Manuscript of Persia and the Persian Question (Continued) [‎151r] (301/690)

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In taking leave of tho^Gulf, let mo describe tho
JaBt recollectmn that is imprinted upon the retina
of the traveller s memory. Tho foro deck of a
Gulf steamer presents one of tho most curious
spectacles that can bo imagined. I have seen
many quaint conglomerations of colour, race
language, and religion, but rarely any more diver
sified than this. Arabs in their soiled silk kefi^
and camel s-hair head-bands, frequently on-
PE 6d ^JP^PS a sort of nursery whist with
battered English cards, or sometimes reading
aloud with guttural monotone from papor-bouno
books ; a Persian dealer carrying horses to Bombay,
and awaking bubbles from his eternal kalian -
Mussulman pilgrims from the holy places of
bunm or Shiah saying their prayers, kneeling,
and touching the deck with their foreheads, while
one chants the formula of devotion ; orthodox
Hindaes conducting their ablutions in a comer or
cooking the food winch no one else may defile’by
contact ; a fat 1 sipping his gritty coffee ; a
Lascar A term used by the British officials to describe non-European sailors employed on East India Company ships. having hi/SIead shaved clean save for a
lanky topknot on the poll; Pars**merchants decked
inborn bay-mad e clothes of doubtful English cut •
ITiTTnapSTmTian %. in preternatural]y tight white
cotton pants, and with daintily-embroidered caps
stuck sideways on their heads; bearded BeW4**-r-
an Afghan with unkempt black locks curling upon
his shoulders and a poshtin (sheepskin) waist
coat, which ho would not relinquish on the
Equator, and voluminous white pantaloons ;
Portuguese half-castes, with skins like boot-
leather and features like monkeys ; one or two
negroes, with shining contrast of skin and teeth •
men black, copper-coloured, slate-coloured, dusf>
coloured, and white ; men with silver rings
round their big toes and pearl buckles in their
ears ; men wholly dressed, half-dressed, and
almost TlfllrArl • mc*n
— - piled labyrinth of quirts
and carpets and boxes, of sailcloths and ropes,
of sheep and birds in cages and fowls in coops
of trays and samovars and cooking-pots, of greasy
donkey-engines and clanking chains—surely a
more cunous study in polyglot or polychrome
could not well be conceived.
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