'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.' [‎246] (277/582)

246 misery of the inhabitants—arrival of a caravan.
necessaries of life; and next, an incapacity among the people to
purchase what little there was, from their extreme poverty, and
the high price of every thing. Though mendicants are far from
numerous in those parts of Persia through which we had passed,
there were not less than fifty persons, old and young, who crowded
round us in the khan, soliciting for God's sake a morsel of bread
to save them from starving. It was so dear, that our funds
seemed hardly likely to last long enough to purchase sufficient
food for ourselves and our horses as far as Shiraz; but it was im
possible to shut one's heart against the claims of real want, and we
therefore purchased and distributed bread among these miserable
and desponding supplicants, who loaded us with blessings in
return.
In the evening a caravan arrived from Pars, laden with grain,
on its way to Ispahan; and though there were at least two hun
dred persons accompanying it, most of whom were armed, and
about three hundred mules and horses, they had not been able to
protect themselves from attacks on the way. The want of rain
had been so universally felt over the country, that men were
tempted to acts of desperation to supply the cravings of hunger.
This caravan had been attacked by a party of nearly a hundred
horsemen, who in a skirmish had killed two of the mule-drivers,
and succeeded in carrying off abou^ thirty laden animals, the rest
escaping by closer union, when the danger of their scattered mode
of travelling had been thus made apparent. This horde of rob
bers was said to have been Bactiari, a name given to a race
of people, springing from Persians, Arabs, and Koords, who live
in tents, and range the valleys in the tract between this and
Shooster,—speaking a mixed dialect of all these three languages, in
which the Koordish is predominant, and acknowledging only the
leaders of their respective tribes. Elated by their success, they
had also carried off the flocks of some of the villages in their way;
as in their own parched domains their grain had failed them, and
their own herds declined for want of water and pasture to subsist