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to share it with him. The windings of the passages through which we had come increased the difficulty of our escape; we might take a wrong turn, and never reach the great chamber we had first entered. Even supposing we took the shortest road, it was but too probable our strength would fail us before we arrived. We had each of us, separately and unknown to one another, observed attentively the different shapes of the stones which projected into the galleries we had passed, so that each had an imperfect clue to the labyrinth we had now to retrace. We compared notes, and only on one occasion had a dispute, the American differing from my friend and myself; in this dilemma we were determined by the majority, and fortunately were right. Exhausted with fatigue and terror, we reached the edge of the deep trench, which remained to be crossed before we got into the great chamber.— Mustering all my strength, I leaped, and was followed by the American. Smelt stood on the brink ready to drop with fatigue. He called to us," For God's sake to help him over the fosse, or at least to stop, if only for five minutes, to allow him to recover his strength." It was impossible-to stay was death, and we could not resist the desire to push on and reach the open air.— We encouraged him to summon all his force, and he cleared the trench. When we reached the open air, it was one o'clock, and the heat in the sun about 160o. Our sailors, who were waiting for us, had luckily a bardak full of water, which they sprinkled upon us; but though a little refreshed, it was not possible to climb the sides of the pit; they unfolded their turbans, and slinging them round our bodies, drew us to the top.

"Our appearance alone, without our guides, naturally astonished the Arab, who had remained at the entrance of the cavern, and he anxiously inquired for his friends. To have confessed they were dead would have excited suspicion; he would have supposed we had murdered

them, and have alarmed the inhabitants of Amabdi to pursue us, and revenge the death of their friends. We replied, therefore, they were coming, and were employed in bringing out the mummies we had found, which was the cause of their delay. We lost no time in mounting our asses, re-crossed the Desert, and passed hastily by the village, to regain the ferry at Manfalout."

"It is a very hideous story," said the Bachelor; "but these sorts of horror are not quite so much to my taste as adventures of more varied address,—such, for example, as those of the two Sherleys, in Orme's Historical Fragments."

"The means by which the two extraordinary adventurers of that name obtained such important employment from the ablest and fiercest sovereign of the East, would not have borne much respect in our times, which permit no enthusiasms to cover or consecrate the latent views of luxurious ambition. Anthony Shirley, the elder brother of Robert, was a dependant on the Earl of Essex, who sent him, in 1598, with some soldiers to fight for the Duke of Ferrara against the Pope; but, by the time they arrived in Italy, the quarrel was reconciled. Essex, nevertheless, unwilling that his knight should return to England with the derision of having done nothing, not only consented to his proposal of proceeding to Persia with offer of service to Shah Abbas, whose fame had spread with much renown throughout Europe, but also furnished him with money and bills for the journey. Shirley embarked from Venice in May 1599, with twenty-five followers, some of education, all of resolution, and amongst them his brother Robert, at that time a youth. After various escapes by sea and land, they arrived at Aleppo, where, getting money for their bills, they proceeded in the company of a large

caravan to Bagdad, Shirley professing himself a merchant, who expected goods by the next; but this pretence, and the number of his retinue, excited suspicions, and all he brought was seized at the custom-house; which reduced them to live on the piece-meal sale of the clothes they wore: his anxiety in this situation was observed by a Florentine, named Victorio Spiciera, who was proceeding to Ormus in order to embark for China, and had frequently conversed with Shirley during the journey from Aleppo. He tried, by repeated questions, to discover his real condition and purpose; but failing, made up his own conjectures, that Shirley intended some signal mischief, either against the Turkish empire, or the sovereignty of the Portuguese in India, of which the one was as detestable to his piety, as the other to his traffic: from these motives, mixed perhaps with admiration of a character, which knew to personate romantic dignity, the Florentine determined not only to extricate him from the dangers of his present situation, but enable him to prosecute his views, whatsoever they might be. The emergency pressed; for. the second caravan from Aleppo was come within ten days of Bagdad; and Spiciera knew, that when the goods which Shirley had pretended to expect should not appear, he and all his followers would be doomed to imprisonment, if not worse. Fortunately, a caravan returning from Mecca to Persia arrived at this time, and encamped under the walls. Spiciera hired amongst them camels, horses, with all other necessaries of travel; and, when the caravan was ready to depart, revealed to Shirley the dangers which awaited him, and the measures he had taken for his preservation and success; confirming these assurances by the delivery of a great sum in gold, and many rarities of great value; so much in the whole amount, that Shirley declines to mention it, because he says it would not be believed. The Florentine left it to his honour to

repay him when he could; and, for five days after the departure of the caravan, diverted suspicions of his escape by living in Shirley's house, to whom he pretended to have lent his own, that he might recover in more quiet from a fit of illness; he even requested the governor for his physician, knowing he had none; but was afterwards fined severely for these generous collusions.

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Fifty Janissaries were sent in pursuit of Shirley, but missed the caravan; which employed fifty days on the march to Casbin; where the aids of Spiciera enabled Shirley to equip himself and followers in sumptuous array, to live splendidly, and to make presents; which procured commendations to Shah Abbas, who arrived at Casbin a month after, and was saluted by Shirley and his company at his entrance into the city, when the king distinguished him with the most honourable notice. The next day Shirley sent the king a present of jewels and Italian rarities, which were not only curious, but costly beyond the expectation of homage; and the more he professed that he had come to offer his service on his own account, and at his own expense, the more the king inclined to believe, that the denial was intended, by concealing, to heighten the elegant compliment of his monarch; and at all events, could not resist the complacence of regarding the resort of this band of strangers as a signal proof of the great extent of his own fame, which Shirley took care on all occasions to inculcate.

"It was the way of Shah Abbas, to discern those he employed by familiarities. Shirley was solemn in behaviour, pompous in elocution, quick in apprehension, and guarded in argument; and having served both at land and sea, was capable of suggesting the military ideas of Europe; which could not fail to attract the attention of a monarch whose ruling passion was the fame

of war: he even visited Shirley in his house, to examine a book of fortifications; and having, during a daily converse of six weeks, treated him more with the respect of a guest than the distance of a solicitor, on the very day before his departure to Cassan, declared him a Mirza, or lord in his service, and referred him to the treasurer; who, as soon as the king was gone, sent to Shirley a present, which consisted of money to the amount of sixteen thousand ducats; forty horses, all accoutred; two, intended for his brother and himself, with saddles plated with gold, and set with rubies and torquoises; the others, with silver and embroidered velvet; twelve camels laden with tents, and all furniture, not only for the field, but for his house in Casbin, which likewise was bestowed on him: he was ordered to follow the king to Cassan, from whence he accompanied him to Ispahan, and was treated by him with the same deference as before he had accepted his service.

"Daily and artful suggestions prepared the way to the advice which Shirley had long premeditated, that the king should renew the war against the Turks, and depute an ambassador to excite the princes of Christendom to co-operate by land and sea from the west, whilst Persia invaded the Turkish territories on the east: this commission Shirley designed for himself, but avoided the mention. Nevertheless this intention was penetrated by the vizir, and several other of the principal noblemen, who said that the proposal was the artful scheme of a needy adventurer, seeking the sumptuous enjoyment of exalted fortune at the risk of an empire: but the king inclined to the war, which he regarded as inevitable; and reasoned, that if the mission of Shirley should be ineffectual, the detriment would be no more than the loss of the expense, which he foresaw would, even in this event, increase the reputation of his magnificence, without diminishing the solid estimation of his abilities.

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