Manuscript of Persia and the Persian Question (Continued) [‎45v] (90/690)

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' u ntortimately “future experience and knowledge," wmen are
now in a pi s tion to invoke, have (let i led the point both against
Selby and his friends the Shus^eris. Only eight years later, Mr.
Loftus described “ the countenances of the inhabitants as not pre
possessing, low cunning, deceit, and mistrust being universal among
the lower classes ;” 1 while the advent of Messrs. Lynch’s agents
and the opening of the Karun have supplied tie present generation
with the opportunity of giving the lie to the benignant assurances
of their predecessors to Sir II. Layard. When Messrs. Lynch’s
representative first took up his abode there,-m&pc-tTbftn-a year og<V-
he found difficulty even in procuring drinking water and the com
monest necessaries of life, so loth were the people to have any deal
ings with such “an unclean thing;” and every obstacle still
placed by the 'UlTdlaks and 'SrpHkSn the way of trade. The inhabi
tants ha«e in fact been ordered not to purchase from the English,
and the word for a general “ boycott” ha^boen passed round. This
unreasoning hostility mtry- be expected in time to give place to a
more sensible attitude; but it is illustrative of the difficulties with
which AVestern influence is everywhere confronted in its first col
lision with Oriental prejudice, aud which are often so little under
stood at ho^ie.
The Shus|eris, of whom I have said so much, are as peculiar in
their origin, appearance, and dress as they are in their character and
surroundings. Neither pure Arab nor pure Persian in descent, but
a hybrid between the two, with a greater admixture of Arab blood,,
they seem to possess the less attractive features of either race.
Their appearance is ill-favoured and the reverse of healthy; a fact
which may be due either to the drinking wuter, which is slightly
I .* brackish, or to the enervating heat in summer, or to their colossal
neglect of the most elementary laws of hygiene, or to a combina
tion of all three. Even in their apparel there is something dis
tinctive, for along with the flowing cloak of the Arab they wear a
dark or parti-coloured turban, one end of which is tucked up in front,
and the other hangs down behind, not unlike the Afghan’s head
dress. One who was well qualified to speak informed me that “ in
character they are close, seldom spending money on anything but
actual necessaries ; that in bargaining they can hold their own with
any Oriental people, and that to call them sharp in business matters
is not saying much.” The town is divided into several wards or
quarters, each with its own khan, and the population into correspond-
ing factions; and where in England local conflicts are decided on
November _5 by the peaceful arbitrament of the polling-booth, the
Shus^eri wire-pullers, who would probably confess a hearty con
tempt for representative institutions, adopt the more primitive
(1) Travels and Researches, p. 296.