Note 59 — Chapter V

It is said that Mr. Elphinstone’s Mission received this hint from an European deserter, named Pensley, who had been entertained, in a military capacity, by Shah Soojah. They might have learnt the lesson from Mr. Forster, who, twenty years before, had travelled in Afghanistan. That enterprising gentleman, a civil servant of the Company, found his beard of the greatest service. He suffered it to grow for fifteen months, and had reason to regret that before he had wholly shaken off Eastern associations, he allowed the razor to profane it. Putting himself on board a Russian frigate in the Caspian, he thought that he might reduce his face to its old European aspect; but he tells us that “the Ghilan envoy, then proceeding on the frigate, expressed a surprise to see me, whom he thought a Mahomedan, eating at the same board with the Russian gentlemen; but when he saw a barber commencing an operation on my beard, which I took the opportunity of having shaved, he evinced great amazement and indignation; nor did he, until repeatedly informed of my real character, cease his reprehension of the act; during the process of which he threw on me many a look of contempt. When the barber began to cut off the moustachios, he several times, in a peremptory manner, required him to desist, and, seeing them gone, ‘Now,’ said he, ‘of whatever country or sect you may be, your disgrace is complete, and you look like a woman.’ Thus, after a growth of fifteen months fell my beard, which in that period had increased to a great magnitude, both in length and breadth, though it had been somewhat shrivelled by the severity of the late winter. When you advert to the general importance of an Asiatic beard, to the essential services which mine had rendered, and to our long and intimate association, I trust that this brief introduction of it to your notice will not be deemed impertinent. This operation of cutting it ought, however, to have been postponed till my arrival at Astracan.”