1 self from the high verandah of the palace into the neighbouring
2 yard. He requested us to prolong our stay with him, in order
3 to cure his wounds, promising, as soon as he should be well,
4 to escort us to Bagdad. We could not resist this application,
5 partly owing to our gratitude for his kind reception, and partly
6 because we thought by curing him, which seemed an easy
7 matter, we should render a service to the Pasha of Bagdad,
8 which might be of greater advantage to us than the letter we
9 had from the Pasha of Damascus. Accordingly, we separated
10 ourselves from our travelling companions, who on the same
11 day went down the Euphrates on their way to Bagdad. We
12 committed, however, a very great blunder, for which we had
13 to suffer, by quitting the house of the pilgrim, where we were
14 living so comfortably, and establishing ourselves in the miserable
15 palace of our patient, the A glia, who was reduced to such a
16 miserable state of poverty by the robbery, that he could hardly
17 provide for his most urgent necessities, and was very glad to
18 see us order our victuals to be brought from the bazaar. On
19 the third or fourth night of our stay in our new abode, we
20 were alarmed by the same tumults as before, and awakened by a
21 lamentable cry from the women, of “ Lilililili,” proceeding from
22 the terraces, where they slept in the open air. We soon saw
23 armed Arabs filling the yard, quarrelling and disputing, and
24 we took them for the Agelis. As our room was on the ground-
25 floor, and had only one door and two windows looking into the
26 yard, we imagined ourselves prisoners and lost, till I got to a
27 corner of the window, through the wooden lattice of which [
28 perceived the long tshibuck (pipe) of the Agha, which en-
29 couraged me to venture out. He was sitting among a great
30 crowd of his people, quietly smoking his pipe, so drawing
31 nearer to him and saluting him, I inquired about the cause of
32 the tumult. He told me that the mother of the unhappy slain
33 children, having passed a sleepless night, was frightened by
34 the report of a musket, which appeared to proceed from outside
35 the town, and she imagined that the Agelis had come back to
36 attack the palace. She began to scream, and the neighbouring
37 women joined in chorus, crying for help, which awoke all