[Footnote 17: The reader is requested to understand, here and elsewhere, German miles.] [Turkoman Hospitality; The last Goat] The young nephew of Kulkhan advanced ten paces before the tents to welcome us; and, whilst Ilias and the Afghan were the special guests of Kulkhan, I was quartered with the Hadjis in the small tent of Allah Nazr. {74} This old Turkoman was beside himself from joy that heaven had sent him guests; the recollection of that scene will never pass from my mind. In spite of our protestations to the contrary, he killed a goat, the only one which he possessed, to contribute to our entertainment. At a second meal, which we partook with him next day, he found means to procure bread also, an article that had not been seen for weeks in his dwelling. Whilst we attacked the dish of meat, he seated himself opposite to us, and wept, in the exactest sense of the expression, tears of joy. Allah Nazr would not retain any part of the goat he had killed in honour of us. The horns and hoofs, which were burned to ashes, and were to be employed for the galled places on the camels, he gave to Ilias; but the skin, stripped off in one piece, he destined to serve as my water-vessel, and after having well rubbed it with salt, and dried it in the sun, he handed it over to me. [Persian Slave] The arrival of a slave, one of the five of whom I spoke in the last chapter, who had fallen into the snare so treacherously laid for them, detained Kulkhan and our party a day. This poor Persian was transferred, for chastisement, to Kulkhan, who had the peculiar reputation of being able most easily to ascertain from a captive whether he possessed sufficient means to enable his relatives to ransom him, or whether, being without relatives or property, he ought to be sent on to Khiva for sale. The former alternative is much the more agreeable one to the Turkomans, as they may demand any sum they please. The Persian, who is cunning even in his misfortune, always contrives to conceal his real position; he is therefore subjected to much ill-treatment, {75} until by the lamentations which he forwards to his home his captors have squeezed from his friends the highest possible ransom, and it is only when that arrives that his torment ceases. The other alternative is worse for both parties; the robber, after much expenditure, only gets at last the current price in the slave-market, and the unfortunate Persian is removed to a distance of some hundreds of miles from his country, which he very rarely sees again. Kulkhan has, as before mentioned, great experience in this department; his latest victim arrived before evening, and the next day the journey was continued, after I had been warmly embraced by Allah Nazr, who was just as much a Turkoman as Kulkhan. [Commencement of the Desert]