Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 2).djvu/311

 a humane sympathy for the sufferers; but their soldier-like allies, the Turcomans, looked upon the matter as merely begun, and casting a longing eye upon our traveller and his companions, as if they felt a strong inclination to eat them, observed to Zadoc, the rebel governor, "You give us the merchandise of the Russians—will you not give us the Russians also? They will do well to tend our sheep!"

Notwithstanding the disturbed state of public affairs, the breed of honest men had not become wholly extinct. Many inhabitants of Astrabad regretted to behold the distress of the stranger, and being desirous of placing him beyond the reach of the capricious insults of the rebels, not only gave him information, but aided, as far as possible, in enabling him to escape. While this design secretly occupied his mind, he obtained from one of the new chiefs a bill for the amount of his goods, and, upon further application, an engagement to provide ten armed men to escort him to Ghilan, in the vicinity of which Nadir Shah was said to be encamped with his army. The necessary precautionary measures being taken, he departed from Astrabad under convoy of hajjî, his brother, and two sons, with about twenty armed villagers. This holy man appeared to have discovered, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, the full value of earthly as well as of heavenly possessions, and thought that, while waiting for the latter, the being master of the former would be no inconvenience. He therefore exerted all his wits, which had no doubt been much sharpened by travelling, in the concoction of schemes for compelling Hanway to do an act of sublime charity, by reducing himself to destitution for the benefit of a pilgrim. Having it in his power to accelerate or impede, as he pleased, the movements of our traveller, he in a great measure succeeded; after which they continued their journey. The roads through northern