_May 28._--Through the infinite and unmerited goodness of God I am again restored, and able to do something in the way of reading. The Resident gave us some account this evening of the moral state of Persia. It is enough to make one shudder. If God rained down fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, how is it that this nation is not blotted out from under heaven? I do not remember to have heard such things of the Hindus, except the Sikhs; they seem to rival the Mahometans. For personal comfort and freedom from insult or attack, Henry Martyn, when in Bushire, ordered the usual wardrobe of a Persian gentleman. He had suffered his beard and moustachios to vegetate undisturbed since leaving India, as he wrote to Corrie. In conical Astrakhan cap, baggy blue trousers, red boots, and light chintz tunic and _chogha_ or flowing coat, mounted on a riding pony, and followed by his Armenian servant on a mule, with another mule for his baggage, he set out on May 30, 1811, for Shiraz. His companion was a British officer. The party formed a large caravan with some thirty horses and mules, carrying goods to the ambassador. They marched by night, in the comparative coolness of 100°, to which the thermometer fell from the noonday heat of 126°, when they lay panting in their tents protected from the scorching dry wind by heavy clothing. The journey of some 170 miles occupied the first nine days of June. After ninety miles over a hot sandy plain the traveller rises, by four rocky _kotuls_ or inclines, so steep as to be called ladders, over the spurs of the Zagros range into a cooler region at Kaziroon, on the central plateau of Iran, and then passes through the most delightful valleys, wooded or clad with verdure, to the capital, Shiraz, surrounded by gardens and by cemeteries.