Page:Thirty-five years in the East.djvu/63

Rh fair is held at an insignificant fortress (Muzerib), at which a large quantity of articles are sold and purchased, and whither also the Arab chiefs, of different tribes, from the desert, bring their goods, principally horses, for sale. At that time,the Pasha and the Surra-Emini pay them money, and distribute state dresses among them, for which they undertake to provide the pilgrims, going to and coming from Mecca, with the required number of camels, without which the road through the desert would be impracticable.

I accompanied the Pasha both going and returning. On my arrival in Damascus, I found a medical man, Mr. H. I. De Turck, now at Ghent, who was come from Paris, where he had studied medicine, and the Arabic language. Shortly after, I received a letter from Bagdad, from Mr. Anton Swoboda, a native of Hungary, who had a warehouse there for Bohemian glass, under the firm of Ign. Zahn and Company, of Pesth and Aleppo ; it was in the latter place that I made his acquaintance.

He informed me in that letter, that Dohud-Pasha wished to engage a European physician and surgeon, and advised me to accept his offers. I communicated the contents of this letter to Mr. Henri De Turck, proposing to him to undertake the journey with me, to which he agreed. At that time there were two caravans, a great and a small one (galat), the latter of only ten camels, ready to start immediately for Bagdad. But as the former, for the sake of food and water, was obliged to take a roundabout way, lasting full six weeks, whilst the latter, by following the direct road through the desert, would occupy only two weeks in the journey,, we sent our luggage by the greater caravan, and went, with our two camels, with the galat, which consisted now of twelve camels. We were obliged to take with us provisions for about ten or twelve days — some clothes, and a few medicines. Each camel was provided with two goat-skins, to carry water, as we arrived only every third or fourth day at watering-places. Each camel had also its driver, who sat behind, and his furs, by the way, were full of vermin.

Kirkor, an Armenian merchant, from Bagdad, who led