300 FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN. 



our wayworn looks arrested the attention of a 

 good-natured Russian custom-house officer, one of 

 the few Europeans in Salian. This good Samari- 

 tan, when he heard the story of our blighted hopes, 

 took us home to his own house to dinner, and 

 whilst waiting for it a curious thing happened. A 

 messenger arrived from another Russian official, 

 of whom I had never heard, also asking me to 

 dine. Of course, I sent back the most polite 

 answer possible, pleading my previous engagement, 

 and promising to come and thank him for his 

 civility before I left Salian. To my astonishment, 

 the messenger came back in a few minutes to say 

 that I was not to heed Mr. So-and-so he was 

 only a poor devil of a custom-house officer but 

 was to come and dine at once with the great man, 

 his master. My host seemed by no means sur- 

 prised at the message, or even annoyed, though it 

 was delivered, to my intense chagrin, in his pre- 

 sence. There was but one thing to say in answer 

 to this second message of my would-be host ; and 

 having said it, I sat down to dine with my first 

 friend, meditating much on the manners and cus- 

 toms of the East. But my astonishment increased 

 when, after dinner, my host entreated me to go 

 with him to his rival's, that that rival might hear 

 from my own lips that it was no fault of my host 

 that I had dined :it his house in preference to that 

 of the greater man. Of course 1 yielded, and both 



