34 
RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSHIRE. 
during our residence on the spot, and there was, therefore, little direct 
political intercourse between the Envoy and the Nasakchee Bashee, (the 
Chief Executioner), who superintended those changes: yet as that 
officer was the ostensible representative of the Government of Shiraz , 
some communications naturally took place. Before the assumption of 
the administration of Busliire , (while the Khan’s object was yet unat¬ 
tained), there was in this intercourse little unsatisfactory; but in his 
later conduct to the mission, there was something of the insolence of 
newly acquired power; he sent word more than once that he was 
coming to pay a visit to the Envoy, and as frequently neglected his 
engagement. At length he arrived, puffing in great haste; and as soon 
as he had seated himself, he pulled off his black sheep-skin cap, and 
begun to read a paper which he took from his pocket. The Envoy 
asked him, if he were reading a firman from the court, which ordered 
him to sit bald-headed. The reproof startled him, and the Envoy con¬ 
tinued ; that, representing as he did his Sovereign, he could not permit 
the Khan to do in his presence an act of disrespect which he would not 
do before his equals, and much less before his superiors. The Khan 
immediately put on his cap, and in his shame waved his hand for his 
attendants to withdraw. Sir Harford also ordered his own Persians 
to retire, and as the suite were in succession leaving the room the Khan 
had some leisure to digest the well-timed rebuke. 
The notice which the Envoy had been thus obliged to take of an ap¬ 
parent disrespect in the Khans conduct was the more necessary, as He 
had that morning received a letter from the Prince at Shiraz , the form 
and terms of which required some explanation; and on which, there- 
u This is a very rare instance of the successful assumption by an European of an Eastern 
u character. I have known, in Turkey, several renegado Englishmen, who could never 
“ sufficiently disguise themselves to be taken for original Mussulmans.” 
It must be understood, however, that Talamash is believed to have been born at Con¬ 
stantinople , of a French father indeed, yet from his earliest youth to have been unfettered 
by a conformity to European usages. 
