Mahomed Nebee Khan, who is known to the English as the Persian Embassador at Calcutta, had procured the succession to the Government of Bushire, at the price, it was said, of forty thousand tomauns[19].
At this moment the Vizir Hajee Suliman was seized on the point of embarkation. The Khan had declared that he would not spare Bushire unless the Vizir was delivered to him. The people, therefore, of his own town intercepted his flight, and surrendered him to the Khan. But the cousin of the Sheik, whose fate was threatened in the same proscription, escaped. There, as in Turkey, and probably in all despotic countries, the guilt, or rather the disgrace, of an individual, entails equal punishment on all his family and adherents.
On the following morning, Mahomed Khan, the Nasakchee Bashee, whose mission had produced these changes, entered Bushire, and assumed the administration of the government. The town was so far tranquillized, indeed, that the Bazars were re-opened. The proclamations which the Khan had issued, pledging security and peace to the inhabitants, had recalled them to their houses; and the example of severe punishment, which he inflicted on one of his own men for stealing the turban of a Jew, operated still more powerfully than his assurances. In the course of the morning we rode to the gates of the town: there was here a large assembly of armed men, for little other purpose indeed than to hear the news and the lies of the day: for a picture, however, the mob was excellent; nothing can be marked more strongly in character, than the hard and parched-up features of the inhabitants of this part of Persia. Though the first consternation had thus subsided, the people had not resumed their daily occupations. In the course of our ride we did not meet a single woman carrying water, or a single ass carrying wood; for the circumstances which had now happened were unparalleled in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and excited the strongest emotion throughout the country.
In appearance, indeed, the place was already tranquil; but the regulations which the Khan enforced, were too little accommodated to the previous habits of the people to reconcile them to his administration. Some of the most respectable merchants prepared to emigrate, and all beheld with terror the officers of police displaying in the Bazars the preparations for the bastinado, (the justice of Persia), with which they contrasted very favourably the lenient rule of their Arab Chief. In the progress of his government, the Khan still continued to exasperate the principal inhabitants by extorting donations of their goods. When, indeed, Mahomed Jaffer, the brother of the expected Governor, received in his turn such a demand, he not only returned a direct denial, but wrote to the townsmen to arm in revenge, and defend themselves against such requisitions.
In a few days the same Mahomed Jaffer, in obedience to new orders was proclaimed by the Khan, Governor pro tempore till the arrival of his brother; and was invested in this dignity by the girding of a sword on his thigh, an honour which he accepted with a reluctance perhaps not wholly feigned. When he was complimented on the occasion, he replied, “You see to what I am come at last; all would not do: I was obliged to put on this sword.” But the moment that he assumed the government, he followed in his turn all the rigours of his predecessor, and bastinadoed his new subjects without commiseration.
His reign, however, was short: on the 7th of November he was seized by the Khan, (the Nasakchee Bashee), thrown into prison, and fastened to the wall by a chain, said to have been sent expressly from Shiraz for his neck, but in reality intended for that of Hajee Suliman, the late Vizir of Bushire. The cause of his disgrace was his supposed instigation of the flight of the Vizir, who had contrived to escape by sea; and this punishment was to be enforced unless he delivered up the fugitive, or paid twenty thousand tomauns. As the Vice-Governor was unable or unwilling to conform to either requisition, he remained in prison. At length, however, he resolved on attempting the re-capture of the Vizir; and would have undertaken the voyage, if the security, which he offered for his own return, had been deemed sufficient by the Nasakchee Bashee.
In the mean time his release was prepared on easier and surer terms. Mahomed Nebee Khan, the appointed Governor of Bushire, though little friendly to his brother, was yet jealous of the honour of his family, and felt in his own person the indignity which the late punishment of the chain had inflicted on Jaffer. He swore, therefore, that he would not rest till the head of his brother’s enemy was cut off; and as the first act of his influence procured the immediate restoration of his brother to his former offices. Jaffer was accordingly released from the prison where he was chained by the neck, and again seated in the administration.
I must not omit as a specimen of Persian character, the mode of communication which notified this change at Bushire. The Prince’s Messenger that brought the intelligence from Shiraz of the disgrace of the Nasakchee Bashee, came into the presence of Mahomed Jaffer, and told him, “Come, now is the time to open your purse-strings; you are now no longer a merchant or in prison; you are now no longer to sell dungaree, (a species of coarse linen); you are a governor; come, you must be liberal, I bring you good intelligence: if I had been ordered to cut off your head, I would have done it with the greatest pleasure; but now, as I bring you good news, I must have some money.” The man that said this was a servant, and the man that bore it was the new Governor of Bushire.
In a few days Mahomed Jaffer paid us a visit, in appearance perfectly unconscious of the indignities which he had suffered. But the habitual despotism which the people are born to witness, familiarises them so much to every act of violence which may be inflicted on themselves or on others, that they view all events with equal indifference, and go in and out of prison, are bastinadoed, fined, and exposed to every ignominy, with an apathy which nothing but custom and fatalism could produce.
On the 4th of Dec. the restored Vice-Governor was invested with a kalaat, or dress of honour, from the Prince at Shiraz; and his dignities were announced by the discharge of cannon. The form of his investiture was as follows:—Attended by all the great men, and by all his guards (the greater part of whom were the shopkeepers of the Bazar armed for the occasion), the new Governor issued from the town to meet his vest. As soon as he met it he alighted from his horse, and making a certain obeisance was presented with it by the person deputed by the Prince to convey it. The whole party then rode to the spot appointed for the investiture; thither the kalaat was brought in state on a tray, surrounded by other trays decked with sweetmeats. The Governor was here assisted to throw off his old clothes, and to put on his new and distinguishing apparel. The whole present consisted of a ponderous brocade coat with a sash, and another vest trimmed with furs, and valued altogether at one hundred and fifty piastres, though the receiver would pay for the honour (in presents to the bearer and to the Prince in return) the sum, perhaps, of a thousand tomauns. When he was invested, his late clothes were carried away as the perquisite of the servants. After this, the firman was read, declaring the motives which had induced the Prince to confer so marked an honour on Aga Mahomed Jaffer, and then every one present complimented him on the occasion, with a “Moobarek bashed, Good fortune attend you.” After this the company smoked, drank coffee, and eat sweet cakes; and then mounting their horses escorted the Governor into his town. The Governor, in his glittering but uneasy garb, re-entered Bushire, amid the noise of cannon and the bustle of a gaping multitude; and the ceremony closed.