'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎94] (125/582)

94
VISITS AT KERMANSHAH,
One powerful reason why this passion may exist in the East
while it is quite unknown in the West, is probably the seclusion of
women in the former, and the freedom of access to them in the
latter. People of such warm imaginations and high sensibilities as
some among the Asiatics unquestionably are, must pour out their
hearts and discharge the overflowing affections of their nature on
something, and they are likely to fix them on that which they
deem most amiable and lovely among the objects familiar to them.
Had they the unrestrained intercourse which we enjoy with such
superior beings as the virtuous and accomplished females of our
own country, they would find nothing in nature so deserving of
their love as these. But in countries where scarcely a virtuous
and never an accomplished female exists, where almost every
woman is without education, and where opportunity and high
payment are all that is required to make the most chaste a willing
prey; m countries, in short, where, besides the debased state of
female society, men are so completely shut out even from this,
that the occasional sight of their beauty cannot inflame them!
where can any thing so love-inspiring else be found, as a young,
an innocent, an amiable, and an intelligent youth ? And who but
those of the very basest of their species, would think of degrading,
even in their own eyes, a being, whether male or female, whom
they devotedly and sincerely loved ?
Such debauchees as we have in England, who pride them
selves on the number of innocent girls they have seduced and be
trayed, might perhaps do so; but these are surely not a criterion
by which to judge the great mass of any country. Even where
custom and habit may have deadened the feelings of shame at
this crime, the voice of nature must be always heard to plead
against it. And such, indeed, is the fact; for while the Jelabs
or public boys of Turkey and Persia are as much despised
nd shunned in those countries, as abandoned women are
us, or even more so; the youths who are the avowed fa-
vountes or beloved of particular individuals, are as much re-