270 
MURDER OF MR. BROWNE. 
bers then permitted Mr. Browne to see his servant safe out of 
sight, before they laid further hands on himself; after which 
they carried him, and the property they had reserved for them¬ 
selves, into a valley on the opposite side of the Kizzilouzan, and 
without further parley terminated his existence, it is supposed, 
by strangulation. They stripped his corpse of every part of its 
raiment, and then left it on the open ground, a prey to wolves 
and other wild animals. The servant, meanwhile, made the best 
of his way towards Tabreez, where he related the tale I have 
just told. 
Abbas Mirza immediately dispatched several parties of horse¬ 
men ; some into the pass of the caravansary, to search its neigh¬ 
bourhood and others towards the spot where the circumstantial 
details of the man, repeating what he had heard pass between 
the murderers, made it likely that Mr. Browne was to receive 
the fatal blow. After diligent search, the body was found in the 
latter place, in the condition I have described, and by the 
prince’s orders brought carefully to Akhand, and buried with 
decency. His B.oyal Highness made every exertion to discover 
the perpetrators of this nefarious deed; but to this moment the 
individuals remain unknown ; though hardly a doubt exists, that 
the people who committed it, were part of some roving and 
desperate band of Kurds, who could not resist the temptation 
of an almost solitary traveller. Previous to the reign of His 
present Majesty of Persia, and the active government, in this 
quarter, of his son, numerous parties of these brigands used to 
lurk near the bridge of the pass, and commit the most horrible 
ravage on the caravans, and all persons who fell in their way. 
But ever since these princes have enacted such determined laws 
against rapine and murder, this northern part of the kingdom, 
