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PUBLISHED BY VERNOR, HOOD, & SHARPE, POULTRY; AND
LACKINGTON, ALLEN, & CO. FINSBURY SQUARE.--
PRINTED FOR, AND SOLD BY J. ROBERTSON,
NO. 16, NICOLSON STREET, EDINBURGH.

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THE

CITIZEN OF THE WORLD,

LETTER LIX.

From Hingpo, to Lien Chi Altangi, by the way Moscow.

YOU will probably be pleased to see my letter dated from Terki, a city which lies beyond the bounds of the Persian empire. Here, blessed with security, with all that is dear, I double my raptures by communicating them to you the mind sympathising with the freedom of the body, my whole soul is dilated in gratitude, love, and praise.

Yet, were my own happiness all that inspired my present joy, my raptures might justly merit the imputation of self-interest; but when I think that the beautiful Zelis is also free, forgive my triumph when I boast of having rescued from captivity the most deserving object upon earth.

You remember the reluctance she testified at being obliged to marry the tyrant she hated. Her compliance at last was only feigned, in or der to gain time to try some future means of es cape. During the interval between her promis

and the intended performance of it, she came undiscovered, one evening to the place where I ́generally retired after the fatigues of the day; her appearance was like that of an aerial genius, when it descends to minister comfort to undeserved distress: the mild lustre of her eye served to banish my timidity; her accents were sweeter than the echo of some distant symphony. "Unhappy stranger, (said she, in the Persian language), you here perceive one more wretched than thyself; all this solemnity of preparation, this elegance of dress, and the number of my attendants, serve but to increase my miseries if you have courage to rescue an unhappy woman from approaching ruin, and our detested tyrant, you may depend upon my future gratitude." I bowed to the ground, and she left me filled with rapture and astonishment. Night brought me no rest, nor could the ensuing morning calm the anxieties of my mind. I projected a thousandm ethods for her delivery; but each, when strictly examined, appeared impracticable: in this uncertainty the evening again arrived, and I placed myself in my former station, in hope of a repeated visit. Af ter some short expectation, the bright perfection again appeared; I bowed, as before to the ground, when, raising me up, she observed that time was not to be spent in useless ceremony; she observed that the day following was appointed for the celebration of her nuptials, and that something

was to be done that very night for our mutual deliverance. I offered, with the utmost humility, to pursue whatever scheme she should direct; upon which she proposed that instant to scale the garden wall, adding that she had prevailed upon a female slave, who was now waiting at the appointed place, to assist her with a ladder.

Pursuant to this information, I led her trembling to the place appointed; but, instead of the slave we expected to see, Mostadad himself was there awaiting our arrival: the wretch in whom we confided, it seems, had betrayed our design to her master, and he now saw the most convincing proofs of her information. He was just going to draw his sabre, when a principle of avarice repressed his fury, and he resolved, after a severe chastisement, to dispose of me to another master; in the mean time, ordering me to be confined in the strictest manner, and the next day to receive an hundred blows on the soles of may feet.

When the morning came, I was led out in order to receive the punishment, which, from the severity with which it is generally inflicted upon slaves, is worse even than death.

A trumpet was to be the signal for the solemnization of the nuptials of Zelis, and for the infliction of my punishment. Each ceremony, to me equally dreadful, were just going to begin, when we were informed that a large party of Cir

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