RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSHIRE. 
61 
struction. At this period, larks fly about in large numbers, and feed 
upon the seed just sowing. There are also great flocks of pigeons, 
cormorants, curlews, and hoobciras (bustards). On the 25th we saw a 
white swallow flitting about the house. Sparrows were not so numerous 
as in the beginning of the month. Flies appeared with a south wind; 
but were scarce when it blew from the northward. The fruits in season 
were melons, dates, pomegranates, apples, pears, and sweet limes; and 
a small and very pleasant orange was just coming in. Our vegetables 
were spinage, bendes , and onions, and cabbages and turnips from Bus - 
sora. Of our meat, the finest was mutton, veal was coarse, but the beef 
pretty good, and the fowls were admirable. There were no turkies or 
geese indeed; nor ducks, except some that we occasionally got from 
Bussora. 
The climate of Busliire is healthy, if we might judge from the two 
or three examples of strong and active old age which came within our, 
notice: one, my own Persian master, Mollah Hassan; another in 
the Resident's family, who has trimmed pipes for two-thirds of a cen¬ 
tury, and who was a young man with mustachios and a sprouting 
beard, when Nadir Shah was at Shiraz. Another is an old fellow of 
the name of Ayecal, which, from the keenness of his love of sporting, 
has been familiarized by the English into Jackall. 
The better sort of women are scarcely ever seen, and when they are, 
their faces are so completely covered that no feature can be distin¬ 
guished. The poorer women, indeed, are not so confined, for they go 
in troops to draw water for the place. I have seen the elder ones sitting 
and chatting at the well, and spinning the coarse cotton of the country, 
while the young girls filled the skin which contains the water, and which 
they all carry on their backs into the town. They do not wear shoes ; 
their dress consists of a very ample shirt, a pair of loose trowsers, and 
the veil which goes over all. Their appearance is most doleful; though 
I have still noticed a pretty face through all the filth of their attire. The 
colour of their clothes is originally brown, but when they become too 
dirty to be worn under that hue, they are sent to the dyer, who is sup* 
