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CHARACTER OF ABBAS MIRZA. 
sation is full of naivete and pleasantry. In his dress* he is scarcely to 
be distinguished from other persons, for he generally wears the kadek, 
the common manufactured cotton stuff of Persia, made up into a single- 
breasted caba^ with a Cashmerian shawl round his waist. The greatest 
piece of finery belonging to him is a diamond-hilted dagger, which once 
was the property of Lutf Ali Khan, and which on a former emergency 
he threatened to sell, in order to defray some arrears of pay to his 
troops. He wears English boots; and expressed great admiration at 
the helmets of our light dragoons, which he said he would make no 
scruple to wear. 
To Europeans he is studiously polite; when they visit him, he enters 
into that sort of conversation which shows a mind eager for inform¬ 
ation. His rapid manner of talking, which at first appears affected, is 
quite natural to him, and gives an appearance of sincerity to what he 
says, because it does not look premeditated. He is fond of reading, 
and his studies sre principally restricted to the historians of his coun¬ 
try, of which the Shah Nameh of Ferdousi is his favourite. He ex¬ 
presses great anxiety to be informed about the different states of Eu¬ 
rope; and has got together a large collection of English books, which 
he frequently looks at without understanding them, and is always 
devising plans for getting them translated, but hitherto without success, 
A copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was given to him; and it is 
related, that in his wish to find out a piece of mechanism, which he was 
desirous to have made, he had the patience to turn over all the volumes 
of that work, until he came to what he wanted. He has also got a 
collection of maps from the printing-press at Constantinople, which he 
has studied, and which has rendered him about the best geographer in 
his country. Our conclusions upon the character of this Prince were, 
that if he had received an enlightened education, and had been brought 
up with examples of virtue and honour constantly before him, he would 
* In this respect, and upon the same principle, he is like Alexander. Cultu, curaque cor- 
poi is hand mtdtum supra privati modum eminens. Quint. Curt. lib. i. ch. 4. 
