1841.] Journal kept while travelling in Seistan. 339 



body having tried to make him understand the extraction of sugar from 

 beet root, he has impressed his whole neighbourhood with the notion, 

 that Russian sugar, which they always see in loaves, grows in its pri- 

 meval shape like a carrot. One of my most acceptable visitors was 

 the blind son of my host. He is not yet thirty, and has been blind 

 some 12 or 13 years ; one eye has been entirely destroyed by the lancet 

 of some Candahar practitioners ; from the other he can see a little, 

 and it might I think be cured by couching. I wish indeed to bring him 

 with me to Caubul, that some of our occulists might look at his eyes ; but 

 having thought of trying to cross the Ghore mountains, I feared his 

 helplessness in such a region, and only pressed him therefore to go at 

 once to Herat and take the advice of the doctors there. Like the most 

 educated blind persons, he has a mild placid address, and a very reten- 

 1 tive memory, and it was from him that I learnt the greater part of his 

 father's history. He asked me to dinner, and the Khan, for once in his 

 life, consented to be of the party. The host on this occasion would not 

 sit down with us, but stood at the door, superintending the relays of 

 dishes till we had all finished. 



I mentioned to Shah Pussund my desire of paying my respects to 

 the governor of Jorraine ; he evidently was unwilling that I should go 

 there, but did not well know how to put me off. He sent one or two 

 persons privately to persuade me that the visit would look odd; that 

 Goolzar Khan was a mere cypher, and of course there was a ready 

 i answer to such arguments. I have a letter to present, and must go. 

 He was, I believe, fearful lest old Goolzar Khan, who is not on very 

 good terms with his nephew, and who had all the garrulity of age, 

 might speak to his disadvantage, or perhaps let out things he might not 

 wish me to know. At last, however, I set out. I was met as usual by 

 a large crowd, and by an istikbal of three or four of the old man's sons, 

 and Goolzar Khan himself came down from the fort 

 on foot to receive me, though he cannot walk with- 

 out difficulty. He evidently was delighted to see me his guest ; he 

 began to fear that I should pass him by, and his honour was concerned 

 in the matter. Somebody had also told him, that I would not make 

 myself understood in Persian ; but when he found that I enjoyed his 

 stories of the old times, he told them with all the pleasure one receives 

 from finding a new auditor to an old tale. He is a fine old gentle- 



