The Governor of Bushire invited Sir Harford Jones and his suite to dinner, which Mr. Morier thus describes.

'After having sat same time kaleoons were brought in, then cóffee, then kaleoons, then 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 savoury 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 filled with sherbet; 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 pillaus succeeded, three of which were placed before each two guests; one of plain rice called the chilto, one made of mutton with raisins and almonds, the other of a fowl, with rich spices and plums. To this were added various dishes with rich sauces, and over each a small tincture of sweet sauce. 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, fragments of meat and rice falling through our fingers all around us. We were treated with more kaleoons after dinner, and then departed to our beds.'-(p. 74.)

At Shiraz, the prime minister entertained them, and when they were seated, and the sofra spread as usual,

'We very frequently (says M. Morier) shared the marks of his peculiar attention and politeness, which consisted in large handfuls of certain favourite dishes. These he tore off by main strength and put before us; sometimes a full grasp of lamb mixed with a sauce of prunes, pistacheo-nuts and raisins; at another time a whole partridge disguised by a rich brown sauce; and then, with the same hand, he scooped out a bit of melon, which he gave into our palms, or a great piece of omelette thickly swimming in fat ingredients. There is no rattle of plates and knives and forks, no confusion of lacquies, no drinking of healths, no disturbance of carving, scarcely a word is spoken, and all are intent on the business before them. When the whole is cleared and the cloth rolled up, ewers and basins are brought in, and every one washes his hand and mouth. Until the water is presented it is ridiculous enough to see the right hand of every person (which is covered with the complicated fragments of all the dishes) placed in a certain position over his left arm there is a fashion even in this. The entertainment was now over, and we took our leaves and returned home.'-(p. 115.)

These dinners are of course of the first fashion in Persia. The

common

common people generally frequent the kabob shops, or eatinghouses, where they can at all times have their rice, sweetmeats, fruit and sherbet, with all the various preparations of stews, soups, pillaus, &c. at a very reasonable rate. The bazars or markets in which these shops are usually situated, are the scenes of wit, mirth, and gaiety, in all the eastern nations. The adventures of Haroun al Raschid, of Sinbad the Sailor, and of Little Hunchback, are familiar to the barbers, tailors, and shoemakers of every bazar; and the Thousand and one nights' are stored up in the memory of many a Malay slave on the distant islands of Java, Sumatra, and Macassar. In Persia, the story-tellers by profession recite tales from oral tradition which, according to Mr. Kinneir, have never been committed to paper; and the king, we are told, has always one about his person to amuse his leisure hours, who never repeats the same story. He adds, that a very considerable acquaintance with the best poets of Persia descends even to the lowest classes of the people; and that it is not uncommon for a groom, or other menial servant, to recite long passages with the utmost correctness, from their best writers. Schools for children are not wanting, and a moderate share of education is within the reach of most who dwell in towns and cities. There are, besides, in every considerable town medrasses, or colleges, handsomely endowed, where youth are instructed in the nicer points of their native language, in Arabic, moral philosophy, and in the principles of the Mahomedan religion. Mr. Kinneir says, they have some little knowledge of Algebra and geometry, (very little we believe,) and some of them affect to be familiar with Euclid, Aristotle and Plato, which have been trauslated into Arabic.' We suspect he means out of Arabic into Persian. Their astronomers, however, are mere astrologers; their physicians venders of charms and amulets; and their surgeons, barbers, whose operations are chiefly confined to the letting of blood, cleansing the ears, and shampooing the joints.

The Persian has been considered as the language of poetry; the nearest in Europe to which it can be compared is that of the German, to which indeed it bears no very distant affinity, but is more polished and melodious. It admits of the most extravagant and violent metaphors, and is generally so loaded with them, and consequently so obscure to Europeans, that the best informed of our Persian scholars in India have occasion for an interpreter at their elbow. The Shahnama of Ferdousi has been compared to the Iliad, and Hafiz termed the Anacreon of the east. The latter is the universal favourite of the Persians, who visit his tomb near Shiraz in parties, to do honour to his memory, by strewing flowers and pouring out libations of the choicest wines of this part of the country. On the block of white marble, of which Mr. Kinneir

says

says his tomb is composed, are inscribed two of his poems. Mr. Morier, however, says that one poem only is engraved on it; and that the whole tomb is of the diaphanous marble of Tabriz, in colour a combination of light green, with here and there veins of red, and sometimes of blue.' So difficult is it to get at the truth, even in a matter of fact, cognizable by the least equivocal of the

senses.

There is, perhaps, no nation on earth which has the least pretension to civilization, so destitute of the means of conveyance by land or water carriage, as Persia. They have no navigable rivers, no inland canals, no high roads, no wheel carriages of any description.

'The only mode of travelling,' says Mr. Kinneir, is by riding either a mule or a horse. For women of high rank, or sick persons, indeed, there is a vehicle called a tukte rowan, which is transported by two mules, one before and the other behind; but the women and children of the poor are carried in baskets, slung across the back of a mule or camel. The length of the stages, (which sometimes exceed forty miles,) and badness of the accommodation, in addition to these circumstances, render travelling unpleasant to females. We have here no regular establishment for the transmission of intelligence, and it is therefore necessary, when letters are to be carried from one part of the kingdom to the other, to dispatch a chupper, or express horseman, or a messenger on foot, who is stiled a cassid. Be the distance ever so great, the chupper seldom changes his horse: they travel at the rate of four or five miles an hour, and have been known to go from Tehraun to Bushire, a distance of seven hundred miles, in the space of ten days. The cassids will also travel for many days successively, at the rate of sixty or seventy miles a-day.

From this sketch of the distracted and degraded state of the Persian empire, some idea may be formed of its political importance, with relation to the several powers of Europe, and more particularly to the British possessions in India. On this subject both the political assistant to General Sir John Malcolm, and the secretary to the mission of Sir Harford Jones' are equally silent. It would scarcely be supposed that France, with so many intermediate powers between her and Persia, and without one single point of contact, could possibly consider its alliance of any importance to her. But the political intrigues of this nation have always penetrated far beyond the bounds at which ordinary politicians would think it right to stop. She saw in Persia a powerful engine that might be played off to advantage, either against the Porte, or Rus-sia, or the British possessions in India, as might best suit her purpose at the moment. If, in the event of hostilities with Russia, the friendly alliance of Persia could be secured as well as that of the

Porte,

Porte, an attack upon the two flanks of southern Russia would create a prodigious diversion in favour of her views against that power in her more northern regions. We have recently seen with what eagerness the emissaries of Buonaparte fomented the war of Turkey against Russia, and we have also seen the happy effects of their failure. But if Russia or Turkey, or both, were favourable to the ambitious views of France, the road, with the consent of Persia, would be so far open to her, for menacing, at least, an attack on the British territories in India.

Chimerical as such a project may appear, there can be little doubt that, at one period of the French revolution, it was seriously entertained. To ascertain with more exactness, than had yet been done, the precise political relations, the geography and the resources of the Ottoman and Persian empires, and of the intermediate countries in the possession of Turkish pachas, Arabian scheiks, and Tartar khans, the murderers of Louis XVI. dispatched Messrs. Olivier and Brugiere on a travelling expedition, with detailed and ample instructions for their guidance from the executive provisional council. Nearly at the same time, citizen Beauchamp was sent to survey the coasts of the Black Sea, as far as Trebisond, and to collect information on the geography and policy of Persia of Egypt, Savary and others had afforded ample information. The successful rebellion of Paswan Oglou, encouraged by the weakness of the Ottoman Porte, and supported by the disaffection of the janizaries, was a circumstance too favourable to be overlooked by the revolutionists. The expedition to Egypt was accordingly undertaken, and this fertile province torn from a friendly power, for no other reason but that its situation and resources were favourable to their ulterior views. The possession of Egypt was a step to that of Syria, and Syria to the command of the Red Sea; and it required only a single movement of Persia against the Pacha of Bagdad, to open the navigation of the Persian gulph. With the coasts, and harbours, and shipping of those two seas, the most sanguine expectations were held forth, that, by an effectual and powerful co-operation with Tippoo, or the Mahrattas, the expulsion of the English from Hindostan was a certain and no very distant event. There are those, however, who maintain that the expedition to Egypt was unconnected with view to ulterior operations in India; but we think that Buonaparte's intercepted letter to Tippoo Sultaun, dated at Cairo, is conclusive on that point. 'You have been informed,' says he, of my arrival on the borders of the Red Sea with an innumerable and invincible army, full of the desire of releasing and relieving you from the iron yoke of England.' But the skill and energy of a British sailor baffled the hopes of the captain of the invincibles,' and cast the first blot on his military renown.

any

The

The connection of England with Turkey has for ages been maintained by the occasional interchange of ambassadors; but Persia, the great resting-place, and convenient stepping-stone to her valuable possessions in India, seemed to be wholly forgotten or neglected. Accredited agents had formerly been sent thither chiefly on commercial purposes; but of late years this intermediate empire between Europe and India had been visited only by some casual traveller in his passage from one to the other. When it became known, however, in India, that Tippoo Sultaun had dispatched an ambassador to the present king of Persia, the Company's government employed an agent, of Persian extraction, to sound and counteract the designs of the former. The death of Tippoo Sultaun terminated that connection. Soon after this event, no little alarm was excited in India by the sudden irruption of Zemaunshah, king of the Affghans, and other northern hordes. As a check to the progress of this barbarian, Lord Wellesley lost not a moment in dispatching Colonel Malcolm, an active and expert officer, to solicit the assistance of Futteh ali Shah. A treaty was concluded, and the march of the Persian troops into Khorassan had the double effect of recalling the invader, and of adding part of this very extensive province to the Persian empire. In a word, the mission was completely successful in all its objects.' Treaties of alliance and commerce were concluded that were to be binding on race after race; while time endures and the world exists,' all the stipulations in those treaties were to remain a beautiful image of excellent union in the mirror of duration and perpetuity.' The Persians were ordered to disgrace and slay' every Frenchman that should pass their boundaries or attempt to settle on their coasts. This beautiful picture, however, had been reflected but a short time from the mirror of perpetuity,' when it was discovered that French agents had fixed themselves, not only on the coasts' of the empire, but had found their way to the capital, where one Jouannin had so far ingratiated himself at court as to prevail on the king to send an ambassador to Buonaparte, who proceeded to France in 1806, and, in the following year, concluded with that power another treaty which was also to last for ever.

Buonaparte was at this time engaged in a war with Russia, and a diversion on her frontier, on the part of Persia, could not be unimportant. General Gardanne was accordingly dispatched with a splendid retinue and several military officers to the court of Tehraun, where he was received with marked attention, admitted to the councils of the king, and employed to train a corps of Persians in the military discipline and tactics of Europe. In the mean time, two important events took place, extremely favourable to the views of Buonaparte, though not exactly to Gardanne's original mission.

F 2

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