SYED ALI MAHOMED, THE BAB. 349 The success which had attended the preaching of the Bab at Bush ire induced that personage to attempt the dangerous experiment of endeavouring to bring over to his doctrines the inhabitants of his native place. He assumed the pretension of being able to work miracles ; but the only two said to have been performed by him of which I can obtain any record were certainly of the most simple description. One was his foolhardy attempt to brave the power of the rays of the sun on the shore of the Persian Gulf ; the other was the assertion of being able to write faster than merely mortal fingers could ply the pen. But if his actual performances would scarcely have entitled him to whatever credit may be due to a clever deceiver of men's senses, his deficiencies were fully made up for by the power of imagination and of belief possessed by his followers. These spread his fame far and wide throughout Persia, and his naib, or vicegerent, was sent to Sheeraz to pave the way for the approach of the Bab himself. But the naib was unfor- tunate enough to have to deal with a hardened unbeliever in Hussein Khan, who after his return from England had been appointed governor-general of the province of Fars. By his orders the na'ib was seized and basti- nadoed, and, in order to prevent him from going from house to house, the governor ordered that the tendons of his legs should be severed. But this ungracious re- ception of his forerunner did not deter the Bab from carrying into execution his project of visiting Sheeraz. On his arrival there he was sent for by the governor, with whom he had a private interview. In order that he might the better prove the secret thoughts of the Bab, the governor pretended to be half disposed to believe in
