religion. In spite of their own philosophy, if it may be so called, they believe the legends of the Jews, whilst they decline belief in the revelations.

Mullah Meshiakh, or, as the Mussulmans call him, Mullah Mohde, told me the following legend about Moses. When Moses was a child, Pharaoh one day played with him; Moses took hold of Pharaoh's beard, and drew out the jewels, with which it was covered. Pharaoh said to Jethro, Balaam, and Job, who were viziers at the time, "I am afraid that this Jew boy will one day overturn my empire, what is to be done with him?" Balaam advised Pharaoh to kill Moses; Jethro said, "No, but try whether he has understanding, by putting before him gold and fire: if he takes hold of the gold, then kill him; but if he touches the fire, then it will be a proof, that he will not become a clever boy." Job was silent, but Jethro's advice was followed. Moses wanted to take hold of the gold; but the Angel of the Lord turned his hand towards the fire, and he put the coals to his tongue, on which account he had a difficulty of speech: "I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.' Exodus iv. 10. Job, on account of having followed the system of expediency, by not having spoken out his mind, was punished as described in the book of Job. Balaam, who advised his being put to death, was killed.

MULLAH BENJAMIN.

Mullah Meshiakh is in possession of a defence of the Coran, written by Hajee Ameen, a Jewish renegado, whose former name was Mullah Benjamin. He has translated the whole Bible into Persian, with Persian-Jewish characters and notes, in order to convince the Jews, that Moses and the Prophets have predicted, that both Jesus and Mohammed should be sent by God with prophetic power. This same Mullah Benjamin, a native of Yazd, had performed a pilgrimage to Mecca.

MULLAH MOHAMMED ALI YSHKAPATE.

Dec. 11. The teacher of the Jewish Sooffees, called on me; there was nothing in him, which could engage me to like him; he sometimes expressed devotion, which he spoiled again by evident lies. He made me acquainted with the following principles of his. 1. That there is no evil in the world. 2. That to a man, whose mind is absorbed in God, adultery can do no harm, nor any other vice. 3. The world stands from eternity. 4. The world and God is one and the same thing. There are several other Mussulmans hereabouts of this opinion; as Hajee Abd Raheem at Damghan; Mullah Yahya at Meshed; Aga Mohammed HusseinYoos Bashee, with the surname of Amboranee; Mullah Mohammed Ali Waled Baaker of Meshed. It may be useful to a traveller to know the names of these Sooffees; for there is a kind of liberality (though somewhat interested) about them, which may facilitate the progress of a Christian or European traveller. With a glass

of wine, or a piece of ham, one may acquire the good graces of a mystical, absorbed and contemplating Sooffee.

It was amusing to hear this evening those Jewish and Mohammedan Sooffees discussing with great gravity, and with eyes lifted up with devotion, the propriety of eating pork, drinking wine, and eating without first washing their hands. I then spoke to them in the following manner: "It is of small moment to eat pork or to drink wine. The kingdom of God does not consist in meat and drink, but in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;' but righteousness cannot consist with this system of silencing the conscience, by considering as right, what is bad in itself, and has been considered bad by all men, possessing the least feeling of conscience; men easily can deceive themselves, and believe that to be devotion, which is really nothing else but a sensual, brutish desire, and excitement of the blood."

Mullah Meshiakh. What do you think is necessary to believe, in order to obtain the kingdom of God?

I. Believe that Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, died for our sins, rose again, and went to heaven, and you shall be saved.

Dec. 12. Dervish Mushtak-Fars, another Sooffee, came to the house of Mullah Meshiakh, where I was lodging; though a Mohammedan, he is connected with the Jewish Sooffees. He was silent for a long while.

Myself. Why dost thou not speak?

Dervish. After the religion of Jesus shall be manifested, then I shall speak.

M. When shall this be?

D. After that Jesus shall have been upon earth, as you now are. M. When shall he appear?

D. Five years hence.

M. What shall then happen?

D. (In a melodious voice)

Thousand hearts shall then be one,

The lamb and the wolf shall together lie down,
And Jesus shall then lay down his life.

MOORSHEED.

I spoke with Mullah Meshiakh about the duties of a Moorsheed. He tells me, that a Moorsheed does not give lectures, but speaks the language of the heart. Mullah Meshiakh became very thoughtful and gloomy; I asked him the reason of it; he replied, that something had happened to his Jewish friend, a Sooffee, which he could not reveal to me; that friend was endowed with prophetic power, and therefore he must console himself by singing in a mournful tone, the sorrows of the Loving, and his sympathy with the Beloved; which is more sweet than the voice of the nightingale: and therewith, as the Dervishes had done before, he began to sing. Mullah Mohammed Ali said to me, "All your writing is of no use, if you have not God in your heart."

The Sooffees know each other like freemasons. They speak

with high respect of the following Sooffees at Lucknow in India: Aga Mohammed Hussein; Mullah Mohammed Takee; Hassan Aga Mohammed; Ibraheem Turk.

As soon as a Persian speaks with high respect of the book, called Masnawee, one may depend upon it, that he is a Sooffee; as soon as a Persian speaks about becoming perfect, he shews he is a Sooffee; as soon as a Persian speaks about never dying, he shews that he is a Sooffee.

Dec. 14.-Abbas Koole Mirza, a brother Sooffee of Mullah Meshiakh, entered the room; he is a descendant of Nadir Shah, but now in misery.

A young Jew of Yazd, Israel the son of Benjamin, is now my servant here, in the house of Mullah Meshiakh; his aged father called on me, desiring me not to persuade his son to follow me to Bokhara; pointing to his grey beard, he expressed himself in the following manner: "My son is the only support of his aged father, and the light of the eyes of his mother, who has lost her sight; and the joy of his own wife and child."

NAMES OF THE ORTHODOX JEWS OF RESPECTABILITY.

Mullah Daud, who is the Rabbi of Meshed; Mullah Jonathan; Aga Benjamin Hakeem, Gebeer, i. e. Principal man; Mullah Pinehas, Dayan, i. e. Assistant Rabbi, (a Sooffee in secret;) Mullah Eliahu Dayan; Aga Abraham Serkar; Aga Rahmoon; Mullah Youssuf, &c.

HISTORY OF THE JEWS AT MESHED.

Knowing, as I now do, the history of the Jews at Meshed, and having known before the history of the Jews at Yemen, I may be allowed to give a short retrospect of the general transmigration of the Jews, during their captivity at Babylon; and I shall recapitulate it more at large, when I shall have opportunity to speak about the Jews of Bombay and its vicinity, and those of Cochin. When Nebuchadnezar drove my nation, on account of the abundance of their sins, to Babylon, they emigrated from thence partly to Yemen, whence they declined returning to Jerusalem in the time of Ezra; and partly they went to Casween, Yazd, Sabzuwar, Samarcand, Bokhara and Balkh.*

When Nadir Shah arrived at Casween, he took the Jews from thence, together with the Armenians from old Joolfa, and brought them to Meshed, where he gave to all of them the privilege of erecting synagogues: several of the Jews from Sabzuwar joined them. Nadir Shah, anxious to know the religion of the Jews and Christians, and having had the design of establishing one religion, accommodated to all religions, ordered both the Jews and Christians, to translate their books of Moses and the Psalms of David

*This is the tradition current among the Jews of Persia; however, some of them certainly fled from Palestine to Yemen and India, as we shall see afterwards.

into the Persian tongue;* first written in characters of their own, and then copied in Persian characters by one of the Persian KhoshNewees, or fine-writers. The Armenians translated the New Testament into the Persian tongue.

Nadir Shah encouraged also among the Jews the study of science and poetry. The Jew Shakem Mowlane, composed the poem, "Youssuf and Soleika." The Jews of Meshed protest against the name of Jew; they want to be called ↳ i. e. Children of Israel.

JEWS OF YAZD AT MESHED.

Sixty years ago, famine prevailed at Yazd, and the Governor of Yazd troubled the Jews; and as their skill in sorcery and witchcraft did not avail them, they emigrated to Meshed. They are unclean, dishonest, and despised by the rest of the Children of Israel at Meshed, and are considered by them as 27 y 1. e. Mixed Multitude, mentioned in Exodus xii. 38.

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COMMERCE OF THE JEWS AT MESHED.

The Jews of Meshed carry on trade to Toorkestaun; they have therefore the following stations, at which many of them either remain all their lives, whilst their wives continue at Meshed, or come back on every day of atonement, and at the time of the Passover, to Meshed, and then return: viz. Sabzuwar; Nishapoor; Torbad; Shahr-Now, or Bagharz; Cochan; Nadir Kelaat; Dargass. All these are in Khorossaun.

Their settlements in Toorkestaun are: Sarakhs; Mowr; Talkhtoon; Tekka; Tajan; Maimona; Ankhoy. To the two latter places, they have taken their wives with them.

Nadir Shah took several of them with him to Cabool; and since that time, many from Meshed have gone to Cabool; and just now, the Jews from Cabool begin to return to Meshed. So great is the hatred between the Sunnee and the Sheah, that Jews, who have turned Mohammedans at Meshed, among the Sheah, again openly profess Judaism among the Sunnee, as soon as they are going to Sarakhs, or to any other part of Toorkestaun.

SABZUWAR.

During the captivity of Babylon, Jews came to Sabzuwar, who afterwards, in the time of Tshingis Khan, were taken to Bokhara, Balkh and Sharh-Sabz.

I continued every evening to preach to my nation, often for whole nights, sitting with them in a very small room, and at times gathering information from them. As I had not yet proper clothes to put on, Mullah Meshiakh gave me some of his.

One day, an odd and singular character entered my room: Mul

*On my arrival at Bokhara, I bought one of these copies of the Pentateuch, and sent it to the British and Foreign Bible Society, by means of the Right Reverend Bishop of Calcutta.

lah Levi Ben Meshiakh, a Mohammedan at Meshed, and a Jew whenever he goes to Sarakhs; his wife and children still professing the Jewish religion. He came to me and asked me, whether I would not go to his house to bathe; as he keeps a bath for Jews and travellers who come here; for the Mussulmans here do not admit a Christian or a Jew to their bath. I promised to go the next day. This same Mullah Levi Ben Meshiakh, was at Kashmeer; he told me the story, (which I after this heard confirmed at Kashmeer,) that there is a mountain there, called Solomon's Throne, and that Asaph is buried there. A great many traditions prevail among the Mohammedans respecting Asaph.

AFFGHAUNS.

Aga Levi, and the rest of the Jews of Meshed, believe the Affghauns to be descendants from the Jews. Though I shall treat more in detail about that nation, in my journals about Affghanistaun, yet I will say here, what I previously heard about them. Aga Levi tells me, that the tribes of Benjamin, Simeon and Joseph, were carried to Candahar, where they lost their books, and then turned Mohammedans.

Kamran Shah, King of Heraut, of the royal tribe of Soodo, or as they are called in Affghanistaun, Soodo-Szeye, asserts himself to be of the noble tribe of Benjamin.

Dec. 17.-I despatched Mullah Mohammed Ali, the Sooffee, as a messenger to Mr. Shee at Nishapoor, stating to him my distressed condition.

Dec. 19.-Mr. A. B...., who is in the service of Abbas Mirza, entered my room at Mullah Meshiakh's, and brought me the very necessary assistance of money, advanced on my bills by Mr. Shee, and European clothes, which some of the five serjeants in the service of the King of Persia sold to me.

za.

ABBAS MIRZA.

Dec. 22.-I was introduced to His Royal Highness Abbas MirHis Royal Highness was seated upon a Persian Divan, in a small room; Mirza Abool Kasem, his Kayem Makaam, or Chief Minister, and Mirza Baba, the Hakeem Bashee, i. e. Chief Physician, who introduced me to his Royal Highness, were standing opposite to him, leaning on the wall, according to the Persian custom, with their hands upon their breasts. H. R. H. asked me to sit down at a little distance from him, and after having enquired the state of my health, and the time I had left England, he said, that he sincerely regretted the misfortune I had met with in Khorossaun, and sympathized with me; but this amiable Prince added, "Such adventures belong to the life of a wandering Dervish, who goes about as a man of God." He said to me, “As you now intend to go to Bokhara, speak to the King of Bokhara, and try to convince him, that it is sinful to make slaves of one's fellow crea

* There is another mountain of the same name near Kokan.

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