The account of a voyage at sea, as given by an Oriental, is usually
the most deplorable of narratives--filled with exaggerated fears, the
horrors of sea-sickness, and endless lamentations of the evil fate of
the writer, in being exposed to such a complication of miseries. Of
the wailing of Mirza Abu-Talib we have already given a specimen: and
the Persian princes, even in the luxurious comfort of an English
Mediterranean steamer, seem to have fared but little better, in their
own estimation at least, than the Mirza in his dirty and disorderly
Danish merchantman. "Our bones cried, 'Alas! for this evil there is no
remedy.' We were vomiting all the time, and thus afflicted with
incurable evils, in the midst of a sea which appears without end, the
state of my health bad, the sufferings of my brothers very great, and
no hope of being saved, we became most miserable." Such is the naïve
exposition of his woes, by H. R. H. Najaf Kooli Mirza; but Kerim Khan
appears, both physically and morally, to have been made of different
metal. Ere he had been two days on board we find him remarking--"I had
by this time made some acquaintance among the passengers, and began to
find my situation less irksome and lonely;" shortly afterwards
adding--"The annoyances inseparable from this situation were relieved,
in some measure, by the music and dancing going on every day except
Sundays, owing to the numerous party of passengers, both gentlemen and
ladies, whom we had on board--seeing which, a man forgets his griefs
and troubles in the general mirth around him." So popular, indeed,
does the khan appear already to have become, that the captain, finding
that he had hitherto abstained from the use of his pipe, that great
ingredient in Oriental comfort, from an idea that smoking was
prohibited on board, "instantly sent for my hookah, had it properly
prepared for me, and insisted on my not relinquishing this luxury, the
privation of which he knew would occasion me considerable
inconvenience." In other respects, also, he seems to have been not
less happily constituted; for though he says that "the rolling and
rocking of the ship, when it entered the _dark waters_ or open sea,
completely upset my two companions, who became extremely sick"--his
remarks on the incidents of the voyage, and the novel phenomena which
presented themselves to his view, are never interrupted by any of
those pathetic lamentations on the instability of the human stomach,
which form so important and doleful an episode in the relations of
most landsmen, of whatever creed or nation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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