e been rightly
informed) figuring in quadrilles with the moon-faced daughters of the
Franks; and though the natives of the more distant regions of the East
have not yet appeared among us in such number, yet the lamb-skin cap
of the Persian, the _pugree_, or small Indian turban, and even the
queer head-dress of the Parsee, is far from being a stranger in our
assemblies. We doubt whether the name of Akhbar Khan himself,
proclaimed at the foot of a staircase, would excite the same
_sensation_ in the present day, as the announcement of the most
undistinguished wearer of the turban some ten or twenty years ago; but
of the "Tours" and "Narratives" which are usually the inevitable
result of such an influx of pilgrims, our Oriental visitors have as
yet produced hardly their due proportion. For many years, the travels
of Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, a Hindustani[5] Moslem of rank and education,
who visited Europe in the concluding years of the last century, stood
alone as an example of the effect produced on an Asiatic by his
observation of the manners and customs of the West; and even of late
our stock has not been much increased. The journal of the Persian
princes (a translation of which, by their Syrian mehmandar, Assaad
Yakoob Khayat, has been printed in England for private circulation) is
curious, as giving a picture of European ways and manners when viewed
through a purely Asiatic medium; while the remarkably sensible and
well-written narrative of the two Parsees who lately visited this
country for the purpose of instruction in naval architecture,[6]
differs little from the description of the same objects which would be
given by an intelligent and well-educated European, if they could be
presented to him in the aspect of utter novelty. The latest of these
Oriental wanderers in the ungenial climes of Franguestan, is the one
whose name appears at the head of this article, and who, with a rare
and commendable modesty, has preferred introducing himself to the
public under the protecting guidance of Maga, to venturing, alone and
without a pilot, among the perilous rocks and shoals of the critics of
_the Row_; him therefore we shall now introduce, without further
comment, to the favourable notice of our readers.

[4] _Shalwarlek_--"tight trousers"--was a phrase used,
under the old Turkish regime, as equivalent to a
blackguard.

[5] The Moslems, and other natives of India descended
from foreign races, are properly