BENEVOLENCE OF JAFFIER ALI KHAN. 
689 
were all that I saw of Shiraz for several days after my arrival. 
But the attentions of my host were so unwearied, that I never 
could forget I was in the house of the near kinsman of the two 
noble Persians, Jaffier Ali Khan, and Mirza Seid Ali, who had 
shewn the warmest personal friendship to our “ Man of God!” 
for so they designated Henry Martyn. When the weather be¬ 
came too intense for his enfeebled frame to bear the extreme 
heat of the city, Jaffier Ali Khan pitched a tent for him in a 
most delightful garden beyond the walls, where he pursued his 
Asiatic translations of the Scriptures; or sometimes in the cool 
of the evening, he sat under the shade of an orange-tree, by the 
side of a clear stream, holding that style of conversation with 
the two admirable brothers, which caused their pious guest to say, 
“ That the bed of roses on which he reclined, and the notes of the 
nightingales which warbled above him, were not so sweet as 
such discourse from Persian lips.” The land in which he so 
expressed himself, is indeed that of the “ bulbul and the rose 
the poet Hafiz having sung of their charms till he identified 
their names with that of his native city. 
To Shiraz, like most other towns of the empire, many dif¬ 
ferent periods are assigned for its foundation. Some Asiatic 
authors date it so far back as to the Mahabad kings; a race so 
sunk in the depths of time, that if they existed at all, it must 
have been before the flood. Others say, it was built by Kaiomurs, 
the beginner of the Paishdadian line, a grandson of Noah; and 
in that case, Shiraz would have been one generation anterior to 
Babel itself. But these are dreams, which have literally no 
foundation ; and though it be highly probable that so fine a 
situation for a city would not be left long unoccupied, after that 
part of the East became spread with inhabitants; yet, as no 
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