"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي بقلم جورج ناثانييل كرزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎١‎٠‎٣] (٧٤٨/١٥٠)

FROM ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ
103
them to jollity and to a life of light-hearted nonchalance and gay
caroasal. The people of Fars pride themselves upon the purity of
their origin, the correctness of their tongue, and the excellence
of their wit. No doubt we encounter here a less mixed Iranian
type than elsewhere, as is evident from the darker complexions
and clear-cut features, the brown hair and blue or greyeyes of
the northern provinces being rarely met with in the south. ' In
all my life,' said the amiable Herbert, who gleefully welcomed the
opportunity of bursting into doggerel, 4 1 never saw people more
jocund and less quarrelsome :—
They revel all the night, and drink the round
Till wine and sleep their giddy brains confound.'
Others have been more sceptical about the second attribute; the
excitability of the Shirazi being a property that renders him
sensitive and irritable, and sometimes prone to outbursts of in
tolerance. The Babi movement started here, and has always
claimed a large number of disciples.
The character of Persian gardens, for its number and quality
of which Shiraz has always been renowned, is, as I have explained
i n other chapters, very different from the European pattern.
From the outside, a square or oblong enclosure is visible,
enclosed by a high mud wall, over the top of which appears a
dense bouquet of trees. The interior is thickly planted with these,
or, as Herbert phrased it, £ with lofty pyramidal cypresses, broad
spreading chenawrs, tough elm, straight ash, knotty pines, fragrant
masticks, kingly oaks, sweet myrtles, useful maples.' They are
planted down the sides of long alleys, admitting of no view but
a vista, the surrounding plots being a jungle of bushes and shrubs.
Water courses along in channels or is conducted into tanks.
Sometimes these gardens rise in terraces to a pavilion at the
summit, whose reflection in the pool below is regarded as a
triumph of landscape gardening. There are no neat walks^ or
shaped flower-beds, or stretches of sward. All is tangled and
untrimmed. Such beauty as arises from shade and the purling
of water is all that the Persian requires. Here he comes with a
party, or his family, or his friends ; they establish themselves under
the trees, and, with smoking, and tea-drinking, and singing, wile
away the idle hour. Of such a character are the gardens of
Shiraz.