We set out that very same afternoon, encamping at Yeketut, distant but a league from Andkhuy. It was the place appointed for our rendezvous. We proceeded hence during the night. The next station was on the bank of a stream coming from Maymene. Its bed, unusually deep in many places, is thickly planted with trees. From Andkhuy to Maymene they reckon twenty-two miles--a three days' journey for camels. Of this distance we had thus far performed eight miles; the remainder (fourteen miles) it would have been easy to accomplish, had we not been obliged to pass secretly by Khaïrabad, which should have been our second station, and reach next morning the district of Maymene. Khaïrabad belonged then to the Afghans, and the Kervanbashi was quite right in not venturing to approach it, as he knew that even in peace the Afghans committed virtual robbery under pretence of levying their customs; and it might be readily imagined how the military authorities would have treated the karavan had it fallen into their hands. Some inhabitants of Khaïrabad who were in the karavan, on coming near their native city, wanted to separate from us; but they were forced to continue their journey, because treachery was apprehended, and, in case of discovery, the Afghans would have confiscated everything. Although the camels were heavily laden, the journey was continued, without interruption, from noon until eight o'clock next morning. The poor tired brutes were left behind; and great was our joy when we arrived the next morning, without accident, in the Khanat of Maymene. The last station was a harassing one, not merely from these apprehensions, but from the physical difficulties that it presented; for about nine miles from Andkhuy, {243} the country becomes more and more hilly, until, in the neighbourhood of Maymene, it is quite mountainous. Besides this, we had to cross a small portion of the dangerous Batkak (which consists of marshes), where, notwithstanding the heat of the season, there was mud in many places. This caused the camels and asses much suffering. I rode a sturdy little brute; but as his small feet sank so often, he got tired of pulling them out again, and gave me much trouble in shouting, entreating, and tugging before I could get him to advance from the spongy ground. [Akkale] We encamped at the foot of a small citadel named Akkale, which is distant from Maymene four leagues. The Kervanbashi made a present to the Hadjis of two sheep, as a grateful acknowledgment to God for having happily escaped from the peril to which the karavan had been exposed. As the senior, I was charged with the division of the donation. We ate that whole day, instead of bread, roast meat, and sang together in the evening some Telkins (hymns) to the accompaniment, under my direction, of a Zikr--that is, we shouted out to the full extent of our voices two thousand times, Ya hoo! ya hakk!