'The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, G.C.B., late envoy to Persia, and governor of Bombay; from unpublished letters and journals. In two volumes. Vol. II.' [‎13] (30/654)

story-telling.
13
would gladly have heaped costly presents upon us ; but
instead of this, on my persuasion, he made a fine new
road, that was much wanted, and dedicated it to Mrs.
Malcolm. Such are the presents I like." No man ever
had larger opportunities of enriching himself in this way ;
but he went through life with hands clean as a babe's.
On the 16th of May, Malcolm and his suite departed
from Shiraz with all honor, and commenced their march
towards the Persian capital, well pleased with the enter
tainment they had received. The journey onwards is
remembered with the liveliest feelings of pleasure by the
few survivors of the party. Not far from Shiraz, they
were joined by the King's story-teller, who amused them
with the recital of Oriental romances not inferior in in
terest to those of the Arabian Nights. Many of these
stories found their way into Malcolm's journal, and were
treasured up tenaciously by a memory that never failed. 5 ^
Some he had heard before during his first sojourn in
Persia, and had narrated during the intervening ten
years at various times and places, and under circum
stances of infinite variety. Great soldiers, little children,
and gentle maidens, had been equally delighted by them.
They had made Arthur "Wellesley laugh in the Mahratta
camp; they had made Johnny Wainwright happy during
the tedium of a voyage down the Bay of Bengal; and
they had won a smile from the lips of Charlotte Camp
bell, as he sat behind her on an elephant, in the course
of that memorable journey to Mysore out of which had
arisen the great happiness of his life.
On the 5th of June the Mission quitted Ispahan, and
marched onwards by stages of twenty- five or thirty miles
a day.f Everywhere, as they advanced, they were re-
* Some of tliem will be found in ■}" Sometimes they made as much as
his the most popular forty miles a day, or rather night,
of all Malcolm's works. "We marched last night, wrote Mai-