'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎47] (78/360)

AS FAR AS KA SHAN
47
the women wash themselves and their clothes all day long,
sometimes polluting the water just before it flows into the
city; but Persians think little of this, as they have a
proverb that nothing can be amiss with running water.
Moreover, each house has a tank, which is filled from the
stream after dark, when the washing has ceased, though
this method is by no means an ideal one, as the tanks
are so seldom cleaned out.
The kanat holes are somewhat dangerous to riders
galloping across country, as many of them are flush with
the ground, and therefore impossible to see until close
upon them. What is perhaps worse is that if a stream
dries up, or if its course be diverted, the shafts are left to
fall in, and the earth between them breaks away under the
feet of a horse crossing it. Once I was riding among a
number of disused kanats, and the ground between them
had become so rotten that, in going up an apparently
substantial bank, the whole of it gave way, and I and my
horse came rolling down together.
One afternoon we all rode to the garden made by
Fath Ali Shah, in the little village of Fin, about four miles
to the west of Kashan. This ' Paradise' was laid out in
avenues of big cypresses, these and poplars being the
favourite trees of Persia ; and at their feet channels of
warm water ran over blue and green tiles. The large tanks
which fed these ducts swarmed with small fish, and here
and there were fine archways frescoed with the exploits of
Fath Ali Shah. There were also portraits of his many
sons, who looked like young ladies, with smooth faces,
1 wasp' waists, long garments reaching to their feet, and
pretty little crowns on their abundant hair.
We were shown the tiled bath-room, now in ruins.