All communication being interrupted between Maymene and Bokhara by the Afghan campaign, I had the good fortune to escape his taking me by surprise in the latter city; but in Maymene I hardly expected to be so lucky, and, to foil any possible attack from this quarter, I felt it necessary to secure for myself some firm _locus standi_, which I might do by striving to win the good opinion and favour of Ishan Eyub, who was generally respected. After having been three days in the city, I took the initiative and made inquiries as to my man. 'What! Khalmurad?' said the Ishan in astonishment, 'thou hast been acquainted with him (peace to him, and long life to us!). He had the happiness of dying in Mecca, and, as he was my bosom friend, I have received his children into my house, and the little one there (pointing, as he said that, to a boy) is one of his sons.' I gave the child a whole string of glass beads, said three Fatihas for the {248} salvation of the soul of the departed, [Footnote 75] and my well-grounded apprehensions therefore at once ceased. [Footnote 75: On my return to Teheran, I was told by my friend Ismael Efendi, then _Chargé d'affaires_ of the Porte at the Persian Court, that a month before my arrival a Mollah from Maymene, whose description tallied exactly with that of my Mollah, whom we thought in the other world, had passed through and had spoken at the Embassy of me as of his former pupil in Djagatay. Khalmurad is consequently not dead, and some singular chance alone prevented our coming in contact.] I began now to move about more at my ease. I soon opened a stall at the corner of a street, but, to my very great disappointment, my stock now was rapidly dwindling away. 'Hadji Reshid,' said one of my fellow-travellers, 'thou hast already eaten up half of thy knives, needles, and glass beads; thou wilt before long have devoured the other half, and thy ass to boot. What wilt thou then do?' He was right, thought I, for, in fact, what was I to do? My sombre prospects, and particularly the approaching winter, made me a little fearful, for I was still far from the Persian frontiers, and every attempt I made to replenish my case I saw fail.' A Dervish or a beggar,' I said, 'never passes hungry from the door of an Özbeg. Everywhere he has a well-founded hope of something, bread or fruits; here and there, too, an old article of attire, and this sends him, in his own opinion, richly provided on his way.' That I must have suffered, and suffered much, the reader will well understand; but habit, and the hope of returning to Europe, enabled me to bear my burden. I slept sweetly enough in the open air, on the bare earth, esteeming myself especially happy in having no longer to dread constant discovery or a death by torture, for my Hadji character excited suspicion nowhere. {249} [Khanat and Fortress of Maymene]