GOVERNMENT OF SHIRAZ. 
693 
Every thing within the town seems neglected: the bazars and 
maidans falling; into ruins : the streets choaked with dirt, and 
mouldered heaps of unrepaired houses, and the lower orders 
who infest them, squalid and insolent; while the actual poor 
crawl out of their dens in a state of rags and wretchedness which 
no pen can describe. How different is this scene from one that 
occurred in the same province many centuries ago ! “ And his 
friend said to Cyrus, But when will you adorn yourself? and he 
answered, I am already adorned in adorning my people /” 
One of the most material instances of public neglect, and 
which presses immediately on the attention, is the state of 
the water; which is so foul as to injure the health of the in¬ 
habitants, and so loathsome as to stink with putrefaction. No 
excuse can be offered on the part of the magistrates for the 
sufferance of so intolerable a beverage for the people ; the same 
sources remaining, which in former years provided wholesome 
and beautiful water for every use. The spring at the tomb of 
Sadi is still ready to pour its stream through proper channels 
into the town ; and the limpid rills of the Rocknabad, once more 
collected from the scattering offices of irrigation, might again 
visit the walls of Shiraz, and sparkle on the boards of its people. 
I enquired whether the water which at present supplies the town, 
is always in so bad a state; and was answered in the affirmative; 
cooler weather producing it more plentifully, but making no change 
in the quality. Notwithstanding this information, I cannot believe 
that the excessive heat of the summer does not increase its cor¬ 
ruption. Since my arrival, the thermometer, at any time of the 
day, has seldom fallen below 96° in the shade, or under 80° at 
night. But while Captain Franklin was here, he had the 
