From the Leisure Hour. SHAH ABBAS THE GREAT. AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF THE SEVENTH KING OF PERSIA. As Shah Abbas the Great was one day hunting in the mountains, and had accidentally got somewhat separated from his attendants, he came suddenly on a boy, who, while herding his goats, was playing very sweetly on a small flute. The Shah addressed him, and the boy, who had no suspicion of the hunter's rank, answered not only with perfect frankness, but great intelligence. Very soon, however, Iman Kuli, the then Khan or Governor of Shiraz, appeared in the distance, and the Shah hastily gave him a sign as he approached, which imposed silence on him when he joined his royal master, who continued his conversation with the boy, receiving to all his interrogations replies so replete with good sense and propriety, as set both listeners in no small wonderment. After leaving the young goatherd, the King asked the Governor what he thought of the little rustic; and the Khan, who was a man of much penetration, replied that he thought, if the boy were taught to read and write, he was likely to make a most useful servant for his Majesty. Shah Abbas gave in to the proposal at once, and settled the matter by committing the future training of the young herdsman to the Khan himself, who forthwith (having without difficulty obtained possession of the boy's person) took the inatter in hand, and that with such happy success that the Khan was able, in a few years, to employ his protégé in various subordinate offices within his province, and having thus tested his ability, felt safe in recommending him to his sovereign for higher employment. The Shah, delighted with the metamorphosis of a herd-boy into an able official, more especially as he could take to himself the credit of having first suspected the value of the uncut diamond, called him to court, and soon felt such confidence in him as to bestow on him the flattering appointment of Nazar, or Master of the House hold, installing him at the same time among the dignitaries of the kingdom, under the name of Mohammed Ali Bey. The new Nazar was neither puffed up by the suddenness of his good fortune, nor blinded by the greatness of his clevation, but conducted himself with such watchful zeal and incorruptible fidelity in his master's service, as to gain his fullest confidence; as the highest proof of which, the King sent him, on two several and very critical occasions, as ambassador to the Great Mogul, and each time had the utmost reason to be satisfied, not only with the faithfulness, but with the prudence of his behavior. But the court of Persia was not then, and probably is not now, more free than other courts from the baneful influence of that envious rancor which watches for any crevice into which the wedge of calumny can be thrust, in order to accelerate the downfall of a royal favorite; and the very conscientiousness with which the Nazar devoted himself to the duties of his of fice, and the exactitude and economy with which he regulated and stewarded the estates and revenues committed to his management, created him enemies among the most influential persons of the court, more particularly the eunuchs, and, worst of all, the ladies of the harem, whose extravagant wishes and boundless expenditure he unhesitatingly opposed, and, as far as he could, remorselessly restrained. With this self-interestedly hostile party several ministers and nobles of the kingdom associated themselves, for political purposes, and strove, all in vain, to their bitter disappointment, to injure the honorable and justly honored man in the opinion of Abbas the Great. But what they failed to accomplish with that wise and experienced monarch, they anticipated attaining, with less difficulty, from his thoughtless and in every respect inferior successor, his grandson, Mirza Shah Isafi. Yet, with even him they seemed, for a time, to have reckoned without their host; for although one after another threw in a disparaging word against the Nazar, and insidiously tried to infuse suspicions of his rectitude into the mind of the young monarch, he made as though he heard them not, till all at once there occurred what seemed to the cabal the long-wished for favorable opportunity for effecting the obnoxious one's overthrow, and they availed them selves of it on the instant. The King was one day amusing himself with the examination of his collection of costly sabers and daggers of various shapes, the hilts of which were all, more or less, richly set with jewels of great value, when one of his chamberlains asked, as if on the spur of the moment, if his Majesty would not cause to be fetched from his royal treasury that specially costly and indeed unique saber which had been given to his illustrious grandfather, Shah Abbas, by the Grand Sultan, and which, being closely studded with jewels of priceless worth, was reported not to have its equal upon earth, and was in consequence always deposited for safety within the locked recesses of the royal treasurehouse. The Shah's curiosity being strongly excited by this glowing description, (and the more so, because he did not remember to have ever seen this renowned saber, even on occasions when his grandfather's jeweled pomp was wont to be displayed before the eyes of strangers,) dispatched a messenger instantly to the Nazar, (who, be it remembered, was also keeper of the crown jewels,) to desire the Sultan's splendid gift might forthwith be sent to him. The Nazar, although he at once declared he had never seen such a saber, commenced an immediate search through all the various repositories of the treasure-house, but without success; and the Shah's messenger returned with this unsatisfactory answer. The wily chamberlain, after expressing great surprise and disappointment, suggested that the book in which all foreign presents were registered might throw some light on the matter. The Shah commanded it to be brought, and sure enough there stood a full description of the jew eled saber, duly registered on being deposited in the royal treasury. | Now the facts of the case fully explanatory of the apparent mystery, and which were perfectly well known to several of the calumniators, though not to the young chamberlain, whom they put forward on the occasion, were in full accordance with the Nazar's declaration that he had never seen the saber now sought for. He never could have seen it, inasmuch as, before his appointment to the office of Nazar, Shah Abbas had caused all the precious stones, as well as the hilt of massive gold, to be removed from the Sultan's gift, and formed into a jewel of his own device, which, from its high worth and rare beauty, constituted in fact the greatest ornament of the present jewel-chamber. But unfortunately, at the time when this alteration was made, it had been neglected to be noted in the registry, in which the jeweled saber still figured, as before its spoliation; and this fact, too, was well known to more than one of the plotters, and formed in their minds full security against detection. The malicious enviers were therefore now at the summit of their wishes; and when the Shah, whose curiosity they had purposely excited to the highest pitch, naturally felt not only disappointment but displeasure at the Nazar's declaration that he had never seen the saber, contradicted as that was in distinct terms by the regis try he himself ought to have examined when he entered on office, a wide door was opened for all imaginable insinuations and accusations against the apparently falling favorite. They accordingly hastened to inform their lord that the whole country had long been amazed by the immense expenditure in which the Nazar indulged. He had, they said, erected caravansaries for the reception of pilgrims, at his own cost; he had built bridges and dykes for the improvement and security of the public roads; and, lastly, had erected for himself so maguifi cent a house, or rather palace, that it were worth even his Majesty's while to look through it: and whence, asked they then, could any private individual procure means adequate to all these great undertakings, unless by helping himself from the royal treasury? It was therefore, they concluded, felt by them all as their bounden duty to counsel his Majesty to call the Nazar to a strict account; and if he could prove his innocence, who would be so happy as they? In the midst of these calumniatory tirades, a messenger arrived from the Nazar, soliciting an audience. It was granted; but how different was the reception which Mohammed Bey met from the King, to any he had ever before experienced in that court! With impatient gesture and wrathful tone, the monarch called on the Nazar to "see to it that the missing saber was forthcoming ;" and added, which he intended as an alarming threat, that fifteen days would be granted him to arrange his accounts, after the lapse of which time the King himself would institute a search through every nook of the treasure-house, and compare its contents, article by article, with the registry he now held in his hand. The Nazar, whose conscience spoke him free of ever having wronged his royal master to the value of a farthing, listened to those angry words with perfect composure, and then said in a calmly | respectful tone: "I have but one boon to implore from your gracious Majesty and that is, that the examination of the treasury and its comparison with the registry may not be delayed for fifteen days, but take place to morrow morning." The Shah was startled, and a feeling of pity for an old servant impelled him to counsel the Nazar to bethink himself well before he rejected the time offered for the due arrangement of his charge. Mohammed Bey, however, remained firm in his request for an immediate examination, and, in accordance therewith, it began on the following morning. Every thing was found in the most perfect order, and article after article produced, as they stood on the register; not a tittle was wanting, save the jeweled saber. But, on the other hand, there was found in the treasury a most remarkable ornament, compounded of the purest gold, and blazing with the largest and rarest jewels, of which no mention whatever could be found in the registry; furthermore, a richly damascened blade, with a plain, unpretending, soldier-like hilt of this, too, no note was taken in the regis ter. remove the jewels and golden hilt from the sultan's present, and to form them into this ornament, of which the Shah himself gave him the drawing; the damascened blade, however, he had been desired to finish with a plain useful hilt, as the Shah valued the blade more than the setting. It was the saber he now saw on the table. The calumniators changed color, but kept silence, thankful that no human testimony could be borne to their knowledge of the fact now disclosed. Silently, too, did the Shah law down the registry and withdraw from the treasure-chamber, in order to pay the visit to the Nazar's house, which he had announced would take place immediately after the treasury scrutiny, not without anticipated confirmation there of all the peculations he had been led to expect in the treasury. 66 The King and his suite entered the Nazar's dwelling; according to oriental custom, the exalted guest must receive a present from his host. That presented by the Nazar was small in value, yet as costly," he remarked, on handing it to the monarch, "as a poor private man could afford;" and poor indeed, compared with its tasteful and elegant architecture, were the internal decorations of that so much vaunted mansion. No costly carpets; no rich hangings; no divans covered with gold - enwoven brocades, such as were wont to adorn the houses of nobles similar in rank, were there to be found. All was clean, comfortable, well kept, and in perfectly good taste, but all as simple as might be looked for in the houses of citizens of the middle class. Instead of chandeliers of rich Venetian glass, or of rock crystal, nothing but cheap Persian lamps; and in place of cups and bowls of gold, silver, or Japanese porcelain, their humble representatives in brass, copper, or common pottery, alone met the eye. In his progress through the various halls and chambers, the Shah had traversed a corridor, on one side of which was a door secured by three iron chains; and although, on his first passing along this corridor, the Shah had given no heed to this The richly jeweled ornament naturally carefully-barricaded entrance, yet, on his fixed the admiring attention of the Shah; return, one of his attendants was on the and as no one present confessed to any alert to draw the monarch's attention to knowledge of its history, the court gold- it. And, with reäwakened, probably sussmith was summoned to the royal pres-picious, curiosity, the Shah asked Mohamence, and he deposed to having been em- ed Bey what was therein guarded with ployed by his late Majesty Shah Abbas, to such peculiar care. "High and mighty King," replied the Nazar," all that your Majesty hath hitherto beheld, whether in the treasure-chamber, or within these walls, is not mine, but merely possessions committed to my stewardship, by the favor of my sovereign; but that which is hoarded up in this small carefully secured chamber is truly my own, and I confide in your Majesty's justice and rectitude that it will never be wrenched from me." great abbas left me in quiet possession of my own, and I cherish the conviction that his potent grandson will not deprive me of them. But I have yet another boon to crave of my gracious king and master, and that is, the permission to lay aside this heavy robe of Nazar, and to resume my light herdsman's garb, to hang my wallet and leathern flask over my shoulders, and, grasping staff and flute, set out once more for my unenvied, unmolested, and still dearly-loved mountains." The youthful monarch, deeply moved by all these incontestable proofs of the rectitude of his so hardly used and malignantly aspersed servant, drew off, without uttering a word, his own royal robe, and motioned one of his nobles to invest the Nazar with it, that being the highest honor which a Persian monarch can bestow. The Shah's curiosity, still more highly stimulated by this mysterious speech, impelled him to express an ardent desire to see the treasures of his treasury, and by Mohammed Bey's command the chains were loosed and the chamber thrown open. The Shah eagerly entered a room, in which neither carpet, divan, nor furni ture of any kind was to be seen. Into the naked whitewashed wall some iron nails had been driven, and across two of The caluminators of such severely testthese rude supporters was slung a shep-ed and sterling worth were justly visited herd's crook; from another hung a wal- by the well-merited wrath and abiding let, from another a flute; while from two disfavor of the King; while Mohammed others depended the leathern water-flask Bey, who showed himself invariably as and the coarse habilments of a mountain the protector of the injured and the op goatherd. "All these," exclaimed the pressed, remained to his dying hour in Nazar, were my own honestly and hard-full possession of all his dignities and honearned possessions, when Shah Abbas the ors, the confidence of his prince, and the Great, your Majesty's illustrious prede- love of his fellow-citizens. cessor, found me with my goats. The 66 From The Leisure Hour. SUBMARINE THERE have been three marked events in the engineering world during the last two generations: Watt's introduction of the steam-engine, which gave power; the introduction of railways, which supplied locomotion; and the invention of the electric telegraph, which, as an instantaneous agent for transmitting thought, is fully as important as either of the others.* The commercial application of the first two discoveries has been vigorous and fairly successful, but the last invention, especially in its connection with submarine projects, has been particularly unfortunate. Out of nine thousand miles of wire laid down in different parts of the world, only three thousand miles, or one third, can now be reported as in tolerable working order, the remainder being an utter failure and loss money thrown into the sea. One of the principal causes of this failure is found in the fact that the cables have never been thoroughly tested under water until they were deposited in the ocean. When the Red Sea telegraph was laid, it proved, like most lines just completed, very successful. It was stated to have been worked from Alexandria to Aden, at the rate of ten words per minute, with double relay stations at Kossiar and Suakin. There were a few embryo faults, but it is thought that it might have been worked successfully for a considerable time, if a permanent system of daily tests, and of timely repairs, had been established. The excessive tropical heat, and the effect of the metallic veins at the bottom of the sea, conspired to destroy this line. The sections of the cable-six in number-lasted altogether nine months before the first fault occurred, and only gave way the day before the Indian extension was completed. The bad business organization of the Red Sea Telegraph Company, and the At * The paper is chiefly condensed from an able summary by Mr. Charles Manby, privately printed, of a recent long and important discussion at the Institution of Civil Engineers. TELEGRAPHS. lantic Telegraph Company, is largely responsible for the terrible waste of capital in these enterprises. The Atlantic Telegraph swallowed up three hundred thousand pounds sterling, and mainly, perhaps, because the scientific details of the scheme were arranged before any thing was practically known about deep-sea cables. The contracts were hastily let, no time was given for the necessary preliminary experiments, and the laying down was hurried on with the most disastrous results. The Red Sea Cable, the last and most gigantic on the list of failures, has not entirely broken down commercially, simply because a government guarantee was obtained before the enterprise was launched. A capital of eight hundred thousand pounds has been thrown into the sea; but the country, through its ministers, has undertaken to help the shareholders out of their loss, by paying them an annual dividend at the rate of four and a half per cent for fifty years. This dividend, supplied by the national taxes, amounts to thirty-six thousand pounds per annum, and will eventually reach nearly two millions sterling. This waste of public money had its origin in causes entirely apart from scientific difficulties. After the "concession "-the firman from the Turkish government-had been purchased from the projector, it was found that, owing to a complication of arrangements, the directors had also acquired an engineer and a contractor; that practically, the form of cable was decided upon, and that little remained for the Board to do but to pay. Although, at the instance of Lord Stanley, the specimen of the proposed Red Sea cable had been submitted to several scientific authorities, this had not been done until the form had been so far decided upon that it had become a foregone conclusion, as the contract for its manufacture had been entered into. The contract was wrong in principle, as it was taken for a lump sum, thereby of fering a premium upon saving some part of the slack or surplus cable. |