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was given the farmer for the corn. is much the same in principle at Yezd, with this difference, that the consumer does not generally go to the baker or the miller, but to the corndealer, who sends him corn, which is ground and made into bread in his own house.

The salt deserts of Persia are more extensive than the sandy. Nothing can be more dreary than these wastes. When the traveller has advanced some distance into them, the wide space around is blasted with utter barrenness, and hoary with bitter salt, which glitters in the rays of a burning sun, and crackles beneath his feet. This is only broken here and there by a mass of dark rock, which adds to the desolation of the scene. Here, for instance, is the desert of Kerman, in the province of the same name. There is not a single river in the province, which is generally divided into the desert and the habitable regions. The former is so full of salt, that one may sometimes travel for ninety miles without seeing a single blade of grass, or the least appearance of water. Whole armies have perished in this frightful waste; and the danger of a journey through it is so great even to those acquainted with the roads, that a messenger has

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been known to demand a sum of 200 rupees (which in such a place is a little fortune) for carrying a letter from Kerman to Herat. Persians think that these terrible deserts, which man has forsaken, are inhabited by a sort of evil spirit, which they call Goule. They say it entices travellers by its cries, and tears them to pieces with its claws. Many will seriously say that they have seen such things, and will relate the charms by which they kept them at a distance. I remember that one of these, which they thought the best, was to untie the string which fastened their riding-trousers to their bodies.

F. Did they really see them?

U. O. Surely not; but I dare say their fear makes them believe so. They think that the Goule can change itself into different shapes and colours, and hence they may fancy that a camel, a cow, or a horse which they see at a distance, is a Goule.

This desert of Seistan, and the country along the Persian Gulf, are sandy, besides which large tracts of sand are found in different parts of the salt deserts. I have already spoken about sandy deserts, when we were talking on the subject of climate. I then mentioned sand-hills. The

sandy deserts in the great salt deserts are, however, not often hilly, but level. These spots

are, if possible, more desolate than the regions of salt; for there are some few plants that love a salt soil, but hardly any that will grow on mere sand.

We must not leave the deserts without considering that very remarkable appearance which is so frequently observed in them, and which in the east is called the Seraub. Europeans call it the mirage. This seraub

H. But, sir, what does the word mean?

U. O. "The water of the desert." It is, however, not really water, but the appearance of water. As it is seen most generally in the hot deserts, where there is really no water, and where water would be the greatest of blessings, there can hardly be a more distressing illusion than this. Only suppose a man riding in the desert, where he has not seen any water for a long time, and is perhaps in such an agony of thirst that he would willingly give his right arm for a cup of cool water. Think, then, how delighted he must be to see a fine lake of water spread out before him. Oh, with what joy and desire he hastens to it to quench his raging

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thirst and cool his parched skin! But as he comes to it, it goes from him. He cannot overtake it ; and at last it vanishes away, and sometimes appears again at a distance beyond; or, if he looks behind him, he may see that he has passed through what always seemed before him until he had passed it. It was but a vapour lying on the ground; and when the poor traveller finds this out, he becomes a thousand times more thirsty than before, from mere disappointment.

F. Did this ever happen to you, dear uncle? U. O. Many times; and, except the distresses which rend the heart, I know no distress like this. H. But is it so exactly like water?

U. O. So exactly, that I think no person who sees it in a road he never travelled before can fail to take it for real water. In the Koran, which is the holy book of the Mohamedans, the Seraub is thus strikingly mentioned:-" But as to the unbelievers, their works are like a vapour in a plain, which the thirsty traveller thinketh to be water, until, when he cometh thereto, he findeth it to be nothing."

H. It is a vapour then?

U. O. Some writers describe it as a thin mist or vapour spread over the surface of the ground.

As soon as a person learns that it is not water, this would certainly be his first impression; but I think those best account for it who say that it is occasioned by the circumstance, that the air near the ground being made less compact than the rest of the air by the heat of the sand, produces a difference to the eye which the traveller can only account for by supposing it to be water. This appearance does not rise many feet above the ground, and is sometimes so very low, that I have seen the lower parts of the houses and trees in villages hidden by it, while the upper parts were clearly seen,-the whole having the appearance as if the place had been overflowed, and a lake formed in the midst of the village. If the traveller stands at a height much above that of the mirage, the apparent water does not seem so compact and deep. This is because the appearance, being merely an optical illusion, must needs vary according to the point of view in which it is seen: or, as those say who describe the appearance as a vapour, it has not thickness enough, as the eye looks down upon it, to hide the ground which it covers: but if the observer is on a level with the seraub he cannot see through it, so that it appears to him clear

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