'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.' [‎93] (124/582)

TO THE FRIENDS OF MY COMPANION.
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planting myrtles and flowers there, after the manner of the East,
bedewed them daily with his tears.
His friends sympathized powerfully in his distress, which,
he said, 4 continued to feed his grief,' until he pined away to
absolute illness, and was near following the fate of him whom he
deplored. On quitting Bagdad, however, the constant succession
of new scenes and new events that befel him, in an excursion
through Persia to Khorasan, progressively obliterated the deep
impressions which sorrow had made upon his happiness. It was
on this occasion, of his leaving the city, that his feelings burst
forth in an elegiac 4 Ode to Love,' which he paraphrased from his
native tongue, the Pushtoo, into Arabic; and even in that form it
appeared exceedingly eloquent, and reminded me powerfully of
the praises which Anacreon bestowed on his lovely, and, perhaps,
equally chaste Bathyllus.
From all this, added to many other examples of a similar kind,
related as happening between persons who had often been pointed
out to me in Arabia and Persia, I could no longer doubt the exist
ence in the East of an affection for male youths, of as pure and
honourable a kind as that which is felt in Europe for those of the
other sex. The most eminent scholars have contended for the pu
rity of a similar passion, which not only prevailed, but as we have
already seen, was publicly countenanced, and praised, in Greece; and
if the passion there could be a chaste one, it may be admitted to
be equally possible here. De Pauw ascribes it in that country to
the superior beauty of the males to the females, which is hardly
likely to have been the sole cause ; but, even admitting the admira
tion of personal beauty to have entered largely into the sources of
this singular direction of feeling, it would be as unjust to suppose
that this necessarily implied impurity of desire, as to contend that
no one could admire a lovely countenance and a beautiful form
in the other sex, and still be inspired with sentiments of the most
pure and honourable nature toward the object of his admiration.