"Assuredly," said I, "you underrate their knowledge." "I do not," said Abdûlla; "they are worse than I have painted them, and their ignorance is so fortified by pride, that there is no hope of their amendment. Why (said he, with animation), what can you expect from men who are ignorant of the surface of the globe? There," said he, pointing to a rude Turkish book on geography, which lay near him, and appeared to be a translation from an old geographical grammar--"there is the only source of my knowledge, which does not place me on a par with one of your schoolboys of twelve years of age; and yet I am a wonder among these fools, who are astonished at the extent of my information in this branch of science." Though I think it is a very deep and wise observation of that arch politician Machiavel, that the report of a man who has fled his country should not be implicitly trusted, as there must be a bias in his mind to depreciate what he has been obliged to abandon: still there is much truth in the picture which Abdûlla drew of Turkey, and his description of the Persians was not greatly exaggerated. The knowledge of that nation is limited to what they see before them, and their ideas of other States are very indistinct and confused, and consequently liable to frequent fluctuations and changes. All ranks in Persia are brought up to admire show and parade; and they are more likely to act from the dictates of imagination and vanity, than of reason and judgment. Their character was well drawn by Mahomed Nubbee Khan, the late ambassador to India. "If you wish my countrymen to understand you, speak to their eyes, not their ears." My conversation with Abdûlla Aga was interrupted by the arrival of a medical gentleman, who had long resided at Abusheher, and who was not more remarkable for skill in his profession than a kindness of heart, which led him to devote his time to the poor inhabitants of the country who sought his aid. He had just been setting the broken leg of an Arab, of whom he gave us a very characteristic anecdote. "The patient," the doctor said, "complained more of the accident which had befallen him than I thought becoming in one of his tribe. This I remarked to him, and his answer was truly amusing. 'Do not think, doctor, I should have uttered one word of complaint if my own high-bred colt, in a playful kick, had broke both my legs; but to have a bone broken by a brute of a jackass is too bad, and I will complain.'" This distinction of feeling, as to the mode in which bones are broken, is not confined to the Arabs. I once met an artilleryman, after an action in India, with his arm shattered, who was loudly lamenting his bad fortune. I pointed, in an upbraiding manner, to some fine fellows on the ground, whose luck had been worse. "It is not the wound, sir," he retorted, in a passion, "of which I complain: had I lost a limb by a cannon-ball, I should not have said a word; but to lose one by a rascally rocket would make any one mad!"