307 
price of them is exorbitant, and depends entirely upon 
caprice. The sabres made at Khorassan in Persia are 
the next in estimation. 
Soap-boilers, smiths, and shoe-makers also occupy 
a great number of streets. There is but one glass manu- 
factory, and it produces only coarse green glass. A 
circumstance which proves the immense activity of the 
commerce of this place is the multitude of carpenters 
employed the whole year round in making cases, in 
which to pack the productions of the soil, and of the 
industry of the inhabitants. Let the reader imagine 
how many of these cases formed of rough boards nailed 
together, a single shop is able to furnish during a year; 
then conceive a large quarter of the city to be occupied 
entirely by these shops; and he will be able to form a 
tolerably correct idea of the enormous number of them 
constructed in that space of time, as well as what must 
be the immense amount of the productions of nature 
and art, exported from this rich country; independent 
of the articles which do not require to be put into 
cases. 
The crowd which fills the bazars forms a singular 
contrast with the solitude of the other streets of the city, 
where there do not appear to be either warehouses or 
workshops. In all the bazars there are smaty ovens, 
where they are continually baking cakes and various 
kinds of pastry. The barbers' shops, established near 
the bazars, are ornamented with arabesque paintings, 
large or small looking-glasses, gilt inscriptions, &c. 
with a view to draw* custom. There are also coffee- 
houses filled with people at all hours of the day, form- 
ing an assemblage of whites, blacks, mulattoes, and 
every cast of colour, nation, and religion, Europeans 
excepted, enjoying a perfect equality and entire liberty; 
