DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15173#0161
CHAP. V.
PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
143
departure. He would have willingly kept us for
months. We however, entertained one Hyat, a
hale old man, who had grown grey in crossing the
Hindoo Koosh. When the Nawab found our de-
termination to depart, he urged his relative, the
Ameen ool Moolk, a nobleman of the late Shah
Mahmood, who carries on commercial transactions
with Bokhara and Russia, to despatch one of his
trusty persons with us. It was therefore determined
that a brother of his nazir, or steward, named Dou-
lut, a respectable Afghan, also styled the Nazir,
should proceed with us. He had business in Bok-
hara, and was even going on to Russia : our move-
ments expedited his departure. Every thing looked
well, and we were furnished, by the Nawab's kind-
ness, with letters to the Afghans in Bokhara. The
most influential of these was Budr-oo-deen. His
agent in Cabool, who brought me the letters, was
resolved on being rewarded for doing so by an en-
joyment of our society. His name was Khodadad,
and he was a moollah. He stopped and dined with
us on boiled fowl and rice; but he declared that,
whatever might be our wisdom as a nation, we had
no correct ideas of good living. He did not like
our English fare, which was cooked with water, he
said, and only fit for an invalid. Khodadad was a
very intelligent man, who had travelled in India
and Tartary, and was well read in Asiatic lore.
He had also studied Euclid, whom his countrymen,
he said, nicknamed " Uql doozd," or wisdom-stealer,
from the confusion he had produced in men's heads.
He was not fond of mathematics, and wished to
know our motive for studying them: he had not
PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
143
departure. He would have willingly kept us for
months. We however, entertained one Hyat, a
hale old man, who had grown grey in crossing the
Hindoo Koosh. When the Nawab found our de-
termination to depart, he urged his relative, the
Ameen ool Moolk, a nobleman of the late Shah
Mahmood, who carries on commercial transactions
with Bokhara and Russia, to despatch one of his
trusty persons with us. It was therefore determined
that a brother of his nazir, or steward, named Dou-
lut, a respectable Afghan, also styled the Nazir,
should proceed with us. He had business in Bok-
hara, and was even going on to Russia : our move-
ments expedited his departure. Every thing looked
well, and we were furnished, by the Nawab's kind-
ness, with letters to the Afghans in Bokhara. The
most influential of these was Budr-oo-deen. His
agent in Cabool, who brought me the letters, was
resolved on being rewarded for doing so by an en-
joyment of our society. His name was Khodadad,
and he was a moollah. He stopped and dined with
us on boiled fowl and rice; but he declared that,
whatever might be our wisdom as a nation, we had
no correct ideas of good living. He did not like
our English fare, which was cooked with water, he
said, and only fit for an invalid. Khodadad was a
very intelligent man, who had travelled in India
and Tartary, and was well read in Asiatic lore.
He had also studied Euclid, whom his countrymen,
he said, nicknamed " Uql doozd," or wisdom-stealer,
from the confusion he had produced in men's heads.
He was not fond of mathematics, and wished to
know our motive for studying them: he had not