Nolint: atqui licet esse beatis.
Nolint: atqui licet esse beatis.
Nolint: atqui licet esse beatis.
Nolint: atqui licet esse beatis.
The Persians of these parts had no taste for happiness; so that this modern Thermander was, when Forster met him, so thoroughly disgusted with his attempts at banishing all misery from among his countrymen, that he was willing, he said, to shut up his book should any other prospect of a maintenance be held out to him. When our traveller offered him a participation of his fare, he therefore joyfully quitted his profession as a wholesale dealer in happiness, and consented to superintend the labours of the kitchen, in which, by long practice, he had attained a remarkable proficiency. “The excellent services of my companion,” says Forster, “now left me at liberty to walk about the town, collect information, and frequent the public baths. In the evening we were always at home; when the moollah, at the conclusion of our meal, either read the story of Yousuf and Zuleikha, which he did but lamely, or, opening his book of spells, he would expound the virtues of his nostrums, which embraced so wide a compass that few diseases of mind or body could resist their force. They extended from recalling to the paths of virtue the steps of a frail wife, and silencing the tongue of a scolding one, to curing chilblains and destroying worms.”
While Forster and the moollah were enjoying this peaceful and pleasant life, a large body of pilgrimsfrom the shrine of Meshed suddenly inundated every apartment of the caravansary; and as this motley group of vagabonds were proceeding towards Mazenderan, directly in his route, he was tempted to join them and continue his journey, leaving his poor companion to subsist once more upon the virtue of his spells.
Accordingly, with this holy kafilah he departed from Tursheez on the 28th of December; and being, as the reader will have perceived, of an exceedingly sociable disposition, he very quickly found a substitute for the moollah in the person of a seid, or descendant of Mohammed, who has doubtless more descendants than any other man ever had. This green-turbaned personage was a native of Ghilān, and, take him for all in all, his conduct did more honour to his great ancestor than any other member of his family commemorated by European travellers. With this honest man Forster very quickly entered into partnership; but the seid being old and infirm, the laborious portion of their operations necessarily fell on the traveller. One little incident among many will serve to show the terms upon which they lived together. The kafilah having halted in a desert on the 3d of January, 1784, at a small stream, “the Ghilān seid and I,” says Forster, “had filled our bottle for mutual use; and the bread, cheese, and onions which supplied our evening meal giving me a violent thirst, I made frequent applications to our water stock. The seid, seeing that I had taken more than a just portion, required that the residue should be reserved for his ceremonial ablutions. While the seid retired to pray I went in search of fuel, and, returning first to our quarter, I hastily drank off the remaining water, and again betook myself to wood-cutting, that I might not be discovered near the empty vessel by my associate, who had naturally an irascible temper. When I supposed he had returned from his prayer, I brought in a large load of wood,which I threw on the ground with an air of great fatigue, and of having done a meritorious service ‘Ay,’ says he, ‘while I, like a true believer, have been performing my duty to God, and you toiling to procure us firing for this cold night, some hardened kaufir, who I wish may never drink again in this world, has plundered the pittance of water which was set apart for my ablutions.’ He then made strict search among our neighbours for the perpetrator of this robbery, as he termed it; but receiving no satisfactory information, he deliberately delivered him or them to the charge of every devil in the infernal catalogue, and went grumbling to sleep.”
In this way they proceeded until, having escaped from the deserts of Khorasan, they entered the mountainous, woody, and more thickly-peopled province of Mazenderan, the inhabitants of which Forster found more civilized and humane than the Khorasans. On the night of the 24th of January, while pushing on through the forests, most of the passengers beheld a star with an illuminated tail, which, from its form and quick motion, our traveller supposed to be a comet. In several of the woods through which their road now lay, no vestige of a habitation or signs of culture appeared, excepting a few narrow slips of land at the bases of the hills. But as they proceeded the valleys soon “opened, and exhibited a pleasing picture of plenty and rural quiet. The village all open and neatly built, the verdant hills and dales, encircled by streams of delicious water, presented a scene that gave the mind ineffable delight. The air, though in winter, was mild, and had the temperature of an English climate in the month of April.” Frazer, the able author of the Kuzzilbash, has given in his travels a no less favourable idea of the rich scenery of Mazenderan.
In a few days he arrived at Mushed Sir, on the Caspian Sea, where he was hospitably received and entertained by the Russian merchants establishedthere. At this city he embarked for Baku, where he shaved his beard, forswore Mohammed, and again embarked in a Russian frigate for Astrakhan, where he arrived on the evening of the 28th of April. From this place, where he remained some time in order to recruit his strength, he proceeded through Moscow to Petersburg, which he reached on the 25th of May. Here his stay was but short, for he had now become impatient to visit England; and therefore, embarking about the middle of June in a trading vessel, he arrived in England in the latter end of July, 1784.
Forster seems to have occupied himself immediately on his arrival in throwing into form a portion of the literary materials which he had collected during one of the most hazardous and adventurous journeys that ever were performed; for in 1786 he published in London his “Sketches of the Mythology and Manners of the Hindoos,” which was received with extraordinary favour by the public. How long he remained in England after the publication of this work I have not been able to discover; but we find him in 1790 at Calcutta, where he published the first volume of his “Journey from Bengal to England,” and prepared the second volume for the press. However, before the completion of his work, the political troubles which at that period shook the whole empire of Hindostan involved him in their vortex. He was despatched by the governor-general, whose personal friendship he would appear to have enjoyed, on an embassy to Nagpoor, in Gundwarra, the capital of the Bhoonsla Mahratta dynasty, where he died about eight months after his arrival, in the month of February, in 1791. His papers were conveyed to England. Here, six years after his death, a complete edition of his travels appeared, in two volumes quarto; but the person who undertook the task of editor, with a degree of negligence which cannot be sufficiently admired, not only omitted to give the public any account of the author, but, which is moreunpardonable, did not even condescend to inform them when, how, and from whom the manuscript was obtained. However, the extraordinary merit of the work, and the lively, laughing style in which it is written, quickly recommended it sufficiently to the literary world. The celebrated Meiners, professor of philosophy in the university of Göttingen, translated it into German; and Langlès, the well-known orientalist, published in 1802 a French translation, with copious notes, a chronological notice on the khans of the Krimea, and a map of Kashmere.
In English there has not, I believe, appeared any new edition,—none, at least, which has acquired any reputation; though there are extremely few books of travels which better deserve to be known, or which, if properly edited, are calculated to become more extensively popular. Forster was a man of very superior abilities; and his acquirements—whatever M. Langlès, a person ill calculated to judge, may have imagined—were various and extensive. He possessed an intimate knowledge of the Persian, and the popular language of Hindostan; and appears to have made a considerable progress even in Sanscrit. Neither was he slightly conversant with modern literature; and although it may be conjectured from various parts of his work that the history of ancient philosophy and literature had occupied less of his attention, he may yet be regarded as one of the most accomplished and judicious of modern travellers. This being the case, it is difficult to explain why he should now be less read than many other travellers, whose works are extremely inferior in value, and incomparably less amusing.