As I before remarked, my finances had melted away positively to nothing. I was obliged, on entering Herat, to sell at once even the ass upon which I rode. The poor brute, being quite worn out with his journey, brought me only twenty-six krans, out of which I was obliged to pay the tax upon the sale, and other little debts. The state in which I found myself was very critical. The want of bread admitted of remedy; but the nights had become quite cold, and in spite of my being inured to a life of hardship, my sufferings were great, when I slept in an open ruin, with scanty clothing, and on the bare earth. The thought that Persia might be reached in ten days cheered me up. Still, it was not so easy an enterprise to arrive thither. To go alone was impossible, and the karavan, preparing to go to Meshed, wished to wait still for an increase of travellers, and a more favourable opportunity; for the Tekke Turkomans not only rendered the journey exceedingly {275} unsafe, but plundered villages and karavans, and carried off captives before the very gates of Herat. During the first days of my arrival, I heard that a Persian envoy, named Mehemmed Bakir Khan, sent by the governor Prince of Khorasan to congratulate the young Serdar of Herat, proposed soon to return to Teheran. I immediately waited upon him, and begged him to take me with him. The Persian was very polite; but although I repeated to him over and over again the state of destitution in which I was, he paid no attention to that statement, and asked me (the dreadfully disfigured Hadji), if I had brought back with me any fine horses from Bokhara! Every word of his seemed to indicate a wish on his part to penetrate my secret. Seeing that I had nothing to expect, I left him. He quitted Herat soon after, accompanied by many of the Hadjis who had travelled with me from Samarcand and Kerki. All abandoned me--all but Mollah Ishak, my faithful companion from Kungrat, who had believed, when I said that in Teheran better fortunes awaited me, and who stood by me. The honest young man obtained our daily food and fuel by begging, and got ready besides our evening supper, which he even refused respectfully to share with me out of the same plate. Mollah Ishak forms, in another point of view, one of the most interesting of my episodes. He lives now, at this day, in Pesth, instead of being at Mecca, and in the sequel of my narrative we shall have occasion to speak of him. [The Serdar Mehemmed Yakoub Khan; Parade of Afghan Troops]