SHIRAZ. 
121 
called the private audience, in the Bagh-a~Vakeel. On walking through 
the garden we met one of his brothers, a little fellow about six years 
old, and who could just totter under the weight of the brocades, 
furs, and shawls with which he was hugely encumbered. Several 
Khans and men of consequence were standing before him, in the same 
attitudes of respect and humility, as they did before his elder brother, 
and attending to all his little orders and whims, with as much obsequi¬ 
ousness, as they would have shewn to a full-grown sovereign. It was 
singular that no notice was taken of an inadvertence which we com¬ 
mitted : the dresses which we had received were honours to which a 
Persian looks forward through his whole life; but as they happened 
to be extremely inconvenient to us, we threw them off as soon as we 
left the Prince's presence. An Englishman just invested with an Order, 
would hardly so throw off the ribband at the gate of St. James's. In 
strictness, the kalaat of Persia should be worn three days, as we after¬ 
wards learnt, when again we had received a similar distinction at 
Teheran , and treated it with similar disrespect. 
Before we left Shiraz , the merchants were all displeased with the 
Envoy, for they had been accustomed in former missions to sell im¬ 
mense quantities of their goods at exorbitant prices; while now all 
their offers were refused, as most of the presents which were given by 
Sir Harford in our progress, were made in coin. The amount of 
those presents indeed was not always satisfactory to the receivers. 
