“I will answer you in a parable,” replied Seyyid ’Alí. “There was once a certain man who owned a flock of sheep. Every morning, when he drove his flock out of the fold to the pasture-land, he would say, ‘O Abbas, keep watch over my sheep, which I leave in your protection;’ and then he would go about his work until it was time to drive the sheep home again. One day he was too busy to act as shepherd, and so he sent his son in his stead. The boy, having brought the sheep to the grazing ground, said within himself: ‘I wonder why my father leaves the sheep in the care of Abbas. Did not Allah create them as well as him? Assuredly my father has committed a fault.’ And, so thinking, he left the sheep in charge of their Creator. Now it happened that, Abbas having resigned his office, a pack of wolves passed by, and, being famished, spared not even a lamb: so that when the father went in search of the sheep, he could not find a single one. Having questioned his son, he learned the truth. ‘Silly boy,’ said he, ‘knowest thou not that Allah takes care of all his creatures, of the wolves as well as of the sheep, whereas Abbas, listening to our entreaties, would keep the beasts of prey from attacking our flocks and herds? Be wiser to-morrow than you were this morning.’ So you see, yá-Moulai, that there is no use in trying to be anything to Allah beyond what one really is.” At the end of nine years these chains are valued, and the price of them is distributed among the poor, after which they are sent to the shrine of Abbas. To the chain a pair of hands made of silver is sometimes hung, in memory of Abbas, whose hands were cut off on the plain of Kerbela. The talisman-monger had hundreds of these chains and bowls and hands in his shop, and also, among other things, heaps of mázús, or oak-apples. These oak-apples are used as charms by nearly all Muhammadans. Those in the shop were of two kinds. Some were nearly black and perfectly circular; others were of a light brown colour and spheroid in shape. Among those of a spheroidal shape was a mázú of exceptional beauty, evidently intended for a woman. The two ends of the hollow spheroid were set in silver with numerous figures exquisitely chased, one group of which was that of a female slave handing over the heart of her young mistress to the expectant lover. This particular kind of mázú, I was told, is suspended on a chain and worn on their breasts by the women. Other oak-apples are seen hanging from the tip of children’s caps on a silk band, along with prayer-bags made of green velvet and containing texts from the Holy Scriptures. Meanwhile my guide, having struck up acquaintance with a countryman of his from Hamadan, was engaged in conversation with him. This new friend, Murshid Khan by name, was a tall swarthy fellow. He had come to buy a chip of the sacred tree talh’, an acacia which has small round golden blossoms, whereof he related the following legend: