contrasting it with his own refinement and civilisation. Whilst the bazaar life, with all its alarm, tumult, shrieks, cries, hammering, scolding, and knocking, is in full force, the youths greedy of knowledge swarm about the numerous Medresse (colleges), there to learn to extract from their useless studies lessons of a more exalted kind of stupidity and a more grovelling hypocrisy. The greatest interest attaches to the primary school posted in the very centre of the bazaar, and often in the immediate neighbourhood of between ten and fifteen coppersmiths' workshops. The sight of this public school, in which a Mollah, surrounded by several rows of children, gives his lessons in reading, in spite of the noise, is really comical. That, in a place where sturdy arms are brandishing hammers, hardly a single word is audible, we may readily suppose. Teachers and pupils are as red in the face as turkey-cocks from crying out, and yet nothing but the wild movement of the jaw and the swelling of the veins indicate that they are studying.[17] [17] Schools thus placed in the middle of the bazaar are also met with in Persia: these are the cheapest schools for children, still it is incredible that the Orientals should suffer such a stupid practice to exist, and that they do not remove these establishments for instruction to some less disturbed situation. In the afternoon (I speak here of summer-time, for of the winters I have no personal experience), there is more tranquillity both in bazaar and street. On the banks of the water reservoir and of the canals, the true believers are engaged in performing the holy ablutions. Whilst one man is washing his feet from their layer of sweat and dirt, his neighbour uses the same water for his face, and a third does not scruple to quench his thirst with it. Water that consists of more than one hundred and twenty pints is, according to the texts of Islam, blind; which means that filth and dirt lose themselves therein, and the orthodox have the privilege to enjoy every abomination as a thing pure in itself. After a service in the mosques, all becomes again animated; it is the second summons to work during the day, for a period by no means so long. The Mussulman population soon begin their evening holiday, whilst Jews and Hindoos still remain busy. The former, who are for the most part employed in the handicraft of silk dyers, move stealthily and timidly through the streets, their spirits broken by their long and heavy servitude; the latter run about like men possessed, and their bold bearing shows that their home is not far off, and the time not so remote when they also had a government of their own.