"Of the latter, themselves the devoted servants of His Majesty the King of England, and Emperor of the Seas."" "Coompanee che chees ust?" asked the Prince; "What is the Company?" I was about to explain the mystery of the twenty-four stools, when the Vuzeer confidently answered that Sir John Malcolm was the Company. I would have corrected him, but no, he was quite positive. Ask me," said he, with the air of a man entirely master of his subject, "ask me, I possess information on that score; Sir John Malcolm first came as Elchee to the King of Kings, and then went to Bombay and became Coompanee." It was plain that any assertions on my part would be lost, and, considering that the Honourable Court might be more unworthily represented, I suffered the Vuzeer to abide in his conceit, and bore the reproach of not knowing so much about my own country as did a man who had never left Irân."-vol. i. p. 285.

The condensing a concentrated essence of four-and-twenty directors in the person of the late Sir John Malcolm is an operation which, in these days of chemical wonders, we did not expect, not even from the alembic of a Persian brain.

The following sketch of Persian manners, comprehended in the account of a visit which Lieut. Conolly and his companion paid to one of the chief men of Meshed, is full of spirit and truth:

'Some days after our arrival, the Syud took me to dine with his old friend Meerza Abdool Jowaut, Moojeteheid, one of the chief dignitaries of the city, the same whom Mr. Fraser frequently mentions, and to whose friendly interference that gentleman perhaps owed his life when it was threatened by the fanatics of the city. Meerza Abdool Jowaut is esteemed a very Aflatoon (Plato) by the Meshedees. He is supposed to inherit a perfect knowledge of Euclid from a mathematical great uncle, and to be equalled by few in the science of astronomy; logic he has at his tongue's end; and his decisions, according to the Shirra, are regarded as little short of inspired ones, doubtless because the excellence of his disposition induces him to do justice to every party. He has a mania for everything foreign, affects a little keemia (chemistry), not altogether doubting the philosopher's stone, and treasures up old books and European knick-knacks. As soon as my friend had visited him, and told him with whom he was travelling, Meerza Abdool Jowaut sent me a kind message, expressive of his regret that he could not exactly show me the civilities he wished, since the men of Meshed were short-sighted, and had given him some ugly names on account of his intimacy with Mr. Fraser; but that he had an esteem for my nation, and would be glad on any occasion to serve me. I owed this civility partly to the Meerza's amiable disposition, and to his wish to oblige the Syud, but in some degree to his curiosity, which he gratified shortly after by asking us to dinner in a quiet way." You were mentioning," said the Syud to me, as we were on our way to our host's residence," that the Tartars did not invade England; however that may be, don't dispute the

point with Meerza Abdool Jowaut, for he has an historical work upon Frangestaun, which assures him that they did, and there is no need to put him out of conceit with his book."

'We waited to pay our devoirs to the old man till he had said his prayers in a small mosque near the gate of his house. The Syud kissed his hands in token of extreme respect; I made out a Persian obeisance, by placing a hand upon my heart, and bending forward; and the Meerza, motioning with his long ivory-headed stick to the entrance of his house, gave us an opportunity of showing our breeding by refusing to take place of him, and then led us up a flight of steps to a broad terrace, where, on two parallel slips of carpet, were placed a pair of large silver lamps. The moment we were settled on our heels, the Meerza, addressed me with-" You are welcome-you have conferred honour-you are very welcome-your esteemed health is good. What is the latitude of London?" Reference to the work mentioned by my friend, which lay at his side, satisfied him that I knew the latitude of my birth-place, and he set me down for a man of information. He then talked of his astronomical observations at Meshed, which brought out its position, he said, nearly what Mr. Fraser had made it (a fudge, I thought, on the old gentleman's part). He pushed me rather hard upon some abstruse points in astronomy, but fortunately there was another guest, who prevented the conversation from becoming too scientific-a merchant of Reshdt, who, having gone across the Caspian to Astrakan, considered himself warranted in telling some very marvellous anecdotes of the Oroos.

'Our talk was seasonably interrupted by a delicious repast, handsomely served on silver trays, giving us a fair specimen of the style of living of the higher orders of this city. There was the long rice of Peshower," that you may press down in the dish and it will rise again of its own elasticity, and which is so light that you never know when you have eaten enough of it." With this were served partycoloured pilaus, omelettes, rich meats with sweet syrups, and garlic stewed in milk; and to drink, sherbets that "Tortoni" never dreamed of, made with "rewass" and the juice of the fresh grape,-nectars which are conveyed from a China bowl to the mouth in deep spoons of the pear-tree wood, so delicately carved that they tremble under the weight of the liquid. Our host most courteously encouraged us to eat, putting choice morsels of meat before us with his fingers, and sometimes helping us from his own plate (a politesse which certainly dates as far back as the time when Joseph entertained his brothers at Pharaoh's court, and which in Persia is as great a one as can well be shown a guest); and he gave zest to the repast by filling up his intervals with scraps of poetical wit, which he bandied with the Syud, than whom no one could play such a part better.

'The Persians have been likened to the French, for having a constant fund of agreeable conversation, and for the politeness of their manner; but it may perhaps be doubted whether the French could

say so much upon so little, and whether their manners do not suffer from the comparison. The Persians have no real learning from which to create their wit, and yet two men of this nation seldom get together without striking up a racy dialogue; and they express themselves with so much politeness and good humour, that you immediately feel at ease in their society, and can enjoy it, even when but partly acquainted with their language. They appeared to me to be the politer people of the two; to have the suavity of the French without their grimace, and to be without that" brusquerie" which is occasionally so offensive in the Gauls: they can indeed be as bearish and disagreeable as any people, but they seldom are so unless when their religious prejudices are excited. These are the mere opinions of a traveller: I did not form them only at Meerza Abdool Jowaut's table, but a recollection of his wit and politeness induces me to insert them here.

'As a special instance of civility, I should mention that the host ordered my tray to be the last removed, a compliment which my ignorance prevented me from feeling grateful for at the time, but which the Syud did not fail to enlarge upon, in particularizing several little delicate attentions on the part of his friend, which I had not remarked, but which were evidences of the kindest consideration, coming, as they did, from a man of high religious rank, in a country where every the slightest shade of civility marks a man's value in society. I do not know what prevented our killing ourselves with his rich dinner, unless it was some delicious green tea, which he recommended as "usle uz Chine," real China tea, and which was brought in little China cups, cased with silver.

66

A lively conversation followed, which the Meerza politely endeavoured occasionally to make general. In the course of conversation, he introduced the great question, whether the sun goes round the earth, or the earth round the sun; and the Syud, being acquainted with and somewhat of a convert to our planetary system, took the Copernican side of the argument. The Meerza made a stout dispute for the earth's stability, but I think one of the arguments he laid most stress upon was this:-That if the earth went round, there must be a pressure one way, and that one of two sticks driven at equal depth into the ground crossways must in time be pressed farther in than the other. If I were as some of this city," he said, goodhumouredly," I should stop your arguments by saying that your view of the question is heretical, but I like to hear both sides of every question. The Feringees are an astonishing people, and it pleases me to hear of any new grand principle being struck out; you would have the world in the heavens, but I confess that, having built all my small knowledge upon the belief that it is stationary, I should, considering my years, wish it to remain so till I am laid in it:"-" And then," interrupted the Syud, "there's little doubt of your going where we think the world to be." "I am already in Paradise" was the polite rejoinder, and as it was not to be expected that any thing

better

better could be said, we exchanged the compliments of the night and separated.'-vol. i. p. 299–302.

In no country of the world are the Jews more persecuted than in Persia. In every look and attitude they exhibit a people in the last stage of degradation; they never appear but to be reviled and insulted. The exteriors of their dwellings bear the semblance more of dens than of houses; and the quarter of the town which they inhabit is left wholly to themselves. They make their doors so low that not even the shortest man can enter without stooping, and this is done to keep out Persian horsemen, who otherwise would not scruple to make a forcible entry, horse and all. They never are known to rise to any post of distinction. No one trusts them. Every one tries to defraud them, and to oppress them. Such a general notion of their situation is all that most travellers arrive at; but Mr. Conolly has been enabled to gratify his readers with a sketch of the interior :—

'We attended the Jewish synagogue one Saturday, and the Rabbis were so captivated by the Syud's unprecedentedly liberal opinions, that they made a point of showing all that they thought would interest

us.

The synagogue was a square room, on two sides of which was a gallery, with a lattice screen-work for the women to sit behind. From the centre of the chamber, from the floor to the ceiling, rose four posts, and on steps within these was the altar. Their chanting was in the Persian style, and very discordant; parts of the Old Testament were read in Hebrew, and a homily was delivered in the Persian language. When praying, they turned to Jerusalem, and covered their heads in white mantles; and, at one part of the service, the priest, standing on the altar-steps, held up the Pentateuch, written on large rolls of parchment, and the congregation crowded eagerly round to look on it. It was an affecting sight, this "fragment of Israel," in oriental garb, adhering religiously to the ordinances of their forefathers, amid the persecutions of the most bigoted of a bigoted race. Not a man, they said, had gone out from them.

'After the service, we were shown into a small room, where were preserved with great care more than fifty copies of the Scripture, written on rolls of parchment by devout individuals, who had presented them to the synagogue. Each roll was kept in a case like a drum, on which was a plate telling the name of the donor and the date of the gift; and one copy, we were told, was used in turn every Sabbath.

From the synagogue we repaired to the Ketkhoda's house, consisting of a range of double-storied rooms on one side of a neat garden, round which vines were carried on a treillage. We sat on the walk, under the shade of a fine tree; and the Jew, though he would not drink with us, by reason of its being the Sabbath-day, produced some

bottles

bottles of strong arrack and thin bad wine of his own manufacture, and, seeing that we would only taste it, lest some keen-nosed Mohummudan should scent us, he begged us to take the liquor home to comfort our hearts with at leisure. There was such an air of comfort about this man's house, that he thought it necessary to apologise for it, saying that we saw all his wealth; that formerly the Jews had money, but now, God help them, they had ceased to hoard it, since some extortionate ruler or other was sure to take it from them.

We became very intimate with this people, and in many of their houses I observed much to contradict their outward appearance of poverty. On one occasion I was invited to a wedding in their quarter. At evening I was introduced to a company, who were seated in a square, on a broad terrace, having before them trays containing burnt almonds, pistachio nuts, and confectionary, and flasks of arrack, which they drank from small cups, in such immoderate quantities that I expected to see them lose their senses; but it merely appeared to have the effect of exciting them. The seat of honour was kept for the bridegroom, a most uninteresting youth, who, looking very much ashamed of himself, entered with a boy on either hand singing a discordant epithalamium, and when he had taken his place next to his father at the head, the company severally complimented him. Meat and broth was then brought in, and when it had been partaken of, health was wished to the bridegroom and to his father, the host, bumpers of arrack were tossed down, and some of the company got up one after another, and danced a ridiculous sort of pas seul. It was next proposed to sing, and some of the best performers being called upon, sang from the Psalms of David very sweetly. The audience were frequently moved to tears, and once, when a young man sang a psalm, which by Mehdee Beg's translation I knew to be that (even in our language) most beautiful one," By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion," they sobbed aloud. They were all somewhat under the influence of their potations, but men in their situation must ever be affected by the beautiful words of the Psalmist, and it was easy to believe their grief sincere. In the height of the entertainment came a loud knocking at the door. In the early part of the evening the darogha had sent for some arrack, for medicine, but as he required a large dose, it was refused him. He therefore now sent his myrmidons to put a stop to what he called the disturbance in their quarter, as it was the night of a Mohummudan festival. A little money sent the officers away, and, shortly after, the bride being brought to the house with music and torches, and a large attendance of female friends, the party broke up.'-vol. i. pp. 304-308.

We think the following observations are well worthy of attention at this time, when a thousand symptoms of change are so apparent among many nations of the unchanging East':

It is to be lamented that the Persians are so far removed from the knowledge of the enlightened Word, for, could it be spread among

them,