'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.' [‎194] (225/582)

T
194
FROM GOOLPYEGAN
The gate by which we entered the present restricted city
of Ispahan was of very mean appearance, exceedingly small, and
its passage obstructed by trains of camels of nearly the same kind
and size as the Arabian ones. There was also great poverty in
the aspect of the few first streets through which we passed, though
the space of wall between the shops was whitewashed, and paint
ed with the most grotesque figures — in combat, in the chase, at
athletic games, &c.—all very gaudily coloured and badly drawn.
After a few winding passages, we came at length to some noble
ranges of bazaars, wider, more lofty, and better lighted than
any similar places that I had seen, and where the shops were
larger and better furnished than those either of Cairo or Da
mascus.
We met here a funeral procession, which was not of the ordi
nary Moslem appearance; and indeed I at first thought it to have
been a Christian one, until assured of the contrary. In front of
the train came eight or ten persons bearing particoloured flags
over their shoulders, and chanting hymns; next followed an
equal number carrying large wax tapers lighted ; and to these
succeeded the corpse, borne in a close palanquin, with double
poles, or shafts, on the shoulders of men. The friends of the de
ceased followed this in pairs; and a crowd of spectators of both
sexes closed the procession. These rites are peculiar to the
Sheeahs, and are held in abomination by the Soonnees ; though
they are sometimes, as I was told, practised at Imam Moosa, and
other Persian quarters of Bagdad, where the Sheeahs are in suffi
cient numbers to defend themselves from the insults of their
Soonnee masters, if they should be attacked.
We found, after some enquiry, a halt of comparative privacy
in the khan Mohur Dar Koosh, where there were but few tra
vellers, and these chiefly Bagdad merchants. In this we ob
tained an upper chamber, and soon made ourselves at ease.
Retired as we had hoped to have been, our room was soon
crowded with visitors and enquirers, more particularly from those