Here, at Heddah, a more than usually serious quarrel arose between Seyyid ’Alí and Nassir on the subject of the national virtues of their respective countries. It would certainly have ended in a free fight, had not I, awaking from a snooze at the uproar, turned to the pugnacious Arab, who had accused the Persian of hypocrisy, and said in a tone of gentle reproof: “Yá Nassir, is it true that a Persian is double-faced?” For the space of a minute he eyed the supercilious Seyyid, deliberating; then he turned to me. “I wish he were only double-faced,” he replied, “for then I should know how to deal with him. But Satan has given him as many as two thousand faces, and it is beyond the power of any one man to see them all in his lifetime.” I pursued the inquiry, saying, “Oh, Nassir, supposing you were asked to describe the Persian character, how would you sum it up?” This time he turned his flashing eyes on me. “Character comes from conscience,” he answered; “but a Persian has none.” My guide spat derisively on the sand, muttering, “Courtesy is unknown to these people;” then he addressed me in his own language, saying: “But, yá-Moulai, there’s truth in what the burnt-father said, the Almighty Mason having put so many constituents into the clay of a Persian that it is very difficult to analyse it. Our countryman has as many coils and colours as a serpent. He is the essence of politeness and native refinement. He is the personification of jealousy and envy. Conceit and hypocrisy are embodied in him, and so also are generosity and _amour propre_.” The mere sound of the mellifluous Persian drove Nassir beside himself. Raising his stout Arab club, which the Persians call Hájí Yemút or the Pilgrim Slayer, he vowed that he would teach the guide a lesson in courtesy; and then, suddenly bethinking himself that any act of violence on his part would be sure to affect his pocket in the matter of _bakhshísh_, he turned a contemptuous back upon his adversary, and said to me, smiling all over his face: “This club of mine has many qualifications. It is useful in urging my ass to mend its pace, it gives me support when I am tired, and shelter from the sun when I am sleepy”--here he stuck it in the sand, and tied at the top a strip of cloth on a crossbar--“it serves as a line on which to dry my washed clothes, as an altar when it is the hour for me to pray, as a leaping-pole when a mountain torrent stems my path; and, may Allah be praised, it is my surest defence against all my enemies, be they men or beasts, and so, when I die, God forbid, I will leave it as an inheritance to my son.”