The women don loose trousers, and red or yellow boots, with iron heels, like the men; but over all they wear a long blue garment which, if not tucked up under the girdle, would depend some inches below the ankles. A large blue shawl descends below the knee. Round their heads they twist black shawls, turban-wise; or they wear the red fez, with a silk handkerchief wound about it; and on the top of this, a kind of wreath made of short black fringe, worn like a diadem, but leaving the forehead free. The hair falls in narrow braids over the shoulders, and from the turban droops a heavy silver chain. As a head-dress it is remarkably attractive; and it is but just to say that it often sets off really handsome faces, with fine features, and glowing eyes.
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In her further wanderings through the wild lands of Persia, our traveller came to Urumiyeh, on the borders of the salt lake of that name, which in several physical features closely resembles the Dead Sea. Urumiyeh is a place of some celebrity, for it
gave birth to Zoroaster, the preacher of a creed of considerable moral purity, which has spread over a great part of Asia. Entering a more fertile country, she reached Tabreez in safety, and was once more within the influence of law and order. Tabreez, the residence of the viceroy, is a handsomely-built town, with numerous silk and leather manufactories, and is reputed to be one of the chief seats of Asiatic commerce. Its streets are clean and tolerably broad; in each a little rivulet is carried underground, with openings at regular intervals for the purpose of dipping out water. Of the houses the passer-by sees no more than is seen in any other Oriental town: lofty walls, windowless, with low entrances; and the fronts always looking in upon the open courtyards, which bloom with trees and flowers, and usually adjoin a pleasant garden. Inside, the chambers are usually lofty and spacious, with rows of windows which seem to form complete walls of glass. Buildings of public importance there are none; excepting the bazaar, which covers a considerable area, and is laid out with lofty, broad, and covered thoroughfares.
The traveller turned her back upon Tabreez on the 11th of August, and in a carriage drawn by
post-horses, and attended by a single servant, set out for Natschivan. At Arax she crossed the frontier of Asiatic Russia, the dominions of the “White Tsar,” who, in Asia as in Europe, is ever pressing more and more closely on the “unspeakable Turk.” At Natschivan she joined a caravan which was bound for Tiflis, and the drivers of which were Tartars. She says of the latter, that they do not live so frugally as the Arabs. Every evening a savoury pillau was made with good-tasting fat, frequently with dried grapes or plums. They also partook largely of fruits.
The caravan wound through the fair and fertile valleys which lie at the base of Ararat. Of that famous and majestic mountain, which lifts its white glittering crest of snow some sixteen thousand feet above the sea-level, our traveller obtained a fine view. Its summit is cloven into two peaks, and in the space between an old tradition affirms that Noah’s ark landed at the subsidence of the Great Flood.
In the neighbourhood of a town called Sidin, Madame Pfeiffer met with a singular adventure. She was returning from a short walk, when, hearing the sound of approaching post-horses, she paused for a minute to see the travellers, and noticed a