for a sprain. Had I had some powerful protector,
who would have prosecuted the business for me, perhaps I might have got
redress; but a miserable creature like myself, unknown and unfriended,
I could have gained nothing, and should perhaps have stood a chance of
losing the little money I had acquired.

CHAPTER X

He makes a soliloquy, and becomes an itinerant vendor of smoke.

I held a consultation with myself as to what I should do next for my
livelihood. Various walks in life were open to me. The begging line
was an excellent one in Meshed, and, judging from my success as
water-carrier, I should very soon have been at the head of the
profession. I might also have become a _luti_,[23] and kept a bear; but
it required some apprenticeship to learn the tricks of the one, and
to know how to tame the other: so I gave that up. Still I might have
followed my own profession, and have taken a shop; but I could not bear
the thoughts of settling, particularly in so remote a town as Meshed.
At length I followed the bent of my inclination, and, as I was myself
devotedly fond of smoking, I determined to become an itinerant seller
of smoke. Accordingly I bought pipes of various sizes, a wooden tray,
containing the pipe-heads, which was strapped round my waist, an iron
pot for fire, which I carried in my hand, a pair of iron pincers, a
copper jug for water, that was suspended by a hook, behind my back, and
some long bags for my tobacco. All these commodities were fastened about
my body, and when I was fully equipped, I might be said to look like
a porcupine with all its quills erect. My tobacco was of various
sorts--Tabas, Shiraz, Susa, and Damascus. It is true that I was not very
scrupulous about giving it pure; for with a very small quantity of the
genuine leaf I managed to make a large store, with the assistance of
different sorts of dungs. I had a great tact in discovering amongst my
customers the real connoisseur, and to him I gave it almost genuine. My
whole profits, in fact, depended upon my discrimination of characters.
To those of the middling ranks, I gave it half-mixed; to the lower sort,
three-quarters; and to the lowest, almost without any tobacco at all.
Whenever I thought I could perceive a wry face, I immediately exerted my
ingenuity in favour of the excellence of my tobacco. I showed specimens
of the good, descanted on its superior qualities, and gave the history
of the very gardener who had reared it, and pl