IV.--Hajji and the Infidels
On reaching Bagdad, I sought the house of my old master, Osman Aga, long since returned from his captivity, and through his assistance, and with my hundred tomauns as capital, I was able to set up in business as a merchant in pipe-sticks, and, having made myself as like as possible to a native of Bagdad, I travelled in Osman Aga's company to Constantinople. Having a complaint to make, I went to Mirza Ferouz, Persian ambassador on a special mission to Constantinople.
"Your wit and manner are agreeable," he said to me; "you have seen the world and its business; you are a man who can make play under another's beard. Such I am in want of."
"I am your slave and your servant," I replied.
"Lately an ambassador came from Europe to Tehran," said Mirza Ferouz, "saying he was sent, with power to make a treaty, by a certain Boonapoort, calling himself Emperor of the French. He promised, that Georgia should be reconquered for us from the Russians, and that the English should be driven from India. Soon afterwards the English infidels in India sent agents to impede the reception of the Frenchman. We soon discovered that much was to be got between the rival curs of uncleanness; and the true object of my mission here is to discover all that is to be known of these French and English. In this you can help me."
This proposal I gladly accepted, and went forth to interview a scribe of the Reis Effendi with whom I had struck up a friendship. He told me that Boonapoort was indeed a rare and daring infidel, who, from a mere soldier, became the sultan of an immense nation, and gave the law to all the Europeans.
"And is there not a tribe of infidels called Ingliz?" I asked.
"Yes, truly. They live in an island, are powerful in ships, and in watches and broad-cloth are unrivalled. They have a shah, but it is a farce to call him by that title. The power lies with certain houses full of madmen, who meet half the year round for the purposes of quarrelling. Nothing can be settled in the state, be it only whether a rebellious aga is to have his head cut off and his property confiscated, or some such trifle, until these people have wrangled. Let us bless Allah and our Prophet that we are not born to eat the miseries of the poor English infidels, but can smoke our pipes in quiet on the shores of our own peaceful Bosphorus!"
I returned to my ambassador full of the information I had acquired; daily he sent me in search of fresh particulars, and before long I felt able to draw up the history of Europe that the Shah had ordered Mirza Ferouz to provide. So well pleased was the ambassador with my labours, that he announced his intention of taking me back to Persia and continuing me in Government employ. To this I readily agreed, knowing that, with the protection of men in office, I might show myself in my own country with perfect safety.
On out return to Tehran we found an English ambassador negotiating a treaty, the French having gone away unsuccessful. Owing to the knowledge I had acquired of European affairs when at Constantinople, I was much employed in these transactions with the infidels, and when I gained the confidence of the grand vizier himself, destiny almost as much as whispered that the buffetings of the world had taken their departure from me.