Pūti is, of course, a nonsense (or meaningless) word, and lūti, as here used, means a “blackguard!”
CHAPTER XXII.
SHIRAZ AND FUSSA.
Cheapness of ice—Variety of ices—Their size—Mode of procuring ice—Water of Shiraz: its impurity—Camel-fight—Mode of obtaining the combatants—Mode of securing camels—Visit to Fussa—Mean-looking nag—His powers—See the patient—State of the sick-room—Dinner sent away—A second one arrives—A would-be room-fellow—I provide him with a bedroom—Progress of the case—Fertility of Fussa—Salt Lake—End of the patient—Boat-building—Dog-cart—Want of roads—Tarantulas—Suicide of scorpions—Varieties—Experiment—Stings of scorpions—The nishan.
A great thing in such a warm place as Shiraz is the cheapness of ice; for about fifteen shillings in dear years and five in cheap ones, ice can be obtained, all through the warm weather, and in fact is used from May to October, as no one would think of drinking anything uncooled. A huge block is thrown down in one’s doorway each morning by the ice-seller; it is supposed to weigh two Tabriz maunds, or fourteen pounds.
The Persians well understand the art of making water-ices and ice-creams, and various ices unknown to us are made by them, as tamarind juice, pomegranate and cherry-water ices; iced “mast,” or curdled milk, and various ices of pounded fruits, as apricots and cherries, which are very good.
Ices, however, are served with them on a more lavish scale, and a larger quantity eaten, than with us. When I accompanied Captain St. J⸺ in a call he made upon the Muschir, four conical ices, the size and shape of an ordinary sugar-loaf, were placed in handsome Chinese porcelain basins before each of us. In fact the cheapness of provisions generally causes among the well-to-do a lavishness and profusion (not to call it waste) unknown in Europe.
The Muschir has a “yakhjal,” or place for the making and collecting and storing ice, in an open plain some six miles from the town at the side of the Ispahan road. The earth is dug out to a depth of two feet; with this earth a mud wall some twenty feet high is constructed of sun-dried bricks. The excavation is some ten yards by one hundred, and the wall is ten yards high by a hundred long; this wall runs in such a way as to protect the open pond thus excavated, from the hottest rays of the sun.
The delicious Ab-i-Rookhni (“stream of Rookhnabad”) is diverted from its course during the first cold night. A few inches of still clear water is collected in the pond, by morning it is frozen; at night the water is again admitted, and another inch or two of ice made. When three to six inches thick, the ice is broken and collected for storage in a deep well on the spot: and so day by day the process goes on during the short winter until the storehouses are full. Should the supplies from these be exhausted by a very large demand, ice, or rather blocks of snow, are brought from the mountains; but as these are some distance, and as snow melts much faster than ice, the weights being equal, the price rises.
An order is generally issued when the ice is running short that each house is to be on half allowance—a wise measure, as it makes the cooks careful, and so everybody gets some.