to my father. In order to
get rid, for a while, of the importunities and jealousy of his first
wife, and also to acquire the good opinion of his father-in-law (who,
although noted for clipping money, and passing it for lawful, affected
to be a saint), he undertook a pilgrimage to the tomb of Hosein, at
Kerbelah. He took his new wife with him, and she was delivered of me on
the road. Before the journey took place he was generally known, simply
as 'Hassan the barber'; but ever after he was honoured by the epithet of
Kerbelai; and I, to please my mother, who spoilt me, was called _Hajji_
or the pilgrim, a name which has stuck to me through life, and procured
for me a great deal of unmerited respect; because, in fact, that
honoured title is seldom conferred on any but those who have made the
great pilgrimage to the tomb of the blessed Prophet of Mecca.

My father having left his business during his absence to his chief
apprentice, resumed it with increased industry on his return; and the
reputation of a zealous Mussulman, which he had acquired by his journey,
attracted the clergy, as well as the merchants, to his shop. It being
intended that I should be brought up to the strap, I should perhaps have
received no more education than was necessary to teach me my prayers,
and I not been noticed by a _mollah_, (or priest), who kept a school
in an adjoining mosque, whom my father (to keep up the character he had
acquired of being a good man) used to shave once a week, as he was wont
to explain, purely for the love of God. The holy man repaid the service
by teaching me to read and write; and I made such progress under his
care, that in two years I could decipher the Koran, and began to write a
legible hand. When not in school I attended the shop, where I learnt the
rudiments of my profession, and when there was a press of customers, was
permitted to practise upon the heads of muleteers and camel-drivers, who
indeed sometimes paid dear for my first essays.

By the time I was sixteen it would be difficult to say whether I was
most accomplished as a barber or a scholar. Besides shaving the head,
cleaning the ears, and trimming the beard, I became famous for my
skill in the offices of the bath. No one understood better than I
the different modes of rubbing or shampooing, as practised in India,
Cashmere, and Turkey; and I had an art peculiar to myself of making the
joints to crack, and my slaps echo.

Thanks to my master, I had lear