In his political utterances he was a good deal more cautious; he always made an evasive answer to my insinuations. Once, sailing on the Danube, I remarked that the Karun is wider but not so long as the Danube, the Kadjar prince looked gravely at me and said, "Thank God, no!" ("_If it had been the English would before now have taken Teheran_," was my mental comment.) But in spite of his great reserve and cautiousness in political matters, I got a pretty clear insight into his political views. He had not for the future of his land the same bold confidence as his royal brother on the throne of the Osmanli, for while the latter's plans reach far into the future, and to all appearances, at least, are of a very exalted nature, especially those relating to Panislamism, the Kadjar monarch devotes all his energies to the welfare of his dynasty, or rather of his own person. "_L'État c'est moi_" is also Sultan Abdul Hamid's motto, but the glorious past of his dynasty and his people awakens in him great and exalted ideas, the accomplishment of which he never doubts, while Nasreddin Shah, as the offspring of a Turcoman family, only lately come into power, and, intimidated by the danger which surrounded him on all sides, hardly dared to think of the distant future. In their personalities they are also very different. Sultan Abdul Hamid, although inferior in European culture to his _cher frère_ on the throne of Persia, is shy and timid by nature, more affable and generous than Nasreddin Shah, who, in spite of all his European manners, remained the Asiatic despot and comported himself with all the peculiar pride and strictness of the Oriental ruler. His Grand-Vizier had sometimes to stand for hours before him, and when he wanted some information or other from me, I was often kept standing for a considerable time, regardless of my great fatigue; and he used closely to scrutinise my face if I dared to express an opinion different from his. In his character he certainly was more Oriental than the Sultan, and considered this severity as indispensable to his sovereign dignity.