482 
INSTITUTION OF CARAVANSARIES. 
Majesty of this great empire will not leave his capital, undertake 
an expedition, nor receive an ambassador, till he has had in¬ 
timation from his astrologer of the fortunate hour for the act. 
Before all minor transactions, the people in general take what 
they call a fall; namely, (in the old fashion of dipping in Virgil,) 
opening the Koran, Hafiz, or any venerated author, and the 
sense of the passage on which their eyes first fall, directs their 
actions accordingly. They put great faith in the virtue of 
charms, which they buy of the learned in the stars, and bind, 
not merely about their own persons, but those of their horses ; 
some are composed of prayers, sewn up in morsels of linen in 
the shapes of lozenges, circles, triangles, &c. The more costly 
amulets are certain sentences from the Koran, exquisitely en¬ 
graved on cornelian, and which are usually worn by persons of 
rank round their neck or arms. The lower orders have ta¬ 
lismans, to avert the influence of evil eyes, curses, &c. In short, 
they neither look, move, nor speak, without attention to some 
occult fatality or other. 
Having, therefore, left our ill-omened friends behind, staring 
after us as if they pitied our rashness, we proceeded on our road, 
which lay as usual south 45° east, and was a continuation of the 
plain over sandy undulations. After nearly an hour and half’s 
ride, we came to the banks of a full and rapid stream pouring 
from the mountains not far distant to the south-west. The 
stream is crossed by a small stone bridge of three arches ; and on 
some high ground, almost close to the bridge, stand the ruins of 
a very ancient caravansary. The form of the building, as well 
as the style of its masonry, proclaim it to have been of the earlier 
ages of Persia; and, probably, it was the work of Cyrus himself; 
who, Xenophon tells us, was the first institutor of these places of 
rest. “For, observing how far a horse could well travel in a day, 
