20 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



mounted on good horses, were sent, we could not 

 possibly think of taking our departure. After several 

 messages had gone to and fro, we learnt that tiro 

 gholaums would he furnished us as an escort. The 

 Pardoner was furious of course, notwithstanding these 

 said gholaums were described in glowing terms as bold 

 horsemen and expert lion-eaters. "We were quite satis- 

 fied : we knew that, for all the purposes for which we 

 really required them, two were nearly as good as 

 twenty. But that evening the Pardoner waxed wroth, 

 and nothing would pacify him as he recounted the 

 several indignities to which we had been subjected 

 since our arrival. He summed up his woes much in 

 these words : " Since the hour we approached this 

 accursed city may unclean animals defile it to all 

 eternity ! these Shirazee dogs have laughed at our 

 beards. Instead of their having come out to welcome 

 us a good fursuny from the city gate, they met us 

 close to the walls, and then the deputation consisted 

 only of a beggarly mirza may his mother be burnt ! 

 instead of the first vizeer of the province. Then, 

 again, in the place of four tall Turkoman horses being 

 led as an offering before the English lords, nothing 

 was seen but a small Arab horse, whose coat on the 

 neck turned in several places in an unpropitious way. 

 Here" surveying the garden around him with a 

 scornful glance " we have been placed in the abode 

 usually allotted to men unknown to the world, where, 

 as the ' Jehannemah,' whose orange-groves and run- 



