Although
A Persian Would Indignantly Deny It, Some Of Their Punishments Are
Nearly As Cruel As The Chinese.
For instance, not so very long ago a man
in Southern Persia was convicted of incest, for which crime his eyes were
first torn out with pincers, and his teeth then extracted, one by one,
sharpened to a point, and hammered, like nails, through the top of his
skull.
It should be said in justice that the present Shah has done all
he can to stop the torture system, and confine the death-sentence to one
of two methods - painless and instantaneous - throat-cutting and blowing
from a gun. Notwithstanding, executions such as the one I have mentioned
are common enough in remote districts, and crucifixion, walling up, or
burying and burning alive are, although less common than formerly, by no
means out of date. Women are usually put to death by being strangled,
thrown from a precipice or well, or wrapped up in a carpet and jumped
upon; but the execution of a woman is now, fortunately, rare in Persia.
A dreary desert surrounds Ispahan on every side save to the southward,
where dark masses of rock, a thousand feet high, break the sky-line.
The environs of the city are well populated, and, as we rode out, _en
route_ for Shiraz, we passed through a good deal of cultivated land.
This is irrigated by the Zandarood, whose blue waters are visible for
a long distance winding through the emerald-green plain, with its gay
patchwork of white and scarlet poppy-gardens.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 105 of 226
Words from 27517 to 27777
of 60127
