imagines — by the map of a Ferenghi.  Returning to the caravanserai, we find the courtyard crowded with people, attracted by the fame of the bicycle.  The moonshi bashi straightway ascends to the bala-khana, tenderly unfolds my map, and displays it for the inspection of the gaping multitude below; while five hundred pairs of eyes gaze wonderingly upon it, without having the slightest conception of what they are looking at, he proudly traces with his finger the outlines of Persia.  It is one of the most amusing scenes imaginable; the moonshi bashi and myself, surrounded by his little company of friends, occupying the bala-khana, proudly displaying to a mixed crowd of fully five hundred people a shilling map as a thing to be wondered at and admired.

After the departure of the moonshi bashi and his friends, by invitation I pay a visit of curiosity to a company of dervishes (they themselves pronounce it “darwish”) occupying one of the caravanserai rooms.  There are eight of them lolling about in one small room; their appearance is disgusting and yet interesting; they are all but naked in deference to the hot weather and to obtain a little relief from the lively tenants of their clothing.  Prominent among their effects are panther or leopard skins which they use as cloaks, small steel battle-axes, and huge spiked clubs.  Their whole appearance is most striking and extraordinary; their long black hair is dangling about their naked shoulders; they have the wild, haggard countenances of men whose lives are being spent in debauchery and excesses; nevertheless, most of them have a decidedly intellectual expression.  The Persian dervishes are a strange and interesting people; they spend their whole lives in wandering from one end of the country to another, subsisting entirely by mendicancy; yet their cry, instead of a beggar’s supplication for charity, is “huk, huk” (my right, my right); they affect the most wildly, picturesque and eccentric costumes, often wearing nothing whatever but white cotton drawers and a leopard or panther skin thrown, carelessly about their shoulders, besides which they carry a huge spiked club or steel battle-axe and an alms-receiver; this latter is usually made of an oval gourd, polished and suspended on small brass chains.  Sometimes they wear an embroidered conical cap decorated with verses from the Koran, but often they wear no head-gear save the covering provided by nature.  The better-class Persians have little respect for these wandering fakirs; but their wild, eccentric appearance makes a deep impression upon the simple-hearted villagers, and the dervishes, whose wits are sharpened by constant knocking about, live mostly by imposing on their good nature and credulity.  A couple of these worthies, arriving at a small village, affect their wildest and most grotesque appearance and proceed to walk with stately, majestic tread through the streets, gracefully brandishing their clubs or battle-axes, gazing fixedly at vacancy and reciting