Identifier: persiapastpresen01jack (find matches)
Title: Persia past and present; a book of travel and research, with more than two hundred illustrations and a map
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Jackson, A. V. Williams (Abraham Valentine Williams), 1862-1937
Subjects: Zoroastrianism
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company London, Macmillan & Co., ltd.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ng if we expect to find loftybuildings and that variety of color which we associate with theOrient. Instead of this, there is a monotonous expanse of flat-roofed, single-storied houses, broken only by the domed archesof the bazaars and the high wall of the ancient citadel. Clayand mud plaster, for the most part, are used in the constructionof buildings, and these give a dull appearance to the unimpos-ing architecture. The houses, with windowless outer walls,turn their backs on the street and show their faces only to theexclusive brick courtyard in the interior. The entrance is madethrough an unpainted wooden door, studded with heavy nails,like the portal of a Norman keep, and having a small gratingabove to admit light and air. In the courtyard we may finda small garden, and, if so, a tank for preserving that preciouscommodity, water ; but the general appearance of the interior,like its unattractive entrance, is not such as to lead one to1 Wilson, Persian Life, p. 323. 2 Yakut, p. 132.
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THE CITY AND ITS GOVERNMENT 41 suppose how handsomely the house may be decorated on theinside with rugs, old tapestry, pieces of Persian armor, andfaience. As we walk about the town we have to find our way througha labyrinth of streets, narrow passages, and side alleys, some ofthe latter being less than six feet wide, and ultimately we reachthe outskirts of the city. Walls surround Tabriz, as theyhave from the earliest times, and their circuit has graduallyincreased with the compass of the town. Gardens border thesewalls, with vineyards and orchards lying beyond, and Tabrizhas been famous for its fruits and vegetables for over a thou-sand years.^ But there was little to suggest this abundance.The suburbs, when I saw them, were buried in snow, and soalso were low hills adjacent to the plain on the north andnortheast, which looked dwarfed in comparison with the heightsof Mount Sahand that rise to an altitude of nearly twelvethousand feet on the south and are clad in ermine most of theye

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