"رحلات في آشور، ميديا، وبلاد فارس، بما في ذلك رحلة من بغداد مروراً بجبل زاغروس وصولاً إلى حمدان، في أكباتانا القديمة، والبحوث في أصفهان وأطلال برسبوليس، ورحلة منها مروراً بشيراز وشابور وصولاً إلى ساحل البحر. وصف البصرة، بوشهر، البحرين، هرمز، ومسقط، وسرد لحملة ضد قراصنة الخليج العربي، مع رسومات توضيحية لرحلة بحرية لنيرتشوس، والمرور ببحر العرب إلى بومباي. [‎١‎٩‎٥] (٥٨٢/٢٢٦)

TO ISPAHAN.
195
Arab merchants, who were waiting with impatience for news from
Bagdad, before they set out on their return thither. This, though
a sufficient evil at a moment of great fatigue, and on the first arri
val as a stranger in a large city, led to the most agreeable results.
In the course of those enquiries, which we were justly entitled to
make in our turn, we learnt that there was an Englishman halting
here on his way to Tabreez. As soon, therefore, as our host of
Persian and Arab visitors had dispersed, I dispatched a note to
this gentleman, whose name I did not yet know, stating my arrival
here, and desiring to learn how far it would be congenial with his
own wishes to promote an interview. An answer was speedily
returned, saying that Mr. Armstrong would wait upon us in per
son, accompanied by his friend, Assad Ullah Khan ; and in less than
half an hour they came, attended by a suite of servants, to visit us
in our humble quarters. Mr. Armstrong was an elderly person,
who had been long settled in India as a builder and general di
rector of artificers' work, and had for the last seven years been
employed by the Prince Abbas Mirza, at Tabreez, in the establish
ment of an arsenal there, the founding of cannon, equipping them,
and setting on foot a variety of useful works of a military kind.
His companion, Assad Ullah Khan, the Topjee Bashee, or chief
of the artillery, attached to the King's establishment at Tehe-
raun, was the father of the young lad Mohammed Ali, whom we
had met on the road, and who was in hourly expectation of the
arrival of his son. Our meeting was warm and cordial; and after
the first enquiries were answered, it was insisted on, that I should
come and partake of their quarters, at one of the old palaces of
Shah Abbas, which had been assigned to them by the Government
during their stay here.
The visit of a Frank, attended by a Khan and his servant, to a
humble Arab in a public caravansera, raised, as was natural, a
thousand conjectures; but on its being studiously circulated that
this Frank was an Englishman, who might at some former period
have received attentions from the Hadjee, which he had the
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