common. Still, some diseases were very prevalent,
particularly those which may be considered as induced by a total
absence of cleanliness. Sore eyes were very common here, as in
Affghanist[=a]n, and our powers and medicine chest were sometimes
rather too severely taxed by importunate applicants, who never would
apply the remedy in the manner described, unless it was administered
upon principles which they understood, and which was in accordance
with their own reasoning. In C[=a]bul, the medical officers were the
only class of Europeans allowed an entrance to the harems of the rich,
when they were expected after feeling the pulse of some Cashmerian
beauty to pronounce her malady, and effect her cure forthwith. The
lords of the creation too, debilitated from early dissipation or a
life of debauchery, sued for remedies and charms, which, alas! are
only to be found in the hundredth edition of a work known by its
mysterious advertisement in the columns of a London newspaper.

On the 16th, after a long march of twenty-two miles, we approached
Heibuk through the same kind of scenery as the preceding day; on
rounding a projecting ledge of rock we saw that fortress in the
distance, on an insulated eminence adjacent to a low range of hills.
Meer Baber Beg has placed his fortress in a very respectable state
of defence, quite adequate to repel the desultory inroads of his
predatory neighbours; but commanded by and exposed to enfilade from
the hills about it, on one of these hills he has built a tower as a
kind of outwork, but it is very weak and of insignificant size.

The only thing worth seeing near Heibuk is the Tukt-i-Rustum or Throne
of Hercules, which we accordingly visited, and found it to be a
fortification of no very great extent on a most uncommon principle,
and of unknown date. The best idea I can convey to the reader of its
shape, is by begging him to cut an orange in half, and place its
flat surface in a saucer; he will then have a tolerable model of the
Tukt-i-Rustum. We entered by a narrow gallery piercing through the
solid mass of rock which forms the outer wall or saucer, and leading
by an irregular flight of steps to the summit of the orange. I
instituted many enquiries concerning the origin of this place, but
I could obtain no information; not even a legend beyond that it was
holy. We were accompanied by one of the chief's sons, a fat jolly
youth of about four-and-twenty, with a countenance that was a type of