'A Journey from Bengal to England, through the Northern part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan, and Persia, and into Russia, by the Caspian-Sea. By George Forster. In the Civil Service of the Honourable the East-India Company in Two Volumes. Vol. II.' [‎32] (45/314)

2 ,z s FORSTER’S TRAVELS.:
actuated the different parties; and his remarks on the various
events of thofe times, from which I derived much ufefui infor
mation, denoted a found difcerning judgement, little heated by
prejudice, or fettered by thofe narrow precepts which ufually fway
the mind of a Mahometan. He ftridtly obferved the ceremonies
of his religion, which were performed with an apparent convic
tion of their rectitude ; and, though he daily faw my remiffion of
the cuftomary worfhip of his family, he neither remarked or
cenfured it.
At Sheich Mirza’s, I was received with fplendid offers of
frisndfhip, and all that farrago of proteftation, the common bur
then of Afiatic language, which goes for nothing. The truth
was, the brother at Jumbo had reprefented me as a wealthy merchant
who would produce great profit to the houfe; and this objeft de
luged me at the firft meeting with compliments, which com
menced with embracing my legs, and ended in wafhing my beard
in rofe water. Nor did he ceafe to load me with a feries of
difgufting attentions, until I told him that my hufmefs obliged
me to proceed, without delay, to Kabul. The arrival of a mer
chant from Conftantinople compleated my relief; for then the
Sheick had no leifure to fay a civil word to any one, and feeing
indeed, that my refidence promifed no emolument to the houfe, he
would without ceremony have turned me out of it, had another
Turk appeared.
As there are no karavanferas in Kafhmire, commercial ftran-
gers