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 TURKOMAN PRISONERS PUT TO DEATH. 301 royal camp before Herat,* I read, under date of the 7th of December : " The Shah sent for three Turkoman prisoners, and also for an Affghan, Mahomed Azeez Khan, who had been taken, and ordered them to be put to death, as an act pleasing to God. This order was executed in his presence. The Shah goes daily to his place of observation, and employs himself in reading the Koran." The passage I have quoted affords a melan- choly picture of sectarian fanaticism, and of the bar- barities to which an Oriental monarch must be accus- tomed. In an entry of the same journal for the 9th of December, I read that the Persian soldiers were reduced to such extremities that they went about offering the locks of their muskets for sale. For the previous twenty- five days no provisions had been issued. On the night of the 12th of December, a note was thrown over the walls by a Sheeah, stating that those of that sect within the city were powerless to effect a diversion in favour of those without, and begging that the Shah would lose no time in ordering an assault, as there was nothing to be feared from the Affghans. On the following day a Persian officer held a parley with some men on the city walls, and having been invited to enter the town and see Yar Mahomed Khan, he obtained the king's permission to do so. He was ordered to remind the Vizeer of Herat that his brother, who had yielded the fortress of Ghorian, had experienced no ill-treatment in the Persian camp, and he was told to work upon the Vizeer 's fears by dwell- ing on the insecurity of his position under a drunkard like Prince Kamran, who might at any moment, in a fit of senseless fury, issue orders for his execution. The
 * MEERZA AGHA.