CONDESCENSION OF ABBAS MIRZA. 
281 
prayer ; and I found the Prince of Persia, under a roof as humble 
as my own. He was sitting over a kourcy, almost enveloped in 
its cover; which was blue silk, richly embroidered. His back 
was supported by a package, containing the royal bedding ; and 
a superb silver candelabrum, with a waxlight as large as a 
flambeau, blazed from the centre of the kourcy, on which it 
stood. His charming little brother, son, and nephew, occupied 
the same circle, all nearly buried in the folds of the wadded 
silken drapery. His Royal Highness smiled, on my entrance, 
at the evident expression of my countenance, on seeing him also, 
smothered up in one of the most wretched village hovels. I 
took my seat not far from him. In remarking on the rude scene 
around him, he drew an impartial comparison between Europe 
and the East, in those points which affect the daily comfort of 
all classes of people; repeating his regrets, that the season had 
presented his country to me, in so desolate a garb; and that the 
miserable accommodations I had every where seen, must impress 
me with only unfavourable ideas of Persia. He was aware of 
the ease and facility, and even luxury, with which we make our 
journeys in all weathers; and, he added, that “ please God, 
hereafter, as far as ever his power might reach, he would have 
every caravansary on the great roads of the kingdom put into 
repair; besides establishing, in the different towns and villages, a 
house for the comfortable reception of those strangers of distinc¬ 
tion, who may chance to pass through the land.” The spot in 
which we were, a wretched hovel, in the midst of the still proud 
remains of a once great, and now depopulated city, did not fail 
to suggest the most interesting topics to his unprejudiced and 
enlarged mind. He described, in all the poetical language of 
Asiatic eloquence, the riches, splendour, and former consequence 
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