nd three days after Mirza Ahmak was again
called before the king in order to inspect the promised ordonnance, and
which consisted of a box of pills. He, of course, created all sorts of
suspicions against their efficacy, threw out some dark hints about the
danger of receiving any drug from the agent of a foreign power, and,
finally, left the Shah in the determination of referring the case to his
ministers. The next day, at the usual public audience, when the Shah was
seated on his throne, and surrounded by his prime vizier, his lord high
treasurer, his minister for the interior, his principal secretary of
state, his lord chamberlain, his master of the horse, his principal
master of the ceremonies, his doctor in chief, and many other of the
great officers of his household, addressing himself to his grand vizier,
he stated the negotiations which he had entered into with the foreign
physician, now resident at his court, for the restoration and the
renovation of the royal person; that at the first conference, the said
foreign physician, after a due inspection of the royal person, had
reported that there existed several symptoms of debility. That at
the second, after assuring the Shah that he had for three whole days
employed himself in consulting his books and records, and gathering
from them the opinions of his own country sages on the subject, he had
combined the properties of various drugs into one whole, which, if taken
interiorly, would produce effects so wonderful, that no talisman could
come in competition with it. His majesty then said, that he had called
into his councils his _Hakim Bashi_, or head physician, who, in his
anxiety for the weal of the Persian monarchy, had deeply pondered over
the ordonnances of the foreigner, and had set his face against them,
owing to certain doubts and apprehensions that had crept into his mind,
which consisted, first, whether it were politic to deliver over the
internal administration of the royal person to foreign regulations and
ordonnances; and, second, whether, in the remedy prescribed, there
might not exist such latent and destructive effects, as would endanger,
undermine, and, finally, overthrow that royal person and constitution,
which it was supposed to be intended to restore and renovate.

'Under these circumstances,' said the Centre of the Universe, raising
his voice at the time, 'I have thought it advisable to pause before I
proceeded in this business; and have resolved t