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CHAPTER VII. 
The day of our departure at length arrived, and after having taken our 
formal leave of the Prince, we departed on the 10th of July, at half-past 
one o’clock in the morning. The heats were now such, that it would have 
been impossible to travel during the day. Since the middle of June, 
we remarked that at about two o’clock, P. M., Fahrenheit’s thermometer 
was scarcely ever under 100°. On the 7th of July it was at lOSp in my 
tent, on the 8th at 108°, and on the 9th at 110°. 
In addition to our former procession, we had a takhteravan, or litter, 
in which the nurse and the Ambassador’s infant were conveyed.^ It 
consists of a cage of lattice work, covered over with cloth, borne by two 
mules, one before, the other behind; and conducted by two men, one of 
whom rides on a third mule in front, and the other generally walks by 
the side. Perhaps this may resemble the vehicle called Armamaxa f, in 
which the children of Darius and their attendants were carried. 
On the very first outset of our journey, we had a proof of the vigour 
of our new Mehmandar; for one of his servants having behaved inso¬ 
lently, in persisting to approach too near to the palanqueen in which 
Lady Ouseley was carried, he immediately called the man before him, 
and ordered him to be punished on the spot. He himself struck him 
with his sword, and then with his whip. He then ordered his attendants 
to attack him. They threw him on the ground, beat him with their 
fists, then with their sticks, then jumped upon him, and so mauled him 
that he could scarcely be lifted on his horse. This was done without a 
single question being put to the poor creature himself; it was done in 
the middle of the road, in the dark, and with an immense cavalcade 
passing by at the time. i 
Our former Mehmandar, Zeky Khan, parted with us a little before 
we reached Baj-gah, After having smoked the Kaleoon with him, 
f Quintus Curtius, lib. iii. c. 3. 
Q 
