FINE VIEW FROM KOOSHKAT. 
467 
their outer coat crosses diagonally over the breast, tying or 
buttoning near the top of the right hip : in summer, they go 
barefooted, and in winter wear socks; but whether the weather 
be warm or cold, a large wrapping cloak, without sleeves, is 
invariably the finish of their dress ; it is made of a stuff like 
camlet, marked with brown and white in two or three exceedingly 
broad stripes. The stuff is a manufacture peculiar to Kourdistan 
near Kermanshah, and thence brought to all the other parts of 
the empire. But I must not omit naming one appendage no 
Moullah can be seen without, (and which, indeed, is very common 
with the Persians in general;) a small rosary of black beads. 
If it number their prayers, it also proves a perpetual subject of 
amusement; the beads being kept in a continual movement by 
the fingers, both during the discourse or silence of the wearer. 
With some of them, were a Frangeh to accidentally touch one of 
these beads, it would be little less than sacrilege. But, to do 
my host of the Kooshkat Mesched justice, although a learned 
man, and one of the brotherhood, he seemed so little impressed 
with excluding ideas, that from the first moment he received 
me within his walls, he partook of the hospitable fare his kitchen 
spread on my board, cheerfully talking, and sitting close to me 
without the least apparent apprehension of defilement. 
June 9th. Left Kooshkat at half past 4 o’clock this morning, 
seeing the village of Abadah, the customary halting-place, at 
about a mile distant to the eastward. But turning our backs 
both upon it, and the singularly beautiful view of our villaged 
fortress as it stood in the grey light of the morning just begin¬ 
ning to be tinged with a greenish golden gleam, we proceeded 
along the right side of the valley, close to the base of its stupen¬ 
dous mountain-wall. The opposite side, on its sloping banks, 
3 o 2 
