A ringing peal of laughter followed the sudden fancy of the young king's son, but he did not suffer it to divert him from his idea; he sprang down from his seat, placed himself right before me, and, clapping both his hands like a child who has made some lucky discovery, he called out, 'Hadji, Kurbunet' ('I would be thy victim'), 'tell me, you are an Englishman in Tebdil (disguise), are you not?' His action was so naïve, that I was really sorry that I could not leave the boy in his illusion. I had cause to dread the wild fanaticism of the Afghans, and, assuming a manner as if the jest had gone too far, I said, 'Sahib mekun' ('have done'); 'you know the saying, "He who takes, even in sport, the believer for an unbeliever, is himself an unbeliever." [Footnote 84] Give me rather something for my Fatiha, that I may proceed further on my journey.' My serious look, and the Hadis which I recited, quite disconcerted the young man; he sat down half ashamed, and, excusing himself on the ground of the resemblance of my features, said that he had never seen a Hadji from Bokhara with such a physiognomy. I replied that I was not a Bokhariot, but a Stambuli; and when I showed him my Turkish passport, and spoke to him of his cousin, the son of Akbar Khan, Djelal-ed-din Khan, who was in Mecca and Constantinople in 1860, and had met with a distinguished reception from the Sultan, his manner quite changed; my passport went the round of the company, and met with approbation. The Prince gave me some krans, {279} and dismissed me with the order that I should often visit him during my stay, which I accordingly did. [Footnote 84: Traditional sentence of the Prophet.] [Illustration] 'I SWEAR YOU ARE AN ENGLISHMAN!