'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME II' [‎331v] (667/706)

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YAZD
Government. On any occasion of moment an extraordinary meeting of the
council is at once called. The community is made up of merchants, men of
means and well known probity, farmers, masons gardeners and agricultural
labourers. As gardeners they are renowned, and in great demand ; the Shah
always has some in his employ at Tehran. Some of the men make cloth
called “ Shal ”. The women make their own cloths at home, and also weave
native cotton cloth called <£ Karbas ”. The merchants are largely connect
ed with Bombay, and act as forwarding agents for Mussalman merchants
in Khorasan and Bokhara. There are some 40 priests, who live in the
quarter known as Pusht-i-Khaneh-i-’All, and go out to the various villages
in turn. There is little doubt that the Zoroastrians in Yazd have great
influence and add to the wealth and importance of the place. They are
known and trusted by all, and their probity and upright dealing is beyond
all question. Their position is acknowledged in a somewhat curious
manner. All documents to be legal, even between two Mussalmans, must
be dated, not only with the Persian day, month and year, but with the
Zoroastrian.
Jews .—The Jewish population is small, say 1,068 souls. They have but
two mahallas, one consisting of 125 houses, the other of 53 only. Their
life is a hard one ; none are wealthy, the majority live from hand to mouth.
Some do a small merchant business with adjacent cities, such as Kirman,
Isfahan Kashan and Tehran, but they have no connection or corresj)ond-
ence with Meshed. Others do a little peddling in the city and neighbour
ing villages. Some make a living by spinning silk, but this has been greatly
curtailed by the importation of spun silk from Khorasan and Gilan. There
is not a single Jewish jeweller in the city.
There are a few native Indians living in Yazd, for the most part engaged
in trade.
The European community in 1900 consited of two representatives of
tae Bank, five Members of the Church Missionary Society, including a lady,
and a representative of Messrs. Ziegler and Co., a Manchester firm.
Major Sykes writing in 1894 described the population as fanatical, and
stated that there was a strong anti-European feeling, but in 1900 he
observes that this was all changed, and that Europeans are not only
respected but liked.
The fact, that a caravansarai presented by a Parsi has been converted
into a hospital by Dr. While of the Church Missionary Society appeals to
all, high and low, and the Bank is now no longer looked upon as an intrud
ing institution. Social intercourse between Persians and Europeans is
now no longer reprobated, as proved by the fact that the three leading
Mullahs called upon Major Sykes when he was there in 1900.
Resources. Commercially speaking Yazd is by far the most important
point on the long caravan route of some 1,000 miles between Bandar ’Abbas
and Meshed, and it has been well described by Persians as an inland town
■with the qualities of a port, in fact almost all goods destined for the markets
of ISorthern Persia and the Trans-Caspian provinces beyond are prac
tically transhipped at Yazd, and it is to this transhipping more than to its
own manufactures that Yazd owes most of its wealth and importance.