EXPEDITION IN THE MOUNTAINS. 
331 
and said, “ I know you are fond of cold weather; we will all go up 
“ yonder one of these days, sit upon the snow, and eat kabob.'^* Ac¬ 
cordingly we fixed a day; and about eight o’clock in the morning we 
mounted our horses, and having joined the Serdar, who was sur¬ 
rounded by a numerous train of his attendants, we proceeded up the 
mountain. The Serdar’s huntsmen, with hawks and dogs, were on 
each side of us, beating the country for game; whilst a singing man, 
whom the Serdar entertains purposely to amuse himself and his friends, 
was opening his whole throat upon us as we rode along. 
We first struck into a deep valley, profusely covered with coarse 
weeds and herbage, and through which flowed a stream, formed by the 
melting snow. We had scarcely got half way up this valley, when we 
were overtaken by a most violent shower; and we should all have been 
drenched to the skin, if we had not most opportunely reached at the 
time an encampment of Gourds, at one of whose tents we immediately 
alighted. An old man with a white beard, chief of the encampment, 
immediately ran to the Serdar, kissed his hands and his sleeve fifty 
times over; and exclaimed, “ I am your slave; my tents, my cattle, 
“ every thing that I have is yours.” The Serdar, who did not seem 
backward in accepting his gift, ordered his men to get two lambs for 
the promised kabob, and requested the old man’s son to take them up 
to the snow for us. The old man again, with apparent sincerity, re¬ 
peated the assurances of his entire devotion, and ordered his son to 
proceed up the mountain with the lambs. “ How long,” says the Ser¬ 
dar, “ have you been here?” “ I?” replied the old Gourd; “ why, I, 
“ my father, my grandfather, and all my ancestry, know no spots but 
“ these; it is here we have always fed our cattle.” “ And are ye not 
“ afraid?”—“ Afraid of what, as long as we have the Serdar for our 
“ protector?” “What sort of wives have you got there?” “They are 
“ good enough,” said the old man: “ I got one of them some time ago, 
“ with some mares, from the Gourdistan.” 
The weather having cleared up, we proceeded to our destination, which 
* Roast meat. 
U U 2 
