He had, by way of Court dress, to wear a pair of red cloth stockings and high-heeled shoes, and was marched up through the great court of the palace, where a hundred fountains began to play the moment the Ambassador entered.

The Prince sat on the ground in his hall of audience, and all his visitors sat in a line with their hats on, but he conversed with no one but the Ambassador, looking so gentle and amiable that Mr.Martyn could hardly believe that the tyrannical acts reported of him could be true.
In the summer heat, Jaffier Ali pitched a tent for him in a garden outside the walls of Shiraz, where he worked with much enjoyment, "living among clusters of grapes, by the side of a clear stream," and sitting under the shade of an orange-tree.

From thence he made an expedition to see the ruins of Persepolis, greatly to the perplexity of his escort, who, after repeatedly telling him that the place was uninhabited, concluded that he had come thither to drink brandy in secret! On the New Year's Day of 1812 Martyn wrote in his journal: "The present year will probably be a perilous one, but my life is of little consequence, whether I live to finish the Persian New Testament, or do not.

I look back with pity and shame on my former self, and on the importance I then attached to my life and labours.

The more I see of my own works, the more I am ashamed of them.