EN ROUTE FOR DAGHESTAN. 241 



due season ; not one decent house in the town, 

 and nothing either of art or nature to attract the 

 traveller, or detain him when there. There is a 

 large bazaar, under a kind of arcade, composed of a 

 succession of dome-like roofs ; here Persian work, 

 lambskins, and dried fruit form the staple commo- 

 dities. Under one dome the boot-makers were 

 busy ; in the next your measure was taken, and 

 a sheepskin turban of any hue or shape made for 

 you whilst you waited. Outside, at the street 

 corner, an itinerant barber was shaving the head of 

 a true believer, whose tray of gaudy sweetstuff lay 

 on the ground beside him whilst he submitted to 

 the operation. In the square, near the hotel, a 

 Persian, with his beard and heavy moustache 

 ablaze with henna, was, with bell and voice, adver- 

 tising the merits of a falcon which he carried on 

 his wrist, whose broad bright eyes were hardly 

 less wild than his own. The man and bird would 

 have been a fine study for an artist's pencil, so 

 wild and picturesque were they ; and, as the bird 

 huddled itself into his open shirt front, against his 

 cop per- colon red chest, or struck out with beak and 

 claw from its perch at the incautious haod of any 

 would-be purchaser, I felt sure that the Persian's 

 pleasure in accepting a good round sum would not 

 be unalloyed by pain at parting from his brave 

 bird. But neither my man nor myself cared to 

 stay longer at Gungha than we were obliged ; and, 



K 



