idea, I assured them, that had brought me hither out of Roum (Turkey). I had now been waiting a year in Persia, and I thanked God for having at last granted me fellow-travellers, such as they were (and I here pointed to the Tartars), with whom I might proceed on my way and accomplish my wish.' [Hadji Bilal]