The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan

by James Justinian Morier

The next morning I repaired to his bedside, and there, to my great satisfaction, found that my medicine had performed wonders. The patient's eyes were opened, the headache had in great measure ceased, and he was, in short, a different person. I was received by him and his servants with all the honours due to the greatest sage, and they could not collect words sufficiently expressive of their admiration of my profound skill. As they were pouring forth their thanks and gratitude, looking up I saw a strange figure in the room, whose person I must take the liberty to describe, so highly ludicrous and extravagant did it appear. He was of the middle size, rather inclined to be corpulent, with thick black eyebrows, dark eyes, a three days' beard, and mustachios. He wore the Turkish bag dress, from his shoulders downwards, yellow pabouches, shawl to his waist, and carried a long cane in his hand; but from his shoulders up he was an European, a neckcloth, his hair dressed in the aile de pigeon fashion, a thick tail clubbed, and over all an old-fashioned, three-cornered laced hat. This redoubtable personage made me a bow, and at the same time accosted me in Italian. I was not long in discovering that he was my rival the doctor, and that he was precisely what, from the description of the Mirza, I expected him to be, viz. an itinerant quack, who, perhaps, might once have mixed medicines in some apothecary's shop in Italy or Constantinople, and who had now set up for himself in this remote corner of Asia where he might physic and kill at his pleasure.

I did not shrink from his acquaintance, because I was certain that the life and adventures of such a person must be highly curious and entertaining, and I cordially encouraged him in his advances, hoping thus to acquire his confidence.

He very soon informed me who he was, and what were his pursuits, and did not seem to take the least umbrage at my having prescribed for his patient without previously consulting him. His name was Ludovico Pestello, and he pretended to have studied at Padua, where he had got his diploma. He had not long arrived at Constantinople, with the intention of setting up for himself, where, finding that the city overflowed with Esculapii, he was persuaded to accompany a Pasha of two tails to Tocat, who had recently been appointed to its government, and was there now established as his body physician. I suspected this story to be fabrication, and undertook to examine his knowledge of physic, particularly in the case of my friend the Persian Mirza. The galimatia which he unfolded, as we proceeded, was so extremely ridiculous, and he puzzled himself so entirely by his answers to the plain questions which I put, that at length, not being able to proceed, he joined, with the best good-nature possible, in the horse-laugh, from which I could not refrain. I made him candidly confess that he knew nothing of medicine, more than having been servant to a doctor of some eminence at Padua, where he had picked up a smattering; and that, as all his patients were heretics and abominable Mussulmans, he never could feel any remorse for those which, during his practice, he had despatched from this world.

'But, caro Signor Dottore,' said I, 'how in the name of all that is sacred, how have you managed hitherto not to have had your bones broken? Turks are dangerous tools to play with.'

'Oh,' said he, in great unconcern, 'the Turks believe anything, and I take care never to give them medicine that can do harm.'

'But you must have drugs, and you must apply them,' said I. 'Where are they?'

'I have different coloured liquids,' said he, 'and as long as there is bread and water to be had I am never at a loss for a pill. I perform all my cures with them, accompanied by the words Inshallah and Mashallah!'

'Bread and water! wonderful!' did I exclaim.

'Signor, si,' said he, 'I sprinkle my pills with a little flour for the common people, cover them with gold leaf for my higher patients, the Agas and the Pasha, and they all swallow them without even a wry face.'

I was so highly amused by the account which this extraordinary fellow gave of himself, of the life he led, and of the odd adventures which he had met with, that I invited him to dine; and were it not for the length which this letter has already run, I should, perhaps, have thought it right to make partake of my entertainment by retailing his narrative. I repaid him, as he said, over and above, by presents from my medicine-chest, which he assured me would be plentifully sufficient to administer relief to the whole of Asia Minor.