Having bought some spangled stuffs for the trousers of the harem of our exalted grand vizier, (upon whom be blessings!) and despatched them, with letters, to the foot of the Shah's throne by an express Tatar, I joined my Greek companions at the Adrianople Gate, and left Constantinople for the country of the Francs.

I found my new friends were raving with the new malady. It seems that they now called themselves free,—a blessing which they endeavoured to persuade me was beyond all price; for, as far as I could learn from their definition of it, I found that now they could wear yellow slippers, put on a green coat, and wrap white muslin round their heads, without being called to account. However, in order to secure these advantages, it appeared that they were making no small sacrifices, for they were quarrelling amongst themselves to their hearts' content; and that more fell by the knives and stabs of their neighbours and countrymen than ever in former times fell even by the despotism of their Turkish rulers. Although I frequently asserted that quiet, peace, and security from danger were great objects in life; yet I found that I had a great deal to undergo before I could make them agree to that plain fact; and at length, seeing that they had made out a certain scheme of happiness of their own, the principal ingredient of which, was the endurance of every thing rather than to give power to the true believers, I allowed them to enjoy it without further molestation.

After many adventures,—such as robberies by Bulgars, an escape from shipwreck on the Danube, dislocation of bones in little carts in Wallachia, incarceration within four bare walls at the Austrian frontier on pretence of our being unclean men, contamination from pork and wine among the Majars, and disordered patience brought about by phlegmatic, smoking, slow-driving, ya! ya! post-boys in Germany,—we reached Vienna. It was a day upon which I frequently exclaimed "Ilham dulillah!" the day when I first saw the lofty spire of the great infidel church of that city; for I was tired of everything: tired of my companions, tired of my eternal hot seat in the corner of a coach, and longed to have a place to myself where I might bless and curse at my pleasure whomsoever I should like so to do.

My first care upon arriving here, was to inquire about the object of my mission,—the state of England. Wherever I went, I heard with a chuckle that she had had her day, that she was going down fast, that too much prosperity was daily destroying her; and every one added, with a sneer, "Ah, they thought themselves the wisest of the sons of the earth; but see! they are its greatest fools, for they do not know how to keep what they have got." One of the great proofs which I continually heard brought forward of the decay of her power and wealth, was the failure of an enterprise which to me was inexplicable, but which, every one said, in her better days would never have been abandoned. What I could make out of the story was this:—It seems the Ingliz, in their madness, were tired of going over their river in the common way,—that is, by bridges; and so they determined to try a new way,—that is, to go under it. Madness seized them; money poured in; they dug into the bowels of the earth like moles; the workmen heard the river flowing over them,—still they feared not, but dug on; at length it broke in upon them,—still they cared not; they were drowned,—still they dug. All the world was alive about it; everybody thought of the pleasure of cheating the old bridges, and the nation seemed charmed that they had found a totally novel mode of getting from one side of a river to another, without going over it, when, all at once, symptoms of decay broke out. They had got halfway when the work stopped; and the whole population, putting the finger of astonishment into the mouth of disappointment, went home, and, stepping over their thresholds with their right legs instead of their left, waited for a return of good-luck—but it came not; their luck evidently has turned, and there is the half-finished hole to attest it. "Poor Ingliz!" thought I, when I heard this; "where are now my old friends the Hoggs, my moon-faced Bessy, and her infidel Figsby? Shall I find them again? perhaps they may have been lost, with many others, in the mad enterprise of digging this great hole under their river!"

I left my Greeks at Vienna, and, taking a place in a moving caravan on wheels, called a diligence, but which went slower than one of our strings of camels, I travelled onwards through towns, cities, hamlets,—through forests, over rivers, over mountains peopled by various tribes of Francs, all indifferent about showing their women's faces, eating the unclean beast, drinking wine, shaving and washing just as they pleased: ignorant of the blessed Koran, and staring wide when such a country as Iran was mentioned to them. They all agreed in sneering at the Ingliz, and assuring me that I should find that nation upon their last legs, and their king with scarcely any power left him.

At length we reached the country of the French Francs. Here I heard that they had got rid of two or three kings since those days when I was last near them; and that, after having sworn to maintain new governments as fast as they were made, were now tired of the last king they had created, and were in the full enjoyment of all the wretchedness naturally flowing from change. I was told that they had been increasing in wealth and respectability, until they lost their last king, when their prosperity fell, as if by magic. Now, no man was certain of the possession of his property even for a day; and every one was obliged by turns to arm himself cap-a-pie, to do his duty as a soldier, in order to secure public happiness at the point of the bayonet.

We entered the happy city of Paris just at the moment when a large band of well-dressed soldiers were firing upon a mob, who were throwing large stones at them, and crying out, as the words were interpreted to us, "Liberty for ever!" "Down with the king!" This ceremony, we were assured, was performed about once a month. I asked my companions in the coach what they meant by liberty, but I found no one could give me any intelligible explanation; for it seems the French had all that they could possibly require, and that, if they wanted more, it must be to live without laws, without a king, without religion, and with a right to appropriate their neighbour's goods, or cut their neighbour's throat.

I trembled from head to foot all the time that I lived in this happy city, fearful of never being able to get out of it with a whole skin; at length I made an effort, and, accompanied by Mahboob, I took places in a travelling coach, and reached the sea-side opposite to the coast of England. I was lucky to see with my own eyes that this country was yet in existence after the many accounts I had heard of its total destruction.

CHAPTER VI.

I crossed over from France to England, mounted upon a species of dragon spouting smoke and exhaling fire, to which the famous monster of Mazanderan, slain by Rustam the Valiant, was a mere plaything. But—shall I say it?—the awful sickness which seized me whilst performing this feat, so overpowered me, that it was impossible for me, the slave of the asylum of the universe, to put my instructions into execution, and to write down in a book all the wonders which in part came to my understanding on that auspicious day. I may confidently assert that no follower of the blessed Ali ever suffered so much in so short a time as I then did. I was first taken from my French bed before the day began to dawn, and put upon this English monster. As soon as its wings began to expand, and to move through the waters, an universal tremor assailed it, which communicated itself to me and all with me; and I continued to be well shaken until I reached the shores of England. Then I felt so giddy that I thought my head had got into the infernal regions, until I soon became certain that my stomach had followed it there also. There I lay groaning, making noises,—oh, such noises!—that if they could have been wafted to the ear of the king of kings, his heart would have smote him for having placed his slave in this predicament! When I was told that we were arrived, I soon was restored to myself, and hastened from the bowels of the monster to the light of heaven; and there, indeed, I saw a town, and a castle, and living men and women, and, truly, nothing indicating a ruined country and a desponding people. We landed at this place. It was called Dover; and as I was told, is famous for a recent controversy whether it should be spelt with an o or an e in the last syllable. From time immemorial it had possessed the e; but such was the spirit of change that they had now transformed it into the o, although the lovers of old customs and good order kept to the old sacred e. "When that spirit seizes a nation, who knows," thought I, "when changes begin, where they may end?" If we were to hearken to all our enlightened sofis in Persia, they would expunge many sayings in our blessed Koran; and, as we have not a second prophet to direct us, one man's change would be as good as another's. Bit by bit all would be upset; we should not have a law left for our direction, and we should finish by cutting each other's throats in order to settle which was the best way to live.

I thought, however, that I could discover some symptoms of beggary in the state of the country, by what happened when I was first setting foot on the infidel shore. Two scrutinising-looking Francs stood on each side of a board over which I was to walk on stepping from the boat to land; and when I ventured to do so, they stopped me, passed their hands over the protuberances of my person, and were about to seize a cashmere shawl which I wore round my waist, when I exclaimed, "The dogs are eating dirt!" which brought some of my friends on board the packet to my help. Explanations were made, and I was let pass. These were officers of customs. "But," thought I, "is it possible that this great nation can be brought to such a state of want that it permits its officers to rob a poor stranger!" I was told of odd things. It was hinted to me, that the burnt father's whelps looked mightily hard at my beard, and that they had hinted that, by rights, I ought to pay duty for it, as foreign hair.

Having landed, with Mahboob close at my heels, we were almost crushed to death by a mob of ruffians, who took violent possession of our persons, one pulling us one way, the other the other, roaring the oddest words by way of congratulations on first landing, which to this day I have not made out. "The Ship!" bawled one; "York!" cried another; "Red Lion!" said the next; "Blue Posts!" said the next. "Be Jehanum!" roared I; and, at length, by dint of main force, I was rescued by my friend in the packet, and taken safe into a caravanserai that stood by the sea-shore. Here, indeed, the kindness shown me by many men and women,—the bows, the dips, the smiles, the sugared words which were lavished upon me, made up in part for the rude sort of reception which I had hitherto experienced, and the sunshine of satisfaction dawned over my heart. But still a doubt hung about my mind; and I asked myself how it was possible that I should all at once have become such an object of tender interest and affection to a set of infidels who had never seen me before,—who probably did not know whether Iran was situated above the surface of the heavens, or within the bowels of the earth,—who perhaps had never heard of the name of our asylum of the universe, nor even of our blessed prophet? I then reflected upon what had happened to us when we had landed before, in England, and recollected that, at the end of all things, there came a certain little odd-looking bit of paper which the infidels called "bill," by virtue of which all their civilities, all their kindness, all their apparent hospitality were condensed into two or three crooked cyphers, and then converted into sums of gold, whether the stranger was agreeable, or not agreeable, to the transformation. I quite streamed from every pore as I thought upon that moment of my retribution, for my wits were my principal stock in hand; money being little, and, I feared, credit less. However, as long as the civility lasted, I was delighted, and I made as free a use of the caravanserai as if it had been the Shah's Gate.

I never lost sight of the object of my mission. I was delighted to have landed without having excited a suspicion of the nature of my character; and, as England is the head-quarters for curious men,—for, owing to her vast foreign possessions, she imports them from all parts,—no one thought it strange that two men with beards, with sheep-skin caps on, and mounted on high-heeled green slippers, should arrive amongst them to take a walk through their country. I was charmed, too, to have created an interest in the breast of an infidel Englishman who had been my fellow-passenger on board the packet. He was a low, rotund man, of evident discretion in speech, the master of moderation, and the lord of few words. There was no display in his dress, for he buttoned himself up tight in his broadcloth coat, exhibited no chains, and contented himself with a rough stick with a hook to it. I found that he had been in India,—where many English have been; and, when I could not understand all he said to me in his own language, I was glad to find he could explain himself fully by the help of some score of indifferent Persian words. He had helped me out of the dilemma with the custom-house officers, had rescued me out of the fangs of the complimentary harpies, had installed me in the caravanserai; and had thus gained a claim upon my gratitude.

I had occasionally asked him about the state of his country, but I had never been able to get more out of him than a shake of his head. From what I could discover from the exterior of things, certainly there was no indication of decay; and indeed, compared with what I had observed in the other countries of Europe, there seemed here to be an increased state of prosperity. It was evident that I had been everywhere hoaxed upon the declining state of England, and that envy alone had excited the report spread to her disadvantage. When we talk of ruin in Persia, we see it at once: villages without inhabitants, dry water-courses, abandoned caravanserais, ragged and wan-looking peasants, and tyrannical governors. But here I saw a flourishing town, happy people, new buildings, busy faces, and no appearance at all of governors. I remarked this to my infidel friend: still he wagged his head, and talked of things unknown to my understanding. The utmost I could draw from him was, that he did not like chopping and changing. When I had discovered the true meaning of these words I could not help saying to myself, "Our Shah has long enough tried 'chopping,' without gaining prosperity, I wish he too would try changing; he might perhaps succeed better." I, however, for the present determined to keep my own counsel, and apply the opening draught of inquiry to the malady of ignorance as often as such relief came within my power.