Mirza Abu Taleb Khan: from Lucknow to London

In February 1799, a Persian scholar from Lucknow boarded a ship bound for Denmark at Calcutta. Over the next four and a half years he saw the Cape of Good Hope, Ireland, London, Paris, Italy, Istanbul, Baghdad and Bombay. On his return he wrote an account of his travels in Persian. He was Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, and his book is called “Masir-i-Talibi fi Bilad-i-Afranji”. According to its English translator, it was the first time that the genuine opinion of an Asian about the institutions of Europe had appeared in English.

A Persian scholar of Lucknow

According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Abu Taleb was born in Lucknow in 1753 (1166 AH). His father was of Azerbaijani Turkish descent and had migrated from Isfahan and settled in Lucknow. In 1775–1776 Abu Taleb took up a district post in the government of Awadh. In 1787–1788 he moved to Calcutta, where he compiled the Diwan of Hafez, printed at Calcutta in 1791. According to Iranica, from 1799 to 1803 he travelled to Europe with Captain D. Richardson of the Bengal Army of the East India Company.

The Cape and the storm

The English translation of the travelogue was made by Charles Stewart, Professor of Oriental Languages at the East India Company’s college at Hertford. According to the translation, Abu Taleb first took a place on a ship called the “Charlotte”, but it burned a few days later. He then sailed on the Denmark-bound “Christiana”. He writes that on 1 Ramadan 1213 AH, that is February 1799, he left Calcutta in a barge. On the third day he reached Kedgeree and boarded the ship.

The ship stopped at the Nicobar Islands for water, crossed the equator, and lost its course in a severe storm near the Cape of Good Hope. It finally anchored in False Bay. Abu Taleb went to Cape Town on 2 July. He described its climate, fruits, animals and the people of various nations living there. He then set out for England on the ship “Britannia” by way of St Helena. However, a contrary wind carried the ship towards Ireland, and in December 1799 he entered the harbour at Cork.

Snow in Ireland

He began the journey from Cork to Dublin on 8 December in a mail coach. He writes that the coach had the right to carry letters and that the roads were not yet fully safe. It was therefore accompanied by three mounted soldiers, who were changed at every stage. In Dublin he mentioned the lit streets at night, the squares, the college, the theatre and heavy snowfall. He saw people sliding on the ice (skating). On 16 January 1800 he reached Holyhead on a mail packet. He travelled through Wales and Chester and arrived in London on 21 January 1800. By his reckoning this was five days short of one lunar year after leaving Calcutta.

The “Persian Prince” in London

Abu Taleb stayed in London for about two and a half years. In his preface, Stewart writes that in 1800 and 1801 London knew him as “The Persian Prince”. Abu Taleb himself writes that when he went to court or met a great man, the newspapers reported it the next day and gave him this title. Once, the organisers of a charity event at Vauxhall Gardens announced in the newspaper that he would attend. So large a crowd gathered that evening that he had difficulty getting through.

The newspapers impressed him particularly. He writes that life would become tasteless for the English without newspapers. Everyone from prince to beggar reads them. They reach the houses of the rich every morning, and those who cannot buy them read them in coffee houses. They carry every kind of news, from wars to crops, grain prices and the night’s play.

He saw Windsor, Greenwich and the British Museum. Of Oxford he wrote that it was the nation’s most famous centre of learning, that its streets were wide and lined with trees, and that it had twenty-four colleges, each with its own large library. He also described printing presses, factories, windmills and foundries whose large wheels were driven “wonderfully by steam”. In two chapters of the translation he listed separately the virtues and faults of the English, as they appeared to him.

From Paris to Baghdad

On 7 May 1802 he went from London to Dover and crossed the sea to France. He travelled to Paris in a heavy coach, the “diligence”, whose slow pace reminded him of an Indian bullock cart. He writes that all along the way there were fields, vineyards, clear streams and stone bridges. After Paris he went by way of Lyons, Avignon and Marseilles, then by sea to Genoa and Leghorn, and on to Malta. There he noticed a great resemblance between the Maltese and Arabic languages.

On 10 August he boarded the ship “Victorieux”. On the fourth day a storm struck and the ship had to stop at Miletus for repairs. Passing near Athens, he then reached Smyrna, and from there Constantinople by way of the Dardanelles. From Constantinople an official guide was sent with him, who took him overland to Baghdad.

Bombay and Calcutta

From Baghdad he went to Basra and from there headed for India by sea. He writes that on 10 Safar 1218 AH, that is early June 1803, he anchored in the harbour of Bombay. By his reckoning, about a year had passed since he left London. On 16 July he boarded the ship “Bombay”. In eleven days he reached the anchorage at Balasore at the mouth of the Ganges, and from there returned to Calcutta.

According to Iranica, Abu Taleb completed his travelogue in 1804–1805 and died in Lucknow in 1805–1806. According to Stewart’s preface, Abu Taleb had a few copies made and distributed them among friends, and one of these copies reached England. Stewart’s English translation was published in London in 1810 under the title “The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan”. According to the translator, he omitted only poetry, long lists of friends, a discussion on anatomy and a description of a glass house. The Persian text was published at Calcutta in 1812 by his son Mirza Hasan Ali and Mir Qudrat Ali. According to Iranica, French and German translations were also made from the English version.

Next instalment: Alexander von Humboldt: South America.