The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan. James Justinian Morier
Tocat; for it is to that occurrence you are indebted for this letter, and the world for the accompanying volume.
It was at the close of a fatiguing days journey, that I and my escort, consisting of two Tatars, two servants, and the conductors of our baggage and post-horses, entered the city of Tocat. Our approach was as usual announced by the howls of the Surujees, who more than usually exerted their lungs in my service, because they felt that these sounds, the harbingers of rest and entertainment, could but be agreeable to weary and jaded travellers like ourselves. The moon was shining bright as our cavalcade clattered over the long paved road leading to the city, and lighted up, in awful grandeur, the turret-topped peaks which rear their heads on the crest of the surrounding abrupt crags. On entering the post-house, I was immediately conducted into the travellers' room, where, having disencumbered myself of my cloak, arms, and heavy boots, and putting myself at ease in my slippers and loose dress, I quietly enjoyed, the cup of strong coffee and the chibouk, which were immediately handed to me, and after that my dish of rice, my tough fowl, and my basin of sour curds.
I was preparing to take my night's rest on the sofas of the post-house, where my bed had been spread, when a stranger unceremoniously walked into the room, and stood before me. I remarked that he was a Persian, and, by his dress, a servant. At any other moment I should have been happy to see and converse with him; because having lived so long in Persia, I felt myself, in some measure, identified with its natives, and now in a country where both nations were treated with the same degree of contempt, my fellow-feeling for them became infinitely stronger.
I discovered that he had a tale of misery to unfold, from the very doleful face that he was pleased to make on the occasion, and I was not mistaken. It was this—that his master, one Mirza Hajji Baba, now on his return from Constantinople, where he had been employed on the Shah's business, had fallen seriously ill, and that he had been obliged to stop at Tocat; that he had taken up his abode at the caravanserai, where he had already spent a week, during which time he had been attended by a Frank doctor, an inhabitant of Tocat, who, instead of curing, had, in fact, brought him to his last gasp—that having heard of my arrival from Persia, he had brightened up and requested, without loss of time, that I would call upon him, for he was sure the presence of one coming from his own country would alone restore him to health. In short, his servant, as is usual on such occasions, finished his speech by saying, that, with the exception of God and myself, he had nothing left to depend upon in this life.
I immediately recollected who Mirza Hajji Baba was; for though I had lost sight of him for several years, yet once on a time I had seen much of him, and had taken great interest in everything that regarded him, owing to his having been in England, whither, in quality of secretary, he accompanied the first ambassador which Persia had sent in modern times. He had since been employed in various ways in the government, sometimes in high, and sometimes in lower situations, undergoing the vicissitudes which are sure to attend every Persian; and at length had been sent to Constantinople, as resident agent at the Porte on the part of the Shah.
I did not hesitate an instant, tired and jaded as I was, immediately to accompany his servant; and in the same garb in which I was, only throwing a cloak over my shoulders, I walked in all haste to the caravanserai.
There, on a bed spread in the middle of a small room, surrounded by several of his servants, I found the sick Mirza, looking more like a corpse than a living body. When I had first known him he was a remarkably handsome man, with a fine aquiline nose, oval face, an expressive countenance, and a well-made person. He had now passed the meridian of life, but his features were still fine, and his eye full of fire. As soon as he saw he recognised me, and the joy which he felt at the meeting broke out in a great animation of his features, and in the thousand exclamations so common to a Persian's lips.
'See,' said he, 'what a fortunate destiny mine is, that at a moment when I thought the angel of death was about to seize me for his own, the angel of life comes and blows a fresh existence into my nostrils.'
After his first transports were over, I endeavoured to make him explain what was the nature of his complaint, and how it had hitherto been treated. I saw enough by his saffron hue, that bile was the occasion of his disorder; and, as I had had great experience in treating it during my stay in Persia, I did not hesitate to cheer up his hopes by an assurance of being able to relieve him.
'What can I say?' said he. 'I thought at first that I had been struck with the plague. My head ached intensely, my eyes became dim, I had a pain in my side, and a nauseous taste in my mouth, and expected to die on the third day; but no, the symptoms still continue, and I am alive. As soon as I arrived here, I enquired for a physician, and was told there were two practitioners in the town, a Jew and a Frank. Of course I chose the latter; but 'tis plain, that my evil star had a great deal to say in the choice I made. I have not yet been able to discover to what tribe among the Franks he belongs—certainly he is not an Englishman. But a more extraordinary ass never existed in this world, be his nation what it may. I began by telling him that I was very, very ill. All he said in answer, with a grave face, was "Mashallah! Praise be to God!" and when, in surprise and rage, I cried out, "But I shall die, man!" with the same grave face, he said, "Inshallah! Please God!" My servants were about to thrust him from the room, when they found that he knew nothing of our language excepting these two words, which he had only learnt to misapply. Supposing that he still might know something of his profession, I agreed to take his medicine; but I might have saved myself the trouble, for I have been daily getting worse.'
Here the Mirza stopped to take breath. I did not permit him to exert himself further; but, without loss of time, returned the post-house, applied to my medicine-chest, and prepared a dose of calomel, which was administered that evening with due solemnity. I then retired to rest.
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