482 
THROUGH ASIA 
long as the proceedings lasted he assumed a very severe 
expression of countenance. On the platform by his side 
sat his niirza or secretary, who entered the proceedings 
in a protocol. Round about him stood his men and the 
officers of the law, and before him the culprit. 
To-day there was a very curious case. A man had 
five wives. The fifth, a handsome, stalwart young woman, 
had run away to Kashgar with another man. The beg 
had given information to the authorities there, and they 
found the woman and sent her back to Merket, where 
she was now to answer for her transgressions. After 
she had been convicted of unfaithfulness, the beg gave 
her a slap on either cheek, and .she began to weep. The 
only thing she had to say in her own defence was that 
life with the other four wives wms altogether unbearable. 
She had a knife on her person, and when the beg asked 
her, what she was going to do with it, she answered, 
that she meant to kill herself, if she were compelled to 
return to her husband. Her punishment was, that for 
a time she should go and dwell with the mollahs, till 
she should be in a better frame of mind, and then should 
quietly return home to her husband. 
After that another young woman was brought forward, 
her face bleeding and lacerated, and followed by her 
mother and her husband. She also had left her husband ; 
but in this case the man had taken the law into his own 
hands, and had cruelly kicked and mishandled her. 
Several witnesses confirmed the statemesit, that he had 
made use of a razor ; this however the defendant denied. 
To make him confess, the beg gave orders for his hands 
to be tied behind his back, and then had him strung up 
to the branch of a tree. He did not hangr there longf 
before the device produced the desired effect. The man 
was taken down, and forty strokes of the rod w'ere 
administered on that part of the body which seems to 
have been providentially provided for castigation. Mean- 
while he declared that his wife had beaten him on the 
back. Forthwith he was stripped ; but as no marks 
were visible, a second whipping was the result. 
