mean station, and though my Persian servant, who had accompanied me, was making signs to me to stop. 'It is a mere trifle,' said the Prince, 'and I hope to find some other articles more worthy your acceptance, for my only desire is to be agreeable to you.' The morrow brought me his _Nazir_, or steward, to ask for three hundred _toumans_ (150_l._); and as I seemed in no hurry to give them, he sent for his shield back again. Some time afterwards, he came to see me, and asked why I had returned it. 'You sent for it by your nazir,' I said. 'My nazir,' he replied, (although the man was present and looking on with an ambiguous smile,) 'is a rogue and a storyteller; give me a hundred toumans and I will let you have the shield, which indeed is yours. I begged you to accept it as well as every thing else I may possess.' And so the matter ended." The foregoing picture of Oriental munificence can scarcely be more disenchanting than the sight of the sketch of Mohammed-Schah which Prince Soltykoff had the honor to take. The large head, the heavy inexpressive features, the clumsy frame, are sad dream dispellers; and were it not for the redeeming Persian cap, the "Centre of the World" might be mistaken for a grocer of the Rue St. Denis in a shawl dressing-gown. On grand occasions the appearance of the Schah must be still more incongruous, if we are to believe the description which the author gives of the state dress preserved in the royal treasury. One can scarcely fancy a gouty Centre of the World attired in a European uniform of _blue cloth_, with the facings embroidered in diamonds, ruby buttons, and epaulets formed of immense emeralds, to which are attached fringes of large pearls. We translate a description of a last sitting, and of the exchange of courtesies between the royal model and the amateur artist; it may serve to reconcile some of our readers to the rather monotonous form in which royal munificence is usually displayed in European courts. When compared to a lame horse, a gold snuff-box appears--if not an ingenious--at least a convenient present: