I Noticed, However, That Here, As At
Poozeh, The British Tourist Had Been Busy With Chisel And Hammer, And,
I Am Ashamed To Add, Some Of The Names I Read Are As Well Known In
England As That Of The Prince Of Wales.
On the 18th of February, just before midnight, we rode into Shiraz.
The approach to the city lying before us, white and still in the
moonlight, through cypress-groves and sweet-smelling gardens, gave me
a favourable impression, which a daylight inspection only served to
increase.
Shiraz is the pleasantest reminiscence I retain of the ride
through Persia.
[Footnote A: Small copper money.]
CHAPTER VIII.
SHIRAZ - BUSHIRE.
"The gardens of pleasure where reddens the rose,
And the scent of the cedar is faint on the air."
OWEN MEREDITH.
Shiraz stands in a plain twenty-five miles long by twelve broad,
surrounded by steep and bare limestone mountains. The latter alone
recall the desert waste beyond; for the Plain of Shiraz is fertile,
well cultivated, and dotted over with prosperous-looking villages
and gardens. Scarcely a foot of ground is wasted by the industrious
inhabitants of this happy valley, save round the shores of the
Denia-el-Memek, a huge salt lake some miles distant, where the
sun-baked, briny soil renders cultivation of any kind impossible.
Were it not for its surroundings - the green and smiling plains
of wheat, barley, and Indian corn; the clusters of pretty sunlit
villages; the long cypress-avenues; and last, but not least, the quiet
shady gardens, with rose and jasmine bowers, and marble fountains
which have been famous from time immemorial - Shiraz would not be what
it now is, the most picturesque city in Persia.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 117 of 226
Words from 30666 to 30949
of 60127
