The next personage is Jaffier Ali Khan, brother to the Nabob of Masulipatam. This Indian Mahomedan is a man high in rank though of limited income, and has been from boyhood an intimate friend of the Elchee. Having married into a Persian family, he now resides at Shiraz, where he has been for some time employed as an agent. Jaffier Ali is a tolerable English scholar, but writes that language with more facility than correctness. He was, in his earlier years, extravagant from love of dissipation, and is now imprudent from irresolution. He has acquired a good deal of knowledge, but wants firmness of judgment. The consequence is, that both in conducting his own affairs and those of others, he becomes the dupe of rogues, with whom such a character is sure always to be surrounded. Nevertheless, there is such a redeeming simplicity of manner, and such kindness of heart, about poor Jaffier Ali, that it is impossible for any one to keep up that indignation which his folly often produces. "My friend is not the honest man I thought him," said he one day to me, speaking of a fellow who had duped him; "I have been more foolish than I could have believed, but I will take care another time: yet," he added, with a sympathy for his own weakness, "it is very difficult to deal with these Persians, they are so pleasing in their speech and manner, and most of all when they have cheating intentions." Mahomed Hoosein, who is also an Indian, has served the Elchee as Moonshee, or instructor in the Persian language, since the latter was an ensign of eighteen, and has gradually risen with his master, whose confidence he enjoys and merits. He is a modest man, speaks little, but always to the purpose. It is not the habit of the Elchee to bring any man in his station prominently forward, and this practice appears exactly to suit the character of the Moonshee, which it has perhaps formed. He never goes to the Elchee but when he is sent for, and never stays when not wanted; is pleased with any mark of flattering attention, but never appears, like others, to make that his object. With this happy temper, and an honesty that has stood the test of great temptation for more than twenty years, he passes a comparatively still life, amidst all the bustle with which he is surrounded. When not busy writing letters he is employed reading some Persian book, chiefly works on the theological disputes between the Soonees and the Sheas. He holds the tenets of the former; and, with all due reverence to Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of the Prophet, he thinks, with the Turks and Arabs, that Abubeker, Omar, and Osman, were true men and good Caliphs, and not as the Persians, in their enthusiasm for Ali, term them, base caitiffs and vile usurpers. The Moonshee said to me one day, when I was joking him on his studies, "I do not want to dispute with these red-headed[31] doctors, but I must fortify myself in my own belief;" and he added, in a low tone of voice, "How can the faith of men be