'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.' [‎111] (142/582)

ONE OF THE FRONTIER TOWNS OF PERSIA.
Ill
for their meals, as it is not customary, as with us, to eat at the
house where the food is prepared.
Among the fruits, after those of the melon kind, grapes,
peaches, and apples are most abundant: pears and plums are also
seen, but more rarely; and all of these, with every species of
vegetable common to the country, are good in their kinds, and
kept and served with great cleanliness and care. #
In the confectioners' shops are sweet cakes of different sorts,
small loaves, and sugar refined in the town, almonds and other
comfits arranged in glass jars, and sweet drinks prepared in large
copper and brazen vessels, covered with engraved devices and in
scriptions.
Mutton is the meat most used, as goats' flesh is eaten by the
very poorest of the people only, and beef is rarely seen. The
sheep are large and fat, and the butchers are clean in the manner
of serving and dressing them, though, from the very different
modes of preparing dishes here and in Europe, no comparison
can be well made in the quality or flavour of animal food, when
cooked.
The dresses of the people are plain and grave, particularly
after the gay varieties of Turkish towns. The men all wear a
high cap of black curly fur, generally of sheep and lamb's-skin,
of different qualities. The tightness of their dress about the
body and arms, and its looseness below, for sitting cross-legged and
kneeling, do not harmonize together. The long slender locks of
hair, hanging behind over their necks, give an air of boyishness
* The extent of the Persian dominions may be divided into three parts, according to the
situation and climate. The southern part, bordering upon the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , is sandy and
barren, and parched with heat. The middle part, lying more northerly, under a temperate
climate, abounds in corn and grass, with many well-watered and spacious plains, as well
as vineyards and gardens, furnished with trees bearing all sorts of fruits, except olives. Their
gardens are delightful; their rivers and streams cool and limpid, and plentifully stored with
all sorts of water-fowl. It has also extensive pastures for cattle, and woodlands for hunting.
The northernmost division is cold and barren, and often covered with snow.— Arrian Ind.
Hist. c. 40.