18 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



courtesies between the authorities and ourselves 

 we should daily have been plied with a dozen or so 

 of trays containing sweetmeats, cakes, fruits, and 

 loaves of sugar. These would have been prepared 

 daily for us in the Prince's anderoon, or women's 

 quarters, and sent thence to us by the hands of his 

 needy retainers. This species of civility always 

 proved a very expensive one to us, for every indi- 

 vidual bringing such a tray had to be presented with 

 money far exceeding the value of the contents of the 

 tray he bore. Besides, with the exception perhaps 

 of a little of the fruit, the trays, with their contents 

 of piled-xip sweetmeats, hard as flint, and cakes fried 

 in oil, were made over in toto to our servants, before 

 whom they disappeared like snow before a summer 

 sun. So it was that our servants were all of one 

 mind on the subject ; and when the ultimatum was 

 arrived at, that there should be no interchange of 

 civilities between the authorities and ourselves, they 

 took the matter greatly to heart, for their visions of 

 unlimited f eastings were hopelessly dispelled, 



We were anxious to get down the formidable 

 mountain-passes that lie between Shiraz and the sea- 

 coast before the weather became oppressively hot ; 

 we had, consequently, limited our stay at Shiraz to 

 ten days at the most. At the end of that time we 

 had hoped to have given our tired horses a good rest, 

 and to have hired a fresh string of mules, for those 

 which had been marching daily with us for the last 



