his doctrine, looked at me to see if I was not struck with
amazement. I was not backward in making the necessary exclamations, and
acted my part so true to the life, that the impression in my favour was
universal.

The mushtehed, warmed by his own words, continued to harangue against
the Sufies with such vehemence, that I believe had there been one at
hand, they would have risen in a body and put him to death. I hugged
myself in the success which had accompanied my attempt to appear a good
Mussulman, and now began to think that I was one in right earnest.

'If what I do,' said I, 'constitutes a religious man, and is to acquire
me the world's consideration, nothing is more easy. Why then should I
toil through life, a slave to some tyrant, exposed to every vicissitude,
uncertain of my existence beyond the present moment, and a prey to a
thousand and one evils?'

I left the mushtehed, and returned to my cell, determined to persevere
in my pious dispositions. When I met my companion again, I told him
all that had happened, and everything that had been said about him and
dervishes in general; and advised him, considering the temper in which
I had left the assembly, to make the best of his way out of a place in
which every man's mind and hand were turned against him. 'If they catch
you, they stone you, friend!' said I; 'upon that make your mind easy.'

'May the stones alight on their own heads!' exclaimed the dervish: 'a
set of blood-thirsty heathens! What sort of religion can theirs be which
makes them seek the life of an inoffensive man? I come here, having no
one thing to do with either Suni or Shiah, Sufi or Mohamedan: on the
contrary, out of compliment to them, I go through all the mummery of
five washings and five prayings per day, and still that will not satisfy
them; however, I will be even with them. I will go; I will leave their
vile hypocritical town; and neither will I wash nor pray until necessity
obliges me to pass through it again.'

I must own that I was not sorry when I heard the dervish make this
resolution. I saw him with pleasure gird on his broad leathern belt,
from which was suspended great bunches of beads, and stick his long
spoon in it. I helped to fasten his deer-skin to his back; and when he
had taken up the iron weapon, which he carried on his shoulder, in one
hand, whilst his other bore his calabash suspended with three chains, we
bade each other adieu with great apparent cordiality.

Leavin