I mentioned my suspicions to my friend Hajee Hoosein, as he came to me with an evening kelliân. "Ah!" said he, imitating the exclamation of his countrymen on entering the charming vale of Desht-e-Arjun, "Irân hemeen-est! Irân hemeen-est! This is Persia! this is Persia! But God is just, as Sâdee says: he gives fertile fields, roses, and nightingales, with wicked men, to one country, and deserts and screech-owls, with righteous men, to another; and again he tells us, 'It is not the silk-worm but he that wears the silk vest that is to be envied.'"
I was quite satisfied with the meaning and moral of my friend's quotations, though I confess I have looked in vain over the pages of Sâdee to discover them in his volumes. But the Hajee, like many of his countrymen, has such a deference for that inimitable author, that he ascribes all sentiments that appear just to him, as the sole source of human wisdom.
[79] In Persia the term rood-khâneh, or the bed of a stream, is the common word for a river--an idiom which has probably arisen from the fact stated.
[80] Some of these mirrors exceeded eight feet in length.
[81] Mr. Randall, who is here alluded to, was a very ingenious carpenter, who had been in an English man-of-war employed in discoveries. He had been in the habit of mixing with the natives of the places he visited and was on this occasion of great use; for the Persian artizans, employed under his directions, worked with more zeal and readiness from his dressing like them and living amongst them.
[82] Fermân means a command, signifies here a letter or mandate addressed by a superior to an inferior.
[83] The minarets of the Mahomedan mosques are, like the steeples of our churches, of all sizes; those we visited were of ordinary dimensions.
[84] I have been informed by one who had personal means of making the comparison, that he considered the general condition of the Persian peasantry to be fully equal if not superior to that of the same class in Russia or Poland.
[85] Moobid is the Persian term for a priest of the fire-worshippers.
[86] The name of one of the months in the ancient Persian calendar.
[88] Ei dereeghâ, ei dereeghâ, oo ei dereegh! kih hem-choo mâh pinhân shoodzeer-e-meegh.