BIRTH OF AMBASSADOR’S CHILD. 
103 
himself from the fury of the mob ; but being countenanced by the 
Prince’s mother, and consequently by the Prince himself, he let the 
storm rage, and solaced himself by making fresh plans for raising more 
money. The price of bread was lowered for a few days, until the com¬ 
motion should cease ; and as it was necessary that some satisfaction 
should be given to the people*, all the bakers in the town were col¬ 
lected together, and publicly bastinadoed on the soles of their feet. — 
It may well be imagined, that by thus inflicting on the innocent what 
ought to have been the portion of the guilty, the current of public 
odium ran stronger against the Prince and his Ministers than it did 
before. — He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him. Proverbs, 
xi. 26. 
On the 13th June, the Ambassadress was delivered of a daughter, 
notwithstanding the predictions of Dervish Sefer, a cunning man, who 
had assured the Ambassador that he would have a son, and who even 
before the event had taken place, had demanded a present, as the price 
of his divination. The Persians lend a willing ear to such predictions, 
because they look upon a son as a blessing, and its birth is announced 
with great ceremony to the father. Some confidential servant about 
the Harem is usually the first to get the information, when he runs in 
great haste to his master, and says, Mujdeh!'''’ or, good news, by which 
he secures to himself a gift, which generally follows the Mujdeh. — 
Amongst the common people, the man who brings the Mujdeh, fre¬ 
quently seizes on the cap or shawl, or any such article belonging 
to the father, as a security for the present to which he holds himself 
entitled. These circumstances may help to illustrate the passage in 
Jeremiah, xx. 15. “ Cursed be the man xvho brought tidings to my 
* As the chief baker was dignified by the title of Mirza, we may infer that Pharoah’s 
chief baker was a person of equal dignity; and no reason being assigned in Scripture why 
after liberating the chief butler and the chief baker from prison, the one should be restored 
to favour, and the other shortly after executed, perhaps what usually is thought an act of 
despotical caprice, may be better explained by the necessity of appeasing popular clamour, 
which the alternate vicissitudes of famine and plenty in the land of Egypt renders more 
probable. 
