BUSHIRE TO SHIRAZ. 
85 
never practised in Persia to any but to royal personages; and then 
about thirty wrestlers, in party-coloured breeches, (their only covering) 
and armed with a pair of clubs called meals , begun each to make the 
most curious noise, move in the most extravagant postures, and display 
their professional exploits all the way before our horses, until ,we reached 
our encampment. It would be difficult to describe a crowd so wild 
and confused. The extreme jolting, running, pushing, and scrambling 
almost bewildered me: while the dust, which seemed to powder the 
beards of the Persians, nearly suffocated us all. Probably ten thousand 
persons of all descriptions were assembled. Officers were dispersed 
among them, and with whips and sticks drove the crowd backwards or 
forwards, as the occasion required. Nothing could exceed the tumult 
and cries. Here men were tumbling one over the other in the inequa¬ 
lities of the ground; there horses were galloping in every direction, 
while their riders were performing feats with their long spears; behind 
was an impenetrable crowd; before us were the wrestlers dancing 
about to the sound of three copper drums, and twirling round their 
clubs. On every side was noise and confusion. This ceremony is 
never practised but to princes of the blood, and we considered, there¬ 
fore, the honours of this day as a further proof of the reviving influence 
of the English name. 
On Christmas day Sir Harford Jones and I visited the ruins of 
Shapour . We reckoned the distance at fifteen miles, in nearly a north 
direction from Kauzer oon. About seven miles from our encampment, 
we passed again through the village of Derees y which, from the extent 
of the ruined houses, must once have been a large town. Every house 
is covered with an arched roof, a mode of building which probably 
originated in the scarcity of timber. It is indeed common in all the 
places which we have seen; and the doors and porticoes are universally 
formed by a Saracenic arch. A miserable population, thinly inter¬ 
spersed among the ruins of Derees , came out to greet our passage. On 
the northern extremity of the town there is a place of burial, and over 
one of the tombstones there was the figure of a lion. 
