lled
on to a singular kiosk-like little building, my guide every now and then
renewing the game and hobbling round corners despite of my remonstrances
to the contrary. The little temple was the residence of the holy man,
and near it a room of most extraordinary construction astonished me not a
little, since I could not divine its use, and Busreet afforded no
information on the subject, as he pulled my head down and whispered
something in my ear, which left me in doubt whether what he told me was a
secret, or whether he meant to intimate that it was a whispering gallery:
its real use I afterwards discovered.

In the centre of a square room was a pillar 15 or 16 feet in height, the
circular top of which was six or eight feet in diameter and had been
surrounded by a stone parapet; communicating with this singular pulpit-
like seat were four narrow stone passages or bridges, one from each
corner of the room. In each corner a minister of the realm used to sit,
only one of whom might approach their royal master at a time. Seated on
this centre point high above the heads of his subjects, who crowded the
room below, and approached only by the four narrow causeways, the King
deemed himself secure from assassination.

It was an original idea, and, after inventing so novel a method for
guarding against treachery, he deserved to die in his bed, as in fact he
did.

Emerging from this singular apartment, we crossed a square, in the midst
of which was placed an immense slab of stone, raised a little off the
ground; on each of the four sides of this slab there were 16 squares
marked on the ground like those on a chessboard.

Four ladies used to stand on the squares on each division, making sixteen
in all, each party of four dressed in garments of different colour from
those worn by the others. The King and his ministers sat on the slab in
the middle, and the game, which was something like chess, commenced. It
must have been a glorious game: the prizes were numerous and worth
playing for, and one can easily imagine the crafty old King moving his
Queen so as to take the lovely slave of one of his ministers, or a
handsome and fashionable young noble giving check to Queen and concubine;
probably the Queen could not be taken, but it must have added immensely
to the interest of the game to be playing with pieces that were
interested in the result.

We ascended a handsome gateway of the mosque, 120 feet in height, whence
I looked o