Had The Trick Been Discovered, He Would Undoubtedly
Have Been Roughly Treated, If Not Killed, For The Shirazis Have An
Unmitigated Contempt For Europeans.
There are few places, too, in Asia
where Jews are more persecuted than in Shiraz, although they have
their own quarter, in the lowest, most poverty-stricken part of the
town, and other privileges are granted them by the Government.
Shortly
before my visit, a whole family was tortured and put to death by a mob
of infuriated Mohammedans. The latter accused them of stealing young
Moslem children, and sacrificing them at their secret ceremonies. [A]
Guilty or innocent of the charge, the assassins were left unpunished.
The climate of Shiraz is delicious, but dangerous. Though to a
new-comer the air feels dry, pure, and exhilarating, the city is
a hot-bed of disease, and has been christened the "Fever Box."
Small-pox, typhus, and typhoid are never absent, and every two or
three years an epidemic of cholera breaks out and carries off a
fearful percentage of the inhabitants. In spring-time, during heavy
rains, the plains are frequently inundated to a depth of two or three
feet, and the water, stagnating and rotting under a blazing sun,
produces towards nightfall a thick white mist, pregnant with miasma
and the dreaded Shiraz fever which has proved fatal to so many
Europeans, to say nothing of natives. Medical science is at a very low
ebb in Persia; purging and bleeding are the two remedies most resorted
to by the native hakim.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 119 of 226
Words from 31210 to 31465
of 60127
