market days these bazaars are so crowded as almost to be impassable; on either side of them are spacious serais, where the merchants have their places of business. The city is abundantly supplied with water, each serai having its own cistern independently of those on either side of the bazaars. In the early part of the nineteenth century the city of Herat was believed to contain a hundred thousand inhabitants: Affghans, Moghuls, Hindoos, and Jews. It is the chief emporium of the trade between Hindostan, Kashmeer, Cabul, Candahar, Bokhara, Merve, Khorassan, Yezd, and Kerman. In addition to the advantages which it derives from this active trade, and the transit dues arising therefrom, Herat gains much wealth from the manufactures which are carried on by its citizens; but after all it is to its situation as the key to Affghanistan that it owes its chief importance. Prince Hassan Ali Meerza advanced from Ghorian to Herat, and began to besiege the city in due form.[1] The watching of each of its gates was assigned to his different leaders, and Ismail Khan, his best general, began to work his way up to the city ditch by regular approaches. These preparations terrified Feerooz-ed-Deen into absolute submission, and on paying a fine of fifty thousand tomans he was permitted to continue to be governor of the city on condition that the khotbeh, or public prayers for the king, should be read in the mosques for the Shah, and that the coinage should thenceforth be in his name.
After concluding this successful arrangement, Hassan Ali Meerza next turned his attention to the pursuit of the fugitive governor of Ghorian, who, with two other Khorassan chiefs, had found a place of refuge in the
- ↑ A.H. 1232 : A.D. 1817.
