Three Of The Sashes Of This Window
Are Thrown Up To Admit Air; The Coloured Glass Of The Top And Four
Remaining Sashes Effectually Shuts Out Excess Of Light."
Such is the _coup d'oeil_ on entering an anderoon.
With such
surroundings, one would expect to find refined, if not beautiful
women; but, though the latter are rare enough, the former are even
rarer in Persia. The Persian woman is a grown-up child, and a very
vicious one to boot. Her daily life, indeed, is not calculated to
improve the health of either mind or body. Most of the time is spent
in dressing and undressing, trying on clothes, painting her face,
sucking sweetmeats, and smoking cigarettes till her complexion is as
yellow as a guinea. Intellectual occupation or amusement of any kind
is unknown in the anderoon, and the obscene conversation and habits of
its inmates worse even than those of the harems of Constantinople and
Cairo, which, according to all accounts, is saying a good deal. A love
of cruelty, too, is shown in the Persian woman; when an execution or
brutal spectacle of any kind takes place, one-third at least of the
spectators is sure to consist of women. But this is, perhaps, not
peculiar to Persia; witness a recent criminal trial at the Old Bailey.
It will thus be seen that sensuality is the prevalent vice of the
female sex in Persia. An English-speaking Persian at Bushire told me
that, with the exception of the women of the wandering Eeliaut tribes,
there were few chaste wives in Persia. Although the nominal punishment
for adultery is death, the law, as it stands at present, is little
else than a dead letter, and, as in some more civilized countries,
husbands who are fond of intrigue, do not scruple to allow their wives
a similar liberty. Not half an hour's walk from the Tomb of Hafiz, at
the summit of the mountain, is a deep well, so deep that no one has
ever yet succeeded in sounding it. The origin of the chasm is unknown;
some say it is an extinct volcano. But the smallest child in Shiraz
knows the use to which it has been put from time immemorial. It is the
grave of adulterous women - the Well of Death.
An execution took place about fifteen years ago, but there have been
none since. Proved guilty of infidelity, the wretched woman, dressed
in a long white gown, was placed on a donkey, her face to the tail,
with shaven head and bared face. In front of the _cortege_ marched
the executioner, musicians, dancers, and abandoned women of the town.
Arrived at the summit of the mountain, the victim, half dead with
fright, was lifted off and carried to the edge of the yawning abyss
which had entombed so many faithless wives before her. "There is but
one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet," cried a moullah, while
the red-robed executioner, with one spurn of his foot, sent the
unconscious wretch toppling over the brink, the awe-stricken crowd
peering over, watching the white wisp disappear into eternity.
Although the last execution is still fresh in the minds of many, the
Well has no terrors for the gay, intrigue-loving ladies of Shiraz.
They make a jest of it, and their husbands jokingly threaten them with
it.
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