CLIMATE AT TABREEZ. 
247 
several hours, without a guide from earth or sky; when evening 
drawing on, they gave themselves up for lost. At this juncture, 
they were providentially descried by some peasants from the 
roofs of their almost buried cabins. With instant dispatch, but 
great labour, these good people cleared a path to the half-perished 
travellers ; and by such prompt humanity, rescued them from 
the most desolate of deaths. 
I was much surprised to find that notwithstanding the severity 
of this weather, few of the Persians of either sex put on addi¬ 
tional clothing; and many of them, young and old, go with the 
breast entirely bare. This strange neglect of the common means 
of protection, in some measure accounts for the frequent recur¬ 
rence of the most melancholy catastrophes, in consequence of 
any accidental exposure to the immediate influence of the out¬ 
ward atmosphere, under a degree of frost that would hardly be 
felt by a Cossack in his Bourka, or a Russian under his Shaab. 
Scarcely a day passes, without one or two persons being found 
frozen to death in the neighbourhood of the town. Several 
instances, which happened during my stay at Tabreez, were 
particularly distressing; and amongst them, was the perishing of 
three women and two men, with five asses belonging to them, 
which had taken shelter from a sudden drift of snow and wind, 
under an arch of the Augi bridge. They were discovered after 
the storm had subsided, perfectly dead, and as stiff as the blocks 
of ice which lay on each side of them. Another calamity of the 
kind, I shall mention, as having a circumstance of greatly aug¬ 
mented pain connected with it. The gates of all towns and 
cities in Persia are shut a little after sun-set, and re-opened at 
sun-rise. Strict adherence to this injunction, and carelessness, or 
unavoidable delays, on the part of travellers, often subject them 
