cquired worldly consideration
by my taciturnity, by my austerity, and strict adherence to Mahomedan
discipline. But fate had woven another destiny for me. The maidan
(the race-course) of life was still open to me, and the courser of my
existence had not yet exhausted half of the bounds and curvets with
which he was wont to keep me in constant exercise. I felt that I
deserved the misfortunes with which I had been afflicted, owing to my
total neglect of my parents.

'I have been a wicked son,' said I. 'When I was a man in authority, and
was puffed up with pride at my own importance, I then forgot the poor
barber at Ispahan; and it is only now, when adversity spreads my path,
that I recollect the authors of my being.' A saying of my school-master,
which he frequently quoted with great emphasis in Arabic, came to my
mind. 'An old friend,' used he to say, 'is not to be bought, even if
you had the treasures of Hatem to offer for one. Remember then, O youth,
that thy first, and therefore thy oldest friends are thy father and thy
mother.'

'They shall still find that they have a son,' said I, feeling a great
rush of tenderness flow into my heart, as I repeated the words; 'and,
please God, if I reach my home, they shall no longer have to reproach me
with want of proper respect.' A still soft voice, however, whispered
to me that I should be too late; and I remembered the prognostics of my
mind, when, filled with grief for the loss of Zeenab, I left Tehran full
of virtuous intentions and resolutions.

When I could first distinguish the peak in the mountain of the Colah
Cazi, which marks the situation of Ispahan, my heart bounded within me;
and at every step I anxiously considered in what state I should find my
family. Would my old schoolmaster be alive? Should I find our neighbour
the _baqal_ (or chandler), at whose shop I used to spend in sweetmeats
all the copper money that I could purloin from my father, when I shaved
for him, would he be still in existence? And my old friend the _capiji_,
the door-keeper of the caravanserai, he whom I frightened so much at the
attack of the Turcomans, is the door of his life still open, or has it
been closed upon him forever?

In this manner did I muse by the wayside, until the tops of the minarets
of Ispahan actually came in view; when, enraptured with the sight, and
full of gratitude for having been preserved thus far in my pilgrimage,
I stopped and said my prayers; and then taking up on