144 TABKEEZ. 



cups, poppies, and clover, are a perfect blaze of colour. 

 In one of the brightest and liveliest alleys in the whole 

 bazaar, you watch the shoemakers, all stitching as if the 

 pair of shoes in hand must be sent home in five minutes ; 

 close by are the forges, where eight men, standing in a 

 circle, hammer out, with alternate strokes, a mass of iron, 

 how each hammer keeps clear of the next being a mystery 

 to the uninitiated. Then there is the carpenters' row, 

 the bookbinders' row, the old clothes row, the knicknack 

 row, where you may buy anything, from revolvers to 

 Persian ink- trays, and last, but not least worthy of notice, 

 the saddlers' row. The Persians are decidedly a horsey 

 people, and have studied all the requisites for a long ride. 

 The roof is bright with saddle-cloths, some covered with 

 the most beautiful Rescht embroidery ; while in the stores 

 you find gay girths, and tasselled bridles, carpet saddle- 

 bags, and leather salt-pouches, heaped together in pic- 

 turesque confusion. It was not the season to see the 

 fruit bazaar in its glory, but the quantity even of nuts 

 and dried fruits was extraordinary ; they were piled up in 

 ten rows of baskets, one behind another, on an inclined 

 plane. 



The crowd which fills the streets of Tabreez is purely 

 Eastern ; you do not meet two men in European dress 

 during the day, nor do you see the red fez which lends 

 such life to the cities of the Levant. Tlie ordinary 

 head-dress is the tall Persian hat ; this is now gene- 

 rally made of cloth, and of moderate dimensions, as 

 the Shah has published an edict against the steeple-like 

 edifices of Bokhara lambswool which were formerly the 

 fashion. Turbans, dark -blue or white, are however fre- 

 quent ; they are of tremendous dimensions, and resemble 

 those in the Museum of the Janissaries at Constan- 

 tinople, far more than any to be seen in the streets of 



