I
longed for a refreshing and purifying bath.
Bassora, one of the largest towns of Mesopotamia, has among its
inhabitants only a single European. I had a letter to the English
agent, an Armenian named Barseige, whose hospitality I was compelled
to claim, as there was no hotel. Captain Lichfield presented my
letter to him and made known my request, but the polite man refused
to grant it. The good captain offered me accommodation on board his
ship, so that I was provided for for the present.
The landing of the Persian women presented a most laughable
spectacle: if they had been beauties of the highest order, or
princesses from the sultan's harem, there could not have been more
care taken to conceal them from the possibility of being seen by
men.
I was indebted to my sex for the few glimpses which I caught of them
in the cabin; but among the whole eighteen women I did not see a
single good-looking one. Their husbands placed themselves in two
rows from the cabin to the ship's ladder, holding large cloths
stretched before them, and forming in this way a kind of opaque
moveable wall on both sides.
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