Europe and elsewhere

by Mark Twain

O’SHAH

(A series of news letters describing a visit to England by the

Shah of Persia)

I
THE ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND

London, June 18, 1873.

“Would you like to go over to Belgium and help bring the Shah to England?”

I said I was willing.

“Very well, then; here is an order from the Admiralty which will admit you on board Her Majesty’s ship Lively, now lying at Ostend, and you can return in her day after to-morrow.”

That was all. That was the end of it. Without stopping to think, I had in a manner taken upon myself to bring the Shah of Persia to England. I could not otherwise regard the conversation I had just held with the London representative of the New York Herald. The amount of discomfort I endured for the next two or three hours cannot be set down in words. I could not eat, sleep, talk, smoke with any satisfaction. The more I thought the thing over the more oppressed I felt. What was the Shah to me, that I should go to all this worry and trouble on his account? Where was there the least occasion for taking upon myself such a responsibility? If I got him over all right, well. But if I lost him? if he died on my hands? if he got drowned? It was depressing, any way I looked at it. In the end I said to myself, “If I get this Shah over here safe and sound I never will take charge of another one.” And yet, at the same time I kept thinking: “This country has treated me well, stranger as I am, and this foreigner is the country’s guest--that is enough, I will help him out; I will fetch him over; I will land him in London, and say to the British people, ‘Here is your Shah; give me a receipt.’”

I felt easy in my mind now, and was about to go to bed, but something occurred to me. I took a cab and drove downtown and routed out that Herald representative.

“Where is Belgium?” said I.

“Where is Belgium? I never heard such a question!”

“That doesn’t make any difference to me. If I have got to fetch this Shah I don’t wish to go to the wrong place. Where is Belgium? Is it a shilling fare in a cab?”

He explained that it was in foreign parts--the first place I have heard of lately which a body could not go to in a cab for a shilling.

I said I could not go alone, because I could not speak foreign languages well, could not get up in time for the early train without help, and could not find my way. I said it was enough to have the Shah on my hands; I did not wish to have everything piled on me. Mr. Blank was then ordered to go with me. I do like to have somebody along to talk to when I go abroad.

When I got home I sat down and thought the thing all over. I wanted to go into this enterprise understandingly. What was the main thing? That was the question. A little reflection informed me. For two weeks the London papers had sung just one continual song to just one continual tune, and the idea of it all was “how to impress the Shah.” These papers had told all about the St. Petersburg splendors, and had said at the end that splendors would no longer answer; that England could not outdo Russia in that respect; therefore some other way of impressing the Shah must be contrived. And these papers had also told all about the Shahstic reception in Prussia and its attendant military pageantry. England could not improve on that sort of thing--she could not impress the Shah with soldiers; something else must be tried. And so on. Column after column, page after page of agony about how to “impress the Shah.” At last they had hit upon a happy idea--a grand naval exhibition. That was it! A man brought up in Oriental seclusion and simplicity, a man who had never seen anything but camels and such things, could not help being surprised and delighted with the strange novelty of ships. The distress was at an end. England heaved a great sigh of relief; she knew at last how to impress the Shah.

My course was very plain, now, after that bit of reflection. All I had to do was to go over to Belgium and impress the Shah. I failed to form any definite plan as to the process, but I made up my mind to manage it somehow. I said to myself, “I will impress this Shah or there shall be a funeral that will be worth contemplating.”

I went to bed then, but did not sleep a great deal, for the responsibilities were weighing pretty heavily upon me. At six o’clock in the morning Mr. Blank came and turned me out. I was surprised at this, and not gratified, for I detest early rising. I never like to say severe things, but I was a good deal tried this time. I said I did not mind getting up moderately early, but I hated to be called day before yesterday. However, as I was acting in a national capacity and for a country that I liked, I stopped grumbling and we set out. A grand naval review is a good thing to impress a Shah with, but if he would try getting up at six o’clock in the morning--but no matter; we started.

We took the Dover train and went whistling along over the housetops at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and just as smoothly and pleasantly, too, as if we were in a sleigh. One never can have anything but a very vague idea of what speed is until he travels over an English railway. Our “lightning” expresses are sleepy and indolent by comparison. We looked into the back windows of the endless ranks of houses abreast and below us, and saw many a homelike little family of early birds sitting at their breakfasts. New views and new aspects of London were about me; the mighty city seemed to spread farther and wider in the clear morning air than it had ever done before. There is something awe-inspiring about the mere look of the figures that express the population of London when one comes to set them down in a good large hand--4,000,000! It takes a body’s breath away, almost.

We presently left the city behind. We had started drowsy, but we did not stay so. How could we, with the brilliant sunshine pouring down, the balmy wind blowing through the open windows, and the Garden of Eden spread all abroad? We swept along through rolling expanses of growing grain--not a stone or a stump to mar their comeliness, not an unsightly fence or an ill-kept hedge; through broad meadows covered with fresh green grass as clean swept as if a broom had been at work there--little brooks wandering up and down them, noble trees here and there, cows in the shade, groves in the distance and church spires projecting out of them; and there were the quaintest old-fashioned houses set in the midst of smooth lawns or partly hiding themselves among fine old forest trees; and there was one steep-roofed ancient cottage whose walls all around, and whose roof, and whose chimneys, were clothed in a shining mail of ivy leaves!--so thoroughly, indeed, that only one little patch of roof was visible to prove that the house was not a mere house of leaves, with glass windows in it. Imagine those dainty little homes surrounded by flowering shrubs and bright green grass and all sorts of old trees--and then go on and try to imagine something more bewitching.

By and by we passed Rochester, and, sure enough, right there, on the highest ground in the town and rising imposingly up from among clustering roofs, was the gray old castle--roofless, ruined, ragged, the sky beyond showing clear and blue through the glassless windows, the walls partly clad with ivy--a time-scarred, weather-beaten old pile, but ever so picturesque and ever so majestic, too. There it was, a whole book of English history. I had read of Rochester Castle a thousand times, but I had never really believed there was any such building before.

Presently we reached the sea and came to a stand far out on a pier; and here was Dover and more history. The chalk cliffs of England towered up from the shore and the French coast was visible. On the tallest hill sat Dover Castle, stately and spacious and superb, looking just as it has always looked any time these ten or fifteen thousand years--I do not know its exact age, and it does not matter, anyway.

We stepped aboard the little packet and steamed away. The sea was perfectly smooth, and painfully brilliant in the sunshine. There were no curiosities in the vessel except the passengers and a placard in French setting forth the transportation fares for various kinds of people. The lithographer probably considered that placard a triumph. It was printed in green, blue, red, black, and yellow; no individual line in one color, even the individual letters were separately colored. For instance, the first letter of a word would be blue, the next red, the next green, and so on. The placard looked as if it had the smallpox or something. I inquired the artist’s name and place of business, intending to hunt him up and kill him when I had time; but no one could tell me. In the list of prices first-class passengers were set down at fifteen shillings and four pence, and dead bodies at one pound ten shillings and eight pence--just double price! That is Belgian morals, I suppose. I never say a harsh thing unless I am greatly stirred; but in my opinion the man who would take advantage of a dead person would do almost any odious thing. I publish this scandalous discrimination against the most helpless class among us in order that people intending to die abroad may come back by some other line.

We skimmed over to Ostend in four hours and went ashore. The first gentleman we saw happened to be the flag lieutenant of the fleet, and he told me where the Lively lay, and said she would sail about six in the morning. Heavens and earth. He said he would give my letter to the proper authority, and so we thanked him and bore away for the hotel. Bore away is good sailor phraseology, and I have been at sea portions of two days now. I easily pick up a foreign language.

Ostend is a curious, comfortable-looking, massively built town, where the people speak both the French and the Flemish with exceeding fluency, and yet I could not understand them in either tongue. But I will write the rest about Ostend in to-morrow’s letter.

We idled about this curious Ostend the remainder of the afternoon and far into the long-lived twilight, apparently to amuse ourselves, but secretly I had a deeper motive. I wanted to see if there was anything here that might “impress the Shah.” In the end I was reassured and content. If Ostend could impress him, England could amaze the head clear off his shoulders and have marvels left that not even the trunk could be indifferent to.

These citizens of Flanders--Flounders, I think they call them, though I feel sure I have eaten a creature of that name or seen it in an aquarium or a menagerie, or in a picture or somewhere--are a thrifty, industrious race, and are as commercially wise and farsighted as they were in Edward the Third’s time, and as enduring and patient under adversity as they were in Charles the Bold’s. They are prolific in the matter of children; in some of the narrow streets every house seemed to have had a freshet of children, which had burst through and overflowed into the roadway. One could hardly get along for the pack of juveniles, and they were all soiled and all healthy. They all wore wooden shoes, which clattered noisily on the stone pavements. All the women were hard at work; there were no idlers about the houses. The men were away at labor, no doubt. In nearly every door women sat at needlework or something of that marketable nature--they were knitting principally. Many groups of women sat in the street, in the shade of walls, making point lace. The lace maker holds a sort of pillow on her knees with a strip of cardboard fastened on it, on which the lace pattern has been punctured. She sticks bunches of pins in the punctures and about them weaves her web of threads. The numberless threads diverge from the bunch of pins like the spokes of a wheel, and the spools from which the threads are being unwound form the outer circle of the wheel. The woman throws these spools about her with flying fingers, in and out, over and under one another, and so fast that you can hardly follow the evolutions with your eyes. In the chaos and confusion of skipping spools you wonder how she can possibly pick up the right one every time, and especially how she can go on gossiping with her friends all the time and yet never seem to miss a stitch. The laces these ingenious Flounders were making were very dainty and delicate in texture and very beautiful in design.

Most of the shops in Ostend seemed devoted to the sale of sea shells. All sorts of figures of men and women were made of shells; one sort was composed of grotesque and ingenious combinations of lobster claws in the human form. And they had other figures made of stuffed frogs--some fencing, some barbering each other, and some were not to be described at all without indecent language. It must require a barbarian nature to be able to find humor in such nauseating horrors as these last. These things were exposed in the public windows where young girls and little children could see them, and in the shops sat the usual hairy-lipped young woman waiting to sell them.

There was a contrivance attached to the better class of houses which I had heard of before, but never seen. It was an arrangement of mirrors outside the window, so contrived that the people within could see who was coming either up or down the street--see all that might be going on, in fact--without opening the window or twisting themselves into uncomfortable positions in order to look.

A capital thing to watch for unwelcome (or welcome) visitors with, or to observe pageants in cold or rainy weather. People in second and third stories had, also, another mirror which showed who was passing underneath.

The dining room at our hotel was very spacious and rather gorgeous. One end of it was composed almost entirely of a single pane of plate glass, some two inches thick--for this is the plate-glass manufacturing region, you remember. It was very clear and fine. If one were to enter the place in such a way as not to catch the sheen of the glass, he would suppose that the end of the house was wide open to the sun and the storms. A strange boyhood instinct came strongly upon me, and I could not really enjoy my dinner, I wanted to break that glass so badly. I have no doubt that every man feels so, and I know that such a glass must be simply torture to a boy.

This dining room’s walls were almost completely covered with large oil paintings in frames.

It was an excellent hotel; the utmost care was taken that everything should go right. I went to bed at ten and was called at eleven to “take the early train.” I said I was not the one, so the servant stirred up the next door and he was not the one; then the next door and the next--no success--and so on till the reverberations of the knocking were lost in the distance down the hall, and I fell asleep again. They called me at twelve to take another early train, but I said I was not the one again, and asked as a favor that they would be particular to call the rest next time, but never mind me. However, they could not understand my English; they only said something in reply to signify that, and then went on banging up the boarders, none of whom desired to take the early train.

When they called me at one, it made my rest seem very broken, and I said if they would skip me at two I would call myself--not really intending to do it, but hoping to beguile the porter and deceive him. He probably suspected that and was afraid to trust me, because when he made his rounds at that hour he did not take any chances on me, but routed me out along with the others. I got some more sleep after that, but when the porter called me at three I felt depressed and jaded and greatly discouraged. So I gave it up and dressed myself. The porter got me a cup of coffee and kept me awake while I drank it. He was a good, well-meaning sort of Flounder, but really a drawback to the hotel, I should think.

Poor Mr. Blank came in then, looking worn and old. He had been called for all the different trains, too, just as I had. He said it was a good enough hotel, but they took too much pains. While we sat there talking we fell asleep and were called again at four. Then we went out and dozed about town till six, and then drifted aboard the Lively.

She was trim and bright, and clean and smart; she was as handsome as a picture. The sailors were in brand-new man-of-war costume, and plenty of officers were about the decks in the state uniform of the service--cocked hats, huge epaulettes, claw-hammer coats lined with white silk--hats and coats and trousers all splendid with gold lace. I judged that these were all admirals, and so got afraid and went ashore again. Our vessel was to carry the Shah’s brother, also the Grand Vizier, several Persian princes, who were uncles to the Shah, and other dignitaries of more or less consequence. A vessel alongside was to carry the luggage, and a vessel just ahead (the Vigilant) was to carry nobody but just the Shah and certain Ministers of State and servants and the Queen’s special ambassador, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who is a Persian scholar and talks to the Shah in his own tongue.

I was very glad, for several reasons, to find that I was not to go in the same ship with the Shah. First, with him not immediately under my eye I would feel less responsibility for him; and, secondly, as I was anxious to impress him, I wanted to practice on his brother first.

THE SHAH’S QUARTERS

On the afterdeck of the Vigilant--very handsome ship--a temporary cabin had been constructed for the sole and special use of the Shah, temporary but charmingly substantial and graceful and pretty. It was about thirty feet long and twelve wide, beautifully gilded, decorated and painted within and without. Among its colors was a shade of light green, which reminds me of an anecdote about the Persian party, which I will speak of in to-morrow’s letter.

It was getting along toward the time for the Shah to arrive from Brussels, so I ranged up alongside my own ship. I do not know when I ever felt so ill at ease and undecided. It was a sealed letter which I had brought from the Admiralty, and I could not guess what the purport of it might be. I supposed I was intended to command the ship--that is, I had supposed it at first, but, after seeing all those splendid officers, I had discarded that idea. I cogitated a good deal, but to no purpose. Presently a regiment of Belgian troops arrived and formed in line along the pier. Then a number of people began to spread down carpets for fifty yards along the pier, by the railway track, and other carpets were laid from these to the ships. The gangway leading on board my ship was now carpeted and its railings were draped with bright-colored signal flags. It began to look as if I was expected; so I walked on board. A sailor immediately ran and stopped me, and made another sailor bring a mop for me to wipe my feet on, lest I might soil the deck, which was wonderfully clean and nice. Evidently I was not the person expected, after all. I pointed to the group of officers and asked the sailor what the naval law would do to a man if he were to go and speak to some of those admirals--for there was an awful air of etiquette and punctilio about the premises; but just then one of those officers came forward and said that if his instinct was correct an Admiralty order had been received giving me a passage in the ship; and he also said that he was the first lieutenant, and that I was very welcome and he would take pains to make me feel at home, and furthermore there was champagne and soda waiting down below; and furthermore still, all the London correspondents, to the number of six or seven, would arrive from Brussels with the Shah, and would go in our ship, and if our passage were not a lively one, and a jolly and enjoyable one, it would be a very strange thing indeed. I could have jumped for joy if I had not been afraid of breaking some rule of naval etiquette and getting hanged for it.

Now the train was signaled, and everybody got ready for the great event. The Belgian regiment straightened itself up, and some two hundred Flounders arrived and took conspicuous position on a little mound. I was a little afraid that this would impress the Shah; but I was soon occupied with other interests. The train of thirteen cars came tearing in, and stopped abreast the ships. Music and guns began an uproar. Odd-looking Persian faces and felt hats (brimless stovepipes) appeared at the car windows.

Some gorgeous English officials fled down the carpet from the Vigilant. They stopped at a long car with the royal arms upon it, uncovered their heads, and unlocked the car door. Then the Shah stood up in it and gave us a good view. He was a handsome, strong-featured man, with a rather European fairness of complexion; had a mustache, wore spectacles, seemed of a good height and graceful build and carriage, and looked about forty or a shade less. He was very simply dressed--brimless stovepipe and close-buttoned dark-green military suit, without ornament. No, not wholly without ornament, for he had a band two inches wide worn over his shoulder and down across his breast, scarf fashion, which band was one solid glory of fine diamonds.

A Persian official appeared in the Shah’s rear and enveloped him in an ample quilt--or cloak, if you please--which was lined with fur. The outside of it was of a whitish color and elaborately needle-worked in Persian patterns like an India shawl. The Shah stepped out and the official procession formed about him and marched him down the carpet and on board the Vigilant to slow music. Not a Flounder raised a cheer. All the small fry swarmed out of the train now.

The Shah walked back alongside his fine cabin, looking at the assemblage of silent, solemn Flounders; the correspondent of the London Telegraph was hurrying along the pier and took off his hat and bowed to the “King of Kings,” and the King of Kings gave a polite military salute in return. This was the commencement of the excitement. The success of the breathless Telegraph man made all the other London correspondents mad, every man of whom flourished his stovepipe recklessly and cheered lustily, some of the more enthusiastic varying the exercise by lowering their heads and elevating their coat tails. Seeing all this, and feeling that if I was to “impress the Shah” at all, now was my time, I ventured a little squeaky yell, quite distinct from the other shouts, but just as hearty. His Shahship heard and saw and saluted me in a manner that was, I considered, an acknowledgment of my superior importance. I do not know that I ever felt so ostentatious and absurd before. All the correspondents came aboard, and then the Persian baggage came also, and was carried across to the ship alongside of ours. When she could hold no more we took somewhere about a hundred trunks and boxes on board our vessel. Two boxes fell into the water, and several sailors jumped in and saved one, but the other was lost. However, it probably contained nothing but a few hundred pounds of diamonds and things.

At last we got under way and steamed out through a long slip, the piers on either side being crowded with Flounders; but never a cheer. A battery of three guns on the starboard pier boomed a royal salute, and we swept out to sea, the Vigilant in the lead, we right in her wake, and the baggage ship in ours. Within fifteen minutes everybody was well acquainted; a general jollification set in, and I was thoroughly glad I had come over to fetch the Shah.

II
MARK TWAIN EXECUTES HIS CONTRACT AND DELIVERS
THE SHAH IN LONDON

London, June 19, 1873.

SOME PERSIAN FINERY

Leaving Ostend, we went out to sea under a clear sky and upon smooth water--so smooth, indeed, that its surface was scarcely rippled. I say the sky was clear, and so it was, clear and sunny; but a rich haze lay upon the water in the distance--a soft, mellow mist, through which a scattering sail or two loomed vaguely. One may call such a morning perfect.

The corps of correspondents were well jaded with their railway journey, but after champagne and soda downstairs with the officers, everybody came up refreshed and cheery and exceedingly well acquainted all around. The Persian grandees had meantime taken up a position in a glass house on the afterdeck, and were sipping coffee in a grave, Oriental way. They all had much lighter complexions and a more European cast of features than I was prepared for, and several of them were exceedingly handsome, fine-looking men.

They all sat in a circle[circle] on a sofa (the deckhouse being circular), and they made a right gaudy spectacle. Their breasts were completely crusted with gold bullion embroidery of a pattern resembling frayed and interlacing ferns, and they had large jeweled ornaments on their breasts also. The Grand Vizier came out to have a look around. In addition to the sumptuous gold fernery on his breast he wore a jeweled star as large as the palm of my hand, and about his neck hung the Shah’s miniature, reposing in a bed of diamonds, that gleamed and flashed in a wonderful way when touched by the sunlight. It was said that to receive the Shah’s portrait from the Shah was the highest compliment that could be conferred upon a Persian subject. I did not care so much about the diamonds, but I would have liked to have the portrait very much. The Grand Vizier’s sword hilt and the whole back of the sheath from end to end were composed of a neat and simple combination of some twelve or fifteen thousand emeralds and diamonds.

“IMPRESSING” A PERSIAN GENERAL

Several of the Persians talked French and English. One of them, who was said to be a general, came up on the bridge where some of us were standing, pointed to a sailor, and asked me if I could tell him what that sailor was doing?

I said he was communicating with the other ships by means of the optical telegraph--that by using the three sticks the whole alphabet could be expressed. I showed him how A, B and C were made, and so forth. Good! This Persian was “impressed”! He showed it by his eyes, by his gestures, by his manifest surprise and delight. I said to myself, if the Shah were only here now, the grand desire of Great Britain could be accomplished. The general immediately called the other grandees and told them about this telegraphic wonder. Then he said:

“Now does everyone on board acquire this knowledge?”

“No, only the officers.”

“And this sailor?”

“He is only the signalman. Two or three sailors on board are detailed for this service, and by order and direction of the officers they communicate with the other ships.”

“Very good! very fine! Very great indeed!”

These men were unquestionably impressed. I got the sailor to bring the signal book, and the matter was fully explained, to their high astonishment; also the flag signals, and likewise the lamp signals for night telegraphing. Of course, the idea came into my head, in the first place, to ask one of the officers to conduct this bit of instruction, but I at once dismissed it. I judged that this would all go to the Shah, sooner or later. I had come over on purpose to “impress the Shah,” and I was not going to throw away my opportunity. I wished the Queen had been there; I would have been knighted, sure. You see, they knight people here for all sorts of things--knight them, or put them into the peerage and make great personages of them. Now, for instance, a king comes over here on a visit; the Lord Mayor and sheriffs do him becoming honors in the city, and straightway the former is created a baronet and the latter are knighted. When the Prince of Wales recovered from his illness one of his chief physicians was made a baronet and the other was knighted. Charles II made duchesses of one or two female acquaintances of his for something or other--I have forgotten now what it was. A London shoe-maker’s apprentice became a great soldier--indeed, a Wellington--won prodigious victories in many climes and covered the British arms with glory all through a long life; and when he was 187 years old they knighted him and made him Constable of the Tower. But he died next year and they buried him in Westminster Abbey. There is no telling what that man might have become if he had lived. So you see what a chance I had; for I have no doubt in the world that I have been the humble instrument, under Providence, of “impressing the Shah.” And I really believe that if the Queen comes to hear of it I shall be made a duke.

Friends intending to write will not need to be reminded that a duke is addressed as “Your Grace”; it is considered a great offense to leave that off.

A PICTURESQUE NAVAL SPECTACLE

When we were a mile or so out from Ostend conversation ceased, an expectant look came into all faces, and opera glasses began to stand out from above all noses. This impressive hush lasted a few minutes, and then some one said:

“There they are!”

“Where?”

“Away yonder ahead--straight ahead.”

Which was true. Three huge shapes smothered in the haze--the Vanguard, the Audacious, and the Devastation--all great ironclads. They were to do escort duty. The officers and correspondents gathered on the forecastle and waited for the next act. A red spout of fire issued from the Vanguard’s side, another flashed from the Audacious. Beautiful these red tongues were against the dark haze. Then there was a long pause--ever so long a pause and not a sound, not the suspicion of a sound; and now, out of the stillness, came a deep, solemn “boom! boom!” It had not occurred to me that at so great a distance I would not hear the report as soon as I saw the flash. The two crimson jets were very beautiful, but not more so than the rolling volumes of white smoke that plunged after them, rested a moment over the water, and then went wreathing and curling up among the webbed rigging and the tall masts, and left only glimpses of these things visible, high up in the air, projecting as if from a fog.

Now the flashes came thick and fast from the black sides of both vessels. The muffled thunders of the guns mingled together in one continued roll, the two ships were lost to sight, and in their places two mountains of tumbled smoke rested upon the motionless water, their bases in the hazy twilight and their summits shining in the sun. It was good to be there and see so fine a spectacle as that.

THE NAVAL SALUTE

We closed up fast upon the ironclads. They fell apart to let our flotilla come between, and as the Vigilant ranged up the rigging of the ironclads was manned to salute the Shah. And, indeed, that was something to see. The shrouds, from the decks clear to the trucks, away up toward the sky, were black with men. On the lower rounds of these rope ladders they stood five abreast, holding each other’s hands, and so the tapering shrouds formed attenuated pyramids of humanity, six pyramids of them towering into the upper air, and clear up on the top of each dizzy mast stood a little creature like a clothes pin--a mere black peg against the sky--and that mite was a sailor waving a flag like a postage stamp. All at once the pyramids of men burst into a cheer, and followed it with two more, given with a will; and if the Shah was not impressed he must be the offspring of a mummy.

And just at this moment, while we all stood there gazing---

However breakfast was announced and I did not wait to see.

THE THIRTY-FOUR-TON GUNS SPEAK

If there is one thing that is pleasanter than another it is to take breakfast in the wardroom with a dozen naval officers. Of course, that awe-inspiring monarch, the captain, is aft, keeping frozen state with the Grand Viziers when there are any on board, and so there is nobody in the wardroom to maintain naval etiquette. As a consequence none is maintained. One officer, in a splendid uniform, snatches a champagne bottle from a steward and opens it himself; another keeps the servants moving; another opens soda; everybody eats, drinks, shouts, laughs in the most unconstrained way, and it does seem a pity that ever the thing should come to an end. No individual present seemed sorry he was not in the ship with the Shah. When the festivities had been going on about an hour, some tremendous booming was heard outside. Now here was a question between duty and broiled chicken. What might that booming mean? Anguish sat upon the faces of the correspondents. I watched to see what they would do, and the precious moments were flying. Somebody cried down a companionway:

“The Devastation is saluting!”

The correspondents tumbled over one another, over chairs, over everything in their frenzy to get on deck, and the last gun reverberated as the last heel disappeared on the stairs. The Devastation, the pride of England, the mightiest war vessel afloat, carrying guns that outweigh any metal in any service, it is said (thirty-five tons each), and these boys had missed that spectacle--at least I knew that some of them had. I did not go. Age has taught me wisdom. If a spectacle is going to be particularly imposing I prefer to see it through somebody else’s eyes, because that man will always exaggerate. Then I can exaggerate his exaggeration, and my account of the thing will be the most impressive.

But I felt that I had missed my figure this time, because I was not sure which of these gentlemen reached the deck in time for a glimpse and which didn’t. And this morning I cannot tell by the London papers. They all have imposing descriptions of that thing, and no one of them resembles another. Mr. X’s is perhaps the finest, but he was singing a song about “Spring, Spring, Gentle Spring,” all through the bombardment, and was overexcited, I fear.

The next best was Mr. Y’s; but he was telling about how he took a Russian battery, along with another man, during the Crimean War, and he was not fairly through the story till the salute was over, though I remember he went up and saw the smoke. I will not frame a description of the Devastation’s salute, for I have no material that I can feel sure is reliable.

THE GRAND SPECTACULAR CLIMAX

When we first sailed away from Ostend I found myself in a dilemma; I had no notebook. But “any port in a storm,” as the sailors say. I found a fair, full pack of ordinary playing cards in my overcoat pocket--one always likes to have something along to amuse children with--and really they proved excellent to take notes on, although bystanders were a bit inclined to poke fun at them and ask facetious questions. But I was content; I made all the notes I needed. The aces and low “spot” cards are very good indeed to write memoranda on, but I will not recommend the Kings and Jacks.

SPEAKING BY THE CARDS

Referring to the seven of hearts, I find that this naval exhibition and journey from Ostend to Dover is going to cost the government £500,000. Got it from a correspondent. It is a round sum.

Referring to the ace of diamonds, I find that along in the afternoon we sighted a fresh fleet of men-of-war coming to meet us. The rest of the diamonds, down to the eight spot (nines and tens are no good for notes) are taken up with details of that spectacle. Most of the clubs and hearts refer to matters immediately following that, but I really can hardly do anything with them because I have forgotten what was trumps.

THE SPECTACLE

But never mind. The sea scene grew little by little, until presently it was very imposing. We drew up into the midst of a waiting host of vessels. Enormous five-masted men-of-war, great turret ships, steam packets, pleasure yachts--every sort of craft, indeed--the sea was thick with them; the yards and riggings of the warships loaded with men, the packets crowded with people, the pleasure ships rainbowed with brilliant flags all over and over--some with flags strung thick on lines stretching from bowsprit to foremast, thence to mainmast, thence to mizzenmast, and thence to stern. All the ships were in motion--gliding hither and thither, in and out, mingling and parting--a bewildering whirl of flash and color. Our leader, the vast, black, ugly, but very formidable Devastation, plowed straight through the gay throng, our Shah-ships following, the lines of big men-of-war saluting, the booming of the guns drowning the cheering, stately islands of smoke towering everywhere. And so, in this condition of unspeakable grandeur, we swept into the harbor of Dover, and saw the English princes and the long ranks of red-coated soldiers waiting on the pier, civilian multitudes behind them, the lofty hill front by the castle swarming with spectators, and there was the crash of cannon and a general hurrah all through the air. It was rather a contrast to silent Ostend and the unimpressible Flanders.

THE SHAH “IMPRESSED” AT LAST

The Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Arthur received the Shah in state, and then all of us--princes, Shahs, ambassadors, Grand Viziers and newspaper correspondents--climbed aboard the train and started off to London just like so many brothers.

From Dover to London it was a sight to see. Seventy miles of human beings in a jam--the gaps were not worth mentioning--and every man, woman, and child waving hat or handkerchief and cheering. I wondered--could not tell--could not be sure--could only wonder--would this “impress the Shah”? I would have given anything to know. But--well, it ought--but--still one could not tell.

And by and by we burst into the London Railway station--a very large station it is--and found it wonderfully decorated and all the neighboring streets packed with cheering citizens. Would this impress the Shah? I--I--well, I could not yet feel certain.

The Prince of Wales received the Shah--ah, you should have seen how gorgeously the Shah was dressed now--he was like the sun in a total eclipse of rainbows--yes, the Prince received him, put him in a grand open carriage, got in and made him sit over further and not “crowd,” the carriage clattered out of the station, all London fell apart on either side and lifted a perfectly national cheer, and just at that instant the bottom fell out of the sky and forty deluges came pouring down at once!

The great strain was over, the crushing suspense at an end. I said, “Thank God, this will impress the Shah.”

Now came the long files of Horse Guards in silver armor. We took the great Persian to Buckingham Palace. I never stirred till I saw the gates open and close upon him with my own eyes and knew he was there. Then I said:

“England, here is your Shah; take him and be happy, but don’t ever ask me to fetch over another one.”

This contract has been pretty straining on me.

III
THE SHAH AS A SOCIAL STAR

London, June 21, 1873.

After delivering the Shah at the gates of that unsightly pile of dreary grandeur known as Buckingham Palace I cast all responsibility for him aside for the time being, and experienced a sense of relief and likewise an honest pride in my success, such as no man can feel who has not had a Shah at nurse (so to speak) for three days.

It is said by those who ought to know that when Buckingham Palace was being fitted up as a home for the Shah one of the chief rooms was adorned with a rich carpet which had been designed and manufactured especially to charm the eye of His Majesty. The story goes on to say that a couple of the Persian suite came here a week ago to see that all things were in readiness and nothing overlooked, and that when they reached that particular room and glanced at the lovely combination of green figures and white ones in that carpet they gathered their robes carefully up about their knees and then went elaborately tiptoeing about the floor with the aspect and anxiety of a couple of cats hunting for dry ground in a wet country, and they stepped only on the white figures and almost fainted whenever they came near touching a green one. It is said that the explanation is that these visiting Persians are all Mohammedans, and green being a color sacred to the descendants of the Prophet, and none of these people being so descended, it would be dreadful profanation for them to defile the holy color with their feet. And the general result of it all was that carpet had to be taken up and is a dead loss.

Man is a singular sort of human being, after all, and his religion does not always adorn him. Now, our religion is the right one, and has fewer odd and striking features than any other; and yet my ancestors used to roast Catholics and witches and warm their hands by the fire; but they would be blanched with horror at the bare thought of breaking the Sabbath, and here is a Persian monarch who never sees any impropriety in chopping a subject’s head off for the mere misdemeanor of calling him too early for breakfast, and yet would be consumed with pious remorse if unheeding foot were to chance to step upon anything so green as you or I, my reader.

Oriental peoples say that women have no souls to save and, almost without my memory, many American Protestants said the same of babies. I thought there was a wide gulf between the Persians and ourselves, but I begin to feel that they are really our brothers after all.

After a day’s rest the Shah went to Windsor Castle and called on the Queen. What that suggests to the reader’s mind is this:--That the Shah took a hand satchel and an umbrella, called a cab and said he wanted to go to the Paddington station; that when he arrived there the driver charged him sixpence too much, and he paid it rather than have trouble; that he tried now to buy a ticket, and was answered by a ticket seller as surly as a hotel clerk that he was not selling tickets for that train yet; that he finally got his ticket, and was beguiled of his satchel by a railway porter at once, who put it into a first-class carriage and got a sixpence, which the company forbids him to receive; that presently when the guard (or conductor) of the train came along the Shah slipped a shilling into his hand and said he wanted to smoke, and straightway the guard signified that it was all right; that when the Shah arrived at Windsor Castle he rang the bell, and when the girl came to the door asked her if the Queen was at home, and she left him standing in the hall and went to see; that by and by she returned and said would he please sit down in the front room and Mrs. Guelph would be down directly; that he hung his hat on the hatrack, stood his umbrella up in the corner, entered the front room and sat down on a haircloth chair; that he waited and waited and got tired; that he got up and examined the old piano, the depressing lithographs on the walls and the album of photographs of faded country relatives on the center table, and was just about to fall back on the family Bible when the Queen entered briskly and begged him to sit down and apologized for keeping him waiting, but she had just got a new girl and everything was upside down, and so forth and so on; but how are the family, and when did he arrive, and how long should he stay and why didn’t he bring his wife. I knew that that was the picture which would spring up in the American reader’s mind when it was said the Shah went to visit the Queen, because that was the picture which the announcement suggested to my own mind.

But it was far from the facts, very far. Nothing could be farther. In truth, these people made as much of a to do over a mere friendly call as anybody else would over a conflagration. There were special railway trains for the occasion; there was a general muster of princes and dukes to go along, each one occupying room 40; there were regiments of cavalry to clear the way; railway stations were turned into flower gardens, sheltered with flags and all manner of gaudy splendor; there were multitudes of people to look on over the heads of interminable ranks of policemen standing shoulder to shoulder and facing front; there was braying of music and booming of cannon. All that fuss, in sober truth, over a mere off-hand friendly call. Imagine what it would have been if he had brought another shirt and was going to stay a month.

AT THE GUILDHALL

Truly, I am like to suffocate with astonishment at the things that are going on around me here. It is all odd, it is all queer enough, I can tell you; but last night’s work transcends anything I ever heard of in the way of--well, how shall I express it? how can I word it? I find it awkward to get at it. But to say it in a word--and it is a true one, too, as hundreds and hundreds of people will testify--last night the Corporation of the City of London, with a simplicity and ignorance which almost rise to sublimity, actually gave a ball to a Shah who does not dance. If I would allow myself to laugh at a cruel mistake, this would start me. It is the oddest thing that has happened since I have had charge of the Shah. There is some excuse for it in the fact that the Aldermen of London are simply great and opulent merchants, and cannot be expected to know much about the ways of high life--but then they could have asked some of us who have been with the Shah.

The ball was a marvel in its way. The historical Guildhall was a scene of great magnificence. There was a high dais at one end, on which were three state chairs under a sumptuous canopy; upon the middle one sat the Shah, who was almost a Chicago conflagration of precious stones and gold bullion lace. Among other gems upon his breast were a number of emeralds of marvelous size, and from a loop hung an historical diamond of great size and wonderful beauty. On the right of the Shah sat the Princess of Wales, and on his left the wife of the Crown Prince of Russia. Grouped about the three stood a full jury of minor princes, princesses, and ambassadors hailing from many countries.

THE TWO CORRALS

The immense hall was divided in the middle by a red rope. The Shah’s division was sacred to blue blood, and there was breathing room there; but the other corral was but a crush of struggling and perspiring humanity. The place was brilliant with gas and was a rare spectacle in the matter of splendid costumes and rich coloring. The lofty stained-glass windows, pictured with celebrated episodes in the history of the ancient city, were lighted from the outside, and one may imagine the beauty of the effect. The great giants, Gog and Magog (whose origin and history, curiously enough, are unknown even to tradition), looked down from the lofty gallery, but made no observation. Down the long sides of the hall, with but brief spaces between, were imposing groups of marble statuary; and, contrasted with the masses of life and color about them, they made a picturesque effect. The groups were statues (in various attitudes) of the Duke of Wellington. I do not say this knowingly, but only supposingly; but I never have seen a statue in England yet that represented anybody but the Duke of Wellington, and, as for the streets and terraces and courts and squares that are named after him or after selections from his 797 titles, they are simply beyond the grasp of arithmetic. This reminds me that, having named everything after Wellington that there was left to name in England (even down to Wellington boots), our British brothers, still unsatisfied, still oppressed with adulation, blandly crossed over and named our Californian big trees Wellington, and put it in Latin at that. They did that, calmly ignoring the fact that we, the discoverers and owners of the trees, had long ago named them after a larger man. However, if the ghost of Wellington enjoys such a proceeding, possibly the ghost of Washington will not greatly trouble itself about the matter. But what really disturbs me is that, while Wellington is justly still in the fashion here, Washington is fading out of the fashion with us. It is not a good sign. The idols we have raised in his stead are not to our honor.

Some little dancing was done in the sacred corral in front of the Shah by grandees belonging mainly to “grace-of-God” families, but he himself never agitated a foot. The several thousand commoner people on the other side of the rope could not dance any more than sardines in a box. Chances to view the Guildhall spectacle were so hungered for that people offered £5 for the privilege of standing three minutes in the musicians’ gallery and were refused. I cannot convey to you an idea of the inordinate desire which prevails here to see the Shah better than by remarking that speculators who held four-seat opera boxes at Covent Garden Theater to-night were able to get $250 for them. Had all the seats been sold at auction the opera this evening would have produced not less than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in gold! I am below the figures rather than above them. The greatest house (for money) that America ever saw was gathered together upon the occasion of Jenny Lind’s first concert at Castle Garden. The seats were sold at auction and produced something over twenty thousand dollars.

I am by no means trying to describe the Guildhall affair of last night. Such a crush of titled swells; such a bewildering array of jeweled uniforms and brilliant feminine costumes; such solemn and awful reception ceremonies in the library; such grim and stately imposing addresses and Persian replies; such imposing processional pageantry later on; such depressing dancing before the apathetic Shah; such ornate tables and imperial good cheer at the banquet--it makes a body tired to merely think of trying to put all that on paper. Perhaps you, sir, will be good enough to imagine it, and thus save one who respects you and honors you five columns of solid writing.

THE LUNATIC ASYLUM IS BLESSED WITH A GLIMPSE

As regards the momentous occasion of the opera, this evening, I found myself in a grievous predicament, for a republican. The tickets were all sold long ago, so I must either go as a member of the royal family or not at all. After a good deal of reflection it seemed best not to mix up with that class lest a political significance might be put upon it. But a queer arrangement had been devised whereby I might have a glimpse of the show, and I took advantage of that. There is an immense barn-like glass house attached to the rear of the theater, and that was fitted up with seats, carpets, mirrors, gas, columns, flowers, garlands, and a meager row of shrubs strung down the sides on brackets--to create an imposing forest effect, I suppose. The place would seat ten or twelve hundred people. All but a hundred paid a dollar and a quarter a seat--for what? To look at the Shah three quarters of a minute, while he walked through to enter the theater. The remaining hundred paid $11 a seat for the same privilege, with the added luxury of rushing on the stage and glancing at the opera audience for one single minute afterward, while the chorus sung “God Save the Queen!” We are all gone mad, I do believe. Eleven hundred five-shilling lunatics and a hundred two-guinea maniacs. The Herald purchased a ticket and created me one of the latter, along with two or three more of the staff.

Our cab was about No. 17,342 in the string that worked its slow way through London and past the theater. The Shah was not to come till nine o’clock, and yet we had to be at the theater by half past six, or we would not get into the glass house at all, they said. We were there on time, and seated in a small gallery which overlooked a very brilliantly dressed throng of people. Every seat was occupied. We sat there two hours and a half gazing and melting. The wide, red-carpeted central aisle below offered good display ground for officials in fine uniforms, and they made good use of it.

ROYALTY ARRIVES

By and by a band in showy uniform came in and stood opposite the entrance. At the end of a tedious interval of waiting trumpets sounded outside, there was some shouting, the band played half of “God Save the Queen,” and then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and a dozen gorgeous Persian officials entered. After a little the young Prince Arthur came, in a blue uniform, with a whole broadside of gold and silver medals on his breast--for good behavior, punctuality, accurate spelling, penmanship, etc., I suppose, but I could not see the inscriptions. The band gave him some bars of “God Save the Queen,” too, while he stood under us talking, with altogether unroyal animation, with the Persians--the crowd of people staring hungrily at him the while--country cousins, maybe, who will go home and say, “I was as close to him as I am to that chair this minute.”

Then came the Duke of Teck and the Princess Mary, and the band God-Save-the-Queen’d them also. Now came the Prince of Wales and the Russian Tsarina--the royal anthem again, with an extra blast at the end of it. After them came a young, handsome, mighty giant, in showy uniform, his breast covered with glittering orders, and a general’s chapeau, with a flowing white plume, in his hand--the heir to all the throne of all the Russias. The band greeted him with the Russian national anthem, and played it clear through. And they did right; for perhaps it is not risking too much to say that this is the only national air in existence that is really worthy of a great nation.

And at last came the long-expected millennium himself, His Imperial Majesty the Shah, with the charming Princess of Wales on his arm. He had all his jewels on, and his diamond shaving brush in his hat front. He shone like a window with the westering sun on it.

WHAT THE ASYLUM SAW

The small space below us was full now--it could accommodate no more royalty. The august procession filed down the aisle in double rank, the Shah and the Princess of Wales in the lead, and cheers broke forth and a waving of handkerchiefs as the Princess passed--all said this demonstration was meant for her. As the procession disappeared through the farther door, the hundred eleven-dollar maniacs rushed through a small aperture, then through an anteroom, and gathered in a flock on the stage, the chorus striking up “God Save the Queen” at the same moment.

We stood in a mighty bandbox, or a Roman coliseum, with a sea of faces stretching far away over the ground floor, and above them rose five curving tiers of gaudy humanity, the dizzy upper tier in the far distance rising sharply up against the roof, like a flower garden trying to hold an earthquake down and not succeeding. It was a magnificent spectacle, and what with the roaring of the chorus, the waving of handkerchiefs, the cheering of the people, the blazing gas, and the awful splendor of the long file of royalty, standing breast to breast in the royal box, it was wonderfully exhilarating, not to say exciting.

The chorus sang only three-quarters of a minute--one stanza--and down came the huge curtain and shut out the fairyland. And then all those eleven-dollar people hunted their way out again.

A NATION DEMENTED

We are certainly gone mad. We scarcely look at the young colossus who is to reign over 70,000,000 of people and the mightiest empire in extent which exists to-day. We have no eyes but for this splendid barbarian, who is lord over a few deserts and a modest ten million of ragamuffins--a man who has never done anything to win our gratitude or excite our admiration, except that he managed to starve a million of his subjects to death in twelve months. If he had starved the rest I suppose we would set up a monument to him now.

The London theaters are almost absolutely empty these nights. Nobody goes, hardly. The managers are being ruined. The streets for miles are crammed with people waiting whole long hours for a chance glimpse of the Shah. I never saw any man “draw” like this one.

Is there any truth in the report that your bureaus are trying to get the Shah to go over there and lecture? He could get $100,000 a night here and choose his own subject.

I know a showman who has got a pill that belonged to him, and which for some reason he did not take. That showman will not take any money for that pill. He is going to travel with it. And let me tell you he will get more engagements than he can fill in a year.

IV
MARK TWAIN HOOKS THE PERSIAN OUT OF
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

London, June 26, 1873.

I suppose I am the only member of the Shah’s family who is not wholly broken down and worn out; and, to tell the truth, there is not much of me left. If you have ever been limited to four days in Paris or Rome or Jerusalem and been “rushed” by a guide you can form a vague, far-away sort of conception of what the Shah and the rest of us have endured during these late momentous days. If this goes on we may as well get ready for the imperial inquest.

When I was called at five o’clock the other morning to go to Portsmouth, and remembered that the Shah’s incessant movements had left me only three hours’ sleep that night, nothing but a sense of duty drove me forth. A cab could not be found, nor a carriage in all London. I lost an hour and a half waiting and trying, then started on foot and lost my way; consequently I missed one train by a good while, another one by three minutes, and then had more than half an hour to spare before another would go. Most people had had a similar experience, and there was comfort in that. We started at last, and were more than three hours going seventy-two miles. We stopped at no stations, hardly, but we halted every fifteen minutes out in the woods and fields for no purpose that we could discover. Never was such an opportunity to look at scenery. There were five strangers in our car, or carriage, as the English call it, and by degrees their English reserve thawed out and they passed around their sherry and sandwiches and grew sociable.

One of them had met the Russian General of Police in St. Petersburg, and found him a queer old simple-hearted soldier, proud of his past and devoted to his master, the present Tsar, and to the memory of his predecessor, Nicholas. The English gentleman gave an instance of the old man’s simplicity which one would not expect in a chief of police. The general had been visiting London and been greatly impressed by two things there--the admirable police discipline and the museum. It transpired that the museum he referred to was not that mighty collection of marvels known to all the world as the British Museum, but Mme. Toussaud’s Waxworks Show; and in this waxwork show he had seen a figure of the Emperor Nicholas. And did it please him? Yes, as to the likeness; for it was a good likeness and a commanding figure; but--“Mon Dieu! try to fancy it, m’sieu--dressed in the uniform of a simple colonel of infantry!--the great Nicholas of Russia, my august late master, dressed in a colonel’s uniform!”

The old general could not abide that. He went to the proprietor and remonstrated against this wanton indignity. The proprietor was grieved; but it was the only Russian uniform he could get, and----

“Say no more!” said the general. “May I get you one?”

The proprietor would be most happy. The general lost not a moment; he wrote at[at] once to the Emperor Alexander, describing with anguish the degradation which the late great Nicholas was suffering day by day through his infamously clothed waxen representative, and imploring His Majesty to send suitable raiment for the imperial dummy, and also a letter to authenticate the raiment. And out of regard for the old servant and respect for his outraged feelings the Emperor of all the Russias descended from his Alpine altitude to send to the Toussaud waxwork the general’s uniform worn last by his father, and to write with his own hand an authenticating letter to go with it. So the simple-hearted police chief was happy once more, and never once thought of charging the “museum” $10,000 for these valuable additions to the show, which he might easily have done, and collected the money, too. How like our own chiefs of police this good old soul is!

Another of these English gentlemen told an anecdote, which, he said, was old, but which I had not heard before. He said that one day St. Peter and the devil chanced to be thrown together, and found it pretty dull trying to pass the time. Finally they got to throwing dice for a lawyer. The devil threw sixes. Then St. Peter threw sixes. The devil threw sixes again. St. Peter threw sixes again. The devil threw sixes once more. Then St. Peter threw sevens, and the devil said, “Oh, come now, Your Honor, cheat fair. None of your playing miracles here!” I thought there was a nice bit of humor in that suggestion to “cheat fair.”

A SMALL PRIVATE NAUTICAL RACE

I am getting to Portsmouth about as fast in this letter as I did in that train. The Right Honorable the Mayor of Portsmouth had had a steamer placed at his disposal by the Admiralty, and he had invited the Lord Mayor of London and other guests to go in her. This was the ship I was to sail in, and she was to leave her pier at 9 A.M. sharp. I arrived at that pier at ten minutes to eleven exactly. There was one chance left, however. The ship had stopped for something and was floating at ease about a mile away.

A rusty, decayed, little two-oared skiff, the size of a bathtub, came floating by, with a fisherman and his wife and child in it. I entreated the man to come in and take me to the ship. Presently he consented and started toward me. I stood impatient and all ready to jump the moment he should get within thirty yards of me; he halted at the distance of thirty-five and said it would be a long pull; did I think I could pay him two shillings for it, seeing it was a holiday? All this palaver and I in such a state of mind! I jumped aboard and told him to rush, which he did; at least he threw his whole heart into his little, useless oars, and we moved off at the rate of a mile a week. This was solid misery. When we had gone a hundred and nine feet and were gaining on the tenth a long, trim, graceful man-of-war’s boat came flying by, bound for the flagship. Without expecting even the courtesy of a response, I hailed and asked the coxswain to take me to the mayor’s vessel. He said, “Certainly, sir!--ease her, boys!” I could not have been more astonished at anything in the world. I quickly gave my man his two shillings, and he started to pull me to the boat. Then there was a movement of discontent among the sailors, and they seemed about to move on. I thought--well, you are not such generous fellows, after all, as I took you to be, or so polite, either; but just then the coxswain hailed and said:

“The boys don’t mind the pull, and they’re perfectly willing to take you, but they say they ain’t willing to take the fisherman’s job away from him.”

Now that was genuine manliness and right conduct. I shall always remember that honorable act. I told them the fisherman was already paid, and I was in their boat the next moment. Then ensued the real fun of the day, as far as I was personally concerned. The boys glanced over their shoulders to measure the distance, and then at the order to “Give way!” they bent to it and the boat sped through the water like an arrow. We passed all kinds of craft and steadily shortened the distance that lay between us and the ship. Presently the coxswain said:

“No use! Her wheels have begun to turn over. Lively now, lively!”

Then we flew. We watched the ship’s movement with a sharp interest and calculated our chances.

“Can you steer?” said the coxswain.

“Can a duck swim?” said I.

“Good--we’ll make her yet!”

I took the helm and he the stroke oar, and that one oar did appear to add a deal to that boat’s speed. The ship was turning around to go out to sea, and she did seem to turn unnecessarily fast, too; but just as she was pointed right and both her wheels began to go ahead our boat’s bow touched her companionway and I was aboard. It was a handsome race, and very exciting. If I could have had that dainty boat and those eight white-shirted, blue-trousered sailors for the day I would not have gone in any ship, but would have gone about in vast naval style and experienced the feelings of an admiral.

OLD HISTORICAL MEN-OF-WAR

Our ship sailed out through a narrow way, bordered by piers that swarmed with people, and likewise by prodigious men-of-war of the fashion of a hundred years ago. There were, perhaps, a dozen of the stately veterans, these relics of an historic past; and not looking aged and seedy, either, but as bright and fresh as if they had been launched and painted yesterday. They were the noblest creatures to look upon; hulls of huge proportion and great length; four long tiers of cannon grinning from their tall sides; vast sterns that towered into the air like the gable end of a church; graceful bows and figureheads; masts as trim and lofty as spires--surely no spectacle could be so imposing as a sea fight in the old times, when such beautiful and such lordly ships as these ruled the seas. And how it must have stirred the heart of England when a fleet of them used to come sailing in from victory, with ruined sides and tattered spars and sails, while bells and cannon pealed a welcome!

One of the grandest of these veterans was the very one upon whose deck Nelson himself fell in the moment of triumph. I suppose England would rather part with ten colonies than with that illustrious old ship. We passed along within thirty steps of her, and I was just trying to picture in my mind the tremendous scenes that had transpired upon her deck upon that day, the proudest in England’s naval history, when the venerable craft, stirred by the boom of saluting cannon, perhaps, woke up out of her long sleep and began to vomit smoke and thunder herself, and then she looked her own natural self again, and no doubt the spirit of Nelson was near. Still it would have been pleasanter to be on her decks than in front of her guns; for, as the white volumes of smoke burst in our faces, one could not help feeling that a ball might by accident have got mixed up with a blank cartridge, and might chip just enough off the upper end of a man to disfigure him for life; and, besides, the powder they use in cannon is in grains as large as billiard chalks, and it does not all explode--suppose a few should enter one’s system? The crash and roar of these great guns was as unsettling a sound as I have ever heard at short range. I took off my hat and acknowledged the salute, of course, though it seemed to me that it would have been better manners if they had saluted the Lord Mayor, inasmuch as he was on board.

THE WORLD’S GREATEST NAVY ON VIEW

We went out to the Spithead and sailed up and down there for four hours through four long ranks of stately men-of-war--formidable ironclads they were--the most insignificant of which would make a breakfast of a whole fleet of Nelson’s prodigious ships and still be hungry. The show was very fine, for there were forty-nine of the finest ironclads the world can show, and many gunboats besides. Indeed, here in its full strength was the finest navy in the world, and this the only time in history that just such a spectacle has been seen, and none who saw it that day is likely to live long enough to see its like again. The vessels were all dressed out with flags, and all about them frolicked a bewildering host of bannered yachts, steamers, and every imaginable sort of craft. It would be hard to contrive a gayer scene. One of the royal yachts came flying along presently and put the Shah on board one of the ironclads, and then the yards of the whole fleet were manned simultaneously, and such another booming and bellowing of great guns ensued as I cannot possibly describe. Within two minutes the huge fleet was swallowed up in smoke, with angry red tongues of fire darting through it here and there. It was wonderful to look upon. Every time the Devastation let off one of her thirty-five-ton guns it seemed as if an entire London fog issued from her side, and the report was so long coming that if she were to shoot a man he would be dead before he heard it, and would probably go around wondering through all eternity what it was that happened to him. I returned to London in a great hurry by a train that was in no way excited by it, but failed in the end and object I had in view after all, which was to go to the grand concert at Albert Hall in honor of the Shah. I had a strong desire to see that building filled with people once. Albert Hall is one of the many monuments erected to the memory of the late Prince Albert. It is a huge and costly edifice, but the architectural design is old, not to say in some sense a plagiarism; for there is but little originality in putting a dome on a gasometer. It is said to seat 13,000 people, and surely that is a thing worth seeing--at least to a man who was not at the Boston Jubilee. But no tickets were to be had--every seat was full, they said. It was no particular matter, but what made me mad was to come so extremely close and then miss. Indeed, I was madder than I can express, to think that if the architect had only planned the place to hold 13,001 I could have got in. But, after all, I was not the only person who had occasion to feel vexed. Colonel X, a noted man in America, bought a seat some days ago for $10 and a little afterward met a knowing person who said the Shah would be physically worn out before that concert night and would not be there, and consequently nobody else; so the seat was immediately sold for $5. Then came another knowing one, who said the Shah would unquestionably be at the concert, so the colonel went straight and bought his ticket back again. The temporary holder of it only charged him $250 for carrying it around for him during the interval! The colonel was at the concert, and took the Shah’s head clerk for the Shah all the evening. Vexation could go no further than that.

V
MARK TWAIN GIVES THE ROYAL PERSIAN
A “SEND-OFF”

London, June 30, 1873.

For the present we are done with the Shah in London. He is gone to the country to be further “impressed.” After all, it would seem that he was more moved and more genuinely entertained by the military day at Windsor than by even the naval show at Portsmouth. It is not to be wondered at, since he is a good deal of a soldier himself and not much of a sailor. It has been estimated that there were 300,000 people assembled at Windsor--some say 500,000. That was a show in itself. The Queen of England was there; so was Windsor Castle; also an imposing array of cavalry, artillery, and infantry. And the accessories to these several shows were the matchless rural charms of England--a vast expanse of green sward, walled in by venerable forest trees, and beyond them glimpses of hills clothed in Summer vegetation. Upon such a theater a bloodless battle was fought and an honorable victory won by trained soldiers who have not always been carpet knights, but whose banners bear the names of many historic fights.

England is now practically done with the Shah. True, his engagement is not yet completed, for he is still billed to perform at one or two places; but curiosity is becoming sated, and he will hardly draw as good houses as heretofore. Whenever a star has to go to the provinces it is a bad sign. The poor man is well nigh worn out with hard work. The other day he was to have performed before the Duke of Buccleuch and was obliged to send an excuse. Since then he failed of his engagement at the Bank of England. He does not take rest even when he might. He has a telegraphic apparatus in his apartments in Buckingham Palace, and it is said that he sits up late, talking with his capital of Persia by telegraph. He is so fascinated with the wonderful contrivance that he cannot keep away from it. No doubt it is the only homelike thing the exile finds in the hard, practical West, for it is the next of kin to the enchanted carpets that figure in the romance and traditions of his own land, and which carry the wanderer whither he will about the earth, circumscribing the globe in the twinkling of an eye, propelled by only the force of an unspoken wish.

GOSSIP ABOUT THE SHAH

This must be a dreary, unsatisfactory country to him, where one’s desires are thwarted at every turn. Last week he woke up at three in the morning and demanded of the Vizier on watch by his bedside that the ballet dancers be summoned to dance before him. The Vizier prostrated himself upon the floor and said:

“O king of kings, light of the world, source of human peace and contentment, the glory and admiration of the age, turn away thy sublime countenance, let not thy fateful frown wither thy slave; for behold the dancers dwell wide asunder in the desert wastes of London, and not in many hours could they be gathered together.”

The Shah could not even speak, he was so astounded with the novelty of giving a command that could not be obeyed. He sat still a moment, suffering, then wrote in his tablets these words:

“Mem.--Upon arrival in Teheran, let the Vizier have the coffin which has just been finished for the late general of the household troops--it will save time.”

He then got up and set his boots outside the door to be blacked and went back to bed, calm and comfortable, making no more to-do about giving away that costly coffin than I would about spending a couple of shillings.

THE LESSON OF HIS JOURNEY

If the mountains of money spent by civilized Europe in entertaining the Shah shall win him to adopt some of the mild and merciful ways that prevail in Christian realms it will have been money well and wisely laid out. If he learns that a throne may rest as firmly upon the affections of a people as upon their fears; that charity and justice may go hand in hand without detriment to the authority of the sovereign; that an enlarged liberty granted to the subject need not impair the power of the monarch; if he learns these things Persia will be the gainer by his journey, and the money which Europe has expended in entertaining him will have been profitably invested. That the Shah needs a hint or two in these directions is shown by the language of the following petition, which has just reached him from certain Parsees residing here and in India:

THE PETITION

1. A heavy and oppressive poll tax, called the Juzia, is imposed upon the remnant of the ancient Zoroastrian race now residing in Persia. A hundred years ago, when the Zoroastrian population was 30,000 families, and comparatively well-to-do, the tax was only 250 toomans; now, when there are scarcely six thousand souls altogether, and stricken with poverty, they have to pay 800 toomans. In addition to the crushing effect of this tax, the government officials oppress these poor people in enforcing the tax.

2. A Parsee desirous of buying landed property is obliged to pay twenty per cent. on the value of the property as fee to the Kazee and other authorities.

3. When a Parsee dies any member of his family, no matter however distant, who may have previously been converted to Mohammedanism, claims and obtains the whole property of the deceased, to the exclusion of all the rightful heirs. In enforcing this claim the convert is backed and supported by government functionaries.

4. When a Parsee returns to Persia from a foreign country he is harassed with all sorts of exactions at the various places he has to pass through in Persia.

5. When any dispute arises, whether civil or criminal, between a Mohammedan and a Parsee, the officials invariably side with the former, and the testimony of one Mohammedan--no matter how false on its very face--receives more credit than that of a dozen or any number of Parsee witnesses. If a Mohammedan kills a Parsee he is only fined about eight toomans, or four pounds sterling; but on the contrary, if a Parsee wounds or murders a Mohammedan he is not only cut to pieces himself, but all his family and children are put to the sword, and sometimes all the Parsees living in the same street are harassed in a variety of ways. The Parsees are prevented from dressing themselves well and from riding a horse or donkey. No matter, even if he were ill and obliged to ride, he is compelled to dismount in the presence of a Mohammedan rider, and is forced to walk to the place of his destination. The Parsees are not allowed to trade in European articles, nor are they allowed to deal in domestic produce, as grocers, dyers, or oilmen, tailors, dairymen, &c., on the ground that their touch would pollute the articles and supplies and make them unfit for the use of Mohammedans.

6. The Parsees are often insulted and abused in every way by the Mohammedans, and their children are stolen or forcibly taken away from them by the Mohammedans. These children are concealed in Mohammedan houses, their names are changed, and they are forced to become Mohammedans, and when they refuse to embrace the Mohammedan faith they are maltreated in various ways. When a man is forcibly converted, his wife and family are also forced to join him as Mohammedans. The Mohammedans desecrate the sacred places of worship of the Zoroastrians and the places for the disposal of their dead.

7. In general the Parsees are heavily taxed in various ways, and are subjected to great oppression. In consequence of such persecution the Parsee population of Persia has, during this century, considerably decreased and is now so small that it consists of a few thousand families only. It is possible that these persecutions are practiced on the Zoroastrian inhabitants of Persia without the knowledge of His Majesty the Shah.

THE INGENIOUS BARON REUTER

It is whispered that the Shah’s European trip was not suggested by the Shah himself, but by the noted telegraphic newsman, Baron Reuter. People who pretend to know say that Reuter began life very poor; that he was an energetic spirit and improved such opportunities as fell in his way; that he learned several languages, and finally became a European guide, or courier, and employed himself in conducting all sorts of foreigners through all sorts of countries and wearing them out with the usual frantic system of sight-seeing. That was a good education for him; it also gave him an intimate knowledge of all the routes of travel and taught him how certain long ones might be shortened. By and by he got some carrier pigeons and established a news express, which necessarily prospered, since it furnished journals and commercial people with all matters of importance considerably in advance of the mails. When railways came into vogue he obtained concessions which enlarged his facilities and still enabled him to defy competition. He was ready for the telegraph and seized that, too; and now for years

“REUTER’S TELEGRAMS”

has stood in brackets at the head of the telegraphic column of all European journals. He became rich; he bought telegraph lines and built others, purchased a second-hand German baronetcy, and finally sold out his telegraphic property to his government for $3,000,000 and was out of business for once. But he could not stay out.

After building himself a sort of a palace, he looked around for fresh game, singled out the Shah of Persia and “went for him,” as the historian Josephus phrases it. He got an enormous “concession” from him and then conceived the admirable idea of exhibiting a Shah of Persia in the capitals of Europe and thus advertising his concession before needful capitalists. It was a sublimer idea than any that any showman’s brain has ever given birth to. No Shah had ever voluntarily traveled in Europe before; but then no Shah had ever fallen into the hands of a European guide before.

THE FAT “CONCESSION”

The baron’s “concession” is a financial curiosity. It allows him the sole right to build railways in Persia for the next seventy years; also street railroads; gives all the land necessary, free of charge, for double tracks and fifty or sixty yards on each side; all importations of material, etc., free of duty; all the baron’s exports free of duty also. The baron may appropriate and work all mines (except those of the precious metals) free of charge, the Shah to have 15 per cent of the profits. Any private mine may be “gobbled” (the Persian word is akbamarish) by the baron if it has not been worked during five years previously. The baron has the exclusive privilege of making the most of all government forests, he giving the Shah 15 per cent of the profits from the wood sold. After a forest is removed, the baron is to be preferred before all other purchasers if he wants to buy the land. The baron alone may dig wells and construct canals, and he is to own all the land made productive by such works. The baron is empowered to raise $30,000,000 on the capital stock for working purposes, and the Shah agrees to pay 7 per cent interest on it; and Persia is wholly unencumbered with debt. The Shah hands over to the baron the management of his customs for twenty years, and the baron engages to pay for this privilege $100,000 a year more than the Shah now receives, so the baron means to wake up that sleepy Persian commerce. After the fifth year the baron is to pay the Shah an additional 60 per cent of the profits, if his head is still a portion of his person then. The baron is to have first preference in the establishment of a bank. The baron has preference in establishing gas, road, telegraph, mill, manufacturing, forge, pavement, and all such enterprises. The Shah is to have 20 per cent of the profits arising from the railways. Finally, the baron may sell out whenever he wants to.

It is a good “concession” in its way. It seems to make the Shah say: “Run Persia at my expense and give me a fifth of the profits.”

One’s first impulse is to envy the baron; but, after all, I do not know. Some day, if things do not go to suit the Shah, he may say, “There is no head I admire so much as this baron’s; bring it to me on a plate.”

DEPARTURE OF THE IMPERIAL CIRCUS.

We are all sorry to see the Shah leave us, and yet are glad on his account. We have had all the fun and he all the fatigue. He would not have lasted much longer here. I am just here reminded that the only way whereby you may pronounce the Shah’s title correctly is by taking a pinch of snuff. The result will be “t-Shah!”