'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎91] (122/582)

TO THE FRIENDS OF MY COMPANION. gj
Nature then constituted you of different materials from other
men ? Can you behold a youth, lovely as the moon, chaste, inno
cent, playful, generous, kind, amiable,—in short, containing all
the perfections of innocent boyhood, which like the most delicate
odour of the rose, exists only in the bud, and becomes of a coarser
and less lovely kind when blown into maturity—can you look on
a being, so fit for Heaven as this is, and not involuntarily love it ?'
I agreed with him that a sort of admiration or affection might be
the result, but I at the same time strove to mark the distinction
between an esteem founded on the admiration of such rare qua
lities, and any thing like a regard for the person. I did not suc
ceed, however, in convincing him ; for, to his mind, no such dis
tinction seemed to exist; and he contended, that if it were possible
for a man to be enamoured of every thing that is fair, and lovely,
and good and beautiful, in a female form, without a reference to
the enjoyment of the person, which feeling may most unquestion
ably exist, so the same sentiment might be excited towards similar
charms united in a youth of the other sex, without reference to
any impure desires; and that, in short, in such a case, the lover
would feel as much repugnance at the intrusion of any unchaste
thought, as would the admirer of a virtuous girl at the exhibition
of any indelicacy, or the presence of any thing, indeed, which
could give offence to the strictest propriety in their mutual in
tercourse.
The Dervish added a striking instance of the force of these
attachments, and the sympathy which was felt in the sorrows to
which they led, by the following fact from his own history. The
place of his residence, and of his usual labour, was near the bridge
of the Tigris, at the gate of the Mosque of the Vizier. While he
sat here, about five or six years since, surrounded by several of
his friends, who came often to enjoy his conversation and beguile
the tedium of his work, he observed, passing among the crowd, a
young and beautiful Turkish boy, whose eyes met his, as if by
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