The Seifi, Sown In Summer And Reaped In Autumn, Consists Of Rice, Cotton, Indian Corn, And Garden Produce; The Tchatvi, Sown In October And November, And Reaped From May Till July, Is Exclusively Wheat And Barley.

A quantity of fruit is also grown - grapes, oranges, and pomegranates.

Shiraz is famed for the latter. The heat and dust, to say nothing of smells, prevented me from often entering the city; but I walked through the bazaar once or twice, and succeeded in purchasing some old tapestries and a prayer-carpet. The merchants here are not so reserved and secretive as those of Teheran and other cities, and are, moreover, civil enough to produce coffee and a kalyan at the conclusion of a bargain, as at Stamboul. The best tobacco for kalyan-smoking is grown round Shiraz. Some, the coarser kind, from Kazeroon and Zulfaicar, is exported to Turkey and Egypt, but the most delicate Shiraz never leaves the country. The pipe is on the same principle as the narghileh, the smoke being drawn through a vessel of water. The tube, a wooden stalk about two feet long, is changed when it becomes tainted with use; for the people of the East (unlike some in the West) like their tobacco clean.

Manufactories are trifling in comparison with what they were in former days. Where, a century since, there stood five hundred factories owned by weavers, there are now only ten, for the supply of a coarse white cotton material called "kerbas," and carpets of a cheap and common kind. Earthenware and glass is also made in small quantities, the latter only for wine-bottles and kalyan water-bowls. All the best glass is imported from Russia. A kind of mosaic work called "khatemi," much used in ornamenting boxes and pen-and-ink cases, is turned out in large quantities at Shiraz. It is pretty and effective, though some of the illustrations on the backs of mirrors, etc., are hardly fit for a drawing-room table. Caligraphy, or the art of writing, is also carried by the Shirazis to the highest degree of perfection, and they are said to be the best penmen in the East. To write really well is considered as great an accomplishment in Persia as to be a successful musician, painter, or sculptor in Europe; and a famous writer of the last century, living in Shiraz, was paid as much as five tomans for every line transcribed.

My favourite walk, after the heat of the day, was to the little cemetery where Hafiz, the Persian poet, lies at rest - a quiet, secluded spot, on the side of a hill, in a clump of dark cypress trees a gap cut through which shows the drab-coloured city, with its white minarets and gilt domes shining in the sun half a mile away. The tomb, a huge block of solid marble, brought across the desert from Yezd, is covered with inscriptions - the titles of the poet's most celebrated works. Near it is a brick building containing chambers, where bodies are put for a year or so previous to final interment at Kermanshah or Koom.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 64 of 117
Words from 32541 to 33063 of 60127