Towards evening there was a calm; we cast anchor near the shore, and were allowed in turn to make our tea on the little hearth of the vessel. Having stored away some pieces of sugar in my girdle, I invited Yakoub and honoured him with a bowl of tea. Hadji Salih and Sultan Mahmoud were of the party; the young Turkoman was the great talker, and began to recount stories of the Alaman (as the Turkomans name their marauding expeditions), a favourite topic with this people. His eye, always fiery, now vied with the stars of his own heaven, for his vein was stimulated by the desire to win golden opinions from the Sunnite Mollahs (we passed for such) by details of the conflicts in which he had engaged with the Shiite heretics, and of the numbers of the heretics that he had made prisoners. My friends soon began to slumber around me; still I did not tire of listening to him, and it was not until midnight that he thought of retiring. Before he withdrew he told me that Nur-Ullah had directed him to take me as a guest to the tent of Khandjan, a Turkoman chieftain; and he added that Nur-Ullah was right, for I was not like the rest of the Hadjis, and deserved better treatment. 'Khandjan,' said Yakoub, 'is the Aksakal (chief) of a mighty race, and even in the time of his father, no Dervish, Hadji, or other stranger ever dared to pass through Gömüshtepe without having tasted his bread and drunk his water. He will, as you come out of {39} foreign Roum (Turkey), certainly give you a good reception, and you will be grateful to me.' [Russian War Steamers in the Caspian]