18 
PERSIAN AMBASSADOR AT BOMBAY. 
The Governor at length ceded the point, and a few days after, the 
Ambassador, arrayed in crimson velvet, with his diamond hilted dagger 
in his girdle, returned the visit. On entering the fort he found the 
street lined with soldiers, who saluted him as he passed; and when he 
stepped out of his carriage, after the Indian mode, he was cheered by 
acclamations of “ Dowlet ziad,'^ or. Prosperity attend you. Two pages 
in red and gold walked by his side, driving away the flies with large 
bunches of feathers, and several other men called chubdars with mas¬ 
sive silver sticks, walked before him in a very stately style. The Indians 
are much more attached to show and parade than the Persians, whose 
habits are more military. The English government does not discourage 
this taste in its nabobs, who perhaps more easily forget their loss of 
power in the glitter of pomp and the high sounding titles which they 
retain. Yet the Persians are a vain people, and none are more sensible 
of personal slight. Although I was constant in my visits to the Am¬ 
bassador, seeing him at least every other day, yet he never accosted me 
without saying, “ Ah, I never see any thing of you now.” It was at 
these visits, where he was surrounded both by Indians and his own 
countrymen, that he held forth upon his travels; and it was pleasing to 
hear him express his gratitude for the kindness which he had received 
during his stay among us, and his enthusiastic admiration of England. 
With this enthusiasm, added to his natural propensity to exaggerate, he 
kept his auditors in constant wonder. It would be impossible to enu¬ 
merate all the amusing things which he said of us, of our women, our 
amusements, our government, and particularly of what he saw of the 
troubles excited by Sir Francis Burdett’s seizure and lodgment in the 
Tower in 1810. He ceased to drink wine in public from the time 
when he arrived at Bombay ; and in order that he might not be sus¬ 
pected of having drank it when he lived with us, he desired me to 
request those of his friends with whom he was used to drink wine at 
table, not to ask him to do so again. At the several public entertain¬ 
ments which were given to him at Bombay he courageously did 
penance with plain water, although champagne was offered to him as 
grape water. 
