SUMMARY PUNISHMENT OF MARAUDERS. 
4 53 
visible, we found ourselves in a plain of from eight to ten miles 
wide; abundantly spotted with villages, in the usual imposing- 
style, mud-walled and flanked with towers; but when we drew 
near, most were decayed, and none fully inhabited. At about three 
farsangs farther, we saw a large insulated hill on our right, from 
whose base extended, in a sort of radii, very extensive gardens. 
They were carefully inclosed, and the country, for a little way, 
seemed in corresponding cultivation. In passing the walls of 
more than one deserted hamlet, our mehmandar pointed out to 
us certain spots, where he told us blood had been shed. Some- 
times, the perpetrators were open invaders ; but oftener, the 
desolaters of the little places before us were the banditti moun¬ 
taineers ; who, for ages past, have rendered the route from 
Ourtchiny to the very gates of Shiraz, an expedition of danger. 
At the turning of a murderous looking dell, he showed us a ruin 
where the present Shah’s brother, the late Hossein Ivouli Khan, 
surprised a band of about thirty Bactiaries dividing their spoil. 
They were seized immediately. He then ordered his people to 
punish the robbers by depriving them of the sight of their left 
eyes, and cutting off their right hands. When he was obeyed, he 
dismissed the mountaineers to their tribes, telling them to take 
those marks on their bodies, as a warning to their fellows of the 
manner in which all should be treated, who were caught com¬ 
mitting any depredation on hill or valley within the Persian 
dominions. 
In the midst of one of the mehmandar’s long stories, we de¬ 
scried a multitude of people at a distance; which, on approaching 
near, we found to be a company of pilgrims, from Shiraz and 
its vicinity, journeying to Kerbela, to pay their devotions at the 
tomb of the martyred Hossein. The party consisted of men y 
