The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809, by James Justinian Morier

SKETCH OF THE COUNTRIES
Situated between SHIRAZ and CONSTANTINOPLE; Shewing the ROUTE of HIS MAJESTY’S MISSION under Sir Harford Jones Bar^t. in 1809, from Bushire to Teheran; and of M^r. Morier from thence to Constantinople.
As also the Route of Col. Malcolm, in 1801.

A
JOURNEY
THROUGH
PERSIA,
ARMENIA, AND ASIA MINOR,
TO
CONSTANTINOPLE,
IN THE YEARS 1808 AND 1809;

IN WHICH IS INCLUDED,

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF HIS MAJESTY’S
MISSION, UNDER SIR HARFORD JONES, BART. K. C.

TO THE COURT OF THE KING OF PERSIA.

BY JAMES MORIER, ESQ.
HIS MAJESTY’S SECRETARY OF EMBASSY TO THE COURT OF PERSIA.

WITH TWENTY-FIVE ENGRAVINGS FROM THE DESIGNS OF THE AUTHOR;
A PLATE OF INSCRIPTIONS; AND THREE MAPS;
ONE FROM THE OBSERVATIONS OF CAPTAIN JAMES SUTHERLAND: AND
TWO DRAWN BY MR. MORIER, AND MAJOR RENNELL.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1812.

Table of Contents

• [CHAP. I.]
• [CHAP. II.]
• [CHAP. III.]
• [CHAP. IV.]
• [CHAP. V.]
• [CHAP. VI.]
• [CHAP. VIII.]
• [CHAP. IX.]
• [CHAP. X.]
• [CHAP. XI.]
• [CHAP. XII.]
• [CHAP. XIII.]
• [CHAP. XIV.]
• [CHAP. XV.]
• [CHAP. XVI.]
• [CHAP. XVII.]
• [CHAP. XVIII.]
• [CHAP. XIX.]
• [NOTES.]
• [APPENDIX.]
• [INDEX]
• [WORKS]
• [FOOTNOTES:]

PREFACE.

Finding, on my arrival in England, that curiosity was quite alive to every thing connected with Persia, I was induced to publish the Memoranda which I had already made on that country; more immediately as I found that I had been fortunate enough to ascertain some facts, which had escaped the research of other travellers. In this, I allude more particularly to the sculptures and ruins of Shapour; for although my account of them is on a very reduced scale, yet I hope that I have said enough to direct the attention of abler persons than myself to the investigation of a new and curious subject.

Imperfect as my journal may be, it will, I hope, be found sufficiently comprehensive to serve as a link in the chain of information on Persia, until something more satisfactory shall be produced; and it claims no other merit than that of having been written on the very spots, and under the immediate circumstances, which I have attempted to describe. Having confined myself, with very few exceptions, to the relation of what I saw and heard, it will be found unadulterated by partiality to any particular system, and unbiassed by the writings and dissertations of other men. Written in the midst of a thousand cares, it claims every species of indulgence.

The time of my absence from England comprehends a space of little more than two years.—On the 27th of Oct. 1807, I sailed from Portsmouth with Sir Harford Jones, Bart. K. C. His Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Persia, in H. M. S. Sapphire, Captain George Davies: after having touched at Madeira and at the Cape of Good Hope, we reached Bombay on the 26th of April, 1808: owing to some political arrangements we did not quit Bombay till the 12th September. We arrived at Bushire on the 13th October, and proceeded towards the Persian capital on the 13th December. H. M. Mission reached Teheran on the 14th February, 1809: on the 12th March the preliminary treaty was signed between Sir Harford Jones and the Persian Plenipotentiaries; and on the 7th May I quitted Teheran with Mirza Abul Hassan, the King of Persia’s Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of London, with whom I reached Smyrna on the 7th September, and embarked there on board H. M. S. Success, Captain Ayscough. Having at Malta changed the Success for H. M. S. Formidable, we finally reached Plymouth on the 25th November, 1809.

I should be wanting in gratitude, if I did not here express the obligations which I owe to my fellow traveller, Mirza Abul Hassan, the late Persian Envoy Extraordinary, for much information on subjects relating to his own country, and for all the facilities of acquiring his language, which his communicative and amiable disposition afforded me. As this personage was distinguished, during his stay in England, by attentions more marked and continued than, perhaps, were ever paid to any foreigner, I have conceived that I should not trespass too much on the patience of my readers by inserting a sketch of his life;[1] I feel at least that it will prove very acceptable to those who have shown him, as a stranger, so much friendship and hospitality.

In my narrative I have confined myself to relate our proceedings from the time we left Bombay to my arrival at Constantinople. The sea voyages, from England to India, and from Constantinople to England, are too well known to require any thing more to be written about them.

The engravings that are inserted are made from drawings which I took on the spot; they are done in a slight manner, and therefore are more intended to give general ideas, than to enter into any nicety of detail.

For the map from Bushire to Teheran I am indebted to my friend Captain James Sutherland, of the Bombay army; and for the general one of the countries, through which my route carried me, I must here return my thanks to Major Rennell, who has furnished me with this valuable document, and who has kindly assisted me in this, as well as on other occasions when I found myself deficient, with his advice and information. The map from Teheran to Amasia is the result of my own observation, corrected by the same masterly hand. It terminates at Amasia, because my journey from that place to Constantinople was performed as much by night as it was by day, and prosecuted with too great speed to permit me to observe with accuracy. Besides which, in Turkey, where the people are much more jealous and watchful of travellers than in Persia, I found that I could not make my remarks so much at my ease as I wished, although assisted by the disguise of a Persian dress. The courses and distances, noted in the journal, are only to be regarded as a kind of dead reckoning, subject to correction by the application of latitudes in certain places, and of approximated positions in others; and, in all, by allowances for the inflexions and inequalities of the roads.

I am indebted to Messrs. Jukes and Bruce, of the Bombay service, for the information which they furnished me whilst I was in Persia, and I have not failed to make my acknowledgments, wherever such information has been inserted.

But I must, in particular, express my gratitude to Mr. Robert Harry Inglis, for the kindness with which he offered to correct and arrange my memoranda, and prepare my journals for the press.[2]

I beg leave to repeat that this volume is meant merely as provisional, and that I am far from entertaining the presumption that it will class with the valuable pages of Chardin, Le Brun, Hanway, Niebuhr, or Olivier. It is to be expected, that the extensive communication that will be opened with Persia, in consequence of our late political transactions with its court, will throw the whole extent of that very interesting part of the globe under our cognizance; and that, among other subjects of inquiry, its numerous antiquities, which have as yet been but imperfectly explored, will throw new lights upon its ancient history, manners, religion, and language.

INTRODUCTION.

The history of Persia from the death of Nadir Shah to the accession of the present King, comprehending a period of fifty-one years, presents little else than a catalogue of the names of tyrants and usurpers, and a succession of murders, treacheries and scenes of misery.

After the assassination of Nadir, one of the most formidable of the competitors for the vacant throne, was Mahomed Hassan Khan, the head of the Cadjar tribe, and a person of high rank among the nobles of Shah Thamas, the last king of the Seffi race.[3] Mahomed Hassan Khan had several sons: Hossein Kooli Khan, the eldest, was father to the present King of Persia, and was killed in a battle with the Turcomans: Aga Mahomed Khan, the second son, was the immediate predecessor of his nephew on the throne.

Mahomed Hassan Khan had not long assumed the crown, when he was opposed by Kerim Khan, a native of Courdistan; who, under pretence of protecting the rights of Ismael,[4] a lineal descendant of the Seffi family, and then a child, secured to himself so large a share of influence and authority in the state, that he very soon supplanted virtually the pageant that he had erected; and, while he still concealed his ambition under the name of Vakeel or Regent, exercised all the real powers of the sovereign of Persia. The birth of Kerim Khan was obscure; but the habits of his early years qualified him for the times in which he lived, and the destiny to which he aspired. His family, indeed, was a low branch of an obscure tribe in Courdistan, that of the Zunds, from which his dynasty has been denominated; and his profession was the single occupation of all his countrymen, robbery,[5] which, when it thus becomes a national object, loses in reputation all its grossness. Here he acquired the talents and hardihood of a soldier; and was renowned for an effectual spirit of enterprise, and for great personal skill in the exercise of the sword, a qualification of much value among his people. The long revolutions of Persia called forth every talent and every passion; and the hopes of Kerim Khan were excited by the partial successes of others, and by the consciousness of his own resources. He entered the field; and eventually overcame Mahomed Hassan Khan, his principal competitor, who fled and was killed in Mazanderan. The conqueror having seized and confined the children of his rival, proceeded to quell the several inferior chiefs, who, in their turns, had aspired to the succession. His superior activity and talents finally secured the dominion: and having, in 1755, settled at Shiraz, he made that city the seat of his government. He beautified it by many public buildings, both of use and luxury; and their present state attests the solid magnificence of his taste. His memory is much lamented in Persia; as his reign, a reign of dissipation and splendor, was congenial to the character of the people. In his time prostitutes were publicly protected; their calling was classed among the professions; and the chief, or representative, of their numbers, attended by all the state and parade of the most respected of the Khans and Mirzas, used daily to stand before the Sovereign at his Durbar.

On the 13th of March, 1779, Kerim Khan died a natural death, an extraordinary occurrence in the modern history of Persia, having reigned (according to the different dates assigned to his accession, from the deaths of different competitors) from nineteen to thirty years. From the fall of Mahomed Hassan Khan the better epoch, his conqueror lived nineteen years, with almost undisputed authority.

After his death all was again in confusion; and the kingdom presented a renewal of blood and usurpation. It is scarcely necessary to state the short-lived struggles of his successors: their very names have ceased to interest us. It is sufficient therefore to add, that his sons and brothers, and other relatives, attacked each other for fourteen years after his death; till the fortunes of the whole family were finally overwhelmed in the defeat of Loolf Ali Khan, the last and greatest of these claimants; and the dominion was transferred, in the year 1794, to his conqueror, Aga Mahomed Khan, of the present royal race of Persia.

In latter years, during the war between the East India Company and Tippoo Saib, under the administration of the Marquis Wellesley, the political relations of England and Persia were renewed. An embassy, which Tippoo sent to Fatteh Ali Shah, the present King of Persia, was followed soon after by a rival mission, which the Indian government confided to the care of Mehede Ali Khan, a man of Persian extraction. In the mean time, indeed, Tippoo was killed; and his death left us in possession of the Persian councils. After this Captain Malcolm, in the year 1801, was sent to solicit the alliance of Persia against Zemaun Shah, King of the Afghans. That gentleman concluded a treaty,[6] by which it was stipulated that Persia should attack Khorassan and the Afghan States, and that we should contribute our assistance in the expences of the war. The King of Persia carried his arms into Khorassan, and conquered that province.

The mission of Captain Malcolm was returned by one from the King of Persia to the Indian Government. Hajee Kelil Khan was sent as the embassador, but unfortunately he was killed in a fray at Bombay, as he was attempting to quell a disturbance between his servants and some Indians. To explain this untoward event, Mr. Lovett, a gentleman in the Bengal civil service, was dispatched; but he proceeded no further with his mission than to Bushire, and delivered it over to Mr. Manesty, the East India Company’s Resident at Bussorah. Another embassy was now sent from the Persian Court; and Mahomed Nebee Khan, the Envoy appointed, luckily reached Calcutta without any accident.

Some time after, French agents were traced into Persia, and the views of France begun to be suspected. Monsieur Jouannin, an intelligent Frenchman, succeeded in getting the Persian Court to send a mission to Buonaparte. The Envoy, by name Mirza Rega, went from Persia in 1806; and concluded a treaty with France at Finkinstein, in May 1807. On his return, a large embassy, confided to General Gardanne, was sent from France to Persia: this gave rise to the mission of Sir Harford Jones, who, arriving at Bombay in April 1808, found that Brigadier-General Malcolm had been previously sent by the Governor-General to Persia. General Malcolm having failed of success, Sir Harford Jones proceeded.

PLATES.

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.

ERRATA.

P. 176. Twenty-two lines from the top, for twelve, read sixteen.

P. 257. Sixteen lines from the top, for four, read five.

(Transcriber's note: These have been implemented.)

JOURNEY THROUGH PERSIA,
&c. &c. &c.

CHAP. I.
BOMBAY TO BUSHIRE.

DEPARTURE FROM BOMBAY—LAND OF GUZERAT—COAST OF MEKRAN—BALOUCHES—ENTRANCE OF THE GULPH OF PERSIA—IMAUM OF MUSCAT: HIS FLEET—SOUNDINGS IN THE GULPH—BUSHIRE—VISIT OF THE SHEIK—LANDING IN PERSIA.

On the 6th of September 1808, when His Majesty’s Mission to the court of Teheran was still at Bombay, the Envoy extraordinary, Sir Harford Jones, received dispatches from the Governor-general at Calcutta, which determined him to proceed immediately to Persia. The establishment of the mission had been changed since our arrival in India; Major L. F. Smith, who left England as public Secretary, on landing at this settlement proceeded to Bengal; and the duties of Secretary of the Legation were annexed to those, which, as private secretary to the Envoy, I had originally discharged. The suite was augmented at Bombay by Mr. Thomas Henry Sheridan, and Captain James Sutherland, severally of the civil and military establishments of that presidency, by Cornet Henry Willock, of the Madras cavalry, commander of the body guard; and was subsequently joined by Lieutenant Blacker, of the Madras cavalry, and Mr. Campbell, surgeon to the mission. Besides three European and some Indian servants, the Envoy carried washermen and tailors, and some artificers, as carpenters, blacksmiths, and locksmiths.

On the 12th Sept. Sir Harford Jones, accompanied by Mr. Sheridan and myself, embarked on board his Majesty’s frigate Nereide, Captain Corbett; Capt. Sutherland and Mr. Willock went in the Sapphire, Capt. Davis: and the H. C. cruizer Sylph carried the Persian secretary, &c. The Governor of Bombay drew out the troops of the garrison to salute the Envoy on his embarkation: they formed a lane from the government-house to the entrance of the dock-yard; and as He passed the troops presented arms, and the music played “God save the King.” A salute of fifteen guns was fired on his quitting the shore, and was answered by another from the frigate; a ceremony which always excites a powerful feeling of respect in the minds of the natives.

In the afternoon of the 12th, the squadron left the harbour of Bombay: on the 13th, the Nereide had out-stripped the Sapphire, and had lost sight of the Sylph. The winds were variable and squally: the thermometer in the cabin stood at 82°. About ten o’clock, on the morning of the 14th. we made the land of Diu; we stood close in shore, and tacked at twelve o’clock; the Portuguese colours were flying on the fort. The thermometer was this day 80°. 15th. calms. The land of the Guzerat is extremely low. Diu Point is studded with towns and pagodas. 16th. we made but little way; tacked off and on shore, and distinguished a variety of buildings and towns on the coast. The largest place, which we marked in our progress, was Pour-bundar. The coast itself continued flat, with scarcely an inequality.

On Sunday, the 18th. Capt. Corbett read prayers to the ship’s company on the quarter-deck. The scene struck me as more simple and more impressive than any that, for a long time, I had witnessed. The cleanliness of the ship, the attention of the sailors, the beauty of the day, all conspired to heighten the solemnity of the service, and I felt persuaded that the prayers, offered up to God by such men and in such a manner, would be favourably accepted.

Cape Arubah.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

As the coast of Mekran, (taken largely, from the Indus to the entrance of the gulph of Persia,) along which we now sailed, is so little visited in this age, and has, indeed, been so seldom described since the days of Alexander, it may, perhaps, be acceptable to insert even the few and incomplete notices of the country which my journal affords.

On the 18th. we lost sight of the coast. On the 24th we again saw land, which in appearance was remarkable. It was a very long range of table land, the soil of which, though light coloured, was strongly marked in horizontal strata. As we approached it, we discovered several curious capes, rising in a varied succession of grotesque forms; and among them one so very singular, that we were surprised that it had not been particularly described by those who have compiled the directories for navigating these seas. By our chronometers we took this land to be Cape Moran.[7] The shore gradually shallows from twelve to five fathoms, when we tacked and stood off again in the evening, expecting a land breeze to spring up, but were disappointed. The sea is here very much discoloured, the effect probably of black mud at the bottom.

25th. Sept. Cape Arubah is a long slip of table land, which on its first appearance looks like an island.[8] Its soil seems to be clay, and of a colour a few shades darker than Portland stone. We did not discover, among the head-lands into which it was broken, the particular cape which might have given its name to the whole; but the highest point to the westward appeared to deserve the preference. Beyond that western extremity of the table land, the coast immediately recedes into a bay, which is terminated by a long range of extremely rugged mountains. In one of the recesses of the cliffs of Arubah, we fancied that we had discovered a village, and even through our glasses were still positive that we could mark its white buildings; but as we drew closer to the shore, we ascertained that the houses in appearance were in reality large clods of white soil, which had fallen from the cliffs above, and were arranged so happily, some in separate piles, and some in rows, as to give to the whole the full effect of a town. A number of small boats with white lateen sails were creeping quietly along the shore, as we passed; but we could not get close enough to them, to ascertain the people who managed them, or the nature of the goods which they carried.

On the 26th. the weather was very foggy; the thermometer was 75°. On the 27th. as the fog still increased, we came to an anchor in nine fathoms. On the 28th. as the fog cleared away, we discovered the small island of Ashtola, which is of an equal height along its whole extent, a length perhaps of about two miles, and seems to be of the same soil as the capes on the mainland. Not far from the island, we caught turtle. The continent as seen from Ashtola, appears extremely high, in long continued ranges; but the lands which more immediately border on the sea, are very low. The soundings are regular, and there is no danger, as long as the lead is going. At eight o’clock we were off Cape Posmee, a remarkable head-land.

Island of Ashtola.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

On the 1st of October, we made Cape Guadel, a piece of land of a moderate and rather equal height, which projects far into the sea, and is connected with the continent by an isthmus less than half a mile in breadth. Close under the north side of the cape, there is still a town; and on the isthmus, as we could perceive from the ship, are the remains of an old fort. In the neighbourhood are the vestiges of a town also, built with stone, and some wells.[9] But the more modern village of Guadel is composed of mat houses, and the greater part of the inhabitants (the number of the whole is very small) are weavers, who manufacture coarse linen and carpets of ordinary colours. From Crotchey to Cape Monze the people call themselves Balouches; and from Monze to Cape Jasques, they take the name of Brodies: there is some difference in their language, perhaps in their religion also, but none in their dress or manners. The high lands about Cape Guadel are all extremely remarkable, rising in spires and turrets so correctly formed, as to give to many parts of the coast, an appearance of towns with their churches and castles.

Their rocky summits, split and rent,

Form’d turret, dome, and battlement,

Or seem’d fantastically set

With cupola or minaret,

Wild crests as pagod ever deck’d

Or mosque of eastern architect.

Lady of the Lake, Canto I. xi. p. 14.

Cape Posmee.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

One piece of land in particular, forming an entrance to the bay behind Cape Guadel, has the most striking resemblance to a long range of gothic ruin. We perceived three camels grazing on the heights of the cape, and some few signs of cultivation, which we had discovered on no other spot along the coast before.

On the 3d. we saw the town of Chubar; and plainly distinguished among other objects a walled building, which we at first took to be a fort, but which according to the Directory, is a place of burial. We saw several boats with lateen sails, of a canvas very conspicuously white, cut exactly like the sails of the boats on the coast of Italy and Sicily. The thermometer was 84°. The 5th. was very sultry, and the thermometer was 90°. On the 6th. a hot wind came from off the land, and warped the tables, mathematical rulers, and the furniture in the cabin, besides slackening all our rigging. This wind brought with it a thick mist of an impalpable sand, which gradually cleared away, and left us the first view of Cape Jasques.

Oct. 7th. at about one o’clock in the morning, a breeze sprung up from the southward, and in five hours we had passed the Quoins, in the Gulph of Persia, and were abreast of the island of Kishmis. We saw at the same time the high land of the Arabian shore, terminating in a lofty and marked peak; it is the land about Cape Musseldom. The entrance of the gulph may be properly marked between Cape Bombareek and Cape Musseldom. I call these places by their names, as laid down in our sea charts; because their more proper appellations would probably not be understood. Bombareek for instance, which by sailors is also called Bombay rock, is derived originally from “Moobarek, happy, fortunate.” Musseldom is still a stronger instance of the perversion of words. The genuine name of this head-land is Mama Selemeh, derived according to the story of the country from Selemeh, who was a female saint of Arabia, and lived on the spot or in its neighbourhood. The Indians, when they pass the promontory, throw cocoa nuts, fruits or flowers into the sea, to secure a propitious voyage. My informer added, that the superstition was not practised by the Persians.

On the shore of Cape Bombareek is an insulated and very singular mass of rock, in which we could perceive from the ship a large natural aperture. To me the shape of the whole mass appeared like a tankard, and the aperture formed its handle. After having rounded Cape Musseldom (which is eighteen leagues to the westward of Bombareek), we came to the five small islands generally called altogether the Quoins.

Kishmis is the largest island in the gulph; and, according to the account which I received, is capable of being made very productive: it is at present in almost total abandonment, though still nominally the property of Persia. We next passed two small and low islands, called the Great and Little Tomb.

Cape Museldom.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

The strong south wind, with which we were now favoured, was at this season considered extraordinary. It blew so strong that the Nereide, with every sail set, went ten and eleven knots. It is accompanied with much haze, not indeed to be compared to that which came with the hot wind from off the shore, though in the same manner it warped the furniture and slackened the rigging.

On the 8th. we passed the island of Busheab, which, in Heather’s map, is placed much too far to the eastward, and which ought to be called “Khoshaub, or pleasant water,” from the fresh spring in its territory. It is a long and low slip, but the land on the continent behind it is extremely high. We had a light sea breeze all day, that carried us off Cape Nabon, a part of the province of Farz. The thermometer stood at 93° in the cabin after dinner. On the morning of the 9th. it was reported that a fleet of five ships were seen from the mast-head. We conjectured that they might be Arab ships, bound from Muscat to Bussorah, which about this season proceed on their voyages. They carry thither annually eight thousand bales of coffee; and in return get cargoes of dates. The sea breeze of the day was extremely light, and set in at noon. In the evening the Barnhill, a remarkable piece of land, (which derived its name from its resemblance to an old and decayed thatched building, and which is situated over the town of Congoon,) bore N. and by W. of us. Here the whole coast is very high.

On the morning of the 10th. we were off the Barnhill. The five ships had thus far kept us in a state of suspense; as we imagined that they might be the fleet of the Imaum of Muscat, who possesses thirty sail of different descriptions. Some of his ships, indeed, are of a thousand tons burthen; and one of forty guns, built at Bombay, is rather a formidable vessel.[10] The Imaum in person frequently parades about the Persian gulph with his armament. He is an independant prince, and his jurisdiction, though principally confined to Muscat, extends yet generally over the province of Oman. At present he is friendly to us, and we have a resident at his court, who seldom remains there long, for the badness of its air has rendered it the burial place of too many Englishmen.

At length we boarded the Arabs, and they proved to be, as we had originally expected, a fleet of the Imaum’s merchantmen, laden with coffee, rice, &c. bound to Bushire and Bussorah. They had been fifteen days from Muscat. One of the five was a fine vessel of six hundred tons burthen, which about four years before was purchased by the Imaum at the Isle of France, and was then called the Sterling Castle. There were also two grabs, which are ships in every respect like the others, except that they have lengthened prows instead of rounded bows. These grabs the Arabs can manage to build themselves in their own ports, as it is easy to extend the timbers of a ship, until they connect themselves into a prow; but they have not yet attained the art of forming timber fit to construct bows.

Before the sun-set of the preceding day, we had discovered through our glasses, the town of Congoon, under a peak, close in the eastern vicinity of the Barnhill. It then appeared in a wood of dates, above which rose the domes of mosques. The Sheik of Congoon is represented as a young and spirited Arab, who can raise a body of two thousand cavalry, and who is able to lead them. His town is resorted to for wood, but, as far as we could judge at a distance, the date is the only tree of the neighbourhood.

We suffered much from the heat in the night, but when the moon rose over the Barnhill, a little refreshing breeze sprang up, which gave us much relief. An Arab ship was not far from us, and I could just hear their singing on board. It brought to my recollection some of the moonlight scenes in the Archipelago; for the music of these Arabs struck me as being very similar to that which I have heard on board a Greek or Sclavonian ship, when the lyra accompanies the voice of some naval Apollo, and is followed by a chorus of his shipmates.

We were off Cape Verdistan this morning, and descried the Hummocks of Kenn. The shoal that runs out from Cape Verdistan, is rendered dangerous by a reef of rocks which extends itself about six or seven miles from the shore. There are good mud soundings on the shoal, and a ship may cross its extremity without danger, though it is as well to give it a good birth. We stood off in the night of the 12th. The soundings in the shoal as laid down by Mac Cluer are not all correspondent to those which we got. We were in seven fathoms for more than an hour, and he has not got such a sounding amongst his. From seven we got to half six, and then to four, when we thought it time to tack. The cause which has been assigned for our ignorance of the gulph, is the prudential reserve which has influenced our Indian governments in their transactions with the states of Persia and Arabia. To avoid suspicion and complaint, they have never professedly made surveys of the shores, though much might yet have been done indirectly, if the object had been considered of sufficient importance. Few, except merchant vessels visited the gulph; and as the charts, which they already possessed (and what is better, their own experience) served their purpose sufficiently in the line of their own navigation, there was seldom any particular demand for more correct surveys. The geographer and philosopher indeed require something more, and therefore it is still matter of regret, that we are comparatively ill-informed in countries, where we have had easy opportunities of acquiring knowledge.

13th Oct. We were becalmed all night under the Asses Ears. These are points of land, which stand a little more erect, and are more conspicuous than the other points which surround them. The whole displays a line of coast the most rugged, barren, and inhospitable that I ever saw; and constitutes, after we passed Verdistan shoal, a very bold shore. We sailed along it, keeping in eleven and twelve fathoms. In the evening we opened Hallilah peak, which is a high and remarkable point of land. As we crept along the coast, we marked some ruined walls embosomed among the date trees.[11] At sun-set we just discovered the low land on which stands the town of Bushire. In the calms which followed during the night, we were unable to make much way, and on the morning of the 14th we were still at the same distance from Bushire, as on the preceding evening. We fired two shots at a small vessel, to bring her to, but without effect. These boats are employed mostly in carrying wood to Bushire. They find it on the coast, probably in recesses of the land, for we could scarcely see a shrub in the whole passage of the gulph.

At about half past three o’clock on the 14th October, we anchored in Bushire roads, where we found one of the Company’s cruizers, and a merchantman. Before we cast anchor, a boat came off from the shore, the captain of which, a little sharp Persian, answered Sir Harford Jones’s interrogations with much vivacity, and swore to the truth of every assertion ten times over by his head and eyes. Having learnt that the East India Company’s assistant resident, Mr. Bruce, was at Bushire, the Envoy sent a letter to desire his attendance on board immediately, and at the same time requesting that he would notify the arrival of the mission to the Sheik, Abdallah Resoul, who then governed Bushire. We could see with our glasses Mr. Bruce’s residence, which was at some distance without the town, and could observe that the letter had been safely delivered; for in a few minutes we discovered Mr. Bruce on horseback, riding full speed to the boat. In an hour he was on board.

He commenced by informing us of a report of the death of our King, which had reached Bushire from Bagdad; and which, originating from an article in a French paper, had been circulated in Persia by the French, for an obvious purpose. The Envoy delivered to Mr. Bruce, a paper containing all the communications which he wished to be made to the Sheik of Bushire. He then added, desiring that his object might be clearly explained, that He expected from the Sheik all the respect due to the station which he filled, and that if he did not receive those honours to which the King of England’s Mission was entitled, the Sheik should be held responsible till the wishes of the court of Persia were known. Mr. Bruce assured Sir Harford that the Sheik would make no difficulty in coming off the next day to pay his respects, and the hour of his visit was in consequence fixed at ten o’clock.

The colours of the New Factory in the country, and of the Old one in the town, were hoisted on the morning of the 15th. While we were expecting the arrival of the Sheik, we regaled ourselves with the grapes, citrons, and pomegranates, which had been sent to us from the shore. At length we espied a boat with a crimson awning, and apparently much filled with passengers. It was beating against the sea breeze, which, rather unfortunately for the party, had set in uncommonly fresh. When she came in a line with our ship, the sail was lowered, and the men took to their oars. In a short time however we observed from the frigate, that the boat got very slowly a-head, and that the strength of the crew was nearly exhausted. Captain Corbett then sent his barge to tow up the Sheik to the ship, which was done in a very masterly style; and we were delighting in the idea of the enjoyment which the Persians must have received in the close at least of such an excursion, when we were mortified at discovering the misery in every face, which the unusual voyage had too evidently produced. But the sea-sickness was forgotten as soon as they were on board the frigate. The Sheik was received with a salute of five guns; the number was esteemed a mark of particular distinction, as three are considered in Persia a sufficient allowance for a great man.

The marines were under arms; Captain Corbett with much courtesy handed him across the quarter-deck, and assisted him with some difficulty to descend from the deck to the cabin by a steep and narrow ladder, which, however, no attention could render convenient to a man encumbered with an immense large cloak and slip-shod slippers. At the bottom he was received by Sir Harford Jones. The ship was immediately filled by the suite of the Sheik, who, with all the curiosity and effrontery of Asiatics, spread themselves through every part. Our guest was attended on his visit by the principal men and merchants of Bushire, among whom the Envoy recognised the face of many an early friend. All the party seemed much pleased with their reception, and expressed their high admiration of the beauty, order, and cleanliness of the ship. The conversation was general, and consisted mostly in inquiries after former friends, and in reviving the recollection of the histories of old times. Sir Harford Jones had known the Sheik when he was a fine boy: there was now indeed little left to be admired; his face was inanimate, and his body bent double with excessive debauch. The whole party were generally but a rude sample of the elegance of Persians, nor indeed is the true Persian to be found at Bushire, where the blood is mostly mixed with that of Arabia.

The only man of the party, whose face interested me, and exhibited signs of intelligence, was a Turk, by name Abdulla Aga, an old friend of the Envoy’s, who had been Musselim of Bussorah, and had ruled that part of the country for many years, with great respectability and eclat. He had been driven by injustice to take refuge at Bushire; though from the known integrity of his character, and the attachment of the people of Bussorah and Bagdad to his person, many still expect that he will one day attain the Pachalick of Bagdad. After this good Mussulman, spreading his carpet near one of the twelve pounders, had said his prayers, (with a fervency, undisturbed by the busy, novel and noisy scene around him) the visit broke up.

The Sheik and Abdulla Aga, who both had suffered by their long excursion in the morning, preferred to return on shore in the Nereide’s boat with Sir Harford Jones. We had not long put off from the ship, when a salute of fifteen guns commenced for the envoy, to the great consternation of the remaining part of the Persians, who were just embarking in their own boat, and who unluckily found themselves under the muzzles of the guns, where they were involved in clouds of smoke, with the wads whistling close to their ears. We at length reached the landing place; an immense crowd was assembled to await our debarkation. The Sheik had collected all the soldiery of the town to escort us to his house; and in the moment of our touching the shore, the whole mob was put in motion, raising a dust so thick that I could scarce distinguish Englishman from Asiatic. To add to the denseness of the atmosphere, the boats, which were close to the beach, commenced a salute; which was immediately answered by a range of guns on the coast. The whole procession was obliged to pass in the immediate rear of these guns as they were firing, though they appeared so old and honey-combed, that I feared they must have burst before the honours were over. We proceeded in a cloud of dust, and through streets six feet wide to the Sheik’s house, and at length entered it by a door so mean and ill-looking, that it might more properly have formed the entrance to his stable. This door introduced us into a small court yard, on one side of which was an apartment where we seated ourselves on chairs placed on purpose for us. A Persian visit, when the guest is a distinguished personage, generally consists of three acts: first, the kaleoun, or water pipe, and coffee; second, a kaleoun, and sweet coffee (so called from its being a composition of rose-water and sugar); and third, a kaleoun by itself. Sweetmeats are frequently introduced as a finale. As I shall have many better opportunities of describing all the ceremonies of these occasions, it is sufficient to add at present, that we performed the three above acts, and then mounted our horses for Mr. Bruce’s house in the country.

Part of the same armed rabble, which had escorted us from the boat to the Sheik’s house, attended us to the Factory. These soldiers are the militia of the place, and serve without pay. They even find their own arms, which consist of a matchlock, a sword, and a shield that is slung behind their back. They consist of working men attached to different trades, for we discovered the dyer by the black hue of his hands, the tinker by the smut on his face, the tailor by the shreds that had adhered to him from his shopboard.

On our arrival at the Factory, we closed our dispatches for Europe, and then completed a day full of entertainment, by an excellent dinner.

The Nereide sailed with the dispatches on the morning; and before daylight was out of sight. The passage between Bombay and Bushire, which had been made in thirty-four days, was now retraced in twelve.

CHAP. II.
HISTORY OF THE SHEIK OF BUSHIRE..

HISTORY OF BUSHIRE—SHEIK NASR—THE NASAKCHEE BASHEE, THE CHIEF EXECUTIONER DISPATCHED FROM SHIRAZ AGAINST THE SHEIK ABDULLAH RESOUL; VISITS THE ENVOY: VISIT RETURNED—DIFFICULTIES OF THE SHEIK—HIS SEIZURE—CONSTERNATION OF THE TOWN—PRECAUTIONS OF THE ENVOY—EXPLANATION OF THE NASAKCHEE BASHEE—SUCCESSOR OF THE SHEIK, MAHOMED NEBEE KHAN—ASSUMPTION OF THE GOVERNMENT BY THE NASAKCHEE BASHEE—MAHOMMED JAFFER APPOINTED PROVISIONALLY; DISGRACED; RESTORED—RECEIVES A KALAAT—CEREMONY—FATE OF THE LATE SHEIK OF BUSHIRE.

The history of the Sheik of Bushire, who had received us on our landing, added the principal interest to our subsequent residence in his country. Our stay was marked by the subversion of his power and of the Arab rule; and the journal of every day naturally contained ample accounts of the progress of an event, which was locally so prominent and important. The travellers of the last century, who mentioned his predecessors, may possibly direct some little curiosity to the fortunes of their descendant; but without any previous interest in the persons, the tale of the present day may excite attention as a practical illustration of the principles of an eastern government.

The coast of the gulph was lined for ages with the petty sovereignties of Arab Sheiks,[12] who, while they occupied the shores of Persia, yielded a very uncertain obedience to the monarch of the interior. The degrees indeed of service paid were probably at all times measured more by the character and relative force of the different parties, than by any original stipulations. Nadir and Kerim Khan in vain endeavoured to reduce these Arab chiefs to more complete obedience: but in many districts their authority was scarcely acknowledged, and except in partial remissions, still more seldom felt. Among these chiefs, Sheik Nasr, of Bushire, long retained a real independance. The Dashtistan, the low country under the hills, was his province; and in all the turbulence of his age, this territory and more immediately the country round Bushire, was still the place of security. In one instance indeed, memorable in the latter history of Persia,[13] the resources of Bushire supported the sinking fortunes of the last dynasty. Lootf Ali Khan, after the murder of his father Jaffier Khan, king of Persia, fled for refuge to Sheik Nasr. The Sheik, in memory of his ancient attachment to Jaffier Khan, received the prince with the warmest hospitality, and gathering the Arab tribes under his controul, resolved to lead them in the cause which was thus trusted to his honour. The prince in the mean time prepared, by letters, his friends at Shiraz to second their operations; and the measures were continued with secrecy and success, when, in the words of the Persian historian,[14] “The boat of Sheik Nasr Khan’s existence from the beating waves of the sea of life, had received considerable injury; and the bark of his age, from the irresistible tempest of death was overwhelmed in the sea of mortality.” In his last moments the Sheik committed to his son the duty which he was no longer permitted to execute himself. The son fulfilled his father’s charge with faithfulness: in two or three months he had assembled a large force of Arab tribes[15], and advanced with them towards Shiraz: when a conspiracy in the camp of their enemy enabled them in the first instance to succeed without a battle, and eventually to reinstate on his throne the Prince who was confided to them. The story marks the character of the two nations more fully, if the history of Lootf Ali Khan, before his flight to Bushire, be recollected. Although his father had reigned in Persia for a long time (compared with the usurpations which preceded,) although himself had long accustomed the people to serve and triumph with him, yet in the first moment of distress (the arrival of the intelligence of his father’s slaughter, and of the orders of the conspirators to seize him), even in his own camp he was left unsupported by all. Five, indeed, fled with him in the night to Bushire; but in the morning the whole camp had dispersed without an effort; and all had submitted to the usurpers. The contrast now begins: the Prince threw himself on the protection of the Arabs, the vassals or allies of his father; he was welcomed with the most warm fidelity, supported by their honour, and restored by their valour to his throne.

The Sheik of Bushire, who in his dying charge had bequeathed this cause to his successor, is still remembered in his general conduct with reverence. Whenever his little domain was threatened either by the Government of Persia, or by a neighbouring chief, Sheik Nasr flew to arms. According to the traditional accounts of the country, his summons to his followers in these emergencies was equally characteristic and effectual. He mounted two large braziers of Pillau on a camel, and sent it to parade round the country. The rough pace of the animal put the ladles in motion, so that they struck the sides of the vessels at marked intervals, and produced a most sonorous clang. As it traversed the Dashtistan, it collected the mob of every district; every one had tasted the Arab hospitality of the Sheik, and every one remembered the appeal, and crowded round the ancient standard of their chief, till his camel returned to him surrounded by a force sufficient to repel the threatened encroachments. In every new emergency the camel was again sent forth, and all was again quiet.

The territory, therefore, of Bushire, and the neighbouring district, remained under the rule of the Arabs, unviolated by the successive Princes, who have conquered and retained so large a portion of the rest of Persia. But Abdullah Resoul, the grandson of Sheik Nasr, inherited the office only of his predecessor, and possessed no qualities which could command the affections and the services of his people; and though at the time of our landing the government was vested in him as the descendant of the ancient possessors, it was obviously improbable that Bushire, which had now become the principal port of Persia, would be suffered to remain long under the administration of a young Arab, of sluggish, dissolute, and unwarlike habits.

In the evening of the 16th Oct. (the day after our landing), the Sheik of Bushire, escorted by several of the principal men of the town, paid a visit to the Envoy. They had not sat long, when a man came in and whispered something in the ear of one of the visitants, which caused the Sheik to arise, take a hasty leave, and gallop at full speed into the town. The Government of Shiraz had sent a body of men to seize him. He had just time to reach Bushire before the party of Shiraz horsemen could overtake him. He immediately mustered all his little force, planted a guard on the walls, and himself kept constant watch at the gates. He had indeed anticipated the probable designs of the Court of Shiraz; and, though now apparently resolved on the last resistance, he had already taken the precaution of shipping most of his property on his own vessels, and with them meditated to retire to Bussora.

The commander of the Shiraz horsemen, to whom the commission was intrusted, was Mahomed Khan, the Nasakchee Bashee, an office not ill understood by that of chief executioner[16]. He is always employed, at least, in seizing state prisoners, though his personal character is rather opposite to the duties of his situation; for to the facetiousness of his temper, according to the report of his countrymen, he owes the favour of the Prince of Shiraz, and through that favour, his office; and, as a second consequence, the monopoly of tobacco[17]. In the discharge of his functions the Nasakchee Bashee is generally supposed to realize in every commission a considerable sum, besides the maintenance of himself and his followers at the expence of the individuals against whom he may successively be sent. While he waited the accomplishment of his present attempt, he remained encamped at a short distance from the town. About twelve o’clock on the 18th, he made a visit of ceremony to the Envoy. He was attended by eighteen men, himself alone mounted on a horse; on his arrival he seated himself on a couch next to Sir Harford Jones, and his men extended themselves in two rows to the right and left before him. The conversation consisted of mutual compliments about health, the hopes of continued amity between Persia and England, and the never failing topic the weather. The whole party wore the black sheep-skin cap (the dress of every rank of Persians), and almost all had pistols in their girdles; some had muskets, and all, except the Khan’s own body servants, had swords. Most of them also wore the green and high-heeled slippers of ceremony, and every man had a full black beard. On the day of this visit, the Sheik, as a douceur perhaps to engage the Envoy’s interference in his cause, sent him a present of two horses.

On the 20th. I went on the part of the Envoy to return the visit of the Nasakchee Bashee. He was encamped among some date trees; and living in the remains of a house which was all in ruins, but which he had screened up with mats to keep off the sun and wind. A clean mat was spread on the floor, carpets were arranged all around, and his bed and cushions were rolled up in one corner: over the carpet, on which he sate himself, was a covering of light blue chintz. When we were within a hundred yards, we saw him walking about; but as soon as he perceived our approach, he seated himself in the place of honour, and did not pay us the compliment of rising when we entered. I made him a civil speech in Turkish, and he in return asked after the Envoy’s health. He seemed, indeed, much pleased with the epithet of Effendi, which I used frequently in addressing him, but which, as I afterwards learned, is never applied in Persia to any but very great men. His vanity was accordingly much flattered; and he exclaimed to his attendants, that I was “Khoob Jouani,” a fine fellow. When we had exhausted all our compliments, we took our leave.

The mission on which he was dispatched to Bushire originated in the following circumstances. Some years ago, the Sheik had been required by the Governor of Farsistan to furnish a certain sum of money. He pleaded poverty: he was ordered to borrow; and to obviate every difficulty, he was told that a particular person would advance the money, at an interest indeed prescribed by the same authority which dictated the amount of the capital. The Nasakchee Bashee was now sent to enforce the immediate repayment of the capital and interest, which together had swelled to twenty-eight thousand tomauns, a sum nearly equal to the same number of pounds sterling. To save his authority, and perhaps his head, the Sheik endeavoured to accommodate the present difficulty by offering to pay down five thousand tomauns, and to secure the rest by instalments. This, however, was refused; and the unfortunate Sheik accordingly gave immediate and public notice of the sale of his effects, his horses, mules, and asses; and in the course of a few days raised fifty thousand piastres.

Still the hope of a less rigorous arrangement was not entirely excluded: the Sheik, attended by the principal men of the town, and with a strong guard (so stationed that the signal of a moment could bring them to his assistance) visited the Khan. The Khan indeed had sworn that he would not molest the Sheik “at present;” though, when asked to extend the oath to every visit or opportunity, he replied that he would not answer for the directions which he might receive from his government. Two days after the visit, we observed a party of forty horsemen arrive at the Khan’s encampment, who probably bore the last orders of the Court.

On the 25th of Oct. the Envoy received an intimation of a visit, jointly from the Sheik and the Nasackchee Bashee; but he was so much occupied, that at the time he could not accept it. In a few minutes after we heard a great commotion among the servants, and an outcry that the Sheik was seized. By the assistance, indeed, of our glasses we perceived the unfortunate man, with his arms pinioned, surrounded by about twenty horsemen, and dragged away at full speed towards the Shiraz road. It appeared, that trusting in this conditional oath of the Khan, the Sheik had accepted his invitation to visit with him the Envoy, and had gone forth from the town escorted by five men only. On his way to the Envoy, he called for the Khan; and when they were both mounted, the Khan cried out to his men to seize, disarm, and carry off their prisoner.

The consternation of the town was immediate and general. Mr. Bruce, the Assistant Resident, was sent by the Envoy to learn the particulars of its situation: he found the gates shut, and the towers manned, but he gained admittance through the wicket, and saw all the misery and confusion of the crisis. The Sheik’s wives and servants were embarking in great haste on board one of his ships; his Vizir also, Hajee Suliman, was hastening his own preparations to escape. The shops were shut, the streets were crowded with men transporting their households to the sea shore, and their wives and daughters were beating their breasts and crying in loud lamentation. Nor was there a shew of resistance, except on the walls; or a thought of defence: the only hope and the only thought of every man was the preservation of his little fortunes and the honour of his women. The same alarm prevailed in the country; all the poor date-hut villagers flocked for protection into the Factory, and trusted to its walls the security of their families and their scanty wealth. Women and children, their asses and their poultry, were all indiscriminately hurried into the enclosure; and before the evening we saw around us no common scenes of misery and terror.

The Assistant Resident, who had examined this state of things in the town, was sent, on his return, by the Envoy to the Khan, to represent the alarm of the place; and to add, that the Envoy expected that no molestation should be offered to any of the persons belonging to his mission. The Khan was extremely civil, and treated him as usual with coffee and three kaleouns. He informed him on the subject of his commission; that he had orders from his court to seize the Sheik, his cousin, and his Vizir: and then read to him the firman. The firman, in the first place, ordained the act of seizure; and then ordained, that not the smallest molestation should be given to the English, that every possible respect and attention should be shewn to them, and strongly denounced vengeance on any offender; and lastly ordained, that no inhabitant, either of the town or of the villages, should receive the least harm. In his own name, he assured the Assistant Resident, that he was determined to put the firman in its full force; and turning to his followers and guards, cried out, “Woe be to that man who shall be found guilty of giving the smallest offence to any Englishman, or to any of his servants, or to any thing that belongs to him.” He added, indeed, that the present fate of the Sheik was the punishment of his ungracious behaviour to the English;[18] and swore, that, for his own part, nothing was so strongly the object of his mind, as the good will of our nation. The Khan further stated, that he had intended, in the proposed visit of the morning in conjunction with the Sheik, first to have read the firman to the Elchee, (the Embassador), and then to have executed it on the Sheik; but the Sheik had tempted him by an opportunity so resistless, that he could not pay the full compliment to the Envoy of delaying the seizure till the communication had been made.

Mahomed Nebee Khan, who is known to the English as the Persian Embassador at Calcutta, had procured the succession to the Government of Bushire, at the price, it was said, of forty thousand tomauns[19].

At this moment the Vizir Hajee Suliman was seized on the point of embarkation. The Khan had declared that he would not spare Bushire unless the Vizir was delivered to him. The people, therefore, of his own town intercepted his flight, and surrendered him to the Khan. But the cousin of the Sheik, whose fate was threatened in the same proscription, escaped. There, as in Turkey, and probably in all despotic countries, the guilt, or rather the disgrace, of an individual, entails equal punishment on all his family and adherents.

On the following morning, Mahomed Khan, the Nasakchee Bashee, whose mission had produced these changes, entered Bushire, and assumed the administration of the government. The town was so far tranquillized, indeed, that the Bazars were re-opened. The proclamations which the Khan had issued, pledging security and peace to the inhabitants, had recalled them to their houses; and the example of severe punishment, which he inflicted on one of his own men for stealing the turban of a Jew, operated still more powerfully than his assurances. In the course of the morning we rode to the gates of the town: there was here a large assembly of armed men, for little other purpose indeed than to hear the news and the lies of the day: for a picture, however, the mob was excellent; nothing can be marked more strongly in character, than the hard and parched-up features of the inhabitants of this part of Persia. Though the first consternation had thus subsided, the people had not resumed their daily occupations. In the course of our ride we did not meet a single woman carrying water, or a single ass carrying wood; for the circumstances which had now happened were unparalleled in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and excited the strongest emotion throughout the country.

In appearance, indeed, the place was already tranquil; but the regulations which the Khan enforced, were too little accommodated to the previous habits of the people to reconcile them to his administration. Some of the most respectable merchants prepared to emigrate, and all beheld with terror the officers of police displaying in the Bazars the preparations for the bastinado, (the justice of Persia), with which they contrasted very favourably the lenient rule of their Arab Chief. In the progress of his government, the Khan still continued to exasperate the principal inhabitants by extorting donations of their goods. When, indeed, Mahomed Jaffer, the brother of the expected Governor, received in his turn such a demand, he not only returned a direct denial, but wrote to the townsmen to arm in revenge, and defend themselves against such requisitions.

In a few days the same Mahomed Jaffer, in obedience to new orders was proclaimed by the Khan, Governor pro tempore till the arrival of his brother; and was invested in this dignity by the girding of a sword on his thigh, an honour which he accepted with a reluctance perhaps not wholly feigned. When he was complimented on the occasion, he replied, “You see to what I am come at last; all would not do: I was obliged to put on this sword.” But the moment that he assumed the government, he followed in his turn all the rigours of his predecessor, and bastinadoed his new subjects without commiseration.

His reign, however, was short: on the 7th of November he was seized by the Khan, (the Nasakchee Bashee), thrown into prison, and fastened to the wall by a chain, said to have been sent expressly from Shiraz for his neck, but in reality intended for that of Hajee Suliman, the late Vizir of Bushire. The cause of his disgrace was his supposed instigation of the flight of the Vizir, who had contrived to escape by sea; and this punishment was to be enforced unless he delivered up the fugitive, or paid twenty thousand tomauns. As the Vice-Governor was unable or unwilling to conform to either requisition, he remained in prison. At length, however, he resolved on attempting the re-capture of the Vizir; and would have undertaken the voyage, if the security, which he offered for his own return, had been deemed sufficient by the Nasakchee Bashee.

In the mean time his release was prepared on easier and surer terms. Mahomed Nebee Khan, the appointed Governor of Bushire, though little friendly to his brother, was yet jealous of the honour of his family, and felt in his own person the indignity which the late punishment of the chain had inflicted on Jaffer. He swore, therefore, that he would not rest till the head of his brother’s enemy was cut off; and as the first act of his influence procured the immediate restoration of his brother to his former offices. Jaffer was accordingly released from the prison where he was chained by the neck, and again seated in the administration.

I must not omit as a specimen of Persian character, the mode of communication which notified this change at Bushire. The Prince’s Messenger that brought the intelligence from Shiraz of the disgrace of the Nasakchee Bashee, came into the presence of Mahomed Jaffer, and told him, “Come, now is the time to open your purse-strings; you are now no longer a merchant or in prison; you are now no longer to sell dungaree, (a species of coarse linen); you are a governor; come, you must be liberal, I bring you good intelligence: if I had been ordered to cut off your head, I would have done it with the greatest pleasure; but now, as I bring you good news, I must have some money.” The man that said this was a servant, and the man that bore it was the new Governor of Bushire.

In a few days Mahomed Jaffer paid us a visit, in appearance perfectly unconscious of the indignities which he had suffered. But the habitual despotism which the people are born to witness, familiarises them so much to every act of violence which may be inflicted on themselves or on others, that they view all events with equal indifference, and go in and out of prison, are bastinadoed, fined, and exposed to every ignominy, with an apathy which nothing but custom and fatalism could produce.

On the 4th of Dec. the restored Vice-Governor was invested with a kalaat, or dress of honour, from the Prince at Shiraz; and his dignities were announced by the discharge of cannon. The form of his investiture was as follows:—Attended by all the great men, and by all his guards (the greater part of whom were the shopkeepers of the Bazar armed for the occasion), the new Governor issued from the town to meet his vest. As soon as he met it he alighted from his horse, and making a certain obeisance was presented with it by the person deputed by the Prince to convey it. The whole party then rode to the spot appointed for the investiture; thither the kalaat was brought in state on a tray, surrounded by other trays decked with sweetmeats. The Governor was here assisted to throw off his old clothes, and to put on his new and distinguishing apparel. The whole present consisted of a ponderous brocade coat with a sash, and another vest trimmed with furs, and valued altogether at one hundred and fifty piastres, though the receiver would pay for the honour (in presents to the bearer and to the Prince in return) the sum, perhaps, of a thousand tomauns. When he was invested, his late clothes were carried away as the perquisite of the servants. After this, the firman was read, declaring the motives which had induced the Prince to confer so marked an honour on Aga Mahomed Jaffer, and then every one present complimented him on the occasion, with a “Moobarek bashed, Good fortune attend you.” After this the company smoked, drank coffee, and eat sweet cakes; and then mounting their horses escorted the Governor into his town. The Governor, in his glittering but uneasy garb, re-entered Bushire, amid the noise of cannon and the bustle of a gaping multitude; and the ceremony closed.

These honours were conferred on Aga Mahomed Jaffer, as a compensation for his late indignities, probably through the influence of his brother; but his brother had a less questionable merit, than that of thus revenging the wrongs of his own family: for to his influence his deposed predecessor owed his life. When the unhappy Sheik of Bushire was dragged to Shiraz, and hurried into the presence of the Prince, all his crimes real or fictitious were immediately accumulated in his face. Of every vice in the catalogue of enormity he was pronounced guilty, till the passions of the Prince were so exasperated, that he ordered his victim to be decapitated on the spot. Mahomed Nebee Khan then threw himself at the Prince’s feet, and entreated that the life of the wretch might be spared. The Prince was sufficiently appeased to grant the supplication, but ordered the Sheik to be blinded. Again, a second time, his intercessor threw himself at the Prince’s feet, and saved the prisoner’s eyes. The Prince contented himself with ordering the Sheik into confinement.

The particular interest which these changes might have excited in the people, is swallowed up by the consideration, that their new masters in every change are Persians, and that the rule of Arabs is over. A feeling which naturally did not conciliate the Arab community to any successor of their Sheik. The general impression was not ill-expressed by an old Arab, whom we found fishing along the shore. “What is our Governor? A few days ago he was a merchant in the Bazar; then he was our Governor: yesterday he was chained by the neck in prison; to-day he is our Governor again; what respect can we pay him? The Governor that is to be, was a few years ago a poor scribe; and what is worse he is a Persian. It is clear that we Arabs shall now go to the wall, and the Persians will flourish.”

CHAP. III.
RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSHIRE.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE PERSIAN GOVERNMENT: INTRODUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN DISCIPLINE AT SHIRAZ—MILITARY PREPARATIONS—PERSIAN LETTER—(DERVEISHES)—CONDUCT OF THE NASAKCHEE BASHEE—PRESENT TO THE ENVOY FROM THE COURT—MEHMANDAR—ARRIVAL OF AN OFFICER FROM SHIRAZ—DESCRIPTION OF HIS PARTY—HIS VISIT RETURNED—CEREMONIES OF A VISIT—FEAST OF THE BAIRAM—ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE AND RECAPTURE OF THE SYLPH—DEATH OF MR. COARE.

The negociation was begun at Bushire. On the day after our landing the Envoy despatched his letters to Jaffer Ali Khan, the acting English agent at Shiraz; and through him to the Prince Hossein Ali Mirza, Governor of Farsistan; to the Prince’s Minister, Nasr Oalah Khan; and to the Prime Minister at Teheran, Mirza Sheffeea. These letters all contained the simple statement, that the writer had arrived as Envoy Extraordinary from the King of Great Britain to the King of Persia, in order to confirm and augment the amity which had so long existed between the two countries.

On the 19th of Oct. we received despatches from Jaffer Ali Khan at Shiraz; which, among the more immediate topics of the correspondence, contained naturally full accounts of the progress of the campaign with the Russians, (the most important object in the existing politics of Persia), and the general sensations which it had excited at Teheran. These details retain of course little interest; it is enough to add, rather as a sketch of national character, that the King, in consequence of his reverses, had distributed alms to the poor, had ordered prayers to be said in the mosques, and the denunciations of vengeance on all unbelievers to be read from the Koran. The military preparations also were hastened at Shiraz (in some measure for a different object); and the Russian prisoners there were ordered to drill the Persian troops, who had been raised and equipped after a Russian manner. The account of this new corps was continued in other letters (which, on the 23d, we received in two days and a half from Shiraz). The Prince was instructed to form a body of able young men, to shave them if they had already beards, and to dress them in the Russian uniform. There was at this time at Shiraz, another body also of seven hundred hardy and active men, (of the Bolouk or Perganah of Noor in Mazanderan), who were in the same manner to be subjected to the discipline of the Russian drill, to lose their beards, to substitute the firelock for the matchlock gun, (which they had been accustomed to use), and to assume the whole dress of the Russian soldiery. Mahomed Zeky Khan and Sheik Roota Khan were appointed their commanders. The Jezaerchi also, the men who use blunderbusses, were to wear the new Russian dress. The French at this time were very anxious to proceed to Shiraz, to drill the new-raised corps; but as the King prevented them in a former instance from sending a Resident to Bushire lest they should have found that the English factory was still in Persia, he now equally prevented their advancing to Shiraz, lest the English in their turn should discover the arrival of their competitors. New gun-carriages after the Russian form were ordered (though those before made after the same pattern broke to pieces at the first fire), and five thousand new firelocks; but as the Prince found great difficulty in procuring the execution of a former order of two thousand only, he had in this instance sent into Laristan for three thousand matchlock guns, and into other provinces for the remainder, to convert them at Shiraz into firelocks, by affixing to the original barrel the new lock. Provisions also, of all sorts, were collecting into magazines at Shiraz. These preparations were hastened by the Prince himself from personal motives. His dexterity in hitting a mark with a gun at full gallop, and in cutting asunder an ass with one blow of his sword had been so much exaggerated, that the King became desirous of witnessing these exploits, and would have sent for his son to court, if the apprehensions at this time of General Malcolm’s return from India with an army had not furnished a seasonable necessity for the Prince’s presence in his own provinces; and he prepared himself therefore, with great zeal, to march to Bender-Abassy, to await there the arrival of the English in the Persian Gulph.

As a specimen of Persian wit, as well as in the relation of a Persian’s proficiency in English, I extract literally, from Jaffer Ali’s letter, the following account of the Prince of Shiraz:—“As he is a great quiz and flatterer, he flattered me much, and I made an equal return to him. Owing to the immense dust that blown all the while upon the road, my face and beard covered with dust, and appearing myself to be white, the Prince therefore sayed to me, that my black beard became with grey hairs in his service; I returned that whoever serves Khadmute Boozurk Whan (His Highness) becomes white-faced for eternity, as the common proverb among the Persians, that when a man serves his master with zeal, he says to his servant ’roo sefeed, white face,’ and on the contrary they say ‘roo seeah, black face:’” two very common expressions in the country, denoting severally honour and disgrace.[20]

It is not an unfair criterion of the new impulse which the Court of Persia had received, to add, that by second orders from Teheran, as they were reported to us, the Princes of the districts were required to adopt in their own persons the Russian uniform. The Prince of Tabriz, Abbas Mirza, had already conformed to the costume; and the Prince at Shiraz, with a hundred of his immediate attendants, was preparing to assume the same garb; and as we learned on the 10th, by other dispatches, already appeared in it. The proposed adoption by Sultan Selim, of the dress of the Nizam Gedid troops, was the signal of revolt to his Janizaries, and the direct cause of his dethronement. The national levity of the Persians counteracts the original rigour of their religious principles, and disposes them, from the mere love of change, to admit the encroachments of European manners, which would rouse to despair and revenge the less volatile character of the Turks, and animate them in defence of their least usage with all the first enthusiasm of their faith.[21]

Though the conduct of the negociations with Persia had no connexion with the mere change of masters in Bushire, which was effected during our residence on the spot, and there was, therefore, little direct political intercourse between the Envoy and the Nasakchee Bashee, (the Chief Executioner), who superintended those changes: yet as that officer was the ostensible representative of the Government of Shiraz, some communications naturally took place. Before the assumption of the administration of Bushire, (while the Khan’s object was yet unattained), there was in this intercourse little unsatisfactory; but in his later conduct to the mission, there was something of the insolence of newly acquired power; he sent word more than once that he was coming to pay a visit to the Envoy, and as frequently neglected his engagement. At length he arrived, puffing in great haste; and as soon as he had seated himself, he pulled off his black sheep-skin cap, and begun to read a paper which he took from his pocket. The Envoy asked him, if he were reading a firman from the court, which ordered him to sit bald-headed. The reproof startled him, and the Envoy continued; that, representing as he did his Sovereign, he could not permit the Khan to do in his presence an act of disrespect which he would not do before his equals, and much less before his superiors. The Khan immediately put on his cap, and in his shame waved his hand for his attendants to withdraw. Sir Harford also ordered his own Persians to retire, and as the suite were in succession leaving the room the Khan had some leisure to digest the well-timed rebuke.

The notice which the Envoy had been thus obliged to take of an apparent disrespect in the Khan’s conduct was the more necessary, as He had that morning received a letter from the Prince at Shiraz, the form and terms of which required some explanation; and on which, therefore, the Envoy felt himself compelled to remark, that the correspondence during the negociation must be absolutely and in every view independent; and He desired the Khan accordingly to intimate this determination to the Prince’s Minister. The representation was immediately successful; and to the line of conduct thus enforced, both parties adhered throughout their future communications.

When this matter was adjusted, much friendly conversation followed, and the affair of the cap and bald-head was laughed over. The Envoy expressed indeed his wish to render the Khan in his visit as comfortable as possible; but repeated also his resolution to suffer no act of inattention before servants and strangers. The Khan accordingly (though as it was the Ramazan he would not smoke) left us seemingly well pleased.

But in another instance the same want of respect was visible, though the effect probably of ignorance only. On the 30th Oct. he sent a present of some fruit and two horses, one for the Envoy and one for the East India Company’s Assistant Resident. Sir Harford immediately returned that destined for himself, to remind the Khan of the distinction.

On the 8th of Nov. arrived, carried on fourteen mules, the balconah, the customary present to an Embassador. It consisted of the following articles:—

The whole was accompanied by a letter from Nasr Oalah Khan, the Minister at Shiraz, replete with compliment and inquiries about health, and entrusted to the care of Aga Mahomed Ali, one of the Prince’s servants, who received for himself from the Envoy a present of five hundred piastres. The great men profit by these opportunities of enriching by such returns any servant to whom in their own persons they may owe an obligation, and to whom they thus, cheaply to themselves, repay it. But the charge of a present is frequently made the matter of a bargain among the adherents of the donor, and perhaps is sometimes purchased directly from the great man himself.

On the 13th of Nov. we were informed, that a Mehmandar had been appointed by the court to escort the Envoy to Teheran. The title of Mehmandar has been familiarized to an English reader by His Majesty’s appointment of Sir Gore Ouseley to fill the station during the residence in England of Mirza Abul Hassan, late Envoy Extraordinary from the King of Persia to the Court of London. But the duties which, in England, the most active Mehmandar could comprize within his office are comparatively very limited to those which are indispensably attached to a similar station in Persia. The Mehmandar is the Superintendant and Purveyor assigned to the dignity and ease of foreign Embassadors; the relative facility, therefore, with which he can discharge these functions must vary of course with the state of society in different countries. In England money procures every accommodation; but money alone can procure it now: purveyance, however, in its feudal sense, unfortunately for the people, still exists in its full force in Persia; and the Mehmandar, under the commission of his Sovereign, is entitled to demand from the provinces through which he passes every article in every quantity which he may deem expedient for his mission. And as there is no public accommodation on the road where, at every hour as in England, these supplies may be procured, they are extorted from the private stores of the villagers. Besides every requisite of provision and conveyance, the firman of the Mehmandar sometimes includes even specie among the articles thus necessary in the passage. It is not, therefore, wonderful, that the officer entrusted with this power, though generally a man of high rank, is generally also understood to purchase the nomination at very large prices. The proportion of the purchase is the proportion of course of the demands on the country: the villager groans under the oppression, but in vain shrinks from it; every argument of his poverty is answered, if by nothing else, at least by the bastinado.

The information of the appointment was premature: Mahomed Hassan Khan, an officer of rank, had indeed been dispatched from Shiraz, but he was entrusted with a more private commission to the Envoy. On the 19th his immediate approach to Bushire was announced. As, independently of the confidence which by this mission the Government appeared to repose in him, he possessed high personal rank, (as one of the Chiefs of the Karaguzlou tribe, one of the most numerous, warlike, and respectable of all under the jurisdiction of Persia,) the first Minister at Shiraz wrote to the Envoy to desire that He would send the person next in rank to himself to receive him. The Envoy accordingly ordered me to proceed on the occasion. I went, accompanied by Mr. Bruce and Dr. Jukes, and escorted by Cornet Willock with ten troopers, and five Chattars. The Chattars are those running footmen who, in fantastical dresses, generally surround the horse of a great man; but the name is applied not only to these attendants of shew, but to those messengers also who perform their journies on foot, and perform them with a dispatch almost incredible. When we had proceeded about a mile we met the stranger. He was thinly attended, having travelled in haste. When we approached, our little squadron drew up in a line as he passed; and we advanced, and made our respective compliments. We then all turned back together, and brought him into the presence of the Envoy, who received him sitting on one corner of the sopha, but rose just as he approached it. We were all dressed with more or less ornament in honour of our guest; and during his visit we kept on our hats. The Nasakchee Bashee had already fallen into his train, when we first met him; and during the short stay which he now made, the Vice-governor of Bushire, Aga Mahomed Jaffer, came to pay his respects also. He advanced immediately to the Khan, seized his hand, which he kissed, whilst the Khan applied his beard and mouth to the other’s face, and kissed his cheek. The manners of our guest himself were pleasant and modest, and spoke the simplicity of a man bred in camps. When the Envoy had inquired after his health, the health of the Prince, of the minister, and successively of other great men, the stranger, after the interchange of a few compliments, departed to take up his abode with the Vice-governor. As he entered Bushire, the guns at the gate were fired, but one of them could not bear the shock, and flew out of the carriage. For fear therefore of the gates and tower, they did not venture to discharge the sixty-eight pounder, which was mounted in the town; an apprehension not purely imaginary.

The party appeared particularly gloomy: their clothes were of a dark hue, and their caps and their beards were of the deepest black. Every one had a musket, a sword, a brace of pistols, and a great variety of little conveniences, as powder-flasks, cartouche-boxes, hammers, drivers, &c. so that the aggregate equipment displayed every man a figure made up for fighting. The Khan was dressed exactly like his followers, and was alone distinguished by carrying fewer arms. He had, indeed, one Yeduk or led horse before him. The trappings of their horses are very simple, compared to those of the Turks. The head-stall of the bridle has little bits of gold and silver, or brass fixed to it, without the tassels, chains, half-moons, or beads of a Turkish bridle. Nor have they the splendid breast-plate, or the bright and massy stirrup of the Turkish cavalry. Their saddle itself is much more scanty in the seat, nor is it so much elevated behind. The only finery of a Persian saddle is a raised pummel either gilt or silvered; and a saddle-cloth, or rather an elegant kind of carpetting, trimmed with a deep fringe.

On the next day, the Envoy directed me to return, in his name, the visit of Mahomed Hassan Khan. He was lodged in the house which then belonged to the Vice-governor, but which had been the property of the late Hajee Khelil Khan, (the Embassador of Persia, who was unfortunately killed at Bombay.) The room into which we were introduced was very pleasant, and by far more agreeable than any thing that I had expected at Bushire. Two pillars, neatly inlaid with looking-glasses, supported it on one side, and thus separated it from a small court, which was crowded with servants. An orange tree stood in the centre of the court. The walls of the room were of a beautiful white stucco, resembling plaster of Paris; and large curtains were suspended around them, to screen in every position the company from the sun. The Khan was seated in a corner, and having taken off our shoes at the door, we paid our respects severally, and then settled ourselves according to our rank. When we were arranged, he went about separately to each, and with an inclination of his head, told us we were welcome, (“Khosh Amedeed.”) The Vice-governor next appeared, and sat respectfully at a little distance. He was followed by the Governor of the small neighbouring district of Dasti, a rough looking man, who exchanged a kiss with the Khan. We had kaleoons, (the water pipe), then sweet sherbet, then again the kaleoons. Few words passed, and we did little except look at each other. Two or three Arabs came in, and were welcomed by the Khan with the “khosh amedeed” as they seated themselves at the further end of the room. The measurement of their distances in a visit seems a study of most general application in Persia; and the knowledge of compliments is the only knowledge displayed in their meetings; if, indeed, the visits of ceremony, which alone we witnessed, could be considered a fair specimen of national manners or the state of society.

When visited by a superior, the Persian rises hastily and meets his guest nearly at the door of the apartment: on the entrance of an equal, he just raises himself from his seat, and stands nearly erect; but to an inferior he makes the motion only of rising. When a great man is speaking, the style of respect in Persia is not quite so servile as that in India. In listening the Indians join their hands together, (as in England little children are taught to do in prayer,) place them on their breast, and making inclinations of the body sit mute. A visit is much less luxurious in Persia than in Turkey. Instead of the sophas and the easy pillows of Turkey, the visitor in Persia is seated on a carpet or mat without any soft support on either side, or any thing except his hands, or the accidental assistance of a wall, to relieve the galling posture of his legs. The misery of that posture in its politest form can scarcely be understood by description: you are required to sit upon your heels, as they are tucked up under your hams after the fashion of a camel. To us, this refinement was impossible; and we thought that we had attained much merit in sitting cross-legged as tailors. In the presence of his superiors a Persian sits upon his heels, but only cross-legged before his equals, and in any manner whatever before his inferiors. To an English frame and inexperience, the length of time during which the Persian will thus sit untired on his heels, is most extraordinary; sometimes for half a day, frequently even sleeping. They never think of changing their positions, and like other Orientals consider our locomotion to be as extraordinary as we can regard their quiescence. When they see us walking to and fro, sitting down, getting up, and moving in every direction, often have they fancied that Europeans are tormented by some evil spirit, or that such is our mode of saying our prayers.

Before the close of our visit, it was settled that the Khan should send in the course of that evening the letters with which he had been charged to the Envoy, and that on the morrow he should come to a personal conference, and open his verbal communications.

The Ramazan was now over: the new moon, which marks the termination, was seen on the preceding evening just at sun-set, when the ships at anchor fired their guns on the occasion; and on the morning of our visit, the Bairam was announced by the discharge of cannon. A large concourse of people, headed by the Peish Namaz, went down to the seaside to pray, and when they had finished their prayers, more cannon were discharged. Just before we passed through the gates of the town in returning from our visit, we rode through a crowd of men, women, and children, all in their best clothes, who, by merry-making of every kind were celebrating the feast. Among their sports, I discovered something like the round-about of an English fair, except that it appeared of a much ruder construction. It consisted of two rope-seats suspended, in the form of a pair of scales, from a large stake fixed in the ground. In these were crowded full-grown men who, like boys, enjoyed the continual twirl, in which the conductor of the sport, a poor Arab, was labouring with all his strength to keep the machine.

The feast itself of the Bairam begins of course successively in every season of the natural year, for in the formation of their civil year the Persians, like other Mahomedans, adopt lunar months. When it occurs in summer, the Ramazan, or month of fasting which precedes it, becomes extremely severe; every man of every kind of business, the labourer in the midst of the hardest work, is forbidden to take any kind of nourishment from sun-rise to sun-set, during the longest days of the year. Their full day is calculated from sun-set to sun-set, but their sub-division of time varies like that of the Hindoos and Mussulmans of India, according to the difference of the length of the natural day. In their calculation of the close of the fast, and the commencement of the Bairam, they are seldom assisted by almanacks: it frequently happens, therefore, that the same feast is celebrated two days earlier, or delayed two days later in different parts of the country, according to the state of the atmosphere: as the new moon may be obscured by clouds in one city or displayed in another by the clearness of the sky.

On the 21st of November Mahomed Hassan Khan Karaguzlou paid the appointed visit to the Envoy. A part of the body guard was sent out to meet him, and we received him as before in uniforms and hats. After the usual ceremonies were over, the Envoy and his guest retired to an inner apartment; and after a conference, which lasted four hours, the Khan departed to Bushire with the same escort, to whom on parting he gave a present of fifty Venetian sequins. The conference had been satisfactory, as at dinner the Envoy announced to us that we might now complete all our preparations for a journey to Teheran. Still with a volatility not unusual in the diplomacy of the East, the Khan two days afterwards refused to sign, in the name of the Persian Government, the note of the terms on which they had agreed at their meeting: and at ten o’clock at night the Vice-Governor, and the two Moonshees, came to us. After a long debate they departed; and, to the satisfaction of all parties the business was finally settled the next morning, when, previous to his return to Shiraz, the Khan paid his farewell visit to the Envoy.

He returned to Shiraz; and, as we learned by our next dispatches from Jaffer Ali, immediately appeared before the Prince, where he talked for “seven hours without stopping once,” on the Envoy and his merits. Jaffer Ali added, that he himself had dined with the Prince’s Prime Minister, and that they also had talked till two o’clock in the morning on the same alluring subject. After having both agreed that, by the progress of the negociation, they had already rendered themselves immortal, they retired to rest, and the next morning, the Minister, on the appointment of a Mehmandar to the mission, asked Jaffer Ali for the Moodjdéhlook, or customary present, for which accordingly he received a Cashmirian shawl. In general politics the dispatches stated, that the Russians had renewed hostilities, though General Gardanne, the French Embassador in Persia, had sent four of his officers to the Russian Commander to entreat that he would desist from any further operations; but the Russian answered, that his master had ordered him to fight on. The failure of this attempt had greatly contributed to disgrace the cause of the French; and the Court retrenched in consequence their daily allowances.

The Mehmandar, who was announced in these dispatches, was Mahomed Zeky Khan, (the chief of the Noory tribe, one of the new modeled corps) a great favourite at the Court of Teheran, and with the Prince of Shiraz, and advanced lately by the King to the dignity of Khan. It was added also, that his appointments were more magnificent than any which had ever before been annexed to the Mehmandar of an English Envoy; and, as a further proof of the estimation in which His Majesty’s mission was held, Jaffer Ali stated, that the Prince had prepared for him, as our acting Agent at Shiraz, a rich dress of honour, which, however, he had found means to decline from a fear of the jealousy which it might have excited against him. But the Prince, resolved on bestowing upon him some distinguishing mark of his favour, had given him a shawl, which belonged to one of his own head-dresses, and a young and promising Arab horse, which had been sent as a present to himself by the Governor of Chabi. So well indeed had Jaffer Ali deserved the confidence of both the negociating parties, that Sir Harford Jones, now at the close of these preliminary arrangements, sent him a patent constituting him the Agent for the British affairs at the Court of Shiraz.

It will be recollected that the Nereide, the Sapphire, and the Sylph, sailed with the mission from Bombay on the 12th of September. The Nereide arrived first; the Sapphire also reached Bushire about sun-set on the 18th October. The Arab ships too, that we passed off Cape Verdistan, had come in about noon on the same day, and had continued firing their guns at distant intervals till the evening: but the Sylph, on board which were the Persian Secretary and some of the presents, was yet missing; nor indeed had we seen her, since the second day after that on which we had left together the harbour of Bombay. On the 29th Oct. arrived the Nautilus, H. C. cruizer, which had sailed from the same port on the 22d Sept. Though she had neither seen or heard directly any thing of the Sylph, yet the circumstances of her own passage prepared us to anticipate the worst. The Nautilus had been attacked off the large Tomb, in the Gulph of Persia, by the Joasmee pirates; three only were at first in sight, but on the signal of a gun, a fourth appeared, and together they bore down, two on the quarters and two on the bows of the Nautilus; they were full of men, perhaps six hundred in the four vessels, all armed with swords and spears, and, as they shouted their religious invocations, they shook their weapons at the ship. When the engagement became closer, they maintained a fire of twenty-five minutes, and one of their shot killed the boatswain of the Nautilus. Of these pirates an interesting account was published in India by Mr. Loane, who was taken prisoner by them. It is unnecessary, therefore, to add more on the subject than that their chief resort is at Roselkeim, on the Arabian coast of the Gulph of Persia: another, but tributary, chief of the same people resides twenty-five miles from Roselkeim at Egmaun, S. S. W. of Cape Musseldom, where they possess an extensive and lucrative pearl fishery. This, with the market which their plunder finds there, is the principal source of the traffic of the place. Though it may not be necessary to enter into a detail, which may be better found in original authorities, it must be very obvious, that the honour of our flag, as well as the interest of our commerce in the East, will require the destruction of a fleet of pirates, which, assembling to the amount of fifty sail in the harbour of Roselkeim, issue thence to capture every English as well as native ship, and to spread terror through the Gulph of Persia.[22]

On the arrival of the Nautilus, under these circumstances, the Envoy dispatched a letter to Captain Davis of the Sapphire, requesting him to proceed to the entrance of the Gulph, to secure the Sylph, if possible. On the 6th Nov. a boat arrived from Roselkeim, at the date of the departure of which no such capture had been made; but in three days, another boat came in, which brought an account that four vessels had been taken, one of which contained a Nawab. We immediately recognized by this description the unfortunate Persian Secretary, the splendour of whose dress had imposed him as a Nabob on the pirates. The next day a still more circumstantial account of the capture reached us, which convinced us that the vessel taken was the Sylph; but the report added, that a large vessel from Bushire (which we instantly identified with the Nereide) came in sight during the action, and having sunk one of the pirates, (of whose crew of three hundred scarcely any escaped), retook their prize. In the action too, the pirates lost one of their first chiefs, Sal ben Sal. The loss of one individual, the most insignificant, of their tribe is sufficient cause for a declaration of war; but the destruction of so large a portion of their whole numbers would dispirit rather than so animate the remainder; and the tribe would probably agree never again to approach an English ship. The pirates had, in fact, been so disheartened by their disaster, that when, a few days afterwards, a single Arab ship (commanded indeed by an Englishman) fell among them, and, finding herself unable either to fight or to escape, bore down upon them to try a shew of resistance, they all fled. At length on the 26th Nov. the Minerva, H. C. cruizer, Captain Hopgood, arrived, and brought the Persian Secretary, who had been captured in the Sylph. The Secretary was much connected at Bushire, and his detention had of course excited great uneasiness among his relations, who had been putting up prayers in the mosques for his safety. His account of their fate was not uninteresting.

At the time when the pirates were standing the same course with herself, the Sylph discovered the Nereide bearing down upon her. When the Nereide came close, she hove-to; but as the commander of the Sylph did not send a boat on board of her, she filled her sails and stood on. When the Nereide had already passed at some distance, the two dows stood towards the Sylph. The Persian Secretary advised the officer of the ship not to permit the dows to approach; but he would not listen to the suggestion, as he declared they would not touch him. The dows, however, did approach so close, that the Sylph had only time to fire one gun, and to discharge her musquetry at them, before they were alongside, and poured on board her in great and overwhelming numbers. It is unnecessary to state all the circumstances. The Persian Secretary from the concealment to which he had fled, was still able to ascertain that, as the first act of possession, the Arabs threw water on the ship to purify it; that they then proceeded to the deliberate murder of the men, who were on deck or discoverable; that they brought them one by one to the gangway, and in the spirit of barbarous fanaticism cut their throats as sacrifices; crying out before the slaughter of each victim, “Ackbar” and when the deed was done, “Allah il Allah.” In the space of an hour they had thus put to death twenty-two persons; and were proceeding with lights to look for more, when they were astonished by a shot through the Sylph from the Nereide. On perceiving the disaster of the Sylph, Captain Corbett had immediately hauled-up; and though far to the windward his shot still reached. The Arabs immediately took to their dows; and, elated by the havock of their success, made for the Nereide. As soon as Captain Corbett perceived that they were bearing down upon him, he ceased firing altogether. The Persian Secretary told us, that he saw the dows approach so close to the frigate, that the Arabs were enabled to commence the attack in their usual manner by throwing stones. Still the Nereide did not fire; till at length when both dows were fairly alongside, she opened two tremendous broadsides. The Secretary said he saw one dow disappear totally, and immediately; and the other almost as instantaneously: they went down with the crews crying, “Allah, Allah, Allah.” Nine men only escaped, who had previously made off in a boat. The Sylph was taken to Muscat, where the Persian Secretary was put on board the Minerva.[23]

We had thus recovered the Persian Secretary; but the mission soon suffered the less reparable loss of one of its own members. On the 19th November, the Benares H. C. cruizer (which brought our tents, some of the body guards, presents, &c. from Bussora) landed at Bushire Mr. Coare, the Persian and Latin Translator. He had carried with him from Bussora a fever, which was gradually wasting him away; and after lingering out his few remaining days apparently without pain, he died on the last day of the month. He was a young man of whom all spoke well; his talents were promising; and his prospects in the world were fine. He was laid in the Armenian burying-ground, without a coffin; because plank is so dear and scarce at Bushire, that his remains would have been disturbed for the sake of the wood which had enclosed them. His corpse was escorted to the grave by the body guard and the seapoy guard, and followed by the Envoy and the gentlemen of the mission. I read the funeral service over him, amid a crowd of Persians and Arabs, who were collected to see the ceremony; and who seemed to partake the interest of the scene. Nothing excites a better impression of our character than an appearance of devotion and religious observance. If, therefore, there were no higher obligation on every christian, religious observances are indispensable in producing a national influence. We never omitted to perform divine service on Sundays; suffered no one to intrude upon us during our devotions; and used every means in our power to impress the natives with a proper idea of the sanctity of our Sabbath.

CHAP. IV.
RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSHIRE.

I. PERSIA—ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOVERNMENTS—FARSISTAN—MEKRAN—BALOUCHES—COAST OF THE GULPH—ISLANDS OF THE GULPH—PEARL FISHERY.—II. BUSHIRE: SITUATION—DESCRIPTION—TRADE—VIEW—RUINS OF RESHIRE—HALILA—BUSHIRE ROADS—WATER—WEATHER—HEALTHINESS—WOMEN OF BUSHIRE—SUPERSTITIONS.—III. ANIMALS OF THE DASHTISTAN: HORSES—DOG—WHITE FOX—WILD BEASTS—HAWKS—THE JERBOA.

I. In historical interest, Persia is perhaps superior to any Asiatic empire, because more nearly connected with the fortunes of Europe; and its natural situation shares the importance; for its boundaries (defined and fortified by lofty ranges, which are pervious only through passes of very difficult access,) are prominent and decided objects in the general geography of Asia. We had hitherto seen only the southern chain: nothing can be more strongly marked than the abrupt and forbidding surface of those mountains, which bind the shore from Cape Jasques to the deepest recesses of the gulph. The little plain of the Dashtistan, (that of Bushire) which seems to have encroached upon the sea, is yet the most extensive portion of even land, which relieves however momentarily the constant and chilling succession of high and dreary lands along the coast. But beyond these mountains are frequently extensive plains, confined by a second range, which likewise run parallel to the coast. This is the case behind Congoon: and in the route to Shiraz we found several successive plains, (of great absolute elevation indeed, but) thus separated from each other by alternate ranges of higher land. The plain of Merdasht, beyond Shiraz, is the Hollow Persis of ancient geography. These great inequalities of surface naturally produce a corresponding variety of climates.

The administration of the provinces of Persia is now committed to the Princes. The jurisdiction of Prince Hossein Ali Mirza, one of the King’s Sons, is very extensive: it comprises, under the general name of Farsistan, not only the original province of which Shiraz was the capital (as subsequently it became that of all Persia, and as it still is of the governments combined under the Prince) but Laristan also, to the south; and Bebehan to the north-west; which severally, as well as Farsistan, possessed before their particular Beglerbegs.

Of Farsistan, under this its present more extensive signification, the hot and desert country is called the Germesir, a generic term for a warm region, which will be recognised under the ancient appellations of Germania, Kermania, or Carmania. The termination of the Persian dominion in this direction, is an undefined tract between the Germesir and the Mekran. It was the ancient boast of Persia, that its boundaries were not a petty stream or an imaginary line, but ranges of impervious mountains or deserts as impervious. In this quarter there is little probability that the country will ever become less valuable as a frontier, by becoming more cultivated and better inhabited. The land is put to so little use, that no power would greatly care to press the extension of an authority so unprofitable. Every age has marked the unalterable barbarism of the soil and of the people. The Balouchistan, or the country of the Balouches, the most desert region of the coast begins about Minou, on the west of Cape Jasques. Their country is perhaps nearly the Mekran of geography. They once owned subjection to Persia, but they have now resumed the independance of Arabs, and live in wandering communities under the government of their own Sheiks, of whom two are pre-eminent. They have indeed still some little commercial connexion with Persia, and occasionally a Balouche is to be seen in Bushire selling his scanty wares, mostly the mats of their own manufacture. One of their Sheiks lives at Guadel on the coast of Mekran; but in the interior, according to the account given by a Balouche to Captain Salter, there is a very potent king, though I cannot add from the same authority, whether he is of their own extraction. They live in continual wars with each other; or let themselves out to the different small powers in the gulph as soldiers. Many of the guards of the Sheik of Bushire are Balouches; and the Seapoys also on board the Arab ships are of the same tribes.

In religion they are Mahomedans; and like all those of India, are Sunnis: but they have few means of preserving the genuineness of any profession of faith; and their ignorance has already confounded their tenets with those of a very different original. The same common barbarism has indeed blended the Affghan, the Seik, and the Balouche into one class: there may be among them some beard or whisker more or less, some animal or food which they hold unclean above all others, some indescribable difference of opinion which severs them from their neighbours, but in savageness they are all identified. Those on the coast still live almost exclusively on fish, as in the days of Nearchus; though I am told they no longer build their houses with the bones. The grampus (possibly, the whale of Arrian) is still numerous on the shores. The Envoy remembered to have seen at Bushire on a former occasion, a dog of an immense size, which a Balouche had given to Mr. Galley, the Resident at that time: the man added, that the mountains towards his country were all very high. His dog seemed to confirm the assertion, for he was defended against the cold of his native region, by a coat of thick and tufted hair.

Though the Balouches scarcely advance within the gulph, yet the native Persians do not fully occupy their own shores. The coast still retains a great proportion of Arab families. The Dashtistan, which extends from Cape Bang to the plain of Bushire, was till lately governed by them. The district of Dasti, also along the coast from Bushire to below Congoon, still remains under their rule: and the Arab Sheik of Congoon in the adjoining territory, possesses a kind of independance.

At Tauhree, (or Tahrie) a port just below Congoon, are extensive ruins and sculptures, with the Persepolitan character. The landmarks for the entrance of the harbour are two large white spots, on the summit of a mountain, which the people of the country affirm to have been made by the hand of man; and which, on the same traditional authority, are said to have been formerly covered with glass. The reflection thus produced by the sun’s rays, rendered the object visible to a great distance at sea, and guided the navigator in safety into the road. Some of the glass is said to remain at this day. Among the ruins of the city are two wells pierced to a great depth; and stabling for a hundred horses excavated from the solid rock: the existence of these remains, I understand, Mr. B—k of the E. I. Company’s service ascertained himself.

At Kharrack, a place still further in the progress down the Gulph, between Cape Sertes and Cape Bustion, is a town which was once in the possession of the Danes; and it is singular that the people who claim a Danish blood are still very fair complexioned, and have light red hair, which may confirm their traditional accounts of their origin. The same nation had also an establishment in a deep bay near Musseldom; and the fort exists to this day. On Cape Bustion there is a mine of copper, which was formerly worked by the Portuguese: they built also a fort there, which still exists, but the mine is no longer worked, and indeed is almost forgotten. Some years ago, Mr. Bruce, the Assistant Resident at Bushire, was a prisoner among the Arabs on this part of the coast. He was told, that immediately behind the range of mountains which lines their shore, there was a river that came from near Shiraz, and run down to Gombroon; this is, probably, the Bend-emir, which, according to other accounts, is traced indeed towards Gombroon, but there expends itself in the sands. Khoresser is the name of a small river which falls into the sea nearly under the Asses Ears; and on the banks of which is situated the town of Tangistoun. At the mouth of this river is a small island, formed by the sands brought down; which adapts this situation to Arrian’s account of Hieratemis. At the place marked by Dr. Vincent as Podargus there is now no torrent: but I learn from Dr. Jukes and Mr. Bruce, that at Harem, situated thirty miles inland on the declivity of the mountains to the eastward, there is a water which finds its way to the sea, and may, perhaps, accord with the position required.

The islands in the Gulph of Persia retain little of their political celebrity. Ormus (ever the most barren, its soil being composed of salt and sulphur) still displays its arched reservoirs, which afford good watering places for vessels, and which are said never to dry up. On the island of Kenn, according to the people of the country, is found, after rain, gold dust in the channels of the torrents. And Bahrein, which is now in the hands of the Wahabees, is still noted for the fresh springs which issue from the earth under the sea, and from which the Arabs contrive to water their ships by placing over the spot a vessel with a syphon attached to it. Captain Skeine, who commanded an Arab ship, told the gentleman (who communicated the circumstances to me), that he had himself drawn the water at the depth of one fathom. The same submarine springs extend along the neighbouring coast of Arabia. Kharrack, which is now the principal watering place on the north of the Gulph, and the island, where the pilots for the Bussorah river are stationed, is perhaps good for few other purposes. The Sheik indeed, though enjoying profound peace, presented memorials to the Sheik of Bushire, representing that his troops and himself were in a state of starvation. Among the duties entrusted by the Government of Shiraz to the Nasakchee Bashee, he was instructed to proceed to Kharrack, to inspect the fortifications, and to report on their capability of defence.

Pearl-Fishery.—There is, perhaps, no place in the world where those things which are esteemed riches among men, abound more than in the Persian gulph. Its bottom is studded with pearls, and its coasts with mines of precious ore. The island of Bahrein, on the Arabian shore, has been considered the most productive bank of the pearl oysters: but the island of Kharrack now shares the reputation. The fishery extends along the whole of the Arabian coast, and to a large proportion of the Persian side of the gulph. Verdistan, Nabon, and Busheab, on that side, are more particularly mentioned; but indeed it is a general rule, that wherever in the gulph there is a shoal, there is also the pearl oyster.

The fishery, though still in itself as prolific as ever, is not perhaps carried on with all the activity of former years; since it declined in consequence by the transfer of the English market to the banks of the coast of Ceylon. But the Persian pearl is never without a demand; though little of the produce of the fishery comes direct into Persia. The trade has now almost entirely centred at Muscat. From Muscat the greater part of the pearls are exported to Surat; and, as the agents of the Indian merchants are constantly on the spot, and as the fishers prefer the certain sale of their merchandize there to a higher but less regular price in any other market, the pearls may often be bought at a less price in India, than to an individual they would have been sold in Arabia. There are two kinds; the yellow pearl, which is sent to the Mahratta market; and the white pearl, which is circulated through Bussorah and Bagdad into Asia Minor, and thence into the heart of Europe; though, indeed, a large proportion of the whole is arrested in its progress at Constantinople to deck the Sultanas of the Seraglio. The pearl of Ceylon peels off; that of the Gulph is as firm as the rock upon which it grows; and, though it loses in colour and water 1 per cent. annually for fifty years, yet it still loses less than that of Ceylon. It ceases after fifty years to lose any thing.

About twenty years ago the fishery was farmed out by the different chiefs along the coast: thus the Sheiks of Bahrein and of El Katif, having assumed a certain portion of the Pearl Bank, obliged every speculator to pay them a certain sum for the right of fishing. At present, however, the trade which still employs a considerable number of boats is carried on entirely by individuals. There are two modes of speculation: the first, by which the adventurer charters a boat by the month or by the season; in this boat he sends his agent to superintend the whole, with a crew of about fifteen men, including generally five or six divers. The divers commence their work at sun-rise and finish at sun-set. The oysters, that have been brought up, are successively confided to the superintendant, and when the business of the day is done, they are opened on a piece of white linen: the agent of course keeping a very active inspection over every shell. The man who, on opening an oyster, finds a valuable pearl, immediately puts it into his mouth, by which they fancy that it gains a finer water; and, at the end of the fishery, he is entitled to a present. The whole speculation costs about one hundred and fifty piastres a month; the divers getting ten piastres; and the rest of the crew in proportion. The second and the safest mode of adventure is by an agreement between two parties, where one defrays all the expences of the boat and provisions, &c. and the other conducts the labours of the fishery. The pearl obtained undergoes a valuation, according to which it is equally divided: but the speculator is further entitled by the terms of the partnership to purchase the other half of the pearl at ten per cent. lower than the market price.

The divers seldom live to a great age. Their bodies break out in sores, and their eyes become very weak and blood-shot. They can remain under water five minutes; and their dives succeed one another very rapidly, as by delay the state of their bodies would soon prevent the renewal of the exertion. They oil the orifice of the ears, and put a horn over their nose. In general life they are restricted to a certain regimen; and to food composed of dates and other light ingredients. They can dive from ten to fifteen fathoms, and sometimes even more; and their prices increase according to the depth. The largest pearl are generally found in the deepest water, as the success on the bank of Kharrack, which lies very low, has demonstrated. From such depths, and on this bank, the most valuable pearls have been brought up; the largest indeed which Sir Harford Jones ever saw, was one that had been fished up at Kharrack in nineteen fathoms water.

It has been often contested, whether the pearl in the live oyster is as hard as it appears in the market; or whether it acquires its consistence by exposure. I was assured by a gentleman (who had been encamped at Congoon close to the bank; and who had often bought the oysters from the boys, as they came out of the water,) that he had opened the shell immediately, and when the fish was still alive, had found the pearl already hard and formed. He had frequently also cut the pearl in two, and ascertained it to be equally hard throughout, in layers like the coats of an onion. But Sir Harford Jones, who has had much knowledge of the fishery, informs me, that it is easy by pressing the pearl between the fingers, when first taken out of the shell, to feel that it has not yet attained its ultimate consistency. A very short exposure, however, to the air gives the hardness. The two opinions are easily reconcileable by supposing, either a misconception in language of the relative term hard, (by which one authority may mean every thing in the oyster which is not gelatinous, while the other would confine it more strictly to the full and perfect consistency of the pearl;) or by admitting that there may be an original difference in the character of the two species, the yellow and the white pearl; while the identity of the specimen, on which either observation has been formed, has not been noted.

The fish itself is fine eating; nor, indeed in this respect is there any difference between the common and the pearl oyster. The seed pearls, which are very indifferent, are arranged round the lips of the oyster, as if they were inlaid by the hand of an artist. The large pearl is nearly in the centre of the shell, and in the middle of the fish.

In Persia the pearl is employed for less noble ornaments than in Europe: there it is principally reserved to adorn the kaleoons or water pipes, the tassels for bridles, some trinkets, the inlaying of looking glasses and toys, for which indeed the inferior kinds are used; or, when devoted more immediately to their persons, it is generally strung as beads to twist about in the hand, or as a rosary for prayer.

The fishermen always augur a good season of the pearl, when there have been plentiful rains; and so accurately has experience taught them, that when corn is very cheap they increase their demands for fishing. The connexion is so well ascertained, (at least so fully credited, not by them only, but by the merchants,) that the prices paid to the fishermen are, in fact, always raised, when there have been great rains.

II. Bushire (or more properly Abuschahr, for the former is but the corruption of an English sailor) is now the principal Port of Persia. It stands in lat. 28°. 59. in long. 50°. 43. E. of Greenwich. It is situated on the extremity of a peninsula, which is formed by the sea on one side, and on the other by an inlet terminating in extensive swamps. At the narrowest part of this neck of land the seas, in the equinoctial spring tides, have sometimes met and rendered it an island; but this has happened once only during the ten years which preceded our visit, and the effect then continued but two or three days; and so visible is the present encroachment of the land upon the inlet, that the recurrence of such an overflow will soon be entirely impossible. Every appearance, indeed, proves, that the whole of the peninsula has been thus gained from the sea. The extreme flatness of the general surface, the soil itself, the water, and the relative position of the whole peninsula to the mountains which rise abruptly from its inland extremities, suggest the supposition of such an accumulation.

On the southern bank of the inlet is a long range of rocks, which, though now two or three miles distant, may at one time have been washed by the sea. In digging for water, the people of the peninsula have sunk wells to the depth of thirty fathoms; and before they could reach the spring they have been obliged to perforate three layers of a soft stone composed of sand and shells. Generally of the whole soil, sand is the principal ingredient.

The town itself of Bushire occupies the very point of the peninsula, and forms a triangle, of which the base on the land side is alone fortified. At unequal distances along the walls, there are twelve towers, two of which form the town-gate; they are all chequered at the top by holes, through which the inhabitants may point their musketry, and those at the gates have a variety of such contrivances. There is at the the door a large brass Portuguese gun, a sixty-eight pounder, on a very uncertain carriage; besides two or three in a much ruder state. It is said that on some invasion when the place was beset, this gun was fired, but the concussion was so great and unexpected, that it blew open the gates, shook down fragments of the towers, and gave the enemy an easy entrance. The materials of the town (a soft sandy stone, incrustated with shells) are drawn from the ruins of Reshire, in its neighbourhood. Most of the adjacent villages are built of the same stone, the only species indeed found in the peninsula, and which was already thus prepared for their use in the remains of Reshire. But such materials are continually decomposing; and the dust which falls from them adds to the already sandy ground-work of their streets, and, when set in motion by the wind or by a passing caravan, creates an impenetrable cloud. The streets are from six to eight feet wide, and display on each side nothing but inhospitable walls. A great man’s dwelling (there are nine in Bushire) is distinguished by a wind chimney. This is a square turret on the sides of which are perpendicular apertures, and in the interior of which are crossed divisions, which form different currents of air, and communicate some comfort to the heated apartments of the house. But the comfort is not wholly without danger; as in an earthquake some years ago the turrets were thrown down to the great damage of the surrounding buildings.

There are supposed to be in the town four hundred houses, besides several alleys of date-tree-huts on entering the gates, which may add an equal number to the whole. The number of inhabitants is disproportionably large, but it is calculated that there are ten thousand persons in the place. There are four mosques of the Sheyahs, and three of the Sunnis; and there are two Hummums and two Caravanserais; but there is no public building in Bushire which deserves any more particular description. The old English factory is a large straggling building near the sea side; the left wing is breaking down. The Bazars are exactly those of a provincial town in Turkey. The shop is a little platform, raised about two feet above the foot-path; where the Vender, just reserving the little space upon which he squats, displays his wares. The shops, as in Turkey, are opened in the morning and shut at night, when the trader returns to his dwelling; for the shop is but the receptacle for his goods.

On the 2d Nov. a large fleet of boats came into Bushire from the coast, laden with coarse linen for turbans, earthen pots, mats, &c. for which they carry away dates. These boats keep together for fear of the Joasmee pirates.

To the east of the town there is a small elevation, which happily destroys the equalities of the buildings, and renders it no uninteresting subject for a sketch, when enlivened by its concomitants, water and shipping. Whatever may have been the former state of the immediate neighbourhood, it is certain that there are now no longer to be found the gardens and plantations which Nearchus described, or even those which Captain Simmons delineated. Had Nearchus again described Bushire and its territory in this day, he would have said, that a few cotton bushes, here and there date trees, now and then a Konar tree, with water melons, berinjauts, and cucumbers, are the only verdant objects which, in any measure, alleviate the glare of its sandy plain.

I took a sketch of Bushire from a rising spot near a well on a public road.[24] A troop of young camel-drivers, who were going merrily along, soon discovered me; and long continued to vociferate, with many other names and jokes, “Frangui, Frangui,” the common appellation in the East of every European.

The new factory is about one mile seven-eights from the town. The Resident’s guard is composed of seapoys, who, by the regulations, should be changed every five years, but they are permitted to remain till they become so lax in discipline as scarcely to deserve the name of soldiers. The guard is mustered at sun-set, when they mostly appear in their shirts and night-caps, and the sentries walk about without their muskets.

In a few days after our landing we rode to the ruins of Reshire. The more immediate remains occupy an inconsiderable part of the site of the old city, and indeed consist rather of the fortress than of the general mass of buildings. The place is surrounded by villages built of the materials, and (as other fragments about them still attest) upon the site also of the original town. One of these villages is called Imaum Zadé, and is exempt from taxes, because its inhabitants claim all to be descended from Mahomed.

Bushire.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

The fortress itself was built by the Portuguese, though the people around are jealous of the acknowledgment, and substitute as its founder their own Shah Abbas. On a hasty calculation it must have been a square of two hundred yards. The reservoirs for water are still to be seen; but a lad, whom we met in the enclosure, told us that he and his companions were at work in destroying the Hummums. Twenty-five years ago the Envoy saw it in many parts entire, with some of the houses still standing. It is now a heap of dirt and rubbish. The line of the fort, indeed, is traced by the ditch, which is excavated from the rock; and the gateways also are discoverable, and some little masonry remains to mark their strength. There are some flat and oblong stones on the outside of the fort, which we conceived to have been placed over Portuguese tombs. There are, however, some curious characters upon them, which Sir Harford Jones, who recollects them when they were more legible, conceives to be between the old Cufick and the Nekshi.

In another excursion we advanced to Halila, about nine miles from the town, and on the south of the peninsula of Bushire. Here, indeed, there is a projection of the land, where it is still possible for very high tides to rise above the surface. The ground is very much broken into caverns and deep chasms. Halila is a small village; it has a trifling square fort, with a tower at each angle, but without any guns. Cotton is sown more systematically in the territory immediately adjacent to Halila than in that of Bushire. Here and there over the plain are some little spots sacred to the dead, and defended by small works of stones.

The Sapphire lay about four miles off the shore, in four feet and a half low water, and in quarter less five at high. The ground was marl and very thick mud, so tenacious, that it was necessary every three or four days to move the anchor. The refraction was so great, that, for their daily observations at the sun’s meridian, they were obliged to allow for it more than what is noted in the nautical tables. In my visit on board, I took the following bearings from the quarter-deck. Town N. 55 E. Concorde Lodge E. Halila Peak S. 70 E. Asses Ears and Reshire Point S. 35 E. Cape Bang (the extremity of the land) N. 11 E.

The water of Bushire has a cathartic quality of most immediate effect in a stranger’s habit, but after the experience of about a month it ceases to have so violent a power.

The meteorological journal which I kept may not be useless, and I give therefore the month of November in the Appendix. On the night of the 10th of that month, a most violent storm blew from the north-west. The whole atmosphere was in a blaze of fire; the claps of thunder succeeded one another with a rapidity, which rendered them scarcely separable, and the rain poured down in torrents; but when all was over, the air possessed a freshness which was most grateful. The storms from the N. W. are very frequent in the winter; and though in no part of the world do I recollect to have seen one so tremendous as this, I am told that it was not to be compared with some which are experienced at Bushire.

In three or four days the mountains which bore N. N. E. from our dwelling were already covered with snow. This was reckoned early in the season. The people soon begun to put on their warmer clothing. Coughs and colds became very prevalent, particularly among the Indian servants, who were clad more lightly than either the Europeans or the natives.

About the 20th of November the people commence ploughing; the soil is so light that it is turned up with very little labour; the plough, therefore, is dragged mostly by one ox only, and not unfrequently even by an ass. All their agricultural implements are of the rudest construction. At this period, larks fly about in large numbers, and feed upon the seed just sowing. There are also great flocks of pigeons, cormorants, curlews, and hoobaras (bustards). On the 25th we saw a white swallow flitting about the house. Sparrows were not so numerous as in the beginning of the month. Flies appeared with a south wind; but were scarce when it blew from the northward. The fruits in season were melons, dates, pomegranates, apples, pears, and sweet limes; and a small and very pleasant orange was just coming in. Our vegetables were spinage, bendes, and onions, and cabbages and turnips from Bussora. Of our meat, the finest was mutton, veal was coarse, but the beef pretty good, and the fowls were admirable. There were no turkies or geese indeed; nor ducks, except some that we occasionally got from Bussora.

The climate of Bushire is healthy, if we might judge from the two or three examples of strong and active old age which came within our notice: one, my own Persian master, Mollah Hassan; another in the Resident’s family, who has trimmed pipes for two-thirds of a century, and who was a young man with mustachios and a sprouting beard, when Nadir Shah was at Shiraz. Another is an old fellow of the name of Ayecal, which, from the keenness of his love of sporting, has been familiarized by the English into Jackall.

The better sort of women are scarcely ever seen, and when they are, their faces are so completely covered that no feature can be distinguished. The poorer women, indeed, are not so confined, for they go in troops to draw water for the place. I have seen the elder ones sitting and chatting at the well, and spinning the coarse cotton of the country, while the young girls filled the skin which contains the water, and which they all carry on their backs into the town. They do not wear shoes; their dress consists of a very ample shirt, a pair of loose trowsers, and the veil which goes over all. Their appearance is most doleful; though I have still noticed a pretty face through all the filth of their attire. The colour of their clothes is originally brown, but when they become too dirty to be worn under that hue, they are sent to the dyer, who is supposed to clean them by superinducing a dark-blue or black tint. In almost every situation they might be considered as the attendants on a burial; but in a real case of death there are professional mourners, who are hired to see proper respect paid to the deceased, by keeping up the cries of etiquette to his memory.

Among the superstitions in Persia, that which depends on the crowing of a cock, is not the least remarkable. If the cock crows at a proper hour, they esteem it a good omen; if at an improper season, they kill him. I am told that the favourable hours are at nine, both in the morning and in the evening, at noon and at midnight.

But the lion, in the popular belief of Persia, has a discernment much more important to the interests of mankind. A fellow told me with the gravest face, that a lion of their own country would never hurt a Sheyah, (the sect of the Mahomedan religion which follows Ali, and which is established in Persia,) but would always devour a Sunni, (who recognises before Ali the three first caliphs.) On meeting a lion, you have only therefore to say, “Ya Ali,” and the beast will walk by you with great respect; but should you either from zeal or the forgetfulness of terror, exclaim “Ya Omar! Oh Omar!” he will spring upon you instantly.

III. Animals of the Dashtistan. About twenty-five years ago, in the time of Sheik Nasr, who possessed both Bushire and the island of Bahrein, and who consequently was enabled to improve the native breed of Persia, by bringing over the Nedj stallion, the Dashtistan became celebrated for a horse of strength and bottom. But the original breed of Persia, that which is now restored, is a tall, lank, ill-formed, and generally vicious animal; useful indeed for hard work, but unpleasant to ride compared with the elegant action and docility of the Arab. There is another race of the Turcoman breed, (such as are seen at Smyrna, and through all Asia Minor), a short, thick, round-necked, and strong-leg’d horse, short quartered, and inclined behind. There is also a fine breed produced by the Turcoman mare and the Nedj stallion. At two different times, large lots of horses were offered to us for sale: the first, by the people of the Shiraz officer, who asked immense prices, and when refused, departed in apparent ill-humour, but generally returned and took the reduced sum which was offered. In this way also we purchased a lot of forty horses, principally of the Turcoman breed, which had been destined for the Indian market, and for which an average price of three hundred and twenty piastres for each horse had been asked at Bushire, but which at the end of the month were sold to us for two hundred and fifty. The distinct and characteristic value of the horses of the country, was exemplified in a present of two, which the Envoy received from the Sheik of Bushire. One was a beautiful Arab colt, of the sweetest temper I ever knew in a horse, frisking about like a lamb, and yet so docile, that though now for the first time mounted, he seemed to have been long used to the bit, a sure proof in the estimation of the country of the excellence of his breed. The other was a Persian colt of the most stubborn and vicious nature; to the astonishment and admiration however of the Persians, the Envoy’s Yorkshire groom by mere dint of whip and spur, subdued the creature and rendered him fit to ride: a triumph which established the groom’s reputation readily, among a people peculiarly alive to the superiority of their own horsemanship. A horse more than ordinarily vicious was tamed in a singular manner by the people of the country. He was turned out loose (muzzled indeed in his mouth, where his ferociousness was most formidable) to await in an enclosure the attack of two horses, whose mouths and legs at full liberty were immediately directed against him. The success was as singular as the experiment; and the violence of the discipline which he endured, subdued the nature of the beast, and rendered him the quietest of his kind. The horses are fastened in the stables by their fore legs, and pinioned by a rope from the hind leg to stakes at about six feet distant behind, so that although the animals are well inclined to quarrel, and are only four or five feet asunder, they can scarcely in this position succeed in hurting each other: frequently however they do get loose, and then most furious battles ensue. I have often admired the courage and dexterity with which the Persian Jelowdars or grooms throw themselves into the thickest engagement of angry horses; and, in defiance of the kicks and bites around them, contrive to separate them.

The Resident’s stud consists of about twenty horses, mules, and asses; eight of the horses belong to the East India Company, and are principally employed in carrying choppers or couriers to Shiraz. These are obliged however to be renewed very frequently, because one such journey generally destroys the animal that performs it; so difficult are the passes of the mountains, and so unmerciful are the riders.

They have in Persia a very large and ferocious dog, called the kofla dog, from his being the watchful and faithful companion of the kofla or caravan. Each muleteer has his dog, and so correct is the animal’s knowledge of the mules that belong to his master, that he will discover those that have strayed, and will bring them back to their associates; and on the other hand, when at night the whole caravan stops, and the mules are parcelled in square lots, the guardian dog will permit no strange mule to join the party under his charge, or to encroach upon their ground. His strength and his ferocity are equal to his intelligence and watchfulness.

We chased one day a large white fox. They prey about the open country round Bushire in great numbers, for the natives do not destroy them with all the zeal of Englishmen. The wild animals of the Dashtistan are the wolf, the hyæna, the fox, the porcupine, the mangousti, the antelope, the wild boar, the jerboa, and sometimes the wild goat. The mountains of the Dashtistan have also the lion, and he has been known to descend into the plain. On the 12th December, Captain Davis, of the Sapphire, shot two cormorants out of a flock that were squatted on a tree. Partridges also have been seen to settle in the same situation. The hawks, which are used in hunting, are the cherk, the balban, and the shahein.

We set off on the 29th of November, before sun-rise, to hunt with hawks. The freshness, or rather the coldness of the morning, was quite revivifying. We were accompanied by an old and keen sportsman, who had long been renowned in the plains of Bushire for his expertness in training a hawk, and his perseverance in hunting the hoobara or bustard. The old Reis, the name by which he was known, was one of the most picturesque figures on horseback that I ever saw. He was rather tall, with a neck very long, and a beard very grey. His body, either through age or the long use of a favourite position on horseback, inclined forwards till it made an angle of 45° with his thighs, which run nearly parallel to the horse’s back; and his beard projected so much from his lank neck, that it completed the amusement of the profile. On his right wrist, which was covered by large gloves, his hawk was perched. The bird is always kept hood-winked, till the game be near. On our way we were joined by Hassan Khan, the Governor of Dasti, who also carried a hawk, and who was attended by about fifteen men with spears, the kaleoons, or water pipes, &c. We proceeded to Halila, where we commenced our hunt. A hoobara started almost under the foot of my horse; as the bird flew, a hawk was unhooded that he might mark the direction, and was loosed only when it settled. But the sport was unsuccessful in two or three attempts; in fact, when the hawk has had one flight, and has missed his prey, he should be fed with the blood of a pigeon, and then hood-winked, and not permitted to fly again in that day’s sport. As soon as the hawk has taken his flight, the sportsmen remain quiet till they can see that their bird has seized his prey, when they ride up and disengage them.

The Jerboa. On the 1st Dec. we caught some jerboas; and I had an opportunity of delineating and observing with some nicety all their different properties. The description of this animal has been given so minutely by Sonnini, and, with the controversy on the subject, has occupied indeed so very long a chapter of one of his volumes, that it would be superfluous to go over again the same tedious ground. As there are, however, some little exceptions in the jerboa which I saw at Bushire, I shall endeavour to point them out. In the first place, that gradation from the bird to the quadruped, which Sonnini traced in the hopping motion of the jerboa, did not strike me with the same degree of conviction. When unpursued the animal certainly hops, though this admission does not imply that he cannot walk without hopping. But when he is escaping from any alarm, he may almost be said to lay himself flat on the surface of the ground from the immense tension of his hind legs, and literally to run ventre à terre. Yet as every observer will feel that there are shades by which the works of creation gradually resolve into each other, and which, by a slow operation, connect the zoophyte with the animated world, and the bird with the quadruped, the jerboa may still serve as one of the first and most perceptible gradations between two kingdoms of nature; but kangaroos, a larger and nobler specimen, would illustrate the connection as correctly.

On the specific description of the animal I agree with Sonnini’s account of the Egyptian jerboas, except that, in two which I examined, I could not find the spur or the small rudiment of a fourth toe on the heel of the hinder foot; on the existence of which depends essentially the resemblance which he has discovered between the jerboa and the alagtaga of Tartary. But as the jerboa of Hasselquist, of Bruce, and of Sonnini all seem to differ from each other, and from those which I examined, in some minute circumstance, it is reasonable to conclude, less that there is any incorrectness in the descriptions, than that there is an essential variety in the animals. The jerboas in the deserts before us at Bushire, do not live in troops, as those of Egypt, according to Sonnini; each has his hole to which he retires with the utmost precipitation; nor is it possible to take him by surprise in the day, as I learn from Sir Harford Jones, who has had ample opportunities of examining the history of the jerboas; and therefore the circumstance, which Bruce mentions, of his Arabs having knocked them down with sticks, extends probably to no general inference. Nor can I think that Sonnini is correct in supposing that the animal is fond of light. Those which I kept in a cage remained huddled together under some cotton during the day, but in the night made such a scratching, that I was obliged to send them out of the room. Besides, one of the most common methods of catching them is by the glare of a lanthorn, which seems to deprive them of the power of moving, and subjects them quietly to the hand of the man who bears the light. There is another and an easy way of catching them, by pouring water down one of the apertures of their retreat; they immediately jump out. We hunted several with spaniels, but, although surrounded on all sides, they escaped with the greatest facility: when very closely pressed, they have a most dextrous method of springing to an amazing height over the heads of their pursuers; and, making two or three somersets in the air, they come down again in all safety on their hinder legs, many yards from the spot of their ascent. In this leap they probably use their diminutive paws. Even a greyhound stands no chance with them; for as soon as he comes near, they take to the somersets, and the dog is completely thrown out. Their flesh is reckoned very fine, as the people here who eat them assure me. As the animal is very sensible of cold, and formed so delicately and apparently so little prepared to resist frosts and snows, I cannot think, though Sonnini seems to imply it, that it is found in very northern climates. Rats and hares indeed are found in the coldest as well as in the warmest parts of the world; but nature has provided them with a clothing more appropriate to the change.

CHAP. V.
BUSHIRE TO SHIRAZ.

DEPARTURE FROM BUSHIRE—ARRANGEMENTS OF THE CAMP—MEETING WITH MAHOMED NEBEE KHAN: ENTERTAINMENT—THE ISTAKBALL—DAULAKEE—MINERAL STREAMS—VEGETATION—PASSAGE OF THE COTUL—PLAIN OF KHISHT—THE GOVERNOR—CARAVANSERAI—THE MOUNTAIN ROBBERS—KAMAURIDGE—KAUZERON: HONORS PAID TO THE ENVOY—RUINS OF SHAPOUR: GENERAL VIEW; ACROPOLIS; SCULPTURES; ROMAN FIGURES; THEATRE; TRADITIONS—PASSES OF THE MOUNTAINS—FIRMAN FROM THE KING—APPROACH TO SHIRAZ—ISTAKBALLS—PRESENT FROM THE PRINCE.

The preparations for our departure, which had been suspended by different events, were now resumed with much alacrity. I felt that the cold, which we should soon encounter, might possibly kill my Indian servant, and I accordingly sent him back to Bombay. The Ferosh Bashee, or chief tent-pitcher, an officer of much utility in the progress of our journey, now brought with him to our camp a large number of adherents in subordinate capacities, who on their entrance requested the Envoy’s permission to say their prayers in the manner and time appointed by their religion. The next morning I was roused by a noise, which I at last discovered to be compounded of the trumpet of the troop blowing the reveille, and the voice of a Persian priest calling the faithful to prayers: lungs originally strong had been so disciplined and exercised for the purpose, that the voice was more potent than the trumpet.

Route of His Majesty’s Mission under Sir Harford Jones, Bar^t. Through PERSIA, in 1809.
By James Sutherland. Captain on the Bombay Establishment.
Published 20^th May 1911 by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

Our Mehmandar, Mahomed Zeky Khan, arrived on the 10th; we went out to meet him, attended by the body guard in their best array, and accompanied by a host of Persians. As the preparations for our journey were now completed, the 17th Dec. 1808 was fixed for our departure. On the 16th the Ternate, Lieut. Sealy, sailed for Bombay with the Envoy’s dispatches to the Indian government; and on the next day the Sapphire, which was appointed to convey the dispatches to England, proceeded to Kharrack to take in water for the voyage.

All our arrangements were closed; and on the same morning, at a quarter past eleven o’clock, the Envoy mounted his horse to proceed from Bushire. In order to excite in the people a favourable expectation of the result of the mission, he had previously desired the astrologers to mention the time which they might deem lucky for his departure; and the hour accordingly in which we begun our journey was pronounced, by their authority, to be particularly fortunate. Sir Harford Jones’s suite consisted of Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Bruce, Captain Sutherland, Cornet Willock, Dr. Jukes, and myself. He had two Swiss servants and an English groom, an English and a Portuguese tailor, about half a dozen Indians, and a very numerous assortment of Persians.

The Sapphire saluted us as we set out; shortly after we met the Mehmandar and his cortège, and after some little exchange of civilities we all went on together. The order of the cavalcade was as follows:—The led horses, ten in number, each conducted by a well-clad jelowdar or groom; then the chief of the jelowdars with his staff of office; then the arz-beg or lord of requests; after him were six chatters or running footmen, who immediately preceded the Envoy. The Envoy himself was mounted on a choice Arab horse; at his right stirrup walked a picked tall chatter, the chief of his class. Then followed the gentlemen of the mission, amongst whom were disposed some moonshees. To the right and left were the pipe-trimmers, who carried all the smoking apparatus in boxes fashioned for the purpose.[25] Behind the gentlemen and the moonshees came a great crowd of Persians on horseback; and, to close the whole, the body guard came along in goodly rows, and made an admirable finish to the groupe.

The baggage all loaded on mules preceded us regularly on our march, so that when we arrived at the end of our stage we always found our tents pitched.

The arrangements of our camp were as follows:—There were two state tents, one for dinner, the other for receiving company. The latter, with the Envoy’s private tent, were enclosed within walls. Around these were the tents of the gentlemen of the mission, each person having his own. There was also one appropriated to cooking, and many others of a smaller size for the servants, and the guard of cavalry.

After our dinner was over, which was generally an hour or two after sun-set, the dinner tent was taken down, loaded on the mules, and sent onwards to the next stage in readiness to receive us. About day-break in the morning, the camp begun to break up; and before our breakfast was over, for which one tent was left, all the rest of the ground was cleared, and the baggage was far on its road to the next stage. The Persians are so accustomed to this manner of life, that they pitch and unpitch a camp with the most perfect dexterity and order. Much of course depends upon the chief of the Feroshes or tent-pitchers, called the Ferosh-Bashee, who must necessarily be very active. The man who filled this department in our mission was very clever, but probably a great rogue, of which at least he displayed a presumptive proof, as he had lost an ear, the forfeit of some former misdemeanour. The office of Charwardar or Chief Muleteer, is another also that requires much activity and watchfulness, to superintend properly the loading and unloading of the mules with order and dispatch.

Persian Smoaking.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

We marched for about four miles in a direct bearing with Halila Peak, (which bore S. 70. E. from Mr. Bruce’s house,) and then came to the swamps, which terminate the extremity of the inlet of the sea, from the port of Bushire. Having paced over those swamps for about two miles more, we took a more easterly direction, and then marched due E. to Alichangee, the village at which we encamped. The distance is called five fursungs, but probably is not more than fourteen miles. The soil over which we passed was sandy, and here and there strata of rock. The weather was hazy, and gave the country a broken and unconnected appearance.

As we approached our encampment, we were treated with a scene of Persian splendour and etiquette, in the meeting of the Envoy with his old friend and tutor, Mahomed Nebee Khan, the Governor of Bushire. He had been informed that the Envoy intended passing the following day with him, and accordingly prepared for his reception.

About a mile from our encampment we met him; a very large portion of the military of Bushire had already greeted his arrival. His approach was first announced by a salute from all the matchlock guns of his guards, who were posted in our way to frighten our horses. The Khan then appeared himself, surrounded by an immense host, who, clearing away as soon as they came near our party, gave the two great men free access to one another. They exchanged embraces, and once again mounted their horses. We all returned together, and formed a party so thickly cemented, that the dust of the desert was raised in masses, which quite obscured the air.

Mahomed Nebee Khan and our Mehmandar escorted the Envoy to his own tent, and after a short visit, departed amid the same crowd and noise.

On Sunday the 18th, when I had performed divine service in the Envoy’s tent, we paid a visit of ceremony to Mahomed Nebee Khan. According to the fashion of the country, we proceeded on horseback, although his tent was within a stone’s throw. We were met by one of his officers, and an escort of ten men, who made their obeisance to the Envoy, and preceded his horse, until we arrived at the door, where the Khan himself was waiting. He received us most graciously, and after we had pulled off our boots and shoes, and Sir Harford and the Khan had gone through some little polite difficulties about their seats, we finally settled ourselves on chairs prepared for us. The Khan’s tent was very neat, and appeared to us a most desirable residence. It had a large exterior covering, and close to the extremity a wall all round; and in the interior, there was a clean little recess closely covered with carpets, and lined with the finest chintz, the borders of which were adorned with a broad fringe. Our host was a man of great notoriety both in Persia and in India; his manners were greatly in his favour, and he was dressed more like a noble than any other man whom I had yet seen in the country. His beard presented no plebeian roughness, and the dagger in his girdle glittered with precious stones. When the usual compliments had been severally paid, that silence of solemnity, which generally marks the visits of form, succeeded, till the kaleoons, or water pipes, were introduced to our relief. The coffees and sherbets followed, and the whole entertainment concluded with a course of sweetmeats, which was brought upon separate trays, each serving two guests. The only unsatisfactory part of the visit was the intended politeness of two lusty attendants, who broke some of the sweetmeats in their suspicious hands, blew the dust off the fragments with their more suspicious mouths, and then laid them before us. After a washing of hands, (in which we felt the full want of towels), and a parting kaleoon, we took our leave, and left the Envoy to a private conference with the Khan.

The trays, from which we eat, had the appearance of silver, though I understood afterwards that they were plated only. They were neatly carved in flowers and other ornaments. The articles which they contained were made of almonds, pistachio nuts, and a paste of sugar; others were like our alicampane and barley sugar, and all were very nice. The Persians are almost indescribably fond of sweetmeats, which they eat in very great quantities. The abundance indeed of fruits and sherbets presented daily to the Envoy by the Mehmandar, proved the immense supply which the taste of the country demanded. The presents were arranged prettily in trays and boxes, and carried in great form on the heads of servants, but they were less acceptable, because for each the conductor required a present in money. By such means the great men in Persia pay their servants, who in general receive no other wages. The person, therefore, to whom such an office as that of Mehmandar is entrusted, is, of course, surrounded by hordes of adherents, who are allured by receipts so certain and valuable.

The new Governor had consulted the astrologers of Bushire to determine the most propitious time for his entrance into the town, which, by their predictions, was at three hours before sun-set on the 19th. In conformity therefore to the decision, he was now delaying his advance till the happier period should arrive. When, on a former occasion, he was departing from Bushire to embark on board the ship, which was to carry him on his mission to Calcutta, he was ordered by these astrologers (as the only means of counteracting the influence of a certain evil star) to go out of his house in a particular aspect: as unfortunately there happened to be no door in that direction, he caused a hole to be made in the wall, and thus made his exit.

In the evening we dined with Mahomed Nebee Khan. We did not go till the Khan had sent to the Envoy to say, that the entertainment was ready for his reception, a custom always observed on such occasions.[26] When we arrived at his tent, the same ceremonies passed as in the morning, except that we sat upon the ground, where the inflexibility of our knees rendered the position more difficult than can be described. The Khan, who seemed to commiserate the tightness of our pantaloons, begged that we would extend our legs at their full length: fearing, however, to be rude, we chose to be uncomfortable, and to imitate their fashion as faithfully as possible; and really, with respect to my own feelings, I thought complaisance was never carried further. The guests besides ourselves, were our Mehmandar and the Persian Secretary. I preserved part of the conversation: in talking of the admirable skill with which the guns of the Nereide were fired in the re-capture of the Sylph, the Mehmandar said to the Secretary, “you ought to have kissed the lips of those guns, whose execution was so effectual; and walked around and around them, and in gratitude for your deliverance, to have put up prayers to Heaven for their preservation and prosperity.”

After having sat some time kaleoons were brought in, then coffee, then kaleoons, then sweet coffee (the composition already noticed of sugar and rose-water); and then kaleoons again. All this was rapidly performed, when the Khan called for dinner. On the ground before us was spread the sofra, a fine chintz cloth, which perfectly entrenched our legs, and which is used so long unchanged, that the accumulated fragments of former meals collect into a musty paste, and emit no very savory smell; but the Persians are content, for they say that changing the sofra brings ill luck. A tray was then placed before each guest; on these trays were three fine china bowls, which were filled with sherbets; two made of sweet liquors, and one of a most exquisite species of lemonade. There were besides, fruits ready cut, plates with elegant little arrangements of sweetmeats and confectionary, and smaller cups of sweet sherbet; the whole of which were placed most symetrically, and were quite inviting, even by their appearance. In the vases of sherbet were spoons made of the pear tree, with very deep bowls, and worked so delicately, that the long handle just slightly bent when it was carried to the mouth. The pillaus succeeded, three of which were placed before each two guests; one of plain rice called the chillo, one made of mutton with raisins and almonds, the other of a fowl, with rich spices and plumbs. To this were added various dishes with rich sauces, and over each a small tincture of sweet sauce. Their cooking, indeed, is mostly composed of sweets. The business of eating was a pleasure to the Persians, but it was misery to us. They comfortably advanced their chins close to the dishes, and commodiously scooped the rice or other victuals into their mouths, with three fingers and the thumb of their right hand; but in vain did we attempt to approach the dish: our tight-kneed breeches, and all the ligaments and buttons of our dress, forbade us; and we were forced to manage as well as we could, fragments of meat and rice falling through our fingers all around us. When we were all satisfied, dinner was carried away with the same state in which it was brought: the servant who officiated, dropping himself gracefully on one knee, as he carried away the trays, and passing them expertly over his head with both his hands, extended to the lacquey, who was ready behind to carry them off. We were treated with more kaleoons after dinner, and then departed to our beds.

On the morning of the 19th, the camp broke up at sun-rise. We took a hasty breakfast in the Envoy’s tent, but a visit from Mahomed Nebee Khan (which was preceded by a present of two horses and his own sword) kept us on the ground till nine o’clock. The Khan, with all his attendants, accompanied us about two miles. He was preparing to enter Bushire, his new government, with all splendour. From the town to the swamps were erected stages on which bullocks were to be sacrificed, and from which their heads were to be thrown under his horse’s feet, as he advanced; a ceremony indeed appropriated to Princes alone, and to them, only on particular occasions. Yet, however anxious originally for his station, and however splendid in his present appearances, he felt the full dangers of his pre-eminence, and betrayed an absence and uneasiness in his words and actions, which to us evinced all his apprehensions. He was so conscious indeed of the difficulties of his situation, that he had transmitted to the King a present of two thousand tomauns, with a memorial, beseeching to be excused from his government.

We marched at first north-westerly, till we came to the bed of a river, or rather of a mountain-torrent, in which the actual stream of water when we passed, was not above ten feet in breadth, though the channel itself was perhaps thirty yards. It falls into the sea in a due E. and W. direction.

At two o’clock we came to Ahmadiéh: at half past two we passed a small fort called Khosh Aub, where a large body of people were waiting our passage.[27] They were all armed with pikes, matchlocks, swords and shields; and gave us two vollies as a salute. They then advanced to us, and being announced by the Arz-beg, wished us a prosperous journey. They were answered by the usual civility, “khosh amedeed, you are welcome.” As we proceeded, our party was headed by the soldiery. They were commanded by a man on horseback, all in tatters, who with his whip kept them together, and excited them with his voice where he wanted them to run. Two of the chosen of the village performed feats before us on their lean horses, and helped to increase the excessive dust, which involved us. This party kept pace with us, until we were again met by a similar host, the van of the little army who were waiting our reception at Borazjoon: these also fired their muskets.

From Khosh Aub to Borazjoon the ground appeared cultivated; and as we were approaching the latter village, we saw some of the peasants, who, after having finished their toil in the fields were walking home with their ploughs over their shoulders. I think we may fairly reckon at twenty-five miles the distance from Alichangee to Borazjoon: the Persians call it nine fursungs. The avenues to Borazjoon are through plantations of date and tamarisk trees: the village is a collection of huts, which surround a fort; and the fort, like the rest of those which I had seen, was a square, with turrets at each corner, which were cut into small chequers at the top. There are the ruins of many small forts all over the Dashtistan, which were built by some unsuccessful rebel, and which were left to decay as soon as he was quelled. I understand that the population of this district has been decreasing ever since the happy days of Sheik Nasr. Almost the whole of its geography present places which have names, but no inhabitants; or if there are any, they are the refuse only of former more flourishing families.

In our road to-day, we saw immense flights of the toowee, or desert partridge, and some ravens. The Mehmandar and the oldest of our moonshees amused themselves in scouring the plains, and playing at the dangerous game of the girid, in which the old scribe got a severe blow. The Persians ride with great courage, for they drive their horses at their greatest speed over any ground. They of course get frequent falls, by which they are seldom much injured; for though they generally alight on their heads, they are there saved by their immense sheep-skin caps.[28]

It was a quarter past eight before we mounted our horses on the morning of the 21st, and ten minutes past twelve when we arrived at Daulakee, a distance called four fursungs, and which may be computed at about twelve road miles. The site of Daulakee is marked by a break in the mountains, where the road which leads among them commences. It bore N. 30 E. when we mounted. Our road was much broken by the beds of numerous torrents, which, after the rain and melted snows, fall from the adjacent mountains. We here and there met with small encampments of the Elauts. They appear like the Turcomans, whom I have so frequently seen at Smyrna, and through the whole of Asia Minor. At the distance of two miles we were met by the Istakball, who fired their salute, and frightened the horses as before. This ceremony was repeated every day, so that a repetition of the description will not be always necessary. They were all arranged on a rising ground, at the foot of which ran a stream of mineral water, of a most sulphureous smell. Further on we crossed other streams of the same quality; the heat of one of which, as it gushed from under the rocks, was almost scalding. We brought home specimens of the incrustation which the spray of the bubbles left on the surrounding rocks. The bed of the stream was mostly of the colour of sulphur, although there were patches here and there of a copper hue. Still a little further on, on the left of the road, are two springs of naptha. The oil swims on the surface of the water, and the peasantry take it off with a branch of date tree, and collect it into small holes around the spring ready for their immediate use. They daub the camels all over with it in the spring, which preserves their coats, and prevents a disease in the skin, which is common to them.

The huts in the village of Daulakee, as we rode through it, appeared mostly to be covered on the tops with the entwined leaves of their date trees, while the better houses are built of mud, and terraced. The mosque was the most creditable building that met our eye in the whole place: its interior seemed neatly arranged in arches, and preserved clean with a white stucco. There was a little bath at the extremity of the town. The customary fort (for such are found in most of these villages) was situated in the middle of the huts, at the top of which many an eager Persian was perched. This place, and indeed all we had seen, presented a picture of poverty stronger than words can express. There was nothing but what mere existence required; nor to our very cursory observation did the most trifling superfluity shew itself.

The river that runs by Daulakee meanders through the plain which we had passed. All the mineral streams, which crossed our road, fall into it, and renders its waters salt and brackish. The soil itself indeed, at the roots of the mountains, is, in some places, saturated with a nitrous acid, of which, in the neighbourhood of Daulakee, the people make a pleasant beverage. In one of the recesses of the mountains, however, there is a stream of pure and delicious water. In the evening I walked to the spring, which is embosomed in date trees: it is beautifully clear, and rather tepid. Its short course down into the plain is marked by a wood, which more immediately flourishes under its influence, and follows its progress. In the lower country there is an extensive tract covered with date trees, and forming a mass of verdure on which the eye delights to rest after the constant glare of an arid desert. It is extraordinary how vegetation thrives in this country, wherever there is the least water. It is, indeed, a general rule, that wherever they can irrigate they can produce vegetation; and indeed with no other moisture than the dews, and the few occasional showers of the winter, the plain of Bushire (which all observers have agreed to call a barren land) produces one hundred for seven. The rude manner of cultivation here is sufficient to display the intrinsic goodness of the soil; for they just sprinkle with seed the spot marked out for the plough, then make the superficial furrows, and obtain most abundant crops.

We mounted this morning at eight o’clock, and arrived at our encampment at ten minutes before one. It is called four fursungs, but we compute it at sixteen miles. We soon entered the mountains, and followed the road through them to the Eastward. We came to the river (which in its lower course passes near Daulakee) at half past nine o’clock: we crossed it a second time about a quarter of an hour after, and at ten o’clock passed it for the third and last time, at a ruined bridge, of a structure which had once been neat. After hard rains its bed is very extensive, and its current most rapid: so that it entirely impedes the passage of travellers and caravans. At the fords where we crossed, it was a very fine stream up to the bellies of our horses. After that, we paced its banks, for the distance perhaps of half a mile, in a S. E. direction. We saw it for the last time winding on a southern course, when we had ascended an elevated peak of the Cotul range. We gained this summit at half past eleven; the road then continued through the mountains till twelve o’clock, when we came on the plain of Khisht. At ten minutes before one we reached our encampment. The extreme capriciousness of the windings of the road, rendered it almost an impossible task to ascertain the ultimate and exact direction of our bearing from Daulakee to Khisht. However it was evident, that we had made a great deal of Easting, with a little Northing. The mountains rose around in most fantastical forms, their strata having their highest elevation towards the South, forming a dip of perhaps forty-five degrees. The soil is mostly of a soft crumbling stone, large fragments of which seemed just balancing at the brink of the precipice above, and appearing to require only a touch to impel them into the great chasms below. The passage of the river by our numerous party, and the winding of the horsemen and loaded mules in the mountain-passes, animated the whole of the dreary scenery around into the most romantic pictures. The only verdure which cheered the sameness of the glaring yellow of the mountain, was that of a few wild almond trees.

Before we ascended to the plains of Khisht, a long string of matchlock men and horsemen (the Istakball) who came out to meet the Envoy, appeared on the brink of the precipice above us. As we ascended they fired a volley, the sound of which returned in repeated echoes through the mountains; and when we came into the midst of them, the horsemen begun their gambols; moving around us in all directions, stopping their horses, couching their long lances, throwing them, and then again galloping forwards. The footmen with their matchlocks made a charge into the plain, shouting as they advanced, as a representation perhaps of the ardour of their attack in real combat. When we approached our encampment, we were met by the Governor of Khisht himself, Zaul Khan, a man of remarkable appearance, without eyes, and with the fragment of a tongue, the rest of which he had forfeited during the troubles of Persia. He came riding on a mule conducted by a young Persian. But the most extraordinary part of his history is, that, notwithstanding his tongue is cut, he still talks intelligibly. Before, indeed, this operation was performed, he had such an impediment in his speech, that he was scarcely able to make himself understood; but the mutilation was fortunate, and his articulation has been improved. This the Envoy, who had known him before the punishment, avers.

The plain of Khisht seems to form a complete oval, and presented stronger marks of cultivation than any part of the Dashtistan which we had seen. The Konar bushes were thickly sprinkled by the roadside, and apparently all over the plain, besides plantations of date trees. At Konar-a-Tackta (a village four miles and a half from Khisht, and the place where we encamped,) there is a Caravanserai, which has lately been erected by one of the wives of Zaul Khan, and is really a neat and commodious building. An arched gateway introduces the traveller into a square yard, around which are rooms, and behind which are stables. There is also a small suite of rooms over the gateway. In the centre of the court is an elevated platform, the roof of a subterraneous chamber called a zeera zemeon, whither travellers retire during the great heats of the summer, and which in those heats is a very refreshing habitation. Behind the building is a tank or reservoir for rain-water, which has newly been added, and is not indeed yet finished. The whole forms an establishment most acceptable to travellers, and worthy of the Persian governments of a better age.

On the 23d we rose before the sun, and though in a region so much more elevated than the one in which we were on the preceding day, the temperature of the atmosphere seemed the same. The sky was clouded all over, and some predicted rain. One of our moonshees, who was considered an astrologer, told me that, according to his observations, “it would rain, if God pleased.” However, the day passed without rain, and the opinion of the astrologer was, at any rate, equally indisputable.

The trumpet, the signal for departure, sounded at twenty minutes before eight, and we went off with the usual clatter and parade. The course of the road bore N. E.: but when we had rode for about four miles its direction was nearly due East. In an hour after our departure we came to the banks of a river, which is the same that, flowing by Zeira, falls into the Daulakee river at Deerooga, and which, according to my information, takes its rise in the mountains near Shapour. Immediately on coming on its banks we began to wind through the difficult passes of the mountains, which in various parts are very dangerous. The Arab horses, who had been accustomed to the equal surface of their own sandy plains, trode the rocky sides of the mountains with fearful and uncertain steps, and one or two of the most valuable of the Envoy’s stud suffered by severe falls: the Persian horses, on the contrary, scramble over the threatening eminences, and confidently walk by the sides of the precipices with an indifference, which gives an equal consciousness of security to their riders. Our Mehmandar, by way of bravado, urged his horse over a rocky heap, which appeared almost as the feat of a madman.

There were some particular points of view in our progress, that were picturesque and grand in the extreme. The path wound so fantastically along the side of the mountain, that those who were yet at the bottom saw the whole surface intersected by the ranges of our procession; and the travellers at the upper point appeared so diminutive, that man and brute could scarcely be distinguished from each other. Just before we reached the very highest top of the mountain we came to a station of Rhadars, and to the dwelling of a derveish, which was formed in the crevice of a rock. In parts of our route we saw the Rodo-dendron, one of the strongest symptoms of the change of our climate. We reached our encampment at twenty minutes past eleven, and we found it pitched near a Caravanserai. The village of Khaumauridge is situated on a small plain, and is distant about a mile N. 20 W. from the Caravanserai. On an eminence over us was a small tower, where a rebel stood a long siege.

The mountains through which we passed were infested by a race of robbers called the Memméh Sunni. They live in the deepest recesses of their wild valleys, and commit their depredations on the unguarded travellers with an impunity quite characteristic of the state of the country. Although some attempts have occasionally been made to terrify them into submission, by inflicting the severest tortures on the few individuals who have chanced to be caught, yet the example has been lost on the living, and the love of independence and plunder has outweighed the terrors of barbarous punishment and ignominious death. The abrupt formation of their mountain haunts (labyrinths to those who have not long practised them,) favours this community so materially, that instances have been known of their having snatched from the very centre of a caravan, some traveller who promised less resistance than his companions, or some well loaded mule, that seemed to announce more booty than others. When Brigadier-General Malcolm went through their mountains on a former mission, the robbers bore off some of his mules which carried part of the rich presents destined for the King of Persia. So firmly are they now established in their fastnesses, that the neighbouring Khans and Governors of districts have chosen, since the evil itself was inevitable, to take a part in its advantages, and, it is said, maintain their own agents amongst the Memméh Sunni, with whom they have stipulated agreements about the fruits of their plunder. They happened to be less predatory at the time of our passage, and we proceeded through the mountains without the least molestation.

The Caravanserai close to our encampment was a solid, though rather ancient structure, and the walls, scribbled over with names or couplets, attested the passage of frequent travellers. We saw a cock blackbird, and Sir Harford fired three times on a thrush, which, notwithstanding, kept its ground, until it was taken up in the hand, and indeed permitted itself to be taken up frequently without offering to fly away.

A road is making at the sole expence of Hajee Mahomed Hassan, a merchant and inhabitant of Bushire, which will cut through the mountains from Kauzeroon to Khaumauridge, and shorten the distance two fursungs. Its direction bore E. from us at Khaumauridge.

On the 24th our march commenced at eight, and we arrived at Kauzeroon at half past two. We were about one hour pacing the plain of Khaumauridge, and, allowing one mile for the other extremity, (which we had passed on the preceding day) we may fairly calculate its whole length at five miles. Its opening towards Kauzeroon is through a pass called the Tengui Turkoun, between two high branches of the mountains. There is besides a road to the left, which leads over the mountain, and which the Envoy and some of the party took, because the pass is very famous for the attacks of the robbers. The road was, however, guarded at different stations by matchlock men, who had been placed there by the direction of the Prince, which was one of the numerous instances of his great attention to the mission.

Having descended once again, we came into the plains of Kauzeroon. From the eminence we perceived the river, which we had passed near Khisht, winding in a N. and S. direction behind the western hills. The city of Shapour we just discovered at the foot of a mountain, then bearing N. 50 E. Hills of very subordinate elevation run out from the great range of mountains, and leave here and there little plains which are all comprehended under the name of the plain of Kauzeroon.

We were met at Derees by a great crowd, who gambolled and saluted as usual. As we passed between the huts, the women of the village were collected on the roofs, and greeted our approach by a loud and tremendous species of song, which yet at a distance was not disagreeable. Money was thrown amongst the crowd, which added much to the confusion of the scene, and excited a most active and querulous scramble.

About two miles from Kauzeroon we were met by Mahomed Kouli Khan, the Governor of that place, who was attended by a numerous company of horsemen. Mr. Bruce, Dr. Jukes, and myself dismounted to pay him the usual compliment, and he then turned back with us to his own town. About a mile further, almost the whole male population was collected to meet us. A bottle, which contained sugar-candy, was broken under the feet of the Envoy’s horse, a ceremony never practised in Persia to any but to royal personages; and then about thirty wrestlers, in party-coloured breeches, (their only covering) and armed with a pair of clubs called meals, begun each to make the most curious noise, move in the most extravagant postures, and display their professional exploits all the way before our horses, until we reached our encampment. It would be difficult to describe a crowd so wild and confused. The extreme jolting, running, pushing, and scrambling almost bewildered me: while the dust, which seemed to powder the beards of the Persians, nearly suffocated us all. Probably ten thousand persons of all descriptions were assembled. Officers were dispersed among them, and with whips and sticks drove the crowd backwards or forwards, as the occasion required. Nothing could exceed the tumult and cries. Here men were tumbling one over the other in the inequalities of the ground; there horses were galloping in every direction, while their riders were performing feats with their long spears; behind was an impenetrable crowd; before us were the wrestlers dancing about to the sound of three copper drums, and twirling round their clubs. On every side was noise and confusion. This ceremony is never practised but to princes of the blood, and we considered, therefore, the honours of this day as a further proof of the reviving influence of the English name.

On Christmas day Sir Harford Jones and I visited the ruins of Shapour. We reckoned the distance at fifteen miles, in nearly a north direction from Kauzeroon. About seven miles from our encampment, we passed again through the village of Derees, which, from the extent of the ruined houses, must once have been a large town. Every house is covered with an arched roof, a mode of building which probably originated in the scarcity of timber. It is indeed common in all the places which we have seen; and the doors and porticoes are universally formed by a Saracenic arch. A miserable population, thinly interspersed among the ruins of Derees, came out to greet our passage. On the northern extremity of the town there is a place of burial, and over one of the tomb-stones there was the figure of a lion.

After having passed two tombs, one on the right side and one on the left of the road, we came to the bed of a torrent, over which there seems to have been built an aqueduct; for, on either side of its banks, are the remains of masonry, and the trace of its conduit is perceived on the southern bank. The extent of the ruins of Shapour to the southward is marked by a beautiful stream of water. Over the spring, from which it issues, the road is built, sustained by fragments of architecture, which are a part of the entablature of some public building, and by their dimensions must have appertained to a very considerable edifice.

Immediately after having passed this spring we came upon the ruins of Shapour.[29] When standing on an eminence we computed the whole to be comprised, on a rough calculation, within a circumference of six miles. This circumference enclosed a tract of plain, and a hill on which the remains of the ancient citadel formed a conspicuous and commanding object. Whether by a mere caprice of nature, or whether by the labour of man, this hill or Acropolis is distinctly separated from the great range of mountains, forming the Eastern boundary of the plain of Kauzeroon. Between this and another imposing mass of rock runs the beautiful river of Shapour: we reckoned the space between the two rocks at thirty yards, which formed a little plain of verdure and shrubbery, intersected indeed by the stream of the river.[30] The opening betwixt the two grand masses presented a landscape the most varied, the most tranquil, the most picturesque, and, at the same time, the most sublime that imagination can form. A black and stupendous rock (the strata of which were thrown into strong and wild positions, and formed an acute angle with the horizon) flanked the right of the picture: whilst another still more extraordinary rock, as richly illumined as the other was darkened, supported the left. Between both a distant range of mountains, whose roots were terminated by a plain, filled up the interstice, forming a fine aerial perspective; whilst the river and its rich shrubbery completed a most enlivening fore-ground. The hill, on which the remains of the citadel stand, is covered with the ruins of walls and turrets. On its eastern aspect, the nature of the fortification can be traced easily; for walls fill the chasms from rock to rock, forming altogether a place of defence admirably strong.

Shapour.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

The first object which arrested our attention, was a mutilated sculpture of two colossal figures on horseback, carved on the superfices of the rock. The figure on the right was the most injured; the only part indeed, which we could ascertain with precision, was one of the front and two of the hinder feet of a horse, standing over the statue of a man, who was extended at his full length, his face turning outwardly, and reposed upon his right hand, and his attire bearing marks of a Roman costume. A figure in the same dress was placed in an attitude of supplication at the horse’s knees, and a head in alto-relievo just appeared between the hinder feet. The equestrian figure on the left was not quite so much mutilated, the horse and parts of the drapery on the thighs being still well preserved. The dimensions of the figures are as follows: length of the foot of the figure under the horse, fifteen inches; length of the whole figure sixteen feet one inch; length of the arm five feet; chin to the summit of the head one foot two inches; length of the horse’s leg from the lower part of the shoulder to the hoof four feet four; the dress of the figures was a short petticoat, from the waist downwards just below the knees.

The next piece of sculpture (which, like the former, was carved upon the mountain of the citadel), is perfect in all its parts. It consists of three grand compartments, the central and most interesting represents a figure on horseback, whose dress announces a royal personage. His head-dress is a crown, on which is placed a globe; his hair flows in very large and massy curls over both shoulders, whilst a slight mustachio just covers his upper lip, and gives much expression to a countenance strongly indicative of pride and majesty. His body is clothed with a robe which falls in many folds to his girdle, and then extends itself over his thigh and legs as low as his ancle. A quiver hangs by his side; in his right hand he holds the hand of a figure behind him, which stands so as to cover the whole hind quarter of his horse, and which is dressed in the Roman tunic and helmet. A figure, habited also in the Roman costume, is on its knees before the head of the horse, with its hands extended, and with a face betraying entreaty. Under the feet of the horse is another figure extended, in the same attire and character as that of the other two Roman figures. To the right of the tablet stands a figure (behind that in a suppliant attitude) with his hands also extended, but dressed in a different manner, and, as far as we could judge, with features more Egyptian than European. In the angle between the king’s head and the horse’s is a Victory displaying the scroll of Fame. A figure (part of which is concealed by the one on its knees) completes the whole of this division. (Plate X.) The second grand compartment, which is on the right, is divided again into six sub-compartments; in each of these are carved three figures, the costumes and general physiognomies of which are all different. They appear mostly in postures of supplication; and, I should suspect, are representations of vanquished people. On the left, in the third grand compartment, are two rows of horsemen divided by one line into two smaller compartments. They all have the same characteristic dress and features as the royal figure in the centre, and certainly represent his forces. The whole of this most interesting monument is sculptured on a very hard rock, which bears the finest polish, and which we pronounced to be a coarse species of jasper. The shortness of our stay did not afford me an opportunity of delineating the detail of the many figures, which have been so faithfully pourtrayed. The artist has preserved so much distinction in the countenances and features of the different characters brought together in this groupe, that, if their respective countries could be ascertained, (and study and close investigation would probably secure the discovery) some important point of ancient history would be elucidated by an evidence as ingenious as it would be convincing. The dimensions we took are as follows: figures on foot, height five feet nine inches; figures on horseback from the rider’s cap to the horse’s hoofs six feet five inches: the minor tablets are four feet ten inches in length; the grand tablet eleven feet eleven inches.

Rock at Shapour.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

Having examined these, we next crossed the river to the sculptures on the opposite rock. The first is a long tablet, containing a multitude of figures. The principal person, (who is certainly the King represented in the former tablet) is placed in the very centre of the piece, alone in a small compartment, and is seated with a sword placed betwixt his legs, on the pummel of which rests his left hand. It is a most ridiculous object, with a head swelled by a singular wig to an immense circumference. On his right, on the uppermost of two long slips, are many men who seem to be a mixture of Persians and Romans; the former are conducting the latter as prisoners. Under these in the lower slip are others, who by their wigs appear to be Persians: their leader bears a human head in both hands, and extends it towards the central figure. On the left are four small compartments; the first (nearest that figure, and the highest from the ground) incloses a crowd of men whose arms are placed over one another’s shoulders. Below these are five figures, one of whom leads a horse without any more furniture than a bridle. The two other compartments are filled up with eight figures each. We considered this to represent, in general, a king seated in his room of audience surrounded by his own people, and by nations tributary to him. The length is eleven yards four inches.

On the left of this were two colossal figures on horseback, carved in an alto relievo. The one to the right had all the dress, character and features of the King above described; the other, on the left, appeared also a royal personage, but differing in dress, and in the furniture of his horse. Both had their hands extended, and held a ring, which we conceived to be emblematical of peace. The Envoy, who had seen both these remains and Nakshi Rustam, prepared me to expect a similar sculpture at the latter: and as I had not leisure to detail all the subjects of Shapour, I preferred to delineate those, of which no other specimen might exist, and therefore proceeded in our general examination. I must not however omit to say, that the sculpture of these two figures was exquisite; the proportions and anatomy of both horses and men were accurately preserved, so that the very veins and arteries in the horses’ legs and belly were most delicately delineated.

Walking forwards we came to a very extensive piece of sculpture, the lower parts of which were entirely destroyed. We saw, however, on the right, a row of camels’ and men’s heads intermixed; and under them a row of horses’ and men’s heads, which were demolished from the horse’s eye downwards. In front of these, at the distance of about four feet, was part of a figure on a horse, the King as before, holding a bow and four arrows in his right hand. We supposed that this might be the commencement of a hunting piece. [Plate XI.]

Our research terminated in a most perfect sculpture: the extreme interest of which only increased our regret, that the shortness of our time would not allow us to give it all the observation and study which it required. This piece contained a greater number of objects than any of the others, and a much greater diversity of characters. The surface of the rock is here divided into a variety of unequal compartments, all of which are occupied by a multitude of figures. In the middle, is a rather reduced copy of the second relievo which I have described (that of the King and the suppliant) except that, facing the King there is an additional personage with a hand extended holding a ring. In the first row, at the top on the right, are a number of slight figures with their arms folded. The second is filled with a crowd, of which some carry baskets. The third is equally covered; and in the right corner there is a man conducting a lion by a chain. In the fourth, and just opposite to the King, is a very remarkable groupe, whose loose and folded dresses denote Indians: one leads a horse, whose furniture I have drawn with some care, and behind the horse is an elephant. Under this, and close to the ground, are men in a Roman costume; amongst them is a chariot to which two horses are harnessed; this also I have exactly delineated.[31] In five compartments on the left (corresponding with those on the right) are placed thick squadrons of Persian cavalry, all in a regular and military order, marshalled as it were in echelon. Fourteen yards was the length of the whole sculpture from point to point.

Fragments at Shapour.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

Sculpture at Shapour.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

Sculpture at Shapour.
Drawn by James Morier Esq^r.
Published by Mess^rs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.

The path that conducted us round to these beautiful monuments, is the course of an aqueduct, which appeared to be of more modern workmanship. Bordering on the road which winds behind the hill of the citadel, are numerous canals of water, formed most artificially and closely cemented with darna. Besides these, there are very deep wells, in parts of which the channels of the aqueduct are seen to pass. After having repassed the river, we walked over the numerous mounds of stones and earth which cover the ruined buildings of Shapour, and which, if ever explored, would discover innumerable secrets of antiquity. We were conducted by the peasants who were with us, to the remains of a very fine wall, which in the symmetry of its masonry equalled any Grecian work that I have ever seen. Each stone was four feet long, twenty-seven inches thick, and cut to the finest angles. This wall formed the front to a square building, the area of which is fifty-five feet. At the top were placed sphinxes couchant, a circumstance which we ascertained from discovering accidentally two eyes and a mutilated foot at the extremity of one of the upper stones. In this wall there is a window, which is arched by the formation of its upper stone. Behind this square building, we traced most correctly the configuration of a theatre, thirty paces in length, and fourteen in breadth. The place resembled at least those called theatres which I have seen in Greece. From a comparison of their positions, we were led to suppose that the building still extant must have been connected with the other behind it, and may have formed perhaps the entrance to it. [Plate XIII.]

There are distinct mounds of earth scattered over the whole site of the city, to each of which there are one or more wells. These we supposed to be ruins of separate houses. The people of Kauzeroon relate that there are immense subterraneous passages at Shapour, and connect the most extraordinary stories with them. Certainly one of the least extraordinary is, that a horse and mare were lost in them, and some time after re-appeared with a foal. Our informer added that one of his own acquaintance was sent into these passages, and had advanced some way when he perceived a gigantic figure, which to his fears appeared approaching towards him. He recovered himself however so far as to venture up to it, when, instead of a living monster, he found a sculptured figure, the same as those on the exterior of the rock. As a measure of the extent of these labyrinths, they say, that it would require twenty mauns of oil, (a maun is seven pounds and a quarter) to light any one through all their intricacies.

The plants that we noticed near the river, on the site of the city, and about the surrounding plain, were the palma christi, rodo-dendron, the willow, wild fig, a plant which the Persians call shauk-a-booz, and caveer, reeds, and benak or spice plant. The plain towards Shapour is much more cultivated than towards Kauzeroon, and is intersected by a variety of small artificial channels, which receive their supplies from the river. The river itself is a stream of very fine water, but after having run for about eighteen miles, it meets with a bed of salt among the mountains, which renders its waters in its farther progress towards the sea quite salt.

After having enjoyed the pleasure of exploring these remains, we returned to Kauzeroon. This town covers a large extent of country, but its walls and skirts are almost all in ruins. There is one green spot near it, a garden planted chiefly with cypress and orange trees, and belonging to the Governor. We walked there in the evening: at the entrance is a pleasure house, from which the principal avenue and garden are seen. We drank coffee in an upper room, neatly matted and stuccoed, with painted glass windows; and after having so long roamed over barren mountains and desert plains, were much pleased to meet with regular paths, refreshing rivulets, and luxuriant vegetation.[32] The blackbird and the thrush were flying from tree to tree, and reminded us how sensibly we had changed our climate.

We set off at eight o’clock on the morning of the 26th, and arrived at our encampment in the valley of Abdoui, at half past twelve. The road led by the walls of Kauzeroon, and through the plain, until we came to a causeway called the Poul-aub-guinee, which is reckoned two fursungs from Kauzeroon. From this spot (which is a swamp forming the termination of the lake from the southward) the road begun to wind up a high mountain called the Dockter or “Daughter.” Over this, in the most difficult parts of the ascent, a road has been made, and parapet walls built to screen the traveller from the dangers of the precipices, which in some parts form an abrupt boundary to the road. Formerly this road was singularly dangerous, and all the exertions and ingenuity of the caravan drivers and leaders of mules were necessary to conduct their animals in safety to the bottom. We were told that the driver, when his mule was about descending a very steep part of the pass, would seize it by the tail, and then with all his might hold it fast, until the animal had found a footing for his fore feet, when again he helped it in the same manner, until it was in perfect safety. We reached the summit of the Dockter at about half past ten, and from thence we marched over a better road, until we descended into the small and beautiful valley of Abdoui. It is thickly covered with oak trees, which, though of a small kind indeed, must in summer render it a verdant and refreshing spot.

Whilst we were at dinner it was announced to the Envoy, that one of his old Persian friends Mahomed Reza Khan was about to meet him on his route; that he was the bearer of good news, and would therefore demand his moodjdéhlook, the customary present. The news was the defeat of the Russians at Erivan, whose loss in killed and prisoners amounted, according to the Persian’s report, to six thousand men. A firman from the King was also announced to be at this time on the road for the Envoy.

Our picturesque camp, which was interspersed amongst the oaks of the valley, was in motion at a quarter before eight on the morning of the 27th. After traversing nearly the full length of the plain, perhaps four miles, we proceeded to the long and tedious rise of the Peera zun, or “Old Woman,” a mountain, the greatest height of which formed the termination of our several ascents. We were at the top at twelve o’clock, when we commenced our descent into the plain of Desht-e-arjun, at the north extremity of which is situated the village of the same name. Before we entered it, we were met by Mahomed Reza Khan, who presented his letters from the Minister at the court of Shiraz, and who received our compliments on the success of the Persian arms. About two miles before we reached our encampment, we were met by the istakball, which was like all the others, excepting that it was accompanied by an old man blowing a brass trumpet of most broken, hoarse and discordant note, and by a ragged boy on an ass, who was beating two little kettle drums. About a quarter of a mile from the village there is a burial place, with a lion on one of the tombs as at Derees, and just under the mountain are a number of willow trees, watered by a fine gushing spring.

The plain itself is swampy; but the heights which bound it are all of a hard and inhospitable rock. In the swamp are wild fowl innumerable, ducks, snipes, and divers. The spring was here most luxuriant, and rendered the plain of Desht-e-arjun one of the most delightful spots which we had seen in the country. Some of the eminences are in summer covered with vines, the seps of which were now seen just peeping out of the brown soil. We were fortunate in having passed the mountains; for we had scarcely reached our encampment, when thick clouds covered their summits, and here and there left extensive layers of snow.

On the 28th, the morning was extremely cold, when the camp broke up; we set off at half past eight, and arrived at our resting place at a quarter to twelve, a distance which we call ten miles. We continued all the road in the same region as the plain of Desht-e-arjun, nor do I think that any very considerable descent had brought us much below the summit of the Peera Zun. The people of the country reckon Khoné Zenioun colder than Desht-e-arjun, and indeed than any other habitable place on their side of Persia. These spots are certainly much more elevated than any other part in the line of our route. At Khoné Zenioun there is only a Caravanserai; near it a small stream runs to the Eastward; we came to its banks at half past ten o’clock, but did not cross it till close under the walls of the Caravanserai.

Whilst sitting quietly in our tents, we were hurried by the information that Kerim Khan, the bearer of the King’s letter, was within a mile of our encampment. As it was necessary to receive it with every honour, we exchanged our travelling clothes for uniforms and swords, which the Persians have learnt to esteem as the dress of ceremony among Europeans. We proceeded in all haste to the Shiraz road, with the body guard in their best clothes, with flying colours and trumpets sounding; and had advanced scarcely a quarter of a mile, when we perceived the Khan and his party descending a neighbouring hill. The Envoy, the Mehmandar, and all the gentlemen of the suite dismounted from their horses, and walked in form towards Kerim Khan, who, in the same manner, advanced towards us with an attendant behind him, bearing the King’s firman. When the greetings of welcome were interchanged, the Khan took the King’s letter from under a handkerchief, with which it was covered, and delivered it into the Envoy’s hands, saying aloud, “This is the King’s firman.” Sir Harford received it with both his hands, and having carried it respectfully to his head, placed it in his breast. We then mounted our horses, and returned to the Envoy’s tent, where all parties were seated according to their respective ranks. A long exchange of compliments then took place between the principals, “khosh amedeed” and “bisgar khosh amedeed,” (you are welcome, you are very welcome), were repeated again and again. This is the phrase after the “selam alek,” which is always used in Persia, and which answers to the “khosh gueldin” of the Turks. The Turks never use the “selam alek” to a Christian, or to one who is not of the faith; but the Persians are less scrupulous. Kerim Khan conveyed many flattering compliments from the King to the Envoy, and added a great number on his own part. Sir Harford called for Peer Murad Beg, his chief Moonshee, to read the firman. He arrived barefooted, and stood respectfully at the end of the tent; when the firman was put into his hands all the company stood up, and the Europeans took off their hats: Peer Murad Beg read the firman aloud, with a marked and song-like emphasis. He then delivered it to Sir Harford, and we all seated ourselves again. After this, the usual routine of smoking and coffee was performed, during which the different gentlemen in the room were presented to Kerim Khan; our Mehmandar officiated in this instance, and described all our different qualities and qualifications with a great deal of humour. Kerim Khan then departed to lodge with the Mehmandar, who, on this occasion, displayed considerable attention, though, in his general manners, he had appeared a rough blunt soldier: knowing that the Envoy (to whom in etiquette the duty devolved) was unprovided for the reception of such a guest, he requested permission himself to entertain the stranger.

29th. We departed from Khoné Zenioun this morning at half past seven; and at a quarter past eleven arrived at the Bagh Shah Cheragh, a distance of twenty miles. We travelled mostly over a country of ascents and descents, and on a better road than those of the preceding days. The same river, by the banks of which we had been encamped, accompanied us in various directions, and, winding towards the east, met us at a station of Rahdars,[33] (as we were entering the plain of Shiraz), where we crossed it on a decayed bridge, and saw the first view of Shiraz at the end of the plain. This day was replete with attentions and honours to Sir Harford and his Mission; an istakball, composed of fifty horsemen of our Mehmandar’s tribe, met us about three miles from our encampment; they were succeeded, as we advanced, by an assemblage on foot, who threw a glass vessel filled with sweetmeats beneath the Envoy’s horse, a ceremony which we had before witnessed at Kauzeroon, and which we again understood to be an honour shared with the King and his sons alone. Then came two of the principal merchants of Shiraz, accompanied by a boy, the son of Mahomed Nebee Khan, the new Governor of Bushire. They, however, incurred the Envoy’s displeasure by not dismounting from their horses, a form always observed in Persia by those of lower rank, when they meet a superior. We were thus met by three istakballs during the course of the day, and Mahomed Zeky Khan, our Mehmandar, amused us by the singing of a young boy, one of the first professional performers of Shiraz. A number of feats were performed by many of the horsemen who overspread the plain to a great extent; some throwing the girid, and then firing their pistols and muskets on full gallop, and others throwing the lance in the air, and catching it again.

On our road the Mehmandar, who had just received the message from Shiraz, announced that one of the Prince’s own tents was pitched at Bagh Shah Cheragh for the Envoy, and that the Prince further begged his acceptance of it. The present, which was offered with so much attention and delicacy, was worthy of the hand which gave it. On our arrival we found it displayed in the full elegance of its construction. It enclosed a large square occupied by a set of walls, the exterior of which was a crimson field, with green embroidery; on their interior covering were worked cypress trees and fighting lions. The whole was supported by three lofty and elegantly painted poles. Rich carpets were spread on the ground, and the ceilings and hangings were of the finest Masulipatam chintz, with appropriate poetical mottoes painted in the cornices. The Feroshes (or tent-pitchers) had contrived to make a small temporary garden before the entrance, and to introduce a little stream of water to run through the few green sprouts which they had planted. Three large trays of sweetmeats were placed in the tent ready for the Envoy’s reception; upon which, when our visitors were departed, we fed heartily. During the night, a fall of snow very opportunely laid the dust for our entrance into the city, in which were to be displayed all our splendour and finery.

CHAP. VI.
SHIRAZ.

PUBLIC ENTRY INTO SHIRAZ—HONORS PAID TO THE MISSION—DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY—THE ENVIRONS: TOMB OF HAFIZ; HAFT-TEN; STORY OF SHEIK CHENAN; GARDENS; PLEASURE HOUSES—INTRODUCTION AT THE COURT OF SHIRAZ—THE PALACE—THE PRINCE—HIS GOVERNMENT—FETE GIVEN TO THE ENVOY BY THE MINISTER—PRESENT FROM THE PRINCE’S OWN TABLE—THE CHIEF SECRETARY’S ENTERTAINMENT—SECOND INTERVIEW WITH THE PRINCE—REVIEW—THE FETE GIVEN TO THE MISSION BY THE MEHMANDAR—THE PRINCE’S PRESENT; DRESSES OF HONOR.

On the morning of the 30th Dec. the day fixed for our public entry into Shiraz, all the suite appeared in full uniforms, and the Envoy in a Persian cloak or catabee made of shawl, and lined with Samoor fur; a dress permitted to the Princes alone, and on that account assumed by Sir Harford, as the best means of conveying to the senses of the multitude, the high consideration of the office which he bore. We proceeded from our encampment at ten o’clock. The troop was dressed in their richest uniform, and made a very splendid escort. Our Mehmandar marshalled the whole of the Persian horsemen so admirably, that none crowded upon us in our march, and they only played about as usual and animated the plain by their noise and games.

At about two miles from the city we were met by some of the chief men of the place. It was a long contested negociation, whether they also were to pay the Envoy the compliment of dismounting, nor would they have submitted to this part of the ceremony, if Kerim Khan, the bearer of the King’s letter, had not rode forwards and represented to them, that as he was sent from His Majesty to see that every respect was properly shewn to the representative of the British King, he must report their present conduct at Teheran. This hint had the desired effect; and, as their party approached, the chiefs dismounted, and I, with some other gentlemen of the Mission, dismounted also, and went forward to meet them: the Envoy formally expressed his determination to alight to nobody but the Minister. Those who had yielded the honour thus reluctantly, were Bairam Ali Khan Cadjar, the Ish Agassi, or Master of the Ceremonies of the Prince’s Household, and Hassan Khan Cadjar, both of the King’s own family; Ahmed Beg, one of the sons of Nasr Oallah Khan, the Prince’s Prime Minister; and Mirza Zain Labadeen, the Chief Secretary. We proceeded slowly across the plain; the crowd and confusion increased almost impenetrably, as we approached the city, and nothing but the strength of our Mehmandar could have forced the passage. Mounted on his powerful large horse he was in all parts, dispersing one crowd, pushing forwards another, and dealing out the most unsparing blows to those who were disinclined to obey his call. At the gate, however, notwithstanding all his exertions, the closing numbers detained our progress for above a quarter of an hour; and vollies of blows were necessary to clear the entrance.

At length it was effected: the Envoy led the column, surrounded by the Persian grandees, and followed by the gentlemen of the mission in their rank, and the troop of the body guard. We passed through many streets to the Bazar-a-Vakeel, a long and spacious building, the shops of which were all laid out with their choicest merchandize to display on the occasion the plenty and prosperity of the country. The bazar itself is the most splendid monument of the taste and magnificence of Kerim Khan, who administered the affairs of Persia with sovereign authority, under the name of Vakeel or Regent, and died in 1779. The centre is marked above by a rotunda, and beneath by an enclosed platform; in the middle of which was seated the Cutwal or Minister of Police. The trumpet of the troop, which was sounded all through the streets, continued with finer effect under the covered roofs of the bazar. As the Envoy passed, every one stood up; all knew at least the blows which followed any dilatoriness.

After a long procession we arrived at the house appropriated for our reception. It was neatly built of a pale yellow brick, and was very spacious, though considerably out of repair, and indeed in some parts falling into absolute ruin. We were ushered into an apartment, where a large service of sweetmeats and fruits was prepared for us. Here we sat, until we had dispatched the usual forms of a visit with the grandees who had met us, and had accompanied us thus far. The remaining part of the day was occupied in receiving other less noble visitants, and in accepting the countless presents which were sent from various parts, and which consisted for the most part of live lambs, fruits and sweetmeats. The store of sweetmeats at last became so great, that they were distributed amongst our numerous servants, troopers, and feroshes. Among those, who succeeded the original party of our guests, was an officer dispatched by the Minister Nasr Oallah Khan with the intimation, that he deferred till the next day the pleasure of visiting the Envoy, in the fear that at present he might be fatigued with his journey. But our more brilliant visitors were Yusuf Beg, a Georgian youth of pleasing manners, a favourite in the suite of the Prince; and Abdullah Khan, who was nominated to officiate as our Mehmandar, till we should meet on the road an officer appointed by the King from his capital to assume the functions in the further progress of the Mission.

31st. Nasr Oallah Khan, accompanied by many of the greatest men of Shiraz, paid their visit of ceremony to the Envoy. The minister’s manners were plain, his features hard, and his beard peculiarly black. The usual routine of complimentary speeches and of other ceremonies occupied both parties during his stay. The Envoy, from the pressing invitation of the court, determined to hasten his departure towards Teheran; and eight days were fixed for our stay at Shiraz, though circumstances afterwards occasioned a further delay.