CARAVANSERAIS. 
55 
errand, could not force his way through, and was ever after called 
liaram zadeh. 
On the 6th we halted at Khone-Zenioun, where there is a caravan¬ 
serai. These buildings are frequently erected by private persons, at 
their own expense, in the hope that so good an act on earth will meet 
with its reward hereafter. The Persians are also very ambitious of 
posthumous fame; and the desire of acquiring an ism^ or name, will 
lead them to perform many acts, which they would not upon any 
other consideration. The caravanserai in question was not many years 
ago built by a relation of Mirza Abul Hassan Khan. Mirza Ali Reza, 
brother to that relation, an eunuch in the King’s household, having 
heard of its present decay, anxious to partake of his brother’s repu¬ 
tation for sanctity, sent a sum of money to the Thaubet of Khone 
Zenioun, to clean and repair it. The Thaubet, instead of so doing, put 
the money into his pocket, and left the building to its fate, which in 
consequence became the resort of all the cattle that grazed in the ad¬ 
joining plain. Mirza Abul Hassan Khan hearing this, seized the Thau¬ 
bet on the day we sojourned there, beat him on the soles of his feet, 
made him refund the money, and took measures for insuring the pro¬ 
jected repairs. 
Caravanserais, built and endowed by private persons, consecrated as 
it were to hospitality, the refuge of the stranger and the wanderer, are 
held sacred in the East ; and we may suppose that it was a similar 
feeling which gave security to those who kept the public-houses at 
Tarsus, when Cyrus passed tlirough it, for they remained quiet at their 
posts, when the city was abandoned by its other inhabitants.* 
Anab. lib. i. c. 2. 
