A PUBLIC KHAN.       141

I drew my cloak over me as I was bid, and when I awoke in the morning, I found the company still sitting round me, smoking as before I fell asleep. The horses were now brought to the door, and my hosts departed as silently as they entered, without asking remuneration, or seeming to expect even thanks. I afterwards found that my friendly Turks were the voivode and principal men of the village, who, being informed that I was a stranger and a Frank with a firman, had given me an entertainment; and the man who drew his hand across his throat, had intimated that Hasan had gone to get himself shaved an dressed for dinner. There was something singular in their taciturn hospitality, but the kindness of a Turk is divested of all pretension; it is rude, but cordial, whenever it is offered."

At the town of Rodosto, the same writer says: -

"The Khans for travellers here are of a most enormous size, some of them, apparently, as large as Westminster Hall, and resembling it in appearance; an open edifice, with a high roof, supported on naked walls, unbroken by any object. Some of them contain two or three hundred horses, or camels, which appear like mice ranged round the floor below."

But the khanjhis, or keepers of the Khan, must not themselves be passed over without a word of mention. They usually keen-witted, crafty, intelligent men - the very focus of all the news and gossip of the city; chartered rascals, moreover, who will cheat every one to his face who has any thing to lose, and against whom every one is consequently on his guard; but who are at the same time so true to the trust reposed in them, that the goods of the merchants, however valuable, are never violated when once placed in the charge of the khanjhi, who will die at his post rather than suffer even a suspicious eye to rest upon them.

There is a certain foppery about the khanjhi of a first-rate Caravanserai; he wears his turban with an air, carries his chibouque between the second and third fingers of his right hand, and flourishes a tusbee in his left, as though it had never any other employment than that of coquetting with the beads of the chaplet; although his well-worn slippers, and the weather-stain folds of his dress, tell a tale of more active and useful occupations.

The khanjhis are universally patient and good-humoured, and from living constantly among strangers, are much less prejudiced in favour of their own habits and manners than most of their countrymen; though they evidently consider the mere visitors to the establishment as decided intruders, interfering with the comfort and seclusion of their tenants, and trammelling them in their business; and consequently receive the parting backshish(*) of the stranger with a grim satisfaction wondrously amusing.

(*) Present.