During his sojourn in Tiflis, the mountain-encompassed capital of Georgia, Bodenstedt undertook the study of the Tartar language, finding it to be a universally-employed means of communication with the many-tongued races of Caucasus. Among the numerous teachers recommended to him, he selected one called Mirza-Schaffy, "the wise man of Gjändsha," being attracted to him partly because of his calm, dignified demeanor, partly because he possessed a sufficient knowledge of Russian, with which Bodenstedt was perfectly familiar, to render intercourse easy and agreeable.
Here it may not be amiss to observe that "Mirza" is a title which placed before a proper name signifies "scribe"—after a name it designates a prince. Thus, Mirza-Schaff[^y] means "Scribe Schaffy," but Schaffy-Mirzâ would mean "Prince Schaffy." Each word, when pronounced separately, has the accent on the last syllable, but together they are pronounced as one word, with the accent on the final syllable.
The Tartars possess no such brilliant stores of literature as the Persians, but they are endowed with a manly vigor which the latter have lost. Mirza-Schaffy was a Tartar by birth, nurtured with Persian culture, and was, when Bodenstedt made his acquaintance, in December, 1843, a man of some forty years of age, of very stately appearance and excessive neatness. He wore a soft silken suit, about which he carelessly draped a blue Turkish cloak, while a tall black sheep-skin hat of sugar-loaf form adorned his shapely head. A dark, well-tended beard framed his handsomely chiseled face, whose calm, earnest expression was heightened by the deep, rich hue of his complexion, and his large, serious eyes were void of the usual cunning of his class. His high-heeled slippers, whose purity he miraculously preserved unimpaired when mud was at its height in the streets of Tiflis, he left always at the threshold of his pupil's room, pressing carpet and divan only with his immaculate variegated stockings.
But Mirza-Schaffy's main charm lay in his thorough genuineness, his earnestness of purpose and the tranquillity of his whole being. Misfortune and sorrow had visited him in many forms, leaving their impress on his brow, yet he had not been crushed; and thoroughly as he appreciated the refined enjoyments of life, he could most gracefully renounce luxuries attainable only by Fortune's favorites. So long as he could have his tschibuq filled with good tobacco and his goblet with good wine, both of which were plentiful in Tiflis, he seemed content with the entire dispensation of the world. Highly as he prized, however, the beneficent effects of wine, he was an enemy to excess, having made moderation in all things the law of his life.
The whole atmosphere surrounding the man produced a deep and lasting impression on Bodenstedt, who, longing to immortalize the name of one who had unfolded to him the treasures of Eastern lore, and from whom he had derived so much pleasure and profit, conceived the idea of representing his teacher in his public characterization with poetic freedom, as a type of the Eastern poet and man of learning. Poet, Mirza-Schaffy was not in reality, for although he was skilled in the art of rhyming, and could translate with ease any simple song from the Persian into the Tartar language, Bodenstedt found only one of his original efforts which was worthy of preservation. The song referred to was one hurled, as it were, at the head of an offending mullah who had derided Mirza-Schaffy for his tenderness to wine, and reads as follows:
Mullah! pure is our wine:
It to revile were sin.
Shouldst thou censure my word,
May'st find truth therein!
No devotion hath me