When they came to be
moved, preparatory to the doctor's journey (for he always accompanies
the Shah), the puppies and their mother set up such a confusion of
yells, that the servant who had disturbed them ran breathless with the
information to the doctor, who, followed by his household, including
myself, proceeded to the spot. As soon as the state of the case had been
ascertained, many were struck by the singularity of the circumstance, as
an omen portending no good to the doctor's house. One said, 'This comes
of marrying the khanum; she will give him a houseful of _harem zadehs_.'
Another said, 'The puppies are yet blind: God grant that we and the
doctor may not become so likewise!' The doctor himself was only vexed by
the loss of his trunks; he pronounced them to be _nejes_ (unclean) from
that moment, and ordered them, puppies, bitch and all, immediately to
be expelled. I was not long in appropriating them; and very soon assumed
all the consequence of a man possessing trunks, which also implied
things worthy to be put into them. Little by little, I scraped together
a sufficient quantity of effects to be able to talk big about my
baggage; and when preparations for our departure were making, I
held myself entitled to the privilege of squabbling with the king's
mule-drivers concerning the necessity of a mule for carrying it.

CHAPTER XXXIII

He accompanies the Shah to his camp, and gets some insight into his
profession.

At length the day of departure for Sultanieh was fixed by the
astrologers. The Shah left his palace just half an hour before sunrise,
on the 21st _Rebbi el evel_,[68] and travelled without drawing bridle,
until he reached his palace of Sulimanieh, which is situated on the
banks of the Caraj, at a distance of nine parasangs from Tehran. The
different corps composing the army to be collected at Sultanieh were
ordered to meet there at a given time, whilst the Shah's escort was
to consist only of his body guard, his camel artillery, and a heavy
squadron of cavalry. The great officers of the court, with the viziers,
and those employed in the public offices, departed at about the same
time, and thus the city was bereft, almost in one day, of nearly
two-thirds of its population. Everything and everybody were in motion;
and a stranger would have thought that all the inhabitants, like bees
hiving, by one common consent had broken up housekeeping, and were about
to settle in some other place. Strings of