On Fridays (the Sundays of the Mussulmans), and on holidays, many people go off walking or on horse or donkey, when, in many cases, they ride two together on one animal, and sometimes three, to the gardens in the country, taking food and cooking-pots with them; and there they will wander round the gardens until midday, content to be amongst the trees and flowers. Then they cook their food, and after eating that, they lie about and chat, or doze the afternoon away, and when evening begins to gather, they get their belongings together, and start off home again, having had a glorious day’s outing, according to their own statement. They are easy to please in this way, and anything which brings them fresh air, sunlight, flowers, and grass or trees, and no worry or duty, and, if possible, a little to eat and drink while enjoying it all, is a day’s tamasha to be talked over and retailed to others, and dreamt about until the next opportunity comes. When other means of amusement fail, they sit together on the roof of the house, or in some quiet spot near by, where there may be a tree to shade them, and one of them plays the rubarb, which is something like a mandoline, and sings Persian love-songs. Out of half a dozen men there is usually one who can play and sing, and their songs sound best at a little distance, for if close by the nasal intonation is not prepossessing, while the contortions of the mouth and face in bringing out the tremulous and prolonged high notes rather fascinate one, and the song is forgotten in watching them and waiting for the breakdown, which seems momentarily imminent. There are others of their stringed instruments which resemble the banjo in shape, but all are called “rubarb.” The music has little change about it, and differs from ours in not being composed of different airs, but in being of bars of four to six beats, which are repeated over and over again. It sounds very monotonous, and is a little trying, until one gets used to it, and then, on a still summer evening, the rubarb in the distance has rather a soothing sound in its monotony, if one happens to be reclining in an easy-chair, smoking and resting after dinner. But if one is busy writing, or is absorbed in calculations, or anything of that sort, the monotony of the sound is very trying, and produces a desire to make a change at any cost, even if a shot-gun is necessary to effect it. The people are like the rest of the Orientals, and do not look upon exercise in any form as an amusement, and therefore, are not in the habit of dancing as a means of recreation and pleasure, but they have, instead, properly trained dancing-girls to do so before them. The services of the dancing-girls are requisitioned only on festivals and weddings, or when some wealthy man gives an entertainment to his friends on the occasion of a visit from one of the princes or some high official person.