24 
HISTORY OF THE SHEIK OF BUSHIRE. 
same proscription, escaped. There, as in Turkey, and probably in all 
despotic countries, the guilt, or rather the disgrace, of an individual, 
entails equal punishment on all his family and adherents. 
On the following morning, Mahomed Khan, the Nasakchee Basliee , 
whose mission had produced these changes, entered Bushire , and 
assumed the administration of the government. The town was so far 
tranquillized, indeed, that the Bazars were re-opened. The proclama¬ 
tions which the Khan had issued, pledging security and peace to the 
inhabitants, had recalled them to their houses; and the example of 
severe punishment, which he inflicted on one of his own men for stealing 
the turban Of a Jew, operated still more powerfully than his assurances. 
In the course of the morning we rode to the gates of the town: there 
was here a large assembly of armed men, for little other purpose indeed 
than to hear the news and the lies of the day : for a picture, however, 
the mob was excellent; nothing can be marked more strongly in cha¬ 
racter, than the hard and parched-up features of the inhabitants of this 
part of Persia. Though the first consternation had thus subsided, the 
people had not resumed their daily occupations. In the course of our 
ride we did not meet a single woman carrying water, or a single ass car¬ 
rying wood; for the circumstances which had now happened were un¬ 
paralleled in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and excited the 
strongest emotion throughout the country. 
In appearance, indeed, the place was already tranquil; but the re¬ 
gulations which the Khan enforced, were too little accommodated to the 
previous habits of the people to reconcile them to his administration. 
Some of the most respectable merchants prepared to emigrate, and all 
beheld with terror the officers of police displaying in the Bazars the 
preparations for the bastinado, (the justice of Persia), with which they 
contrasted very favourably the lenient rule of their Arab Chief. In the 
progress of his government, the Khan still continued to exasperate the 
principal inhabitants by extorting donations of their goods. When, 
indeed, Mahomed J a f f e r , the brother of the expected G overnor, re¬ 
ceived in his turn such a demand, he not only returned a direct denial* 
