te of an ambassador, which our government
found itself under the necessity of sending to the Shah of Persia.
Persia, that imaginary seat of Oriental splendour! that land of poets
and roses! that cradle of mankind, that uncontaminated source of Eastern
manners lay before me, and I was delighted with the opportunities
which would be afforded me of pursuing my favourite subject. I had an
undefined feeling about the many countries I was about to visit, which
filled my mind with vast ideas of travel.

'Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum, vel quae loca fabulosus
Lambit Hydaspes.'

I was in some degree like a French lady of my acquaintance, who had
so general a notion of the East, that upon taking leave of her, she
enjoined me to get acquainted with a friend of hers, living, as she
said, _quelque part dans les Indes_, and whom, to my astonishment, I
found residing at the _Cape of Good Hope!_

I will not say that all my dreams were realised; for, perhaps, no
country in the world less comes up to one's expectation than Persia,
whether in the beauties of nature, or the dress and magnificence of its
inhabitants. But in what regards manners and customs, it appears to me
that no Asiatics bear so strong the stamp of an ancient origin as
they. Even in their features I thought to have distinguished a decided
originality of expression; which was confirmed when I remarked, that the
numerous faces seen among the sculptures of Persepolis, so perfect as
if chiselled but yesterday, were so many likenesses of modern Persians,
more particularly of the natives of the province of Fars.

During my long residence there, I never lost the recollection of our
conversation on the sofa of the Swedish palace; and every time I added
an anecdote or an observation illustrative of Oriental manners to my
store, or a sketch to my collection, I always thought of the Reverend
Doctor Fundgruben, and sighed after that imaginary manuscript which some
imaginary native of the East must have written as a complete exposition
of the life of his countrymen.

I will not say, learned sir, that the years I passed in Persia were
years of happiness, or that during that time I could so far keep up an
illusion, that I was living among the patriarchs in the first ages of
the world, or among those Persians whose monarchs gave laws to almost
the whole of Asia: no, I sighed for shaven chins and swallow-tailed
coats; a