In this way they proceeded until, having escaped from the deserts of Khorasan, they entered the mountainous, woody, and more thickly-peopled province of Mazenderan, the inhabitants of which Forster found more civilized and humane than the Khorasans. On the night of the 24th of January, while pushing on through the forests, most of the passengers beheld a star with an illuminated tail, which, from its form and quick motion, our traveller supposed to be a comet. In several of the woods through which their road now lay, no vestige of a habitation or signs of culture appeared, excepting a few narrow slips of land at the bases of the hills. But as they proceeded the valleys soon “opened, and exhibited a pleasing picture of plenty and rural quiet. The village all open and neatly built, the verdant hills and dales, encircled by streams of delicious water, presented a scene that gave the mind ineffable delight. The air, though in winter, was mild, and had the temperature of an English climate in the month of April.” Frazer, the able author of the Kuzzilbash, has given in his travels a no less favourable idea of the rich scenery of Mazenderan.
In a few days he arrived at Mushed Sir, on the Caspian Sea, where he was hospitably received and entertained by the Russian merchants established there. At this city he embarked for Baku, where he shaved his beard, forswore Mohammed, and again embarked in a Russian frigate for Astrakhan, where he arrived on the evening of the 28th of April. From this place, where he remained some time in order to recruit his strength, he proceeded through Moscow to Petersburg, which he reached on the 25th of May. Here his stay was but short, for he had now become impatient to visit England; and therefore, embarking about the middle of June in a trading vessel, he arrived in England in the latter end of July, 1784.
Forster seems to have occupied himself immediately on his arrival in throwing into form a portion of the literary materials which he had collected during one of the most hazardous and adventurous journeys that ever were performed; for in 1786 he published in London his “Sketches of the Mythology and Manners of the Hindoos,” which was received with extraordinary favour by the public. How long he remained in England after the publication of this work I have not been able to discover; but we find him in 1790 at Calcutta, where he published the first volume of his “Journey from Bengal to England,” and prepared the second volume for the press. However, before the completion of his work, the political troubles which at that period shook the whole empire of Hindostan involved him in their vortex. He was despatched by the governor-general, whose personal friendship he would appear to have enjoyed, on an embassy to Nagpoor, in Gundwarra, the capital of the Bhoonsla Mahratta dynasty, where he died about eight months after his arrival, in the month of February, in 1791. His papers were conveyed to England. Here, six years after his death, a complete edition of his travels appeared, in two volumes quarto; but the person who undertook the task of editor, with a degree of negligence which cannot be sufficiently admired, not only omitted to give the public any account of the author, but, which is more unpardonable, did not even condescend to inform them when, how, and from whom the manuscript was obtained. However, the extraordinary merit of the work, and the lively, laughing style in which it is written, quickly recommended it sufficiently to the literary world. The celebrated Meiners, professor of philosophy in the university of Göttingen, translated it into German; and Langlès, the well-known orientalist, published in 1802 a French translation, with copious notes, a chronological notice on the khans of the Krimea, and a map of Kashmere.