566 
THROUGH ASIA 
buried several months under the unresting, devouring 
billows of sand. 
After that an endless panorama of pictures from my 
former travels passed in succession before my mind’s eye. 
I had travelled through all the Mohammedan countries 
of Asia for a whole year like a dervish, and now I had 
reached my last camping - ground. Fate said to me, 
“ Thus far shalt thou go, but no farther.” Here the 
strong' pulses of my life were to cease. It was ten 
years ago when I first set out on my travels. I had 
admired the Palace of the Forty Columns at Ispahan. 
I had listened to the waves of the Saiendeh-rud beating 
against the pillars of Shah Abbas’s marble bridges, and 
enjoyed the cool shades of Cyrus’s mausoleum. In the 
temple halls of Xerxes and of Darius, and in the pillared 
arcades of Persepolis, I had learned to understand the 
truth of the poet’s word : 
“ Det harliga pS, jorden, forganglig ar dess lott.” 
(To perish is the lot of all things here below !) 
How beautiful it was to rest under the shade of the date- 
palms of Basrah! Would that the Tigris could offer me 
a few drops of its muddy water 1 What would I not have 
given the water-carrier of Bagdad for his skinful of the 
precious fluid, which he hawked about through her narrow 
streets and lanes, getting a few copper coins for an ass’s 
load. I thought of my adventures in the land where 
the incidents of the Thousand and One Nights are every- 
day occurrences. Nine years previously I had left Bagdad 
with a caravan of Arabian merchants and Mecca pilgrims 
with fifty francs in my pocket, which I relied upon to take 
me to Teheran. But the slow rate of travel and the 
monotonous mode, of life were too much for my patience. 
One dark night I ran away from the caravan, in company 
with an Arab to whom I gave the little money I had left. 
Our horses were almost done up when we came within 
sight of Kermanshahan. I went to a rich Arab merchant 
living there, named Aga Mohammed Hassan. 1 remember 
how his eyes sparkled, when I told him I was a son of 
