'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.' [‎96] (127/582)

96
VISITS AT KERMANSHAH,
without having many real claims to esteem. In Bagdad, besides
the gentlemen of the English Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. , who thought highly of
his general character, and those of his other friends who all spoke
to me of his intended absence with regret, there was not one
among more than fifty that we had met to-day who did not salute
and embrace him warmly, expressing a hope that he was come to
make some stay among them, and evincing great disappointment,
and even sorrow, when he spoke of his being merely the passenger
of an hour.
When evening approached, after we had passed a day of con
tinued entertainment, with scarcely any other intermission than
our passage from one house to another in different quarters of the
town, we supped together in a party of a dozen of the most select,
at the house of a new settler here from Ispahan. To none of his
friends had Ismael disclosed the fact of my being an Englishman,
so that I still passed as a Soonnee Moslem of Cairo, from the Hadj.
When the reasons of my journeying this way were demanded, it
was answered by Ismael, that my sister was the wife of Ghalib, the
former Shereef of Mecca, whom Mohammed Ali Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. had dis
placed, and that some of her money having been lent to Persian
pilgrims of distinction, whose funds had fallen short during their
long journey and stay at Mecca, I was going into Persia to collect
this, but wished to pass uninterrupted and without parade. The
Dervish then added, that there being none among my own ser
vants who had been in the country before, he had advised me to
leave them at Bagdad, and had himself engaged to be my con
ductor, interpreter, and slave. All this was readily believed, but
some scruples were entertained as to the rigour of my practice in
abstaining from forbidden things. ' What!' said the Dervish,
' d0 ZZ ^ 1 ! hen ' While the Cadi of Stemboul, and half
the Mollahs of that City of the Faithful, drink wine, as it is re
ported, until they cannot distinguish their daylight from their
sunset prayers, that a Hadjee Massri, an Egyptian pilgrim, a