"I desired him to remount," continued Mahomed Shereef Khan, "and we rejoined my astonished followers. After complimenting him on his courage, I asked where he was born? 'At Cashan,' he said. 'You a Câshânee!' I replied with surprise. 'I am,' said he; 'my father was a silk weaver, and I had just begun to learn his business, being about twelve years of age, when having gone with some companions to amuse ourselves at a distance from the town, we were surprised and carried off by a party of Tûrkûmâns. I was adopted into the family of one of their chiefs, who carefully instructed me in horsemanship and the use of arms. I have ever since accompanied him in his plundering incursions into Persia and other countries.'
"Now," said the old Mehmandar, "this man continued twenty years with me; he only died about a twelvemonth ago, and maintained till the day of his death the character he had established at our first meeting. This example," he concluded, "satisfies me that it is possible the son of a weaver, if properly brought up, may be a brave man. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt these silk manufactories give bad habits, and spoil many a good soldier."
Our first march from Cashan was to the câravânserâi of Sinsin. We found the village, which had been very flourishing thirty years ago, a complete ruin, with only a few inhabitants. Amongst these was an old man, who gave me an account of the incursions of parties of savage Tûrkûmâns, who year after year laid waste their fields, plundered their dwellings, and carried their wives and children into slavery.
I asked him if no means had been taken to prevent these inroads. "Alas!" said he, "our own country, at the period of which I speak, was in too distracted a state to admit of any such precautions, and we were too weak to defend ourselves against such daring and ferocious men. Besides, they came and vanished in a moment. Thirty or forty mounted robbers and twenty led horses used to surprise us at daylight: all the spoil they could carry, together with women and children, were fastened on the led horses, and in an hour or two they were in full march to their homes, on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea.
"If we attempted resistance," continued the narrator of this sad tale, "as we sometimes did, they became furious; our houses were burnt, the old and helpless massacred, and all the property they could not bear away was destroyed. Look here," said he, pointing to some scars, "Look at these; I got them in attempting to save my little brother and two sisters from the merciless grasp of these ruthless spoilers. I was left for dead, while my poor father, who was wounded also, had only sufficient life left to reach Cashan, where he expired, after giving intelligence of our fate. Some horsemen were sent in pursuit, but their pampered animals, kept to parade in squares and market-places, could never overtake the trained horses of the plunderers, who used to come two hundred fersekhs[91] and return in ten days.