Towards midnight we halted at a place called Mogor, whence next morning we reached the ruins of the former town and fortress, Kalè No, now surrounded by a few tents of the Hezare. They presented the appearance of still greater poverty than those of the Djemshidi. Kalè No, as I heard, had been, only fifty years ago, a flourishing town. It had served for a depôt to the karavans betaking themselves from Persia to Bokhara. The Hezare, the then possessors, became overbearing and presumptuous, claimed to give laws to Herat, and finally, by engaging in a struggle with this city, became the authors of their own downfall. They even made enemies of the Persians by their rivalry with the Turkomans in their predatory expeditions in Khorasan. The Hezare here met with have, owing to their intermixture with the Irani, no longer been able to maintain their Mongoli type as pure as their brethren in Kabul. They are, too, for the most part Sunnites, whereas the latter profess everywhere the principles of the rival sect of the Shiites. If I am rightly informed, the northern Hezare first separated themselves from the southern in the time of Nadir {264} Shah; and the surrounding people forced them to embrace the doctrine of the rival sect (Sunnites), at least in part. It is said that the Hezare [Footnote 79] were brought by Djenghis Khan from Mongolia, their ancient seat, to the southern parts of Central Asia, and Shah Abbas was the cause of their conversion to Shiism. It is remarkable that they have exchanged their mother-tongue for the Persian, which is not generally spoken in the neighbourhood where they dwell. The Mongol dialect, or rather a jargon of it, is only preserved by a small portion of them who have remained isolated in the mountains near Herat, where they have for centuries been occupied as burners of charcoal. They style themselves, as well as the place they inhabit, Gobi. [Footnote 79: The Hezare were styled Berber in Persia, a word used to designate the city Shehri-Berber, said to have existed on the mountains between Kabul and Herat, and of whose ancient grandeur, splendour, and magnificence wonders are recounted. Burnes says, in his work upon Kabul (p. 232), that 'the remains of this imperial city of the same name (Berber) are still to be seen.']