ploughing, and other forts of labour. Hogs are no-where bred in Perfia, if we except a province or two on the borders of the Cafpian fea. Sheep and deer are very common throughout all Perfia: and, as to the former, fir John Chardin affures us, that he has seen flocks of them, which covered four or five leagues of pafturage. As to beasts of chace, they are not fo common here as in most of the countries of Europe, because it is, generally speaking, devoid of woods; but in Hyrcania, which abounds with them, deer of all forts, and gazels, are found in great abundance. The gazel is a creature common throughout the eaft; and fo many of them have been brought into Europe, that they need not any defcription. As to wild beafts, there are not a great number of them in this country, for the same reafon which has been before affigned, with respect to beasts of chace, except in Hyrcania, where, in the woods, there are great numbers of lions, bears, tygers, leopards, &c. fo that the antients spoke very truly of Hyrcania, when they called it the country of wild beafts. One thing; however, is to be remarked, that neither here, nor throughout all Perfia, are there any wolves; but the chakal, or jackal (a creature which makes a terrible noise, and which many good writers take for the hyena ), is common every-where; and has this peculiar quality, that it tears up dead bodies, if the graves are not carefully watched. As to infects, the drynefs of the air prevents our having much to fay about them: there are, however, in fome provinces, prodigious numbers of locufts, or grafhoppers, which come in fuch clouds as to obfcure the air. In certain parts of the Perfian dominions, they have large black scorpions, fo venomous, that fuch as are ftung by them die in a few hours in others, they have lizards frightfully ugly, which are an ell long, and as thick as a large toad, their skins being as hard and tough as that of the fea-dog: they are faid to attack and kill men fometimes; but that may be doubted. Among the reptiles of this country there is a long worm, called by the inhabitants bazar-pey; i. e. thousand feet: its whole body is ftuck with small feet, with which it runs prodigioufly faft; it is longer and smaller than a caterpiller; and its bite is dangerous, and even mortal, if it gets into the ear a. : THERE are in Perfia all the feveral forts of fowl which Birds. we have in Europe, but not in fuch quantities, because a CHARDIN, tom. iii. P. 32. P. 423. CARRERI, tom. ii. p. 215. TAVERN, tom, i. 1. v. c. 3. they they are chiefly bred and taken care of by the Armenians, who have frequently capons fatted to fuch a degree, that they are killed for nothing but their greafe. There are, however, vaft number of pigeons wild and tame; and as the dung of pigeons is the best manure for melons, they keep great numbers of them all over the kingdom; fo that it may be on juft grounds prefumed, that no country in the world has fuch a number of pigeon-houses: they are most of them fix times as large as any we have in Europe, built of brick, and plastered on the outfide, every thing being difpofed in the most convenient manner poffible, for the prefervation of these creatures. In the neighbourhood of Spauhawn they reckon more than three thoufand of these pigeon-houfes, chiefly erected for the prefervation of the dung, which is fold for about three-pence the dozen pound: the Perfians call this manure tchalgous; i.e. enlivening. It is a great diverfion among the lower fort of people, in town and country, to catch pigeons, though it be forbidden; for this purpose, they have pigeons fo taught, that, flying in one flock, they furround fuch wild ones as they find in a field, and bring them back with them to their mafters. People who follow this trade are called kefter-perron, or pigeon-ftealers; and there are some fo addicted to it, that they will lie out whole days, in the very depth of winter, in order to carry on this foolish and wicked employment; for, under the notion of wild pigeons, they take every body's pigeons they can find. The partridges of this country are the largest and finest in the world, being generally of the fize of our fowls. As to water-fowl, they have geefe, ducks, cranes, herons, and many other forts: but they are more plenty in the northern than the fouthern provinces. The finging-birds here are of the fame kinds we have in Europe; the nightingale is heard there all the year, but chiefly in the spring; martlets, which learn whatever words are taught them; and another bird of the fame fize, called by them noura, which chatters continually, and repeats very pleasantly whatever it hears. As to birds of a larger fize, the most confiderable is the pelican, by the Perfians called tacab, i. e. water-carrier, and alfo mife, i. e. fheep, because it is as large as one of thofe animals. Its feathers are white and foft, like thofe of a goofe; its head is much larger in proportion than its body, and its beak from eighteen to twenty inches long, and as thick as a man's arm; under this beak it has a fack or pouch, in which it preferves a quantity of water, for moistening its food; it ufually refts this long long beak on its back, which would otherwife incommode it very much: the pelican lives chiefly upon fish, in taking of which it fhews an admirable contrivance, by placing its beak in fuch a manner, under the water, as to catch them as it were in a net: when it opens its throat, the paffage is large enough for a lamb: it is called the water-carrier, becaufe in Arabia, and other places, where water is hard to be had, it makes its neft at a great distance from ftreams, or wells, foreseeing, as is fuppofed, that there will be lefs danger of disturbance in fuch places, though this fituation obliges the bird to fly fometimes two days journey for a fupply of water for her young, which she brings in the fack before-mentioned; and hence the fables of the antients, of the pelican's tearing her breaft open to feed her young. There are in Perfia various birds of prey; and, in the mountains, about fifteen or twenty leagues from Schiras, there are fome of the largeft and fineft in the world: the people take great pains in teaching them to fly at game; and the king has generally eight hundred of thefe birds, each of which has a perfon to attend it. The Perfian lords are likewife great lovers of falconry, and even the common people practise it much; for neither this, nor fhooting, nor hunting with dogs, is forbid to the meanest man in, Perfia WE fhall divide the fishes of Perfia into fresh and falt- Fish. water fish: As to the firft, they are not very plenty, because there are no great rivers in Perfia; however, there are of these three kinds, thofe of the lakes, of the rivers, and of the kerifes, or fubterraneous paffages. Thofe in the lakes are carps and fhads; the river-fifh is chiefly barbel, which is also the fort of fish commonly met with in the fubterraneous chanels; they are very large, but by no means good, and their eggs are particularly dangerous; which is generally attributed to their never beholding the light of the fun, but living altogether in these foul and cold ftreams. There are, in the river at Spauhawn, a great number of crabs, which crawl up the trees, and live night and day under the leaves whence they are taken, and are efteemed a very delicious food. As to fea-fish, no country is better ferved; the Cafpian fea, as we have feen before, contains very fine fish on one fide, and the Perfian gulf,on the other, is believed to have more fifh in it than any other fea in the world. They fish there twice a day, morning and ་ P. bCHARDIN, tom. iii. p. 38. TAVERN. tom. i. 1. iv. c. 3. P. 225. CARRERI, tom, ii. p. 214. evening; Natural evening; and fuch fish as are not fold by ten o'clock in the morning, or before fun-fet, are thrown back into the fea. There are taken, on the coafts of this gulf, a fort of fish, for which they have no particular name; its flesh is of a red colour, very delicious; and fome of them weigh two or three hundred pounds: its flesh will take falt, like beef, but it cannot be kept long, because the falt in this country is very corrofive: for which reason, whenever they intend to keep fish or flesh, the inhabitants content themselves with drying it, either in the air, or by the help of smoke c. As we have now examined the productions of the air, rarities. earth, and waters of Perfia, we are next to speak of the natural rarities which are to be found in this large empire. Of these, the first we are to take notice of is a certain poifonous fhrub, or plant, by the Arabians called chark, by the Perfians gulbad-famour, i. e. the wind-poifoning flower; it flowers like the thiftle, and has pods filled with a thick white liquor, of the confiftence of cream, fharp and four to the tafte it is affirmed, that where-ever the wind blows over a number of these plants, as it does frequently in Carmania the Defert, it thence contracts a poifonous quality, which proves mortal to the next that refpires it . There is likewise another fhrub in the fame country, viz. Carmania the Defert, fingularly noxious; it is called kerzehre, i. e. affes poison, because those creatures are apt to eat of its fruit, which generally proves mortal. The very water that washes its roots is likewife held to be poisonous. The trunk of this shrub is as large as a man's leg, and it fometimes grows to the height of fix feet; its bark is remarkably rough, and of a bright green colour, its leaves perfectly round, with a rifing point in the middle; it bears a fort of flower exactly refembling the rofe, of a kind of flesh-colour: whence it is apprehended, that the Greeks called it rhododendron. The Arabians, as well as the Perfians, call it the gall, or poifon of an afs. Some are of opinion, that it is the nerium of our herbalifts, and the fame plant that is called in French rofage. The goats, both wild and tame, which feed on the fhore of the Perfian gulf, afford the bezoar fo much efteemed in medicine; but the very best is taken out of these creatures, in the province of Coraffon, or Bactria; and is thought to excel by far the bezoar of Golchonda, and the reft of the Indies. The na CHARDIN, tom. iii. p. 44. TAVERN. tom. ii. 1. iv. c. 1!!. P. 424. CARRERI, tom. ii, P. 210. d CHARDIN, tom. iii. • Ubi fupra. P. 13. turalifts : turalifts in Perfia give it as their opinion, that the more dry and hard the food is on which the animal lives, the more falutiferous and tficacious the bezoar found in it proves. Coraffon, and the coafts of the Perfian gulf, are allowed to produce the dryeft herbage in the world. It is no fable what has been reported, as to the formation of bezoar; for there is generally found in the core of fuch ftones one or more pebbles, a little fprig of bramble, or other bush, fometimes a thorn-ftick, &c. round which, by a continual acceffion of matter, the ball of bezoar conglomerates, and is formed this ftoneis here found in fheep, as well as in goats; but it is not fo in the Indies. Its very name is of oriental extract, and fhould be wrote pe-zaor, i. e. poifonkilling; for the eastern people held it heretofore to be one of the strongest counter-poifons: quacks, however, were those who commended it moft; and its virtues were rather taken upon truft, than supported by experience: the num ber of the credulous being great, raised its price very high; but of late years it is much funk in its reputation, as well in the east as in Europe, it being now regarded chiefly as, a fudorific, and even reckoned no very extraordinary thing in that class. The manner of giving it in Perfia is thus; they either fcrape or powder it, and put about two or three grains for a dofe, into a fpoonful of rofe-water while it was dear it was often counterfeited; and the materials made use of to this end were, generally speaking, fome alexipharmic powders, mingled with refin and Spanish wax, It may not be amifs to obferve, that the polish which bezoar-ftones generally have, is artificial; for when they are taken out of the creature, their outfide is of a rough greenish hue, juft as the ftone appears within £. The abmelec, or eater of locufts, or grafhoppers, is a bird which better deferves to be described, perhaps, than most others of which travellers have given us an account, because the facts relating to it are not only ftrange in themselves, but fo well and fo diftinctly attefted, that, however surprising they may feem, we cannot but afford them our belief. The food of this creature is the locuft, or grafhopper: it is of the size of an ordinary hen, its feathers black, its wings large, and its flesh of a greyifh colour; they fly generally in great flocks, as the ftarlings are wont to do with us: but the thing which renders thefe birds wonderful is, that they are fo fond of the water of a certain fountain in Coraffon, or Bactria, that where-ever CHARDIN, tom. iii. p. 19. that |