136 YARKAND. 



sisted of cakes, fruit, almonds, raisins, &c. He 

 begged us to do him the honour of partaking of 

 his humble fare. Saying we had not seen such a 

 good spread for a long time, we endeavoured to 

 do justice to it. The same formalities had to be 

 gone through at the Kashmiri Aksakal's. 



Mahomed Unis said that he had a great wish 

 to present us each with a pony, for we had been 

 consigned to his charge, and that for very shame 

 he must provide us with one apiece. We repre- 

 sented that such a thing could not be that we 

 had ponies already ; but he looked so disappointed 

 at our refusal, that we had to give in at last and 

 accept his generous offer. 



When we got back to our own house we found 

 a lot of visitors waiting our return, so had to do 

 tea again for the fourth time ! By the evening, 

 when at last we got rid of them, we felt quite 

 knocked up, having had to keep up a strained 

 conversation of polite phrases and nonsense for 

 the greater part of the day. 



The following morning the Amban returned 

 our visit. We had arranged a sort of audience- 

 hall for his reception ; and after sitting about 

 twenty minutes, he took his departure. We 

 conducted him out, and handed him to his 



