CONCLUSION* 
367 
He soon accommodated himself to the manner of a ship, sleeping 
in a cot, and eating with a knife and fork. He did not miss a single 
opportunity of informing himself on every thing which he saw on 
board; and whatever he learned, he carefully noted in a book. 
His attendants seldom complained, except sometimes of the badness 
of the water, the hardness of the biscuit, and the want of fruit. I 
was struck with their natural ignorance of relative distance: they 
had been ever accustomed to calculate distance by menzils or day’s 
journies; and they were surprised to find it impossible to continue 
such reckoning. A world of water seemed to them incomprehensible; 
and one of them gravely said to me—“ This is quite extraordinary: 
“ this country of your’s is nothing but water!” 
The Persians were particularly astonished, that women and little 
boys went to sea. The Mirza seeing some women on board the 
Success, exclaimed, “ Is it possible! if I were to tell our women in 
44 Persia that there were women in ships, they would never believe 
“ me. To go from one town to another is considered a great under- 
taking amongst them; but here your women go from one end of 
the world to the other, and think nothing of it. If it were even 
“ known in my family that I was now in a ship and on the great 
“ seas, there would be nothing but wailings and lamentations from 
** morning to night.” 
Among the many things which struck the Persians as extraordinary 
on board the ship, was the business of signals. They looked very 
much inclined to believe, that I was telling them untruths, when I 
said, that at two fimungs distance they might ask any questions from 
another ship, and receive an immediate answer: and that when we 
should reach England, our arrival would be known in London in ten 
minutes, and every necessary order returned before we could get 
out of the ship. All these things the Mirza carefully noted down in 
his book, ever exclaiming, “ God grant that all such things may take 
“ place in my country too!” 
