Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/393

 moonlight was superb as we rested on the rooftop of our halt- ing-place till a late hour. The horses were then made ready, but we had difficulty in reaching our seats in the carriage because of the raft of beggars gathered about. Some of them were lunatics, real or feigned, and added their incoherent bab- ble to the Bedlam noise around. All were importunate in their demands for bakshish, pushing and crowding as they scrambled for the doles that were scattered to gratify them ; but none were ever satisfied, and one narrowly escaped being crushed to death beneath our wheels as we dashed away, the rabble still following us with their cry for alms. No sooner were we passing out of the farther gate of the town, than a pack of savage curs took up the cry. '• Even the dogs of Sab- zavar are howling beggars,' said our servant Agopian, now quite out of temper; and away we rumbled into the plain, which was aglow with a flood of the purest moonlight.

A halt for a fresh relay of horses was made during the night at a station near the old caravansarai of Zafarani, or Ribat Zaf arani, ' the Saffron Guardhouse,' which was once the largest sarai in Persia. Its name, which means * saffron,' from Arabic- Persian za'-fardn^ is derived from a yellowish glint in the bricks of which it is constructed. There is current, however, a pretty legend which ascribes the effect to the circumstance that its builder used, instead of straw for his bricks, a load of saffron which he had generously purchased to relieve a poor man in a passing caravan ; and, though meeting with reverses after- wards, he was ultimately rewarded a thousandfold by the man whom he had helped by his purchase and who later became enormously rich.^

1 Various versions of this folk-tale years ago Zafarani appears to have

are found in Eraser, pp. 384-386 ; been a considerable place, as it is al-

Ferrier, pp. 102-103 ; Eastwick, 2. luded to by Clavijo (p. 107, Hakluyt),

179-180. Some details regarding a on July 22, 1404, as 'a city called Za-

mosque, with inscriptions, adjoining brain ; this city is very large, and con-

the old caravansarai will be found in tains fine houses and mosques ; but

Khanikoff, pp. 88-89. Five hundred most of them were deserted.'

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