of the sun, spread his bed, and laid himself down quite at his ease. Here he remained until the time of evening prayer, when he was summoned by the moollah, or priest, to prepare himself for the ceremony. Persons who adopt a fictitious character commonly overact their part, and thus frequently render themselves liable to suspicion; but Forster's error lay on the other side, which was perhaps the safer; for, although it drew upon him the charge of negligence, it by no means disposed his associates to regard him as an infidel, their own practice too generally corresponding with his own. In the present case, upon his excusing himself from performing the accustomed prayer on account of the debilitated state of his body, the moollah replied, with extreme contempt, that it was the more necessary to pray, in order to obtain better health. The honest Mohammedan, however, like the priests of Æsculapius in Aristophanes, used, it seems, to make the tour of the mosque at midnight, and compel his miserly brethren to perform an act of charity in their sleep, by disposing of a part of their substance for the benefit of the establishment. From our traveller the contribution attempted to be levied was his turban; but happening unluckily to be awake, he caught the holy marauder by the arm, and demanded who was there. The poor man, utterly disconcerted at this unseasonable wakefulness, replied, in a faltering voice, that he was the moollah of the mosque,—the same man, apparently, who had so rudely reprehended the stranger for his neglect of prayer.
On the morrow a body of Afghan cavalry encamped in the environs of Akora. This event spread no less terror and consternation through the country than if a hostile army had suddenly made an incursion into it; for the licentious soldiery, devouring and destroying like a swarm of locusts wherever they appeared, conducted themselves with insufferable insolence towards the inhabitants. It must be ob-
