eriest cutthroat, and, curious to penetrate the secret of
his intentions, and perchance secure something interesting for my
note-book, I at length make pretence of acceding to his wishes.
Bystanders at once interfere to prevent him enticing me away, and when he
angrily remonstrates he is hustled unceremoniously out into the street.

"He is a bad man," they say; "neis koob adam."

Nothing daunted by the summary ejection of this person, a dervish, with
the haggard face and wild, restless eyes of one addicted to bhang, now
volunteers to take me under his protection and lead me out of the
caravanserai to--where? He vouchsafes no explanation where; none, at
least, that is at all comprehensible to me. Where do these interesting
specimens of Beerjand's weird population want to entice me to? why do
they want to entice me anywhere? I conclude to go with the dervish and
find out.

The crowd enter their remonstrances again; but the dervish wears the garb
of holy mendicancy; violent hands must not be laid on the sacred person
of a dervish. Our path is barred at the outer gate of the caravanserai,
however, by two men in semi-military uniforms, armed with swords and huge
clubs; they chide the dervish for wanting to take me with him, and have
evidently been placed at their post by the authorities.

Soon a uniformed official comes in and tries to question me. He is a
person of very limited intelligence, incapable of understanding and
making himself understood through the medium of the small stock of his
native tongue at my command. The linguistic abilities of the strange,
semi-civilized audience about us comprise Persian, Turkish, Hindostani,
and even a certain amount of Russian; not a soul besides myself knows a
single word of English.

After queries have been propounded to me in all these tongues, my
intellectual interviewer gives me up in despair, and, addressing the
crowd about us, cries out in astonishment: "Parsee neis! Turkchi binmus!
Hindostani nay! Paruski nicht! mashallah, what language does he speak?"

"Ingilis! Ingilis! Ingilis!" shout at least a dozen more knowing people
than himself.

"Oh, I-n-g-i-l-i-s!" says the officer, condemning his own lack of
comprehension by the tone of his voice. "Aha, I-n-g-i-l-i-s, aha!" and he
looks over the crowd apologetically for not having thought of so simple a
thing before. But having ascertained that I speak English, he now
proceeds to treat me to a voluble discourse in simon-pur