We stayed a week in Tebbes, and the days were spent as follows. On February 28 I went to visit the Governor, Emad-ul-Mulk, and was first received by his son, a young man of twenty, who conducted me through a court, where servants and ferrashes were posted in long ranks, to the palace, where we took our seats on proper European chairs before a fire and by a large open window, or door it may perhaps be called. The floor was laid with carpets—here people walk in stockinged feet —and all kinds of delicacies were served on a table. Out in the courtyard the sunshine stole through the branches of leafless fruit trees.
Then the Governor came in, a small man of thirty-eight years, with black moustaches, and kindly bade me welcome to his town and his house. In a short time we a were like old acquaintances, and Emad-ul-Mulk told me a that he was born in Tebbes, where his forefathers had a held the same title and office as himself for 200 years. He stated that his ancestor, Emir Hassan Khan, had con- i jured the present Tebbes out of the ground i 20 years ago, for before then the oasis lay farther north, but at the present site the soil was considered better. Palm gardens i were planted ; irrigation works set in order ; the khiaban or long avenue and the meidan were marked out ; the bazaar, i the lower half of which is now in ruins, was built ; the s Meshid-i-Juma or Friday Mosque was erected ; and also a the fortress (ark) as a defence against the Baluchis. But, again, it was said that the lofty minaret, visible from far around, which is generally called minarek, was 90o years 1 old, and was built by an Emir Leis Seffar Sistani, a state- ! ment which implies that there was, long ago, an oasis on the ill site of the present Tebbes. The minaret stands beside the large mosque, but is not used for the call to prayers, the muezzin summoning the faithful to worship from the pishtak of the mosque.
Emad-ul-Mulk—and he if any one should know something about it, for he seems, like his fathers, to own almost all the oasis—assured me that the oasis, together with its surrounding villages, contains 2000 houses and t o,000 inhabitants, who pay 4o,000 tuman as maliat or tax
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