'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.' [‎371] (402/582)

INHABITANTS OF BUSSORAH.
371
The Arabs from Nedjed, and those from Coete or Graine, wear in
variably the Bedouin handkerchief, called Maharama and Keffeea ;
the poorer people bind them round their heads, with bands of
camel's hair thread, made into a sort of rope; but the wealthier
class, although they are clad in the most costly robes, still retain
this mark of their Desert origin, and sometimes even wear a rich
Indian shawl as a turban over it, while the long ends of the coarse
Bedouin keffeea hangs over their shoulders, forming a singular
mixture of the costumes of the Desert and the town. The light
Bagdad cloak, in alternate stripes of reddish brown and white, are
worn by all in the summer; and thicker abbas, of a similar form
and pattern, by the poor in the winter ; but the rich at this season
wear fine thick cloaks of a black colour, with a broad and deep
three-forked stripe of gold, woven into the cloth, and descending
from the top of the right shoulder down the back.
The Persian part of the population of Bussorah are all of the
Sheeah sect of Moslems ; but as their party is the weakest, they
conceal the hatred with which this religious distinction inspires
them towards the Turks and Arabs as Soonnees; and even their
peculiar fasts and festivals are, for the same reason, observed
with some degree of privacy. The rich among them are mostly
merchants, who have commercial relations with their countrymen
settled at the chief ports in India, and with others in Shooster and
the higher parts of Persia, but seldom further north than Bagdad,
as the Aleppo and Damascus trades are in the hands of Arabs.
The lower classes of the Persian population are occupied mostly
as writers, servants, shopkeepers, and mechanics ; in all which pro
fessions or stations, their superior activity, industry, insinuating
manners, ingenuity, and address, are conspicuous; and while
among the Arabs a man is either a merchant in easy circumstances,
or a mere labourer, Persians are found filling most of the inter
mediate stations, and rising by their own exertions from the low
est to the highest ranks. The dress of the Persians differs but
little from that which is common to all the parts of Persia which I
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