NOISES OF A PERSIAN CITY. 
229 
throw him into passions so violent, that they generally terminated in 
blows, the noise of which, accompanied by corresponding lamentation, 
I could distinctly hear. 
Then, bordering on the garden wall, scarce twenty yards from where 
I usually sat, was a society of women, five or six in number, the wives 
and slaves of a Mussulman, who were either dissolved in tears, sobbing 
aloud like children, or entranced in the most indecent and outrageous 
merriment. Sometimes they sang in the loudest tone, accompanied 
by a tambourine ; and then they quarrelled amongst themselves, using 
every now and then expressions of no ordinary indelicacy. Accident 
once gave me a view into their yard, where I saw three women sur¬ 
rounded by children, seated on the bare stones, smoking the kaleoon. 
They wore a large black silk handkerchief round their heads, a shift 
which descended as low as the middle, a pair of loose trowsers, and 
green high-heeled slippers; and this, I believe, may be considered 
as a sketch of every Persian woman’s dress within the harem, in 
hot weather. 
But there are noises peculiar to every city and country; and none 
are more distinct and characteristic than those in Persia. First, at the 
' dawn of day, the muezzins are heard in a great variety of tones, calling 
the people to prayers from the tops of the mosques; these are mixed 
with the sounds of cow-horns, blown by the keepers of the hum- 
mums^ to inform the women, who bathe before the men, that the 
baths are heated, and ready for their reception. The cow-horns set all 
the dogs in the city howling in a frightful manner. The asses of the 
town generally beginning to bray about the same time, are answered 
by all the asses in the neighbourhood; a thousand cocks then intrude 
their shrill voices, which, with the other subsidiary noises of persons 
calling to each other, knocking at doors, cries of children, complete a 
din very unusual to the ears of an European. In the summer season, 
as the operations of domestic life are mostly performed in the open 
air, every noise is heard. At night, all sleep on the tops of their 
houses, their beds being spread upon their terraces, without any 
other covering over their heads than the vault of heaven. The poor 
