The covering of tents among the Arabs is usually black goats' hair, so compactly woven as to be impervious to rain. But there is, besides this, always an inner one, on which the skill and industry of the fair artisan--for both outer and inner are woven and wrought by women--is displayed. This is often white woollen stuff, on which flowers are usually embroidered. Curious hangings too are frequently hung over the entrances, when the means of the possessors do not admit of more general decoration. Magnificent _perdahs_, or hangings of needlework, are always suspended in the tents of persons of rank and fashion, who assume a more ambitious decoration; and there are accounts in various travellers of tents which must have been gorgeous in the extreme. Nadir Shah, out of the abundance of his spoils, caused a tent or tabernacle to be made of such beauty and magnificence as were almost beyond description. The outside was covered with fine scarlet broad cloth, the lining was of violet coloured satin, on which were representations of all the birds and beasts in the creation, with trees and flowers; the whole made of pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and other precious stones; and the tent-poles were decorated in like manner. On both sides of the peacock throne was a screen, on which were the figures of two angels in precious stones. The roof of the tent consisted of seven pieces; and when it was transported to any place, two of these pieces packed in cotton were put into a wooden chest, two of which chests were a sufficient load for an elephant: the screen filled another chest. The walls of the tent--tent-poles and tent-pins, which were of massy gold, loaded five more elephants; so that for the carriage of the whole were required seven elephants. This magnificent tent was displayed on all festivals in the public hall at Herat, during the remainder of Nadir Shah's reign. Sir J. Chardin tells us that the late King of Persia caused a tent to be made which cost 2,000,000_l._ They called it the House of Gold, because gold glittered everywhere about it. He adds, that there was an inscription wrought upon the cornice of the antechamber, which gave it the appellation of the Throne of the second Solomon, and at the same time marked out the year of its construction. The following description of Antar's tent from the Bedouin romance of that name has been often quoted:--