domestic appointments of the tent.
Sometimes the tent has three compartments: the
third for the cattle. In some tribes the goat's
hair canvas is in strips of alternate black and
white, in others it is all black, and in others
again (about Askalon) all white, but always
in strips sewn together by coarse thread, or
secured by small wooden-pins. The women
alone undertake the striking and fixing of
the tents while the men flourish their lances
in the air, or vapour madly about on their
fleet mares; until their wives, having
prepared their house, get ready their food,
which they eat alone in masculine sublimity,
leaving scraps and portions for their hungry
women, as generous men leave bones for
dogs.

One-fourth of the whole Persian population
is said to live in tents. Of these nomads the
Lurs of Luristán are the most numerous; but
the least known. After them come the Kurds,
numbering fifty thousand families or tents. A
Kurd, one day, went into Monsieur Fontanier's
tent, examining everything as Kurds
and foreigners will examine all that is
curious and new. The Frenchman was
irritable, and ordered him out.

"But, why?" said the Kurd. "The sun
is hot, your tent serves for shade, and I shall
stay in it."

The chief of the caravan, anxious to please
the Frank, got the visitor out of his way by
asking him to coffee. Afterwards Monsieur
Fontanier went about the encampment, and
strolled into the tent of this very Kurd.

"O! O!" exclaimed he, "here you are—
you would have driven me away from your
tent just now. Think you that I would do the
same to you? It would be a disgrace to me.
No, sit thee down. I shall give thee coffee
and a pipe, and learn how much more
estimable a character is a Kurd than a dog
of a Christian or a citizen, with his smooth
tongue." Monsieur Fontanier tried to make
him understand that his European costume
rendered him often liable to curiosity and
importunity. To which the Kurd answered,
pertinently enough:

"In that case, why not stay at home?
Why come and walk about a Kurd camp,
where no one in all their lives ever saw a
European? It is curiosity that brings you
here,—why not tolerate the same feeling in
others?"

The Persians excel in the curtains and
hangings of their tents, which are embroidered
in needlework of various colours; the
inner curtains, which, separate the men's side
from the women's, being usually of fine white
woollen, where everything else is poor and
coarse. In some tents, that divisional curtain
is of black and yellow striped, and always a
matter of pride and some ambition. The royal
tents have magnificent perdehs, or hangings;
but nothing ever equalled the glory of Nadir
Shah's pavilion. It was a whole Arabian
Night's story in one, so far as its fabulous
luxury and splendour went. The outside
was of fine scarlet cloth, the lining rich
violet-coloured satin, whereon was wrought
birds and beasts, trees and flowers, all in
pearls and diamonds, rubies, emeralds,
amethysts, and the like. In the centre was the
celebrated peacock throne, glittering with
diamonds and precious stones; and on each
side of this throne was a screen, with two
angels thereon, likewise wrought in jewels.
The very tent-poles were golden, thickly set
with jewels; the walls and the tent-pegs
were also golden. The roof was in seven
separate pieces, two of which pieces, packed
in cotton, filled one chest. Two chests were
an elephant's load. The screen filled another
chest; and the poles, pins, and walls, made
up altogether a load which needed seven
elephants to carry it.

The richer tents of the Persians are
generally lined with clouded silks, or bright
coloured satins; the ground covered with
soft Persian carpets, or thick felts: and
golden balls, shining in the sunlight, on the
roof, whence flows down the heavy silk
embroidered perdeh.

The Turks cover some of their tents with
fine cloths of camel's hair; but their military
tents are covered with double widths of
strong cotton canvas, impervious to the
heaviest rains. Omar Pacha, generalissimo
in the late war, had a circular tent, with one
centre pole, twenty feet diameter, covered on
the outside with light green canvas, lined
with pale-yellow silk. The general's was the
same, but smaller; being only eighteen feet
in diameter, and lined with dark-blue cotton;
while the next in grade, the colonel or
lieutenant-colonel, had one of fourteen feet, and
not often with an inside lining. The soldier's
tent was a round one, covered with double
widths of strong cotton canvas, completely
waterproof. These tents were eighteen feet
in diameter; but, by the arrangement of a
circular plate at the top of the pole, this area
enclosed a larger volume of air than we
obtain in our tents of the same outside
dimensions. For, with us, the covering
comes close up to the pole, whereby we lose
all the angle made by a wider gathering
place. Inches multiplied by themselves come
to considerable numerical results. The Turks
have also hospital-tents, of no mean hospital
capabilities; and they have cooking-tents, of
a dirty brick colour, but affording much
comfort to the soldiery, and capable of
imitation with profit to ourselves.

Still lingering eastward, we find a wandering
tribe in Hindustan, called the Kaorwás,
one of the Rajpoot tribes, supposed by the
learned to be of the same family as the
Scythic-Pali, or Hyksos—the Shepherd
Kings of Egypt. They construct their tents,
or huts rather, chiefly of the peloo tree; the
living branches of which they interlace
together, covering the top with the broad leaves,
and coating the inside with mud: thus