e it
lasted, I collected enough from the zeal and credulity of my disciples
to enable me to pass the remainder of my life in comfort. I have lived
at Meshed for some time; and it is but a week ago that we contrived to
perform the miracle of giving sight to a blind girl; so now are held in
the highest veneration.'

Here the Dervish Sefer ended his history, and then called upon his next
neighbour to give an account of himself. This was the dervish who had
been his accomplice among the Hezareb, and he began as follows:

'My father was a celebrated man of the law, of the city of Kom, enjoying
the reputation of saying his prayers, making his ablutions, and keeping
his fasts more regularly than any man in Persia; in short, he was the
cream of Shiahs, and the model of Mussulmans. He had many sons, and we
were brought up in the strictest practice of the external parts of
our religion. The rigour and severity with which we were treated were
combated on our part by cunning and dissimulation. These qualities
gradually fixed themselves in our character; and without any
consideration for our circumstances, we were early branded as a nest of
hypocrites, and as the greatest cheats and liars of our birth-place.
I, in particular, was so notorious that in my own defence I became a
dervish, and I owe the reputation which I have acquired in that calling
to the following fortunate circumstance.

'I had scarcely arrived at Tehran, and had taken up my quarters opposite
to a druggist's shop, when I was called up in a great hurry by an old
woman, who informed me that her master, the druggist, had just been
taken exceedingly ill, after having eaten more than usual; that the
medicine which he had taken had not performed its office; and that his
family wished to try what a talisman would do for him: she therefore
invited me to write one suited to his case. As I had neither paper,
pens, nor ink, I insisted upon going into his _anderun_, or woman's
apartments, and writing it there, to which she consented. I was
introduced into a small square yard, and then into a room, where I found
the sick man extended on his bed on the ground, surrounded by as many
women as the place could hold, who cried aloud, and exclaimed, "_Wahi,
wahi_, in the name of God he dies, he dies!" The implements of medicine
were spread about, which showed that everything had been done either to
kill or save him. A large basin, which had contained the prescription,
was seen on th