My words seemed to have given satisfaction, for his royal highness was pleased to order that I should be presented with twenty ducats and a stout ass. I declined the ducats with the remark that for a Dervish it was a sin to keep money; thanked him, however, warmly for the second part of his most gracious favour, but begged permission to draw his attention to the holy commandment which prescribed a white ass for pilgrimages, and entreated him therefore to vouchsafe me such a one. I was on the point of withdrawing when the Khan desired that, at least during my short stay in the capital, I should be his guest, and consent to take for my daily board two Tenghe (about one franc and fifty centimes) from his Haznadar. I thanked him heartily, concluded by giving my blessing, and withdrew. I hurried home through the waving crowds in the forecourt and the bazaar, whilst all encountered me with the respectful 'Selam Aleïkum.' When I found myself again alone within the four walls of my cell I drew a long breath, not a little pleased to find that the Khan, who in appearance was so fearfully dissolute, and who presents in every feature of his countenance the real picture of an enervated, imbecile, and savage tyrant, had behaved to me in a manner so unexceptionable; and that, so long as my time permitted, I could now traverse the Khanat in all directions unmolested. During the whole evening I had floating before me the picture of the Khan with his deep-set eyes, with his chin thinly covered with hair, his white lips, and trembling voice. 'What a happy fatality,' I repeated to myself, 'that gloomy superstition often imposes limits to the might and blood-thirstiness of such tyrants!' As I proposed making extensive excursions into the interior, I was desirous as far as possible to shorten my stay in the capital. What was most worth seeing {131} might quickly be despatched, had not repeated invitations of the Khan, of the officials, and of the most distinguished of the mercantile community, robbed me of so much time. After it was known that I shared the favour of royalty, everybody wanted to have me as guest, and with me all the other Hadjis. What a torture this to me, to have daily to accept six, seven, or eight invitations, and to comply with the usage by taking something in every house. My hair stands on end at the recollection how often I was forced to seat myself, between three and four o'clock in the morning, before sunrise, opposite a colossal dish of rice swimming in the fat of the sheep tail, which I was to assail as if my stomach was empty. How, upon such occasions, I again longed for the dry unleavened bread of the desert, and how willingly I would have exchanged this deadly luxury for wholesome poverty!