SHIRAZ. 
Ill 
the Minister, to partake of an entertainment which was given to the 
Envoy. We had scarcely dismounted from our horses at the Minister's 
gate, when the crowd, anxious to obtain admission, rushed forward, and 
long impeded the passage of the suite; until our Mehmandar himself 
commanded respect by administering a volley of blows with a stick on 
the heads of the surrounding multitude. As soon as the Envoy entered 
the court, (which appeared from the numbers already pressed into it, 
to be the scene of the amusement), the Persian music struck up, and a 
rope dancer, whose rope stood conspicuous in the centre, begun to 
vault into the air. 
Abdullah Khan, the Minister's Son, conducted us into the 
presence of his father, where we soon ranged ourselves among a numer¬ 
ous company of the Nobles of the place, who were invited to meet us. 
Abdullah Khan, who is a man of about thirty, and a person of 
much consequence at Shiraz , never once seated himself in the apart¬ 
ment where his father sat, but, according to the Eastern customs of filial 
reverence, stood at the door like a menial servant, or went about super¬ 
intending the entertainments of the day. As soon as we were settled, 
the amusements commenced; and at the same moment the rope-dancer 
vaulted, the dancing boys danced, the water-spouter spouted, the fire- 
eater devoured fire, the singers sung, the musicians played on their 
kammnchas , and the drummers beat lustily on their drums. This 
singular combination of noises, objects, and attitudes, added to the 
cries and murmurs of the crowd around, amused, yet almost dis¬ 
tracted us. 
The rope-dancer performed some feats, which really did credit to his 
profession. He first walked over his rope with his balancing pole, then 
A^aulted on high; he ascended the rope to a tree in an angle of forty- 
five degrees? but,as he was reaching the very extremity of the upper range 
of the angle, he could proceed no further, and remained in an uncertain 
position for the space of two minutes. He afterwards tied his hands to 
a rope-ladder of three large steps; and, first balancing his body by the 
