[50] _A Tour to Sheeraz by the route of Karroon and Feerozabad_, London, 1807. [51] In two splendid volumes, printed by native hands under the sanction of the Government at Calcutta, in 1891, Lieutenant-Colonel H. Wilberforce Clarke published an English prose translation of _The Divan, written in the Fourteenth Century_, by Khwaja Shamshu-d-Din Muhammad-i-Hafiz. The work is described in the _Quarterly Review_ of January 1892, by a writer who thus begins: 'About two miles north-west of Shiraz, in the garden called Mosella which is, being interpreted, "the place of prayer," lies, beneath the shadow of cypress-trees, one of which he is said to have planted with his own hand, Shems-Edden Mohammed, surnamed Hafiz, or "the steadfast in Scripture," poet, recluse, and mystic.... No other Persian has equalled him in fame--not Sadi, whose monument, now in ruins, may be visited near his own; nor Firdusi, nor Jami. Near the garden tomb is laid open the book of well nigh seven hundred poems which he wrote. According to Sir Gore Ouseley, who turned over its pages in 1811, it is a volume abounding in bright and delicate colour, with illuminated miniatures, and the lovely tints of the Persian caligraphy.' [52] _Persia and the Persian Question_, 2 vols. (Longmans), 1892. [53] _Travels_, vol. i. pp. 687-8. CHAPTER X IN PERSIA--CONTROVERSIES WITH MOHAMMEDANS, SOOFIS, AND JEWS Henry Martyn's first week in Persia was enough to lead him to use such language as this: '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 Mohammedans.' The experienced Bengal civilian, Mr. E. Scott Waring, had thus summed up his impressions: 'The generality of Persians are sunk in the lowest state of profligacy and infamy, and they seldom hesitate alluding to crimes which are abhorred and detested in every civilised country in the universe. Their virtues consist in being most excellent companions, and in saying this we say everything which can be advanced in their favour. The same argument cannot be advanced for them which has been urged in favour of the Greeks, for they have laws which stigmatise the crimes they commit.' Every generation seems to have departed farther and farther from the character of the hero-king, Cyrus. At the present time, after two visits to Europe by their Shah, the governing class, the priestly order of Moojtahids, and the people seem to be more hopelessly corrupt than ever.[54]