The Apartment Or Cell Allotted To Us Was, However, So Filthy That We
Decided To Push On At Once To Pasingan, The Next Stage, Four Farsakhs
Distant.
Koom is noted for the size and venom of its scorpions; and
the dim recesses of the dark, cobwebby chamber, with its greasy
walls and smoke-blackened ceiling, looked just the place for these
undesirable bedfellows.
So we rode on again into the open country, past crowds of beggars and
dervishes at the eastern gate, as usual, busily engaged, as soon as
they saw us coming, at their devotions. Clear of the city walls, one
sees nothing on every side but huge storks. They are held sacred by
the natives, being supposed to migrate to Mecca every year. I heard at
Ispahan that, notwithstanding the outward austerity and piety of
the people of Koom, there is no town in Persia where so much secret
depravity and licentiousness are carried on as in the "Holy City."
The stage from Koom to Pasingan was accomplished in an incredibly
short time; and I may here mention that this was the only occasion
upon which, in Persia, I was ever given a fairly good horse. The word
_chapar_ signifies in Persian to "gallop," but it is extremely rare to
find "chapar post" pony which has any notion of going out of his own
pace - something between a walk and a canter, like the old grey horse
that carries round the lady in pink and spangles in a travelling
circus.
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