in the garden, in order to be still further desiccated by the action of the air. Here it remained seven days and nights, and the walls being low, it was necessary to keep a strict and perpetual watch over it, lest the hyenas should enter and devour it. Worn down as he was by fever, by watching, and by sorrow, Pietro would intrust this sacred duty to no vulgar guardian during the night, but, with his loaded musket in his hand, paced to and fro before the tent through the darkness, while the howls of the hyenas, bursting forth suddenly quite near him, as it were, frequently startled his ear and increased his vigilance. By day he took a few hours' repose, while his domestics kept watch.
When this melancholy task had been duly performed, he departed, in sickness and dejection, for the city of Lar, where the air being somewhat cooler and more pure, he entertained some hopes of a recovery. Not many days after his arrival, a Syrian whom he had known at Ispahan brought him news from Bagdad which were any thing but calculated to cheer or console his mind. He learned that another sister of Maani had died on the road in returning from Persia; that the father, stricken to the soul by this new calamity, had likewise died a few days after reaching home; and that the widow, thus bereaved of the better part of her family, and feeling the decrepitude of old age coming apace, was inconsolable. Our traveller was thunderstruck. Death seemed to have put his mark on all those whom he loved. Persia now became hateful to him. Its very atmosphere appeared to teem with misfortunes as with clouds. Nothing, therefore, seemed left him but to quit it with all possible celerity.
Pietro's desire to return to Italy was now abated, and travelling more desirable than home; motion, the presence of strange objects, the surmounting of difficulties and dangers, being better adapted than
