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descendant of the Seffi family, and then a child, secured to himself so large a share of influence and authority in the state, that he very soon supplanted virtually the pageant that he had erected; and, while he still concealed his ambition under the name of Vakeel or Regent, exercised all the real powers of the sovereign of Persia. The birth of Kerim Khan was obscure; but the habits of his early years qualified him for the times in which he lived, and the destiny to which he aspired. His family, indeed, was a low branch of an obscure tribe in Courdistan, that of the Zunds, from which his dynasty has been denominated; and his profession was the single occupation of all his countrymen-robbery, which, when it thus becomes a national object, loses in reputation all its grossness. Here he acquired the talents and hardihood of a soldier; and was renowned for an effectual spirit of enterprise, and for great personal skill in the exercise of the sword, a qualifica tion of much value among his people. The long revolutions of Persia called forth every talent and every passion; and the hopes of Keram Khan were excited by the partial successes of others, and by the consciousness of his own resources. He entered the field; and eventually overcaine Mahomed Hassan Khan, his principal competitor, who fled and was killed in Mezanderan. The conqueror having seized and confined the children of his rival, proceeded to quell the several inferior chiefs, who, in their turns, had aspired to the succession. flis superior activity and talents finally secured the dominion: and having, in 1755, settled at Shiraz, he made that city the seat of his government. He beautified it by many public buildings, both of use and luxury; and their present state attests the solid magnificence of his taste. This memory is much lamented in Persia; as his reign, a reign of dissipation and splendor, was congenial to the character of the people. In his time prostitutes were publicly protected; their calling was classed among the professions; and the chief, or representative, of their numbers, attended by all the state and parade of the most respected of the Khans and Mirzas, used daily to stand before the Sovereign at his Durbar.

On the 10th of March, 1779, Keram Khan died natural death, an extraor dinary occurrence in the modern history of Persia, having reigned (according to the different dates assigned to his accession, from the deaths of different com

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petitors) from nineteen to thirty years. From the fall of Mabomed Hassan Khan, the better epoch, his conqueror lived nineteen years, with almost undisputed authority.

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After his death all was again in confusion; and the kingdom presented a renewal of blood and usurpation. It is scarcely necessary to state the short-lived struggles of his successors: their very names have ceased to interest us. It is sufficient therefore to add, that his sons and brothers, and other relatives, attacked each other for fourteen years after his death; till the fortunes of the whole family were finally overwhelmed in the defeat of Loolf Ali Khan, the last and greatest of these claimants; and the dominion was transferred, in the year 1794, to his conqueror, Aga Mahomed Khan, of the present royal race of Persia.

PRESENT TO THE EMBASSADOR.

On the 8th of Nov. arrived, carried on fourteen mules, the balconah, the cus tomary present to an Embassador. It eonsisted of the following articles:50 Lumps of loaf sugar,

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Small boxes of different kinds of

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22 Bottles of different kinds of preserves, pickles, &c.

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4 Mule loads of musk-melons, 1 Ditto of Ispahan quinces, Half ditto of apples,

1 Ditto of pomegranates,

1 Ditto of wine, thirty-nine bottles., The whole was accompanied by a letter from Nasr Oalah Khan, the Minister at Shiraz, replete with compliment and inquiries about health, and entrusted to the care of Aga Mahomed Ali, one of the Prince's servants, who received for himself from the Envoy a present of five hundred piastres. The great men profit by these opportunities of enriching by such returns any servant to whom in their own persons they may owe an obligation, and to whom they thus, cheaply to themselves, repay it. But the charge of a present is frequently made the matter of a bargain among the adherents of the donor, and perhaps is sometimes purchased directly from the great man hims self.

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Dearly at the door of the apartment: on
the entrance of an equal, he just raises
himself from his seat, and stands nearly
erect; but to an inferior he makes the
motion only of rising. When a great
man is speaking, the style of respect in
Persia is not quite so servile as that in
India. In listening the Indians join their
hands together, (as in England little chil-
dren are taught to do in prayer,) place
them on their breast, and, making incli-
nations of the body, sit mute. A visit is
much less luxurious in Persia than in
Turkey. Instead of the sophas and the
easy pillows of Turkey, the visitor in
Persia is seated on a carpet or mat with-
out any soft support on either side, or
any thing except his hands, or the acci-
dental assistance of a wall, to relieve the
galling posture of his legs. The misery
of that posture in its politest form can
scarcely be understood by description:
you are required to sit upon your heels,
as they are tucked up under your hams
after the fashion of a camel.. To us, this
refinement was impossible; and we
thought that we had attained much merit
in sitting cross-legged as tailors. In the
presence of his superiors a Persian sits
upon his heels, but only cross-legged be-
fore his equals, and in any manner what
ever before his inferiors. To an English
frame and inexperience, the length of
time during which the Persian will thus
sit untired on his heels, is most extraor
dinary; sometimes for half a day, fre-
quently even sleeping. They never think
of changing their positions, and, like other
Orientals, consider our locomotion to be
as extraordinary as we can regard their
quiescence. When they see us walking
to and fro, sitting down, getting up, and
moving in every direction, often have they
fancied that Europeans are tormented by
some evil spirit, or that such is our mode
of saying our prayers.

FEAST OF THE BAIRAM,

The Ramazan was now over: the new moon, which marks the termination, was seen on the preceding evening just at sun-set, when the ships at anchor fired their guns on the occasion; and, on the morning of our visit, the Bairam was announced by the discharge of cannon. A large concourse of people, headed by the Peish Namaz, went down to the seasitle to pray, and, when they had finished their prayers, more cannon were discharged. Just before we passed through the gates of the town in returning from our visit, we rode through a crowd of men, women, and children, all in their

best clothes, who, by merry-making of every kind, were celebrating the feast. Among their sports, I discovered something like the round-about of an English fair, except that it appeared of a much rader construction. It consisted of two rope-seats suspended, in the form of a pair of scales, from a large stake fixed in the ground. In these were crowded full-grown men who, like boys, enjoyed the continual twirl, in which the conductor of the sport, a poor Arab, was labouring with all his strength to keep the machine.

The feast itself of the Bairam begins of course successively in every season of the natural year; for, in the formation of their civil year, the Persians, like other Mahomedans, adoptlunar months. When it occurs in summer, the Ramazan, or month of fasting which precedes it, becomes extremely severe; every man of every kind of business, the labourer in the midst of the hardest work, is forbidden to take any kind of nourishment from sun-rise to sun-set, during the longest days of the year. Their full day is calculated from sun set to sun-set, but their subdivision of time varies like that of the Hindoos and Mussulmans of India, according to the difference of the length of the natural day. In their calculation of the close of the fast, and the commencement of the Bairam, they are seldom assisted by almanacks: it frequently happens, therefore, that the same feast is celebrated two days earlier, or delayed two days later in different parts of the country, according to the state of the atmosphere: as the new noon nay be obscured by clouds in one city or displayed in another by the clearness of the sky.

ARABIAN PIRATES.

The Nereide, the Sapphire, and the Sylph, sailed with the mission from Bombay on the 12th of September. The Nereide arrived first; the Sapphire also reached Bushire about sun-set on the 18th October. The Arab ships too, that we passed off Cape Verdistan, had come in about noon on the same day, and had continued firing their guns at distant in tervals till the evening: but the Sylph, on beard which were the Persian Secretary and some of the presents, was yet missing; nor indeed had we seen her, since the second day after that on which we had left together the harbour of Bombay. On the 29th Oct. arrived the Nautilus, H. C. cruizer, which had sailed from the same port on the 221 Sept. Though 4 E 2

she

she had neither seen or heard directly any thing of the Sylph, yet the circumstances of her own passage prepared us to anticipate the worst. had been attacked off the large Tomb, in The Nautilus the Gulph of Persia, by the Joasmee pirates; three only were at first in sight, but on the signal of a gun, a fourth appeared, and together they bore down, two on the quarters and two on the bows of the Nautilus; they were full of men, perhaps six hundred in the four vessels, all armed with swords and spears, and, as they shouted their religious invocations, they shook their weapons at the ship. When the engagement became closer, they maintained a fire of twentyfive minutes, and one of their shot killed the boatswain of the Nautilus. Of these pirates an interesting account was pub. lished in India by Mr. Loane, who was taken prisoner by them. It is unneces sary, therefore, to add more on the subject than that their chief resort is at Roselkeim, on the Arabian coast of the Gulph of Persia: another, but tributary, chief of the same people resides twentyfive miles from Roselkeim at Egmaun, S. S. W. of Cape Musseldom, where they possess an extensive and lucrative pearl fishery. This, with the market which their plunder finds there, is the principal source of the traffic of the place. Though it may not be necessary to enter into a detail, which may be better found in original authorities, it must be very obvious, that the honour of our flag, as well as the interest of our com merce in the East, will require the destruction of a fleet of pirates, which, assembling to the amount of fifty sail in the harbour of Roselkeim, issue thence to capture every English as well as native ship, and to spread terror through the Gulph of Persia.

reached us, which convinced us that the vessel taken was the Sylph; but the report added, that a large vessel from Buthe Nereide) came in sight during the shire (which we instantly identified with action, and having sunk one of the pirates, (of whose crew of three hundred scarcely any escaped), re-took their prize. In the action, too, the pirates lost one of their first chiefs, Sal ben Sal. The loss of their tribe is sufficient cause for a deof one individual, the most insignificant, claration of war; but the destruction of so large a portion of their whole numbers remainder; and the tribe would probably would dispirit rather than so animate the agree never again to approach an English ship. The pirates had, in fact, been so disheartened by their disaster, that, when, a few days afterwards, a single Arab ship (commanded indeed by an Englishman) able either to fight or to escape, bore fell among them, and, finding herself undown upon them to try a shew of resistance, they all fled. At length on the 26th Nov. the Minerva, H. C. cruizer, Captain Hopgood, arrived, and brought the Persian Secretary, who had been captured in the Sylph. The Secretary was tention had of course excited great unmuch connected at Bushire, and his deeasiness among his relations, who had been putting up prayers in the mosques for his safety. His account of their faté was not uninteresting.

At the time when the pirates were standing the same course with herself, down upon her. When the Nereide the Sylph discovered the Nereide bearing came close, she hove-to; but, as the commander of the Sylph did not send a boat stood on. on board of her, she filled her sails and ready passed at some distance, the two When the Nereide had alOn the arrival of the Nautilus, under sian Secretary advised the officer of the dows stood towards the Sylph. The Perthese circumstances, the Envoy dispatched ship not to permit the dows to approach; a letter to Captain Davis of the Sapphire, but he would not listen to the suggestion, requesting him to proceed to the entrance of the Gulph, to secure the Sylph, if possi- him. The dows, however, did approach as he declared they would not touch ble. On the 6th November a boat arrived from Roselkeim, at the date of the depar- fire one gun, and to discharge her mus so close, that the Sylph had only time to ture of which no such capture had been quetry at them, before they were alongmade; but in three days, another boat side, and poured on board her in great came in, which brought an account that four vessels had been taken, one of which and overwhelming numbers. It is uncontained Nawab. We immediately recog necessary to state all the circumstances. nized by this description the unfortunate The Persian Secretary, from the concealPersian Secretary, the splendour of whose ment to which he had fled, was still able dress had imposed him as a Nabob on session, the Arabs threw water on the to ascertain that, as the first act of posthe pirates. The next day a still more ship to purify it; that they then procee led circumstantial account of the capture to the deliberate murder of the men,

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who were ou deck or discoverable; that they brought them one by one to the gangway, and in the spirit of barbarous fanaticism cut their throats as sacrifices; crying out before the slaughter of each victim, Ackbar," and, when the deed was done," Allah il Allah." In the space of an hour they had thus put to death twenty-two persons; and were proceeding with lights to look for more, when they were astonished by a shot through the Sylph from the Nereide. On perceiving the disaster of the Sylph, Captain Corbett had immediately hauledup; and, though far to the windward, his shot still reached. The Arabs immediately took to their dows; and, elated by the havock of their success, made for the Nereide. As soon as Captain Corbett perceived that they were bearing down upon him, he ceased firing altogether. The Persian Secretary told us, that he saw the dows approach so close to the frigate, that the Arabs were enabled to coinmence the attack in their usual manner by throwing stones. Still the Nereide did not fire; till at length, when both dows were fairly alongside, she opened two tremendous broadsides. The Secretary said he saw one dow disappear totally, and immediately; and the other almost as instantaneously: they went down with the crews, crying, Allah, Allah. Nine men only escaped, who had previ ously made off in a boat. The Sylph was taken to Muscat, where the Persian Secretary was put on board the Mi

nerva.

PRESENT GOVERNMENT.

The administration of the provinces of Persia is now committed to the princes. The jurisdiction of Prince Hossein Ali Mirza, one of the King's sons, is very extensive: it comprises, under the general name of Farsistan, not only the original province, of which Shiraz was the capital (as subsequently it became that of all Persia, and as it still is of the governments combined under the Prince) but Laristan also, to the south; and Bebehan to the north-west; which severally, as well as Farsistan, possessed before their particular Beglerbegs.

PEARL FISHERY.

There is, perhaps, no place in the world where those things which are es teemed riches among men, abound more than in the Persian gulph. Its bottom is studded with pearls, and its coasts with rines of precious ore. The island of Bahrein, on the Arabian shore, has been 'considered the most productive bank of the pearl oysters; but the island of Khar

rack now shares the reputation. The fishery extends along the whole of the Arabian coast, and to a large proportion of the Persian side of the gulph. Verdistan, Nabon, and Busheab, on that side, are more particularly mentioned; but indeed, it is à general rule, that, whereever in the gulph there is a shoal, there is also the pearl oyster.

The fishery, though still in itself as prolific as ever, is not perhaps carried on with all the activity of former years; since it declined in consequence by the transfer of the English market to the banks of the coast of Ceylon. But the Persian pearl is never without a demand; though little of the produce of the fishery comes direct into Persia. The trade has now almost entirely centred at Muscat. From Muscat the greater part of the pearls are exported to Surat; and, as the agents of the Indian merchants are con stantly on the spot, and as the fishers prefer the certain sale of their merchandize there to a higher but less regular price in any other market, the pearls may often be bought at a less price in India, than to an individual they would have been sold in Arabia. There are two kinds; the yellow pearl, which is sent to the Mahratta market; and the white pearl, which is circulated through Bassorah and Bagdad into Asia Minor, and thence into the heart of Europe; though, indeed, a large proportion of the whole is arrested in its progress at Constantinople to deck the Suitanas of the Seraglio. The pearl of Ceylon peels off; that of the Gulph is as firm as the rock upon which it grows; and, though it loses in colour and water 1 per cent. annually for fifty years, yet it still loses less than that of Ceylon. It ceases after filty years to lose any thing.

About twenty years ago the fishery was farmed out by the different chiefs along the coast: thus the Sheiks of Bahrein and of El Katif, having assumed a certain portion of the Pearl Bank, obliged every speculator to pay them a certain sum for the right of fishing. At present, however, the trade which still employs a considerable number of boats is carried on entirely by individuals. There are two modes of speculation: the first, by which the adventurer charters a boat by the month or by the season; in this boat he sends his agent to superintend the whole, with a crew of about fifteen men, including generally five or six divers. The divers commence their work at sunrise and finish at sun set. The oysters, that have been brought up, are succes

sively confided to the superinten lant; and, when the business of the day is done, they are opened on a piece of white linen: the agent of course keeping a very active inspection over every shell. The man who, on opening an oyster, finds a valuable pearl, immediately puts it into his mouth, by which they fancy that it gains a finer water; and, at the end of the fishery, he is entitled to a present. The whole speculation costs about one hun dred and fifty piastres a month; the divers getting ten piastres, and the rest of the crew in proportion. The second and the safest mode of adventure is by au agreement between two parties, where one defrays all the expenses of the boat and provisions, &c. and the other conducts the labours of the fishery. The pearl obtained undergoes a valuation, according to which it is equally divided: but the speculator is further entitled by the terms of the partnership to purchase the other half of the pearl at ten per cent. lower than the market price.

The divers seldom live to a great age. Their bodies break out in sores, and their eyes become very weak and blood-shot. They can remain under water five minutes; and their dives succeed one another very rapidly, as by delay the state of their bodies would soon prevent the renewal of the exertion. They oil the orifice of the cars, and put a horn over their nose. In general life they are restricted to a certain regimen; and to food composed of dates and other light ingredients. They can dive from ten to fifteen fathoms, and sometimes even more; and their prices increase accord ing to the depth. The largest pearl are generally found in the deepest water, as the success on the bank of Kharrack, which lies very low, has demonstrated. From such depths, and on this bank, the most valuable pearls have been brought up; the largest, indeed, which Sir Harford Jones ever saw was one that had been fished up at Kharrack in nineteen fathoms water.

It has been often contested, whether the pearl in the live oyster is as hard as it appears in the market; or whether it acquires its consistance by exposure. I was assured by a gentleman (who had been encamped at Congoon close to the bank, and who had often bought the oysters from the boys, as they came out of the water,) that he bad opened the shell immediately, and, when the fish was still alive, had found the pearl already hard and formed. He had frequently

also cut the pearl in two, and ascertained it to be equally hard throughout, in layers like the coats of an onion. But Sir Harford Jones, who has had much knowledge of the fishery, informs me, that it is easy by pressing the pearl between the fingers, when first taken out of the shell, to feel that it has not yet attained its ultimate consistency. A very short es posure, however, to the air gives the hardness. The two opinions are easily reconcileable by supposing, either a mis conception of language of the relative term bard, (by which one authority may mean every thing in the oyster which is not gelatinous, while the other would confine it more strictly to the full and perfect consistency of the pearl ;) or by admitting that there may be an original difference in the character of the two species, the yellow and the white pearl; while the identity of the specimen, on which either observation has been formed, has not been noted.

The fish itself is fine eating; nor, in deed in this respect is there any difference between the common and the pearl oys ter. The seed pearls, which are very indifferent, are arranged round the lips of the oyster, as if they were inlaid by the hand of an artist. The large pearl is nearly in the centre of the shell, and in the middle of the fish.

In Persia the pearl is employed for less noble ornaments than in Europe: there it is principally reserved to adorn the kalcoons or water pipes, the tassels for bridles, some trinkets, the inlaying of looking-glasses and toys, for which in deed the inferior kinds are used; or, when devoted more immediately to their persons, it is generally strung as beads to twist about in the hand, or as a rosary for prayer.

The fishermen always augur a good season of the pearl, when there have been plentiful rains; and so accurately has experience taught them, that when corn is very cheap they increase their demands for fishing. The connexion is so well ascertained, (at least so fully credited, not by them only, but by the merchants,) that the prices paid to the fishermen are, in fact, always raised when there have been great rains.

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