68 TIIIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 



sugar ; an engraving of it may be found in the second 

 volume. 



I instantly sent the stone to the minister Hoshbegi, 

 at the fortress of Registan, with the melancholy assurance, 

 that to heal the wound was impossible. In the mean- 

 while, I availed myself of the opportunity to request 

 from the minister some genuine Persian mumiai, this 

 remedy being considered in the Arabic Materia Medica 

 a specific against wounds and. fractured bones. I adminis- 

 tered one grain to the patient daily. After a few days had 

 elapsed, he began to have an appetite. The minister, who 

 took great interest in the case, sent twice a-day to inquire 

 about the state of the student; and , on hearing of this 

 false sign of recovery, he said that my fears about the 

 restoration of my patient were certainly groundless. 

 " Would to God, " replied I, " that my prognostic may turn 

 out false, and that I may be obliged to owe the restora- 

 tion of the patient to yonr mumiai ;" but up to this 

 moment all the operations that I had performed, when 

 the stone was but slightly attached to the bladder, had 

 always failed ; and in such cases, mortification ensues, 

 generally on the fourth day after the operation, which puts 

 an end to the sufferings of the patient. He took his leave, 

 uttering the consoling words, " Trust and rely on God," 

 which I indeed did ; for in sixteen days after, the unfor- 

 tunate student died of weakness and exhaustion, the blad- 

 der being perforated like a sieve, and thus defying sur- 

 gical and medical art. Feeling the approach of death, 

 he thanked both me and his brother for our attendance, 

 declaring that his early death (he was about twenty 

 years of age) was not the consequence of the inefficiency 

 of the medical art, but the fulfilment of the inscrutable 

 will and decree of God, the Ruler of all beings ! 



Hoshbegi was in one and the same person, Wuzeer, 

 Receiver of the Customs, Druggist and Hakim to the Emir. 

 Like all the literary men in the East, he not only possessed 

 medical Irnowledge, but he was likewise the confidential 

 " ■ ::d of his princely highness. He was also charged 



