ice in this caravanserai.
Merchants have frequently lost their money, and found it again through
their means. It was only in the attack of the Turcomans, when much
property was stolen, that they were completely at their wits' end. Ah!
that was a strange event. It brought much misery on my head; for some
were wicked enough to say that I was their accomplice, and, what is more
extraordinary, that you were amongst them, Hajji!--for it was on account
of your name, which the dog's son made use of to induce me to open the
gate, that the whole mischief was produced.'

Lucky was it for me, that old Ali Mohamed was very dull of sight, or
else he would have remarked strange alterations in my features when he
made these observations. However, our conference ended by his promising
to send me the most expert diviner of Ispahan; 'a man,' said he, 'who
would entice a piece of gold out of the earth, if buried twenty gez
deep, or even if it was hid in the celebrated well of Kashan.'[84]

CHAPTER L

Showing the steps he takes to discover his property, and who the
diviner, Teez Negah, was.

The next morning, soon after the first prayers, a little man came into
my room, whom I soon discovered to be the diviner. He was a humpback,
with an immense head, with eyes so wonderfully brilliant, and a
countenance so intelligent, that I felt he could look through and
through me at one glance. He wore a dervish's cap, from under which
flowed a profusion of jet black hair, which, added to a thick bush of a
beard, gave an imposing expression to his features. His eyes, which by
a quick action of his eyelid (whether real or affected, I know not)
twinkled like stars, made the monster, who was not taller than a good
bludgeon, look like a little demon.

He began by questioning me very narrowly; made me relate
every circumstance of my life--particularly since my return to
Ispahan--inquired who were my father's greatest apparent friends and
associates, and what my own suspicions led me to conclude. In short,
he searched into every particular, with the same scrutiny that a doctor
would in tracing and unravelling an intricate disorder.

When he had well pondered over every thing that I had unfolded, he
then required to be shown the premises, which my father principally
inhabited. My mother having gone that morning to the bath, I was
enabled, unknown to her, to take him into her apartments, where he
requested me to leave him to himself, in order tha