"عبر بلاد فارس على سرج ركوب جانبي" [‎١‎٨‎٤] (٣٦٠/٢١٧)

184 THROUGH PERSIA ON A SIDE-SADDLE
one after another down from a hill, and were off and out of
sight before we could get to our feet, the chase that ensued
being a failure.
The nights in tents were now very cold, and as the
evenings drew in early I was thankful to be back again at
home, the servants being more delighted than I, as they
found camp life always very tedious.
Kerman was notorious even among Persian cities for the
number of its beggars, and during the winter we were there
the Prince organised a scheme for relieving them, which is
worth mentioning, as I have never heard of any other
Persian, be he royal or the reverse, doing the like. He
issued so many hundreds of lithographed tickets monthly,
and each of these entitled the recipient to so many pounds
of bread, which was made at a certain bakery in the town.
To prevent abuse as far as possible, the Prince sent his
officers down to the shop to take bread from it by hap
hazard daily, and insisted on having this mixture of millet
and barley-flour on his own table. He furthermore forced
all his suite and the gentry of Kerman to buy tickets from
him for distribution, telling each man how many tomans'
worth he was expected to take. My brother, as Consul,
had six hundred tickets to give away monthly, and at first
used to bestow them on the few beggars at our gate, as we
went out for our afternoon rides. However, the little knot
often or a dozen soon swelled to one or two hundred, and
as we did not wish to dispose of every ticket before the
month had half run out, we resorted to the expedient of
having a fixed day for giving them, choosing Sundays.
When we went out for our weekly walk, the horses being
led in solemn procession after us, we would see outside our
garden a ragged, dirty, voluble crowd of beggars, which