I soon afterwards saw old Shaikh Nasser moving slowly along, muttering his usual phrase, "There's no harm done:[22] Persian scoundrels, Arab fools, all will go to hell together! God is just!--Well, well, there's no harm done." I spoke to him--he took no notice, but went to his usual seat to superintend some carpenters, who were building a vessel which had been on the stocks about seventy years; there his smothered passion found vent in the most virulent abuse of all his tribe who approached him. When I spoke to him some time afterwards, he seemed in better humour. "This ship," said he, pointing to the ribs of the rude vessel, "will be finished some day or other, and she will hold us all: there is no harm done." Mahomed Sheriff Khan used to laugh at his own habits, which he deemed less personal than belonging to his condition. One day, when riding through the streets, he observed me looking significantly at his Tûrkûman horse stretching his long neck to seize some greens, which a man was carrying in a basket on his head--"He has learnt it,"[23] said my friend, with a smile. When I looked on the desert arid plains which lie between Abusheher and the mountains, and saw the ignorant, half-naked, swarthy men and women broiling under a burning sun, with hardly any food but dates, my bosom swelled with pity for their condition, and I felt the dignity of the human species degraded by their contented looks. "Surely," said I to Khojah Arratoon, an Armenian (known in the mission by the name of Blue-beard),[24] "these people cannot be so foolish as to be happy in this miserable and uninstructed state. They appear a lively, intelligent race--can they be insensible to their comparatively wretched condition? Do they not hear of other countries? have they no envy, no desire for improvement?" The good old Armenian smiled, and said, "No; they are a very happy race of people, and so far from envying the condition of others, they pity them. But," added he, seeing my surprise, "I will give you an anecdote which will explain the ground of this feeling.