AGA KHAN. 
359 
Where tliere are so few amusements, exercise on horseback and the care 
of horses are great enjoyments. We scarcely ever passed a morning 
without taking a long ride, accompanied by grey hounds or with our 
fowling-pieces, and spent at least an hour each day in the inspection 
of all the details of the stable. In the plain below, when the harvest 
was finished we found great quantities of the bokara cara, (black¬ 
breasted partridges,) blue pigeons, and doves. The mountains abound 
in foxes, hares, and antelopes ; andnot farfrom Demawend we heard of 
wild boars. Persian sportsmen frequently brought us mountain goats, 
which they shot in those parts where their passage was frequent. 
Having received an invitation to proceed to the King’s camp, then at 
Sawer, near Asterabad, so good an opportunity of seeing a part of the 
country, which in modern days had not been visited by Europeans was 
not to be missed. His Majesty dispatched Aga Khan, the Governor of 
Demawend, on purpose to escort us; and such was the speed of his 
journey, that he and six servants reached Demawend in three days, 
having performed a distance of about 188 miles upon the same horses. 
Aga Khan was a young man of family, and one of the King’s gholam 
peish khedmetSi or chamberlains. Although bigotted to an excess, and 
avowedly inimical to every religion but his own, yet he never permitted 
his feelings to get the better of his politeness. He constantly brought 
on discussions upon religious points, and although our arguments 
were carried on without reserve, yet he never lost his temper. His 
family are Seyids, the descendants of Ali; and with that ancestry he 
feels that a greater degree of sanctity is required of him than of others; 
consequently he was very rigid in all the exterior rites of his religion. 
He never failed in his five prayers daily; in the coldest mornings of 
our march, he stopped as the sun rose near a running stream, called 
his servants about him, pulled of his boots and stockings, washed his 
hands, feet, &c. spread his carpet and prayed. He constantly made 
exclamations of Ya ali! oh ali! Ya allah! oh God ! — Allah allah il 
allah! there is no God but one God, &c.; and it was only during the 
fast of the Kamazan that he seemed impatient of any inconvenience in 
