CONCLUSION. 
369 
“ They were fair indeed, but they wanted that carnation on their cheeks, 
“ which is called the numuck or salt of beauty; and which is the se- 
£fi cond requisite of female perfection. The first is large black eyes with 
<£ brows very much arched.” A tame antelope was then playing about 
the cabin close to me, when the Mirza said, “ Do your poets ever use 
“ the simile so constantly applied by ours, £ eyes like the stag?' The 
“ frequency of that image will prove the value which we attach to the 
<£ object.” 
I desired him to tell me the principal occupations of the women in 
the Harem. He complied : <£ They sew, embroider, and spin: they 
££ make their own clothes; and my wife even used to make mine: 
££ besides that, they superintend all the domestic concerns of the 
<£ house; they keep an account of the daily expences; distribute pro- 
££ visions to the servants; pay their wages; settle all disputes between 
££ them; manage the concerns of the stable; see that the horses 
££ have their corn; and, in short, have the care of all the disbursements 
<£ of the house. The King's mother had more business than can be 
“ described. She had the controul of all her son's Harem, which 
<£ might consist altogether of more than a thousand women : and you 
“ may well conceive the trouble which they could give.” When I 
suggested the difficulty of a woman transacting so many occupations, 
without seeing any other man than her husband, and asked how she 
could settle any business but that of the Harem itself? and how she 
could succeed even in that without seeing the men servants? He 
replied, that “ in the households of Persia there is always an officer 
££ called a Nazir, with whom the wife daily arranges all that relates to 
“ the male part of the establishment, to whom she pays the wages of 
“ the others; and who is accountable to her.” As a necessary prepa¬ 
ration for the duties which thus devolve upon them, the women of 
Persia learn to read and write: as children they are sent to school 
with the boys, and when too old to be permitted to go unveiled, 
their education is finished at home by female Mollahs , who attend them 
3 B 
