To the prince’s tazzia I went by his invitation each day, and the young prince took great interest in the getting-up of the various scenes in the story. A platform, some thirty yards square, was formed by placing together a number of takhts, or wooden platforms. These were planked over, and a level stage made by placing on them big doors and planks. The whole was carpeted with thick felts, and at one corner was placed a pulpit, draped in black. This pulpit, like all Oriental ones, is merely a flight of wooden steps, some eight feet high, leading to a platform some two feet square, on which squats the preacher or reader, as the case may be. The stage is placed some twenty feet from the principal front of the prince’s palace, the rooms of which thus form private boxes. To the left spaces are roped off to accommodate the women, who pour in in hundreds; they are all closely veiled. In the lower room, also veiled, and facing the crowds of women, sit the prince’s ladies. Above their apartment, at a large open window, is the prince himself, and during the waits, and sometimes even during the most pathetic parts, the young fellow amuses himself in ogling the ladies, the better-looking of whom seize these opportunities of raising their veils and casting coquettish glances in his direction. I have even known him, when very young, to have a basin of frogs handy, and he would toss the animals out among the thickest throng of the tightly-packed women, and shriek with laughter at the cries and confusion produced. To the right of the platform were dense crowds of men, the common people of Shiraz, while several large rooms opening towards the stage were devoted to the invited of the better class, officials and courtiers. The whole crowd were protected from the sun, rain, and wind by a huge tent provided for the purpose, and the raising of which had taken a hard week’s work, all the soldiers of the two regiments in the town being employed to aid an army of professional tent-pitchers. This tent was without walls, thus permitting the free ingress and egress of the performers of the tragedy and interludes, and the many processions of horses, soldiers, camels, etc. It was sustained by four huge masts. During this month the whole of the community go into the deepest mourning. Black is the only wear, and the poor seize the opportunity to have their old clothes dyed, and so get an extra bit of wear out of them, the more ceremonious going into mourning some days before the commencement of Mohurrim, and remaining in black the whole even of the following month. Behind the stage is raised a huge scaffolding, covered with red cloth, and hung with Cashmere shawls.