Hajee Hoosein, who was riding near me, said, as if he had read my thoughts, "This is a charming place, and the inhabitants are remarkable for their wit, as well as for their pears, peaches, and pretty ladies. When Abbas the Great"--I pulled up my horse, and looked at him with a countenance that indicated any thing but anxiety for his story; but not observing, or not choosing to observe, he continued:--"When Abbas the Great was hunting in this valley, he met, one morning as the day dawned, an uncommonly ugly man, at the sight of whom his horse started. Being nearly dismounted, and deeming it a bad omen, he called out in a rage to have his head struck off. The poor peasant whom they had seized, and were on the point of executing, prayed that he might be informed of his crime:--'Your crime,' said the king, 'is your unlucky countenance, which is the first object I saw this morning, and which had nearly caused me to fall from my horse.' 'Alas!' said the man, 'by this reckoning, what term must I apply to your majesty's countenance, which was the first object my eyes met this morning, and which is to cause my death?' The king smiled at the wit of the reply, ordered the man to be released, and gave him a present instead of taking off his head." "Well," said I, when the Hajee had finished, "I am glad I have heard this story, for it proves your Abbas was, with all his fine qualities, a capricious and cruel tyrant." "No doubt he was," said my friend, "like other men in his condition, spoilt by the exercise of despotic power. He had violent bursts of passion, but these were not frequent; and then he used to be very sorry for what he did when in one of his paroxysms; and what more could be expected from a Shâhin-shâh, or king of kings? There," said he, as we entered Nethenz,--"There is an instance of the truth of what I say; you see that little dome on the summit of the hill which overhangs the town. It is called Goom-bez-e-Bâz, or the dome of the hawk. It happened one day that this monarch, fatigued with hunting, had sat down on the top of that hill with a favourite hawk on his hand; he called for some water, and a cup was brought from a neighbouring spring; the hawk dashed the cup from the king's hand as he was about to drink; another was sent for, but the bird managed to spill it likewise; a third and a fourth shared the same fate. The monarch, in a rage, killed the hawk. Before he had time to take another cup, one of his attendants noticed that the water was discoloured. This gave rise to suspicions; and the spring was found to have been poisoned with the venom of a snake or some plant. Shâh Abbas, inconsolable at his rashness in destroying the bird which had saved his life, built this dome to its memory, and is said to have often visited it."