The small sum of money belonging to me, which I had sewn and hidden in different parts of my mendicant attire, together with the tolerably rich harvest of my Hadji dealings amongst the Turkomans, had {64} abundantly provided for me, so that I was in a position to hire a camel for myself alone; but I was dissuaded by Hadji Bilal and Sultan Mahmoud, who remarked that an appearance of wretchedness calculated to excite compassion was the best guarantee for safety amongst these nomads; while their covetousness was sure to be excited by the slightest sign of affluence. A suspicion of wealth might convert the best friend into a foe. They named several of the Hadjis who were well provided with means, and who, nevertheless, for the sake of prudence, were obliged to wander on in rags and on foot. I admitted the necessity, and secured a joint share in a camel, only stipulating for permission to make use of a kedjeve (pair of wooden baskets, hanging down from the two sides of the camel), as I should find it very fatiguing, with my lame foot and without cessation, to ride day and night forty stations, squeezed with another into the same wooden saddle. At first, Ilias objected, because, according to him (and he was indeed right), the kedjeve in the desert would have been a double burden for the poor beast. Khandjan, however, at last persuaded him, and he consented. On the journey to Khiva, which we were to perform in twenty days, and of which everyone spoke in a manner to make us feel fearful misgivings, I should at least have the consolation of being able now and then to sleep a little; but what pleased me most in the whole arrangement was, that I should have for my _vis-à-vis_ and 'equipoise,' as the two kedjeve were termed, my bosom friend Hadji Bilal, whose society began by degrees to become indispensable for me. After the dialogue was over, we paid, as is the custom, the hire beforehand. Hadji Bilal said a Fatiha; and after Ilias {65} had passed his fingers through his beard, consisting, it is true, of only a few straggling hairs, we had no occasion to take any other steps, and we but begged that the departure might be hastened as much as possible. This, however, he could not promise, as it depended upon the Kervanbashi of the Khan, who, with his buffaloes, was to place himself at the head of our karavan. In a few days we were ready to start for Etrek, our rendezvous. After the preparations had been completed I burnt with twofold ardour to quit Gömüshtepe: for, first, we had lost time here, and I perceived that the hot season was more and more advancing, and we feared that the rain-water, still to be found in the desert, would become scarcer; and secondly, I began to grow uneasy at the ridiculous reports which were in circulation respecting me. Whilst many saw in me merely a pious Dervish, others could not rid themselves of the idea that I was a man of influence, an envoy of the Sultan, in correspondence with the Turkish Ambassador in Teheran, who was