us.  As we approached the city, we had our misgivings as to the nature of our reception by the Meer Walli, as, contrary to the treatment we had invariably experienced from the chiefs of all the considerable places through which we had had occasion to pass since entering Toorkisth[=a]n, no one appeared on the part of the Meer to welcome us.  At length, after wandering about the suburbs for more than an hour, followed by a crowd of gaping idlers who seemed half disposed to question our right of squatting, we selected an open space and commenced unloading our baggage animals, and prepared to establish ourselves.

Our spirits were raised, however, soon after, by the welcome arrival of an officer of the Meer’s household, who was sent by his master to convey us to the caravanserai, where, after a short period, we received three or four sheep with fruit and other provisions of all descriptions, which supply was regularly continued during the whole time we remained at Koollum.  Our uneasiness, thus quieted, was soon entirely dispelled by a message announcing that a visit from the great man himself would take place in the evening.  We must have been rather difficult to please, however, on this particular day, for after the wished-for visit was over, we both agreed that it had been dreadfully tiresome; to be sure, as fate would have it, we had not had time to eat our dinner before his arrival, and etiquette obliged us to defer eating till after his departure, which did not release us till past midnight, though he made his appearance soon after eight o’clock.

In person the Meer Walli was certainly very prepossessing; his voice was peculiarly musical, and his manner gentlemanly and easy; his face would have been eminently handsome but for a dreadful wound by which he had lost a portion of his nose.  At this our first interview nothing relative to our own future proceedings was discussed, though that was the subject uppermost in our own minds, as we could not but feel ourselves entirely at the mercy of a robber prince of notorious character.  As it was, the conversation was made up of those compliments and common-places with which the Orientals know so well how to fill up “awkward pauses,” when, for reasons of their own, they do not intend talking upon the real business.  He very politely acceded to our request of visiting the bazaar the following morning, which being market-day, the influx of strangers from the Tartar encampments at the different oases of the Bokhara Desert, and country people from the Toorkisth[=a]n mountains, was very great.  One of his household was always in attendance as we passed out of the gate of the caravanserai, where we lodged, to conduct us about, and act in the double capacity of spy and cicerone.  The city was crowded, and our appearance excited considerable sensation—­much more so in truth than was pleasant, for we were followed wherever we went by a very curious and a very dirty crowd.  We had heard a good deal about the Mahommedan