8 
Introduction 
It is the sort of order that acquits a man of the 
charge of doing nothing for posterity, for assuredly 
nobody who knows India will try to raise false 
hopes in me that I may live long enough to see it. 
I would warn scholars that, unless they are in 
some way definitely mystics and truly acknowl-
edged as such, they will do better to hunt for the 
lost 
books 
of 
Livy 
than 
for 
the 
Bagh-i-
muattar.  There is no copy in any public library 
here or in the East :  not surprising, when one 
hears Platt in 1874 complain that of so famous a 
classic as the Gulistan there is no genuine Persian 
MS., but only the garbled Indian copies, in either 
the India Office Library or the British Museum. 
If you question a Persian on the subject, he will 
“ begin to curse and to swear, saying :  I know not 
the ” book. 
Of late I have amused myself by asking stray 
Persians “ Have you ever heard of Abdullah el 
Haji ? ” and when they denied all knowledge of him 
quoting : 
 
“ Forget, an if thou wilt, the scribe ! 
The lovely script to heart by laid ! ” 
 
The reason is of course that it is held exquisitely 
sacred :  and seeing that the nature of the symbol-
ism renders it open to the prurient jest or prudish 
reproach of the notoriously foul-minded Anglo-
Saxon, the Persian, who is nothing if not dignified, 
is justly chary of casting his pearls before 
swine.  Indeed, a certain scent-seller with whom I 
once argued against all this secrecy replied by beg-
ging my permission to depart, “ for a Jew had 
promised to spit on his beard before as sohri (noon 
prayer), and he feared to miss the appointment.” 
But for all that, no well-appointed private library 
but has one or more copies of the little master-
piece :  no travelling merchant but carries at least