In The Afternoon, We Went As Far As Ali-Schach, A Considerable Place, With A Handsome Chan.

We here met with three travellers, who were also going to Tebris. My guide agreed to travel with them, and that we should start at night.

Their society was not very agreeable to me, for they were well armed, and looked very savage. I should have preferred waiting until daybreak, and going without them, but my guide assured me that they were honest people; and trusting more to my good fortune than his word, I mounted my horse about 1 o'clock at night.

4th August. I soon lost my fear, for we frequently met small parties of three or four persons, who would scarcely have ventured to travel at night if the road had been dangerous. Large caravans also, of several hundred camels, passed us and took up the road in such a way, that we were obliged to wait for half an hour to allow them to pass.

Towards noon we entered a valley in which lay a town, which was certainly large, but of such an unpretending appearance, that I did not at once inquire what was its name. The nearer we approached the more ruined it appeared. The walls were half fallen, the streets and squares full of heaps of rubbish, and many of the houses were in ruins; it seemed as if a pestilence or an enemy had destroyed it. At last I asked its name, and could hardly believe that I had understood it rightly when I was told that it was Tebris.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 597 of 708
Words from 158641 to 158905 of 187810