CURIOSITY OF THE PEASANTRY. 
471 
with the custom of awe to superiors, and stupidly refused obe¬ 
dience to a power they did not see. Indeed, where every man 
supposes a necessity of standing by his own property to pre¬ 
vent encroachments from his neighbours, the habits of so sordid 
an egotism naturally tend to blunt the social feelings; and his 
suspected neighbours acting on the same grasping principle, 
no one can be surprised to find the channels of hospitality 
and benevolence not merely narrowed, but closed, in such a 
community. In these cases, the practice of my mehmandar 
always found means to render the defied power of the rackam 
visible, and then the dispute was at an end. 
The only annoyance I ever experienced in the villages of my 
prompt entertainers, was the curiosity of the natives, which 
often overstepped the bounds of their intended civility. For a 
Persian Khan travelling through the remote hamlets of England, 
would hardly be a rarer sight to the gaping rustics, than an 
English gentleman making a journey through the southern 
villages of Persia, to their inquisitive inhabitants. Hence, I was 
often attended by successive crowds staring in at my window ; 
and now and then startled by some bolder individual putting 
his head over my shoulder, to see how a Frangeh ate! But the 
worst was, that, more than once, one or two of these curious 
intruders have been likely to pay dear for peeping under my 
curtain, to see how a Frangeh slept! However, in day-light, 
when I found the eyes of my village friends too intrusive, I had 
only to make a sign to my mehmandar, or to Sedak Beg, and 
one smack of their whips usually dispersed the whole covey in a 
moment. In nocturnal visitations, where the object and the 
visitors might be mistaken, the mode of clearing the ground was 
