76 
HOSTILE TREATMENT AT RHABAD. 
kin to the deceased. But such sanguinary revenge is not always 
taken; the offender generally having it in his power to com¬ 
pound for his life, with a sum of money, to the family of the 
murdered person. This compromising mulct is usually rated 
from 50 to 100 tomauns. But if a Christian happen by any evil 
chance to kill a Mussulman, and gold be preferred to blood as a 
compensation, 200 tomauns is then the sum commonly exacted. 
But to return to our Rhabad adventure. Having given orders 
for quietly reloading the mules and saddling the horses, we 
were mounted and on our march by seven o’clock the same 
evening. Some of our little host thought it probable we should 
be waylaid by the Ketkhoda, or assaulted by his auxiliaries in 
some of the defiles we must pass through ; and, as something of 
this was possible, we marshalled our array, front and rear, with 
all the strength of our battalion. The road we were then upon 
lay north 45° west, still pursuing a long course up the Rhabad 
valley. The bases of the mountains, whose jutting and rocky 
sides walled it, often approached so close as almost to encavern 
us; and in other places, they receded so far apart as to leave a 
free passage of nearly a mile. In this way we travelled about a 
farsang, neither seeing nor hearing any trace of a pursuing or 
ambushed foe. We passed the village of Khoramabad, of rather 
a wild aspect; and, having gone a farsang farther, paid the same 
compliment to Helimabad. At that point, we had yet two more 
farsangs to travel, before we could reach our purposed menzil; 
but, notwithstanding we had come so far without molestation, 
still we were not to consider ourselves quite out of the snare, 
till we had got beyond the boundary of the Ketkhoda, and his 
Fielly allies. In our advance, we entered an extremely narrow, 
but level pass, the huge cliffs of which ran up to a prodigious 
