JOURNEY FROM HERAT TO ORENBURG. 269 



before leaving, but in the meantime I can amuse 

 myself without any suspicion of sorcery. 



June 30th. I was this day summoned to one of 

 the Khan's summer houses, to be present at one of 

 the feasts which he is in the habit of giving at this 

 season of the year. We were shown into a large 

 court, in one corner of which there was a khurgaJi 

 pitched : in this was his highness invisible to vulgar 

 eyes. Sixty moollahs (priests) extended in one line 

 down one side of the court, and sixty of his high- 

 ness's relations and the nobles of his Court down the 

 other side. "We (Brutus and I) were taken to the 

 right side, and seated next the princes. When we 

 arrived, the moollahs were loud in the discussion of 

 some theological question, which they tore to pieces at 

 a sad rate, without (in my eyes) a proper respect for the 

 presence of royalty. The Koran was then brought 

 and a passage read, one of the moollahs attempting to 

 expound ; but he never could get through a sentence 

 without meeting with interruption from some op- 

 ponent : three or four would join in on either side, 

 and both parties were equally positive. I saw some- 

 thing very like jostling, and his majesty was more 

 than once compelled to send his Vizier to call the 

 parties to order. Three long hours did these theo- 

 logical discussions last : they were carried on in 

 Turkee, and explanatory of a book in Arabic. The 

 sitting with the knees doubled on the bare ground 

 was painful, and I was much rejoiced to see prepara- 



