The most prominent among the lower servants is old Hajee Hoosein, the
head of the personal attendants; he assumes a superiority over his
fellow-servants on the ground of his having visited foreign countries;
and he boasts that from every one of them he has brought away some
advantage or attainment. He has added to a taste for poetry and the
marvellous (which he tells me was born with him in Persia) a love of
antiquities, acquired at Bagdad--a knowledge of Arab horses, picked up
at Bussorah--skill in traffic in small wares, learnt at Muscat--some
theology, and the holy and useful name of Hajee or Pilgrim, gained by
a visit to the Prophet's Tomb at Mecca; and a small but profitable
acquaintance with the machinery of clocks and watches, obtained by
a short apprenticeship with an eminent horologist at Calcutta. This
travelled and very accomplished person, though he condescends to hand
the Elchee his Kellian, and to distribute coffee to visitors, is in
great request throughout our camp, and with none more than me; and I
am rather flattered by the partiality he shows for my society, owing,
I suspect, to my having early declared my admiration of his various
talents, and in particular of his skill as a watchmaker, on his having
succeeded in making an old watch of mine, that had stopped for a
twelvemonth, go for nearly one whole day.
The above personages are our principal characters; minor gentlemen will
speak for themselves when they come upon the stage.
Besides these attached to our camp, we have numbers who, from frequent
visits and dealings, are almost considered as belonging to it. But
our mode of proceeding is now understood, and the Elchee is not
compelled, as he was on his first mission, to guard against attempts of
individuals to establish an exclusive influence. Two of these, made by
very opposite characters, deserve to be recorded.
The first was a specious young man of some ability, whose name was
Hajee Abd-ool-Hameed, who came from Shiraz with a complimentary
letter from the minister, Cherâgh Ali Khan, to whom he had promised
to discover the real object of the mission, while to others he
had professed his intention of making himself the sole medium of
communication and intercourse between the English Representative and
the Persian government.
He pursued his design with some address; but the Elchee seeing him
linger at Abusheher, and very assiduous in his court, suspected his
motives, and one day plainly asked him whether he had any further
business, or entertained any expectations of employment? Though at
first disconcerted by these direct queries, he confessed he had no
business except that of recommending himself; and he then represented
how impossible it would be to carry on any concerns in Persia without a
qualified native as an agent, stating at the same time that he himself
was exactly the man required.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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