sure, and fearing, from my growing celebrity, that I
should very soon rival him in his own profession, rather urged than
delayed my departure. On the morning when I was about quitting Shiraz,
and was bidding adieu to my friends the monkeys, bears, and other
animals under his care, he said to me, "Sefer, my son, I should be sorry
to part with you; but with the education which you have received, and
the peculiar advantages which you have had of living almost entirely
in the society of me and my beasts, it is impossible but that you will
succeed in life. I now endow you with what will ensure you a rapid
fortune. I give you my chief ape, the most accomplished of his species.
Make a friend of him for your own sake, and love him for mine; and I
hope in time that you will reach the eminence to which your father has
attained." Upon this he placed the animal upon my shoulder, and thus
accompanied I left the paternal roof.

'I took the road to Ispahan, in no very agreeable mood, for I scarcely
knew whether to be happy or sorry for this change in my circumstances.
A monkey and independence were certainly delightful things; but to leave
my associates, and the places that were endeared to me from my infancy,
and, above all, to abandon that fair unknown, whom my imagination had
pictured to me as lovely as _Shireen_ herself, were circumstances which
appeared to me so distressing, that by the time I had reached the hut
of the dervish, at the _Teng Allah Akbar_, my mind sank into a miserable
fit of despondency. I seated myself on a stone, near the hut, and,
with my monkey by my side, I gave vent to my grief in a flood of tears,
exclaiming, "_Ah wahi! Ah wahi!_" in accents the most piteous that can
be imagined.

'These brought the dervish out, and when he had heard my tale, invited
me into the hut, where I found another dervish, of much more commanding
aspect than the former. He was clad nearly in the same manner that I am
now (indeed, the cap I wear was his); but there was a wildness about his
looks that was quite imposing.

'At the sight of me and my companion, he appeared struck by a sudden
thought. He and the other dervish having talked together in private, he
proposed that I should accompany him to Ispahan, promised that he would
be kind to me, and, if I behaved well, would put me into the way of
making my fortune. I readily agreed, and after the dervish of the hut
had given us a pipe to smoke, we departed, walking at a good pace;