'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.' [‎99] (112/314)

FORSTER’S TRAVELS.
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entitled, who has made the tour of Mecca, and vifited the
tomb of his prophet, is ever after treated with a refpedlful de
ference, for it is the top of Mahometan fafhion to be religious *
and if a mendicant, his fcrip never wants a ftore.
In mentioning Mahmoud and Ghizni, it were criminal to omit
the name of the Perfian poet, Fardoufi, who in his Sha Namah,
hath given us a fplendid monument of epic poetry, and the pure
language of his country. The prote£lion of the great doth not
always fall to the poet’s lot j nor but rarely doth the public muni
ficence enable him to indulge the bent of his genius. Griping
want often drives him to feek the hireling’s pittance, and even in
our enlightened land, we have feen the cold hand of penury prefs
him to the grave. More propitious was the fortune of Ferdoufi :
it gave him an imperial patron in Mahmoud, whofe praife he too
laviflily fung. And when, for feme failure of the prince’s promife,
the poet retired into Perfia, his countrymen warmly vied in mani-
fefting their liberality and applaufe.
The climate of Ghizni is fo cold as to have become prover
bial, and the Afghans told me, that the town has more than once
been overwhelmed in fnow. The road to Ghizni has, I appre
hend, a fouth wed: direction, and is diftant from Kabul eighty
two miles, at the rate of four miles to a furfung. I have been the
more induced to notice this faft circumftantially 5 as in our maps
its diftance and courfe from Kabul is erroneouflv laid down; fome
Ns of