Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/404

 236 mSHAPURj THE HOME OF OMAR KHAYYAM

the narrow covered lanes of its emporium. There was visible, it is true, the usual amount of dirt and filth that seems to be inseparable from the real Eastern bazar. There were present likewise the representative fruit-dealers, cap-makers, cobblers, rope-spinners, cloth-merchants, and men of other trades, just as there were when the Oriental writers of medieval days described the town and its industries.^ Spread out on stands before the stalls could be seen fine specimens of the rlbds^ or rhubarb plant, just as they were when Yakut stayed at Nisha- pur in 1216 a.d. (613 A.H.), for he says that *a single one of these plants ordinarily weighs a man (over a pound) or more, while specimens are seen weighing five rafls of the measure of Irak.' 2 This number is outdone by Ahmad Razi, author of the 'Seven Climes' (1595 a.d.), for he states that a specimen of this plant, which was sent to an Abbasid caliph, weighed 'seventeen mans.^

Our guide through the tortuous ways of the bazar was an interesting little Persian lad, about twelve years of age, named Ali — a rival in brightness to Kipling's Indian Kim. Ali had taken us in charge almost from the moment when our horses drew up at the post, and he now proceeded to perform the office of valet de place by conducting us to the best shops where my friend and I could get some refreshment after our eight weary hours of travel since dawn. The ' loaf of bread ' ^ underneath the covered booth was the typical sheet of Persian dough, a yard long and a foot broad, with the outward semblance of a thick chamois skin. But it tasted well as an accompaniment to a kabdh-voQ.^t of Persian lamb with a draught of tea, if not

1 Cf. Le Strange, pp. 384, 386. makes the first man and woman on

2 Yakut, tr. Barbier de Meynard, this earth to have sprung from ' a Diet. geog. p. 579. See Ahmad Razi, single-stemmed rhubarb plant ' (rtras). Haft Iklim, cited by Barbier de Mey- according to Bd. 15. 2-6.

nard, op. cit. p. 579, n. 2. Nasir ad- s cf. FG. 11 (12), Th. 11, H-A.

Din Shah, Diary, p. 157, also mentions 149, P. 829, nisf-i ndm, 'half a loaf of

the rhubarb roots from the mountains bread.' of Nishapur. An old Iranian legend

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