1 25
2 Bagdad. This letter, which served us in the meantime as
3 a passport, was so much respected by the Agha of Hit, that he
4 placed it on his forehead as a token of respect.
5 At midnight, we were alarmed by a great noise and uproar
6 in the town. Upon asking for an explanation, they told us that
7 the Arabs of the desert were in pursuit of the pilgrims. This
8 information filled us with fear and anxiety, for we were all
9 assembled in the same house, and firmly believed that it was
10 the husbands of the women we had met with previously, and that
11 their intention was to plunder us ; but we were mistaken. A
12 short time afterwards the people informed us that they were the
13 Agha’s enemies, the Agelis, who were come to take revenge on
14 him, and it was rumoured that they had forced the palace, and
15 killed the Agha.
16 However much we regretted the murder of that poor man, by
17 whom we had been received only the evening before with such
18 kindness, we could not forbear rejoicing at not having been
19 ourselves the destined victims. We were told that the Agelis
20 (an Arab tribe) had been settled for fifty years at Hit, and
21 having paid the same taxes as the other inhabitants, had been
22 forced by the new Agha (regent), the greedy Kurde (wolf), to
23 pay a certain sum with which they, as true subjects, should not
24 have been charged, and they accordingly obstinately refused to
25 pay. But the governor obtained troops from the Pasha of
26 Bagdad, with whose assistance the Agelis were driven out of
27 Hit, and their goods were confiscated, for which treatment they
28 swore to take revenge on the Agha.
29 With the break of day, a soldier came to inform us that the
30 two innocent sons of the Agha, and his brother-in-law, had had
31 their throats cut while asleep, but the Agha himself was only
32 wounded, and had escaped from the grasp of the Agelis, and
33 desired us to visit him. We found him outside of the town,
34 not far from the city gate, surrounded by about fifty horsemen,
35 with whom he had been pursuing his enemies, who had taken
36 possession of all his moveable property ; but his pursuit had
37 been in vain, as he could not overtake them. He was wounded
38 in one of his legs, and he escaped death only by throwing him-