Whilst our baggage was being laden this evening, the keeper of the sarae, who gave his name as Abdurrazzác, came up to me for the customary present. I gave it him, and was turning away when he asked, “Is Akhún Sáhib still alive?”
“Whom do you mean?” I said, quite taken aback.
“The Akhún of Swát, Abdulghafúr, the hermit of Bekí,” he replied.
“What do you know of him, and why ask me?” I inquired.
“I am a disciple of his,” he replied, “and your people tell me you have come from Peshawar, and know all about him. It is reported here that he is dead, and has been succeeded by his son Sayyid Mahmúd Badsháh, whose karámát (miraculous powers) are even more strongly developed than those of the father.”
“It is six months,” I said, “since I left Peshawar, and this is the first time I have heard the Akhún’s name mentioned.”
He then told me that there were about a dozen of his disciples (muríd) in this town, and upwards of a thousand in Mosul, whence a sum of two thousand rupees is annually sent to Swát as tribute to the saint.
Our baggage filing out, I now mounted my horse, whilst my strange acquaintance, holding on to the stirrup on the off side, in sonorous tones repeated the Akhún’s creed, “Ant ul hádí, ant ul hacc; lais ul hádí illahú!” (“Thou art the guide, thou art the truth; there is no guide but God!”) I bade the stranger good evening, and went on, wondering at the strange adventures travellers meet with.
9th July.—Shahrabad to Bácúba or Yácúbia, thirty-two miles. We set out at half-past eight o’clock yesterday evening, and passing through the town, struck across a plain country much cut up by dry water-courses. As we left the town, some people at the gate warned us to be on the alert, as a káfila had been attacked and plundered the night before at four miles from Bácúba. Our escort consists of only five horsemen, with two others in charge of the Hamávand prisoner. Our own party, which consists of twenty-three baggage-mules, and as many followers, and a couple of riding-camels, accompanied by the Bukhára pilgrims, was here joined by an Arab Shekh with a patriarchal beard of snowy whiteness—an ideal Abraham, in fact—and five or six other travellers on foot, who seized this opportunity of a safe conduct to Baghdad.
We had proceeded very quietly for about three hours, our eyelids becoming gradually weighed down by the weight of sleep, when we came to a deep water-cut. We followed the course of this for half an hour up to a bridge thrown across it. A gentle whiseet-whiseet was now and again heard to proceed from the bushes on the other side of the canal.