THE COURDISH CHIEF. 
465 
of habitations, I had jet to mount a more steep and zig-zag as¬ 
cent, divided and overhung bj huge masses of rock, all equally 
well manned, and so continuing to the very top of this ani¬ 
mated division of the mountain; on which stood the mansion of 
their chief, like a citadel. It was built on the brink of a per¬ 
pendicular cliff, commanding the whole of the country below. 
Mahmoud Beg (that was the name of the chief) came out to 
receive me, and conducting me into his airy castle, welcomed me 
with a courtesy which retained nothing of the barbarian. He 
placed every thing within it at my command, adding ten or 
twelve gloomy-looking Gourds, armed at all points, to attend my 
nod; and I had no reason to complain of their want of diligence 
in watching the turn of my eye, and flying to obey it. Apart¬ 
ments were assigned totally to myself and followers ; and my host, 
so far from encumbering me with the ceremonies of his presence, 
the day after my arrival, visited me only in the evening; 
but insisted on accompanying me personally the next morning, 
to guard me to the summit of the Daroo: “ his son, (he said,) 
should go thence with me, to be my pledge of safe-conduct to 
the chief of the neighbouring district.” 
It was impossible to feel myself thus entertained by a Car- 
duchian chief, or to have passed through the scene that led me 
to his hospitality, without having recalled at every step the 
different picture which Xenophon draws of his passage through 
these dreadful mountains ; when the ancestors of the very men 
whom I had just seen peopling the rocks to gaze quietly on a 
coming stranger, had manned them in like manner ; but then, 
in the fierceness of independent spirits, to “ roll down stones, 
some of a ton weight, and others of various bulks, upon the heads 
3 o 
VOL. II. 
