'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎68] (99/582)

68
FROM SERPOOL, ACROSS MOUNT ZAGROS,
thousand times, on his eye and his head, that I should see her for
myself, and drink out of the same cup as he had done, if I desired
it. When we left the khan, therefore, I had indulged the hope
of such an interview, and even expected, from the reputed frank
ness of the fair one's heart, and her hospitality to strangers, to
learn some curious particulars regarding the race to which she
belonged; but we were both sadly disappointed, the Dervish in
his anticipations of pleasure, and I in my hopes of information,
when we learnt that, only two months since, a young Koord pea
sant had married her, and taken her away to his hamlet, where
now, perhaps, she discreetly kept all the secrets we should have
else attempted to draw from her.
We returned to the khan with heavy steps, and met at the
door of it a small caravan, conveying a consignment of dead bodies
from Kermanshah. This caravan was composed wholly of mules,
each laden with two corpses, one on each side, and a takhteravan,
or litter, borne also by mules, though it contained only one body,
which was that of a person of some distinction. These were all
packed in long narrow cases or coffins, and secured with matting and
cordage, like bales of cotton. They were the bodies of devout dead,
from different parts of Persia—two from Ispahaun, and one from
Shirauz, which were being conveyed for interment to the grounds
of Imaum Hussein, at Kerbela. Besides the charge of carriage,
which is double that of any other commodity of equal weight,
large sums, from two to five thousand piastres, are paid to the
Mosque there, for a sufficient space of ground to receive the body,
and other presents must be made to the tomb of the Imaum him
self; so that this is a distinction which the comparatively rich
only can enjoy.
When the animals entered the khan, the bodies laden on the
mu es were east off, without ceremony, and placed at random in
liferent parts of the Court-yard, the one in the litter alone being
paid any attention to; so that, as they were neither marked nor