About noon the next day the traveller quitted Gomushtèpe, and was escorted for a considerable distance by Khandjan, who wished to fulfil punctually all the duties of hospitality. It was not without heartfelt regret that he parted from this devoted host, from whom he had received so many marks of interest. The pilgrims travelled toward the north-east; their road, which led them from the coast, was bordered by many mounds raised by the Turkomen in memory of their illustrious dead. When a warrior dies, every man of his tribe is bound to throw at least seven shovelsful of earth upon his grave. So these mausoleums often appear like little hills. This custom must be very ancient among the Asiatics; the Huns brought it into Europe, and we find traces of it to-day in Hungary. Half a league from Gomushtèpe the little caravan reached magnificent prairies, the herbage of which, knee-high, exhaled a delicious fragrance. But these blessings of nature are thrown away upon the Turkomen, who, wholly occupied in robbery and pillage, never dream of enriching themselves by peaceful, pastoral occupations. "Alas!" thought our European, "what charming villages might shelter themselves in this fertile and beautiful country. When will the busy hum of life replace the silence of death which broods over these regions?"
Approaching Etrek, the landscape suddenly changes. This lonely verdure is exchanged for the salt lands of the desert, whose rank odor and repulsive appearance seem to warn the traveller of the sufferings which await him in these immense solitudes. Little by little Vambéry felt the ground become soft under foot; his camel slipped, buried himself at each step, and gave such evident signs of intending to throw him in the mud, that he thought it prudent to dismount without waiting for a more pressing invitation. After tramping an hour and a half in the mire the pilgrims reached Kara Sengher (black wall), where rose the tent of their host, Kulkhan-le-Pir. The district of Etrek is, to the populations of Mazendran and Taberistan, a by-word of terror and malediction. "May you be carried to Etrek," is the most terrible imprecation which fury can extort from a Persian. One cannot pass before the tents of the Turkomen of Etrek without seeing the unhappy Iranian slaves, wasted by fatigue and privations, and bent under the weight of their chains. But the nomad tribes of Tartary offer a singular mixture of vice and virtue, of justice and lawlessness, of benevolence and cruelty. Vambéry, in his character of dervish, made frequent visits among the Tartars. He always returned loaded with presents and penetrated with gratitude for their charitable hospitality. To this sentiment succeeded a profound horror at the barbarous treatment inflicted upon their slaves. At Gomushtèpe such a spectacle had already revolted him; and yet this city, compared to Etrek, might be considered the Ultima Thule of humanity and civilization.
One day, returning to his dwelling, Vambéry met one of the slaves of Kulkhan, who, in a piteous tone, begged him to give him to drink. This unfortunate being had labored ever since morning in a field of melons, exposed to the heat of a burning sun, without any other food than salt fish, and without a drop of water to quench his thirst. The sight of this poor sufferer, and of the cheers which ran down over his thick black beard, made Vambéry forget the danger [{207}] to which an imprudent compassion might expose himself. He gave his bottle to the slave, who drank eagerly and fled, not without having passionately thanked his benefactor.
Another time the European and Hadji Bilal called on a rich Tartar, who, learning that Vambéry was a disciple of the Grand Turk, cried, with great glee, "I will show you a spectacle which will delight you; we know how well the Russians and the Turks agree, and I will show you one o£ your enemies in chains." He then called a poor Muscovite slave, whose pallid features and expression of profound sadness touched Vambéry to the heart. "Go and kiss the feet of this effendi," said the Turkoman to the prisoner. The poor fellow was about to obey, but our traveller stopped him by a gesture, saying that he had that morning begun a great purification and that he did not wish to be defiled by the touch of an infidel.
At last a messenger came to inform the pilgrims that the chief of caravans was about to leave, and that he would meet them at noon the next day on the shore opposite Etrek. The hadjis therefore began their journey, escorted by Kulkhan-le-Pir, who, thanks to the introduction of Kulkhan, neglected nothing for the security of his guests. Now, as these districts are infested by brigands and very dangerous for caravans, the protection of this graybeard was very useful to the travellers. Kulkhan was, in fact, the spiritual guide and grand high-priest of these fierce robbers; he united to a character naturally ferocious a consummate hypocrisy which made him a curious type of the desert chiefs. One ought to have heard this renowned bandit, who had ruined so many families, explaining to his assembled disciples the rites prescribed for purifications, and telling them how a good Mussulman ought to cut his moustache, etc. A sort of pious ecstasy, a perfect serenity, the fruit of a good conscience, was visible meanwhile upon the countenances of these men, as if they already enjoyed a foretaste of the delight of Mohammed's paradise.
The chief of caravans now joined the pilgrims. Vambéry desired very much to win the good graces of so important a man, and was, therefore, much alarmed when he saw that this dignitary, who had received the other pilgrims with marks of great respect, treated him with great coldness. Hadji Bilal eagerly undertook the defence of his friend. "All this," he cried angrily, "is no doubt the work of that miserable Mehemmed, who, even while we were in Etrek, tried to make us believe that our Hadji Reschid, so holy and so learned in the Koran, was a European in disguise! The Lord, pardon my sins!" This was the favorite exclamation of the good dervish in his moments of greatest agitation. "Be patient," he added, addressing his companion, "once arrived at Khiva, I will set this opium-eater right." Mehemmed was an Afghan merchant, born at Kandahar, who had frequently met Europeans. He thought he discovered in Vambéry a secret agent travelling, no doubt, with great treasure, and he hoped, by frightening him, to extort from him considerable sums; but the European was too cunning to be taken in this trap, and he found a secure protection in his reputation for sanctity and in the generous friendship of Hadji Bilal.
This incident had no immediate consequences. The chief of caravans, who was now chief of the united caravans, ordered each pilgrim carefully to fill his bottle, for they would travel now many days without meeting any spring. Vambéry followed the example of his companions, but with a negligent air which Hadji Salih thought himself bound to reprove. "You do not know yet," said he, "that in the desert each drop of water becomes a drop of life. The thirsty traveller watches over his bottle as a miser over his treasure; it is as precious to him as his eye-sight."
They travelled the whole day over a sandy soil, at times slightly undulating, but where it was impossible to discover the least trace of a path. The sun alone indicated their course, and during the night the kervanbashi (chief of caravans) guided himself by the polar star, called by the Turkomen the iron pin, because it is motionless. Gradually the sand gave place to a hard and flinty soil, on which through the silent night resounded the foot-fall of the camels. At day-break the caravan stopped to take some hours of rest, and presently Vambéry perceived the kervanbashi engaged eagerly in conversation with Hadji Bilal and Hadji Salih, the subject of which their looks, constantly directed toward him, sufficiently indicated. He pretended not to observe it, and occupied himself with renewed earnestness in turning over the pages of the Koran. Some moments after his friends came to him, and said "his foreign features excited the distrust of the kervanbashi, for this man had already incurred the anger of the king because he had some years before conducted to Khiva a European, whom this single journey had enabled to put down on paper with diabolical art all the peculiarities of the country, and he never should be able to save his head if he committed another such blunder. It is with great difficulty," added the dervishes, "that we have persuaded him to take you with us, and he has made it a condition, first, that you shall consent to be searched, and secondly, that you will swear, by the tomb of the Prophet, that you will not carry about you secretly a wooden pen as these detestable Europeans always do."
These words, we may imagine, were not very agreeable to Vambéry, but he had too much self-control to permit his agitation to be seen. Pretending to be very angry, he turned toward Hadji Salih, and, loud enough to be heard by the chief of caravans, replied, "Hadji, you have seen me in Teheran, and you know who I am; say to the kervanbashi that an honest man ought not to listen to the gossip of an infidel." This pretended indignation produced the desired effect; no one afterward expressed a doubt in regard to the pilgrim. Vambéry could not resolve to keep his promise, and, whatever it might have cost him to deceive his friends, he continued to make in secret some rapid notes. "Let one imagine," says he, to excuse himself, "the latter disappointment of a traveller who arriving at last, after long efforts and great peril, before a spring for which he has eagerly sighed, finds himself forbidden to moisten his parched lips."
The caravan advanced slowly through the desert; in compassion for the camels, who suffered much from the sand, upon which they could hardly walk, the pilgrims dismounted when the road became very bad. These forced marches were a severe trial to Vambéry on account of his lameness; but he endeavored to forget, his fatigue and to take a part in the noisy conversations of his companions. The nephew of the kervanbashi, a Turkoman of Khiva, entertained a particular affection for him; full of respect for his character as dervish, and won by the benevolence of his looks, he took great pleasure in talking to him of his tent, the only manner in which the prescriptions of the Prophet permitted him to speak of the young wife whom he had left at home. Separated for a whole year from the object of his tenderness, Khali Mallah appealed to the science of the pretended hadji to pierce the veil which absence had placed between himself and his family. Vambéry gravely took the Koran, pronounced some cabalistic words, closed his eyes, and opened the book precisely at a passage in which women are spoken of. He interpreted the sacred text so as to draw from it an oracle sufficiently vague, at which the young Tartar was transported with joy.