usually situated much below the level of the streets. The population may probably amount to 30,000 souls. The bazaars of Kashan are extensive, and their principal street is well-built, lofty, and closed in with a domed roofing; but the shops, though numerous, are mean in appearance. Indeed, Kashan is more a manufacturing than a commercial town. Its fabrics of silks, velvets, printed cottons, copper utensils, &c. have long been known, and the present prosperity of the place depends upon them. The climate, notwithstanding the excessive heat of summer, is said to be extremely salubrious.[1] Those who can afford at that season to quit their occupations retire to the neighbouring hills, and those who remain in the city take refuge in the underground cellars. The city was in a great measure destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Kereem Khan. The men of Kashan have the disgraceful reputation of being more effeminate and cowardly than those of any other town of Persia. On this account troops are very seldom raised from amongst them.[2] In the midst of such a population, the king's brother may have been thought to be but little likely to renew his attempt to establish himself on the Persian throne. The prince, however, did not trust to the men of Kashan for success in his ambitious undertaking. Furnished with a forged royal order, appointing
- ↑ Mr. R. E. Abbott's Notes.
- ↑ The following circumstance, which, I am informed, actually happened, illustrates the proverbial cowardice of the Kashis, as the men of Kashan are called: A hundred recruits from that city were brought to Tehran, but they there gave signs of such incapacity for military service that it was decided to send them back to their native place, and there to disband them. On receiving the order to return, this company demanded that a sergeant's party should be sent with them to Kashan for the purpose of protecting them from violence by the way.
