680 
SURGEON OF KARA-KOULAK. 
Meanwhile, I made acquaintance with an old Armenian prac- 
tiser of surgery and physic, who lived next door to the post¬ 
hovel that was my menzil. As a brother-Christian, he first paid 
me his respects, and then sent me, at several times during the 
evening, little presents of dried fruit, cheese, &c. I knew no way 
of making a return for this hospitable kindness, but by present¬ 
ing him with an instrument of his profession. I had in my 
pocket the fellow-lancet to that which had raised so animated an 
emotion of joy nearly three years before, in the breast of a 
worthy Persian of the same faculty; and when I now put it into 
the hand of my good Armenian, his rapture was not less over¬ 
powering : could I have carried the whole of his little winter-store 
away with me, he would have bestowed all on me, in gratitude for 
what I had then given him. He said, that having once seen the 
advantage of such an instrument in the hand of a European, pass¬ 
ing through this country, for fifteen years afterwards he had been 
enquiring for the same, of almost every traveller that came in his 
way; but being always disappointed, long before I appeared he 
had abandoned all hope of seeing it again. Therefore such 
a gift to him, at this moment, seemed like the work of enchant¬ 
ment. Indeed the good man’s ecstasies were so on the alert, that 
I had my doubts whether he could go to rest without phlebotom¬ 
ising some of his neighbours, out of pure delight in shewing 
the future excellency of his practice. Here were two instances, 
and both by the same means, in which I found science open the 
heart of these otherwise uncultivated Asiatics, to disinterested 
rejoicing in attainments beneficial to their fellow-creatures; and 
the consequent reflections gave me no small pleasure, when I 
recollected how many of those Asiatics are now studying, not 
merely the sciences in Europe, but almost unconsciously imbib- 
