SHIRAZ TO BUSHIRE. 29 



Koran, were strung like heads around her neck and 

 arms ; and these were all, he told me, to shield her 

 tender years from the evil eye. When I told him 

 that we had introduced railways into India, he was 

 astonished beyond measure : of the mode of railway 

 travelling I could make him form no sort of concep- 

 tion whatever. As he knew that the English, as a 

 nation, were not given to speaking hut what was 

 to the truth, he may possibly have believed what 

 I said with regard to the rate of speed arrived at 

 in England ; but I saw that his nephew, a self-suffi- 

 cient youth sitting near him, certainly did not, for 

 upon my assuring him that a traveller might be 

 carried over one hundred fursungs (a fursung being 

 a distance of three and a half miles) between the 

 morning and evening meal, and that he might, if 

 he chose, smoke his kalioon or read his Koran the 

 whole way without being once interrupted, my young 

 friend exclaimed, " Deroog Deroog ! " " It is a lie ! 

 it is a lie ! " and by way of showing that such a 

 thing was utterly impossible, he added that " were 

 the traveller forced through the air at such a high 

 rate of speed, his heart would inevitably leap from 

 his mouth." The old Mirza was much pained evi- 

 dently. He feared lest I should take this somewhat 

 brusque incredulity of his nephew to heart ; so the 

 old gentleman made a great smoke with his pipe, and 

 behind a wreathing cloud of it I could just make him 

 out frowning the youth into silence, whilst he told 



