Burnes, Alexander: Travels into Bokhara: containing the narrative of a voyage on the Indus from the sea to Lahore, ... and an account of a journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia ; performed by order of the supreme government of India, in the years 1831, 32, and 33 (Band 3) (London, 1835)

78

PRINCE ABBAS MEERZA.

CHAP. XIV.

we approached it. Abbas Meerza took great pains
to explain every thing concerning them ; and the
inquiries and looks of the unfortunate Ruza Koli
Khan drew forth many a smiling remark. The
chief appeared bewildered, and I thought he feigned
insanity. He asked the Prince to give him a large
mortar, which we were all admiring; Abbas Meerza
told him not now to trouble himself about these
things. The guns, which had fallen with the fortress,
were drawn up in line, with the other artillery;
they were Russian ordnance, cast in 1784, and had
been captured from the present King of Persia.
The Koord chief pretended not to recognise them;
and, when he heard of their history, made a just
enough remark, that they were good enough for
Koochan. In the place of this chief, I should have
considered it no dishonour to be subdued by a park
of thirty-five guns, from four to 32-pounders, in
the best state of efficiency. The Prince then wit-
nessed the exercise of the corps; bearing the
amplest testimony to the merits of Captain Lindsay
(now Sir Henry Bethune), the British officer who
had organised it, and of whom he spoke with kind-
ness. The ceremony then terminated, and we
retired from the scene with much gratification at
an interview with a Charles the Second in Persia.
I was disappointed in Abbas Meerza's appearance.
He has been handsome, but is now haggard, and
looks an old man : he has lost his erect carriage,
his eye waters, and his cheek is wrinkled. He was
plainly dressed, and walked with a stick in his hand,
His eldest son, Mahommed Meerza, was present;