They are built with mud.

J. Mud!

U. O. Yes there is nothing very wonderful in that. The huts of the Irish peasantry are very generally built with mud, and are little, if any thing better than those in Persia, which I am now to describe. The foundations of the Persian cottages are, however, generally of stone or bricks when there is any to be had. They are very low, for although the apartments within are tolerably high, they have never more than a ground floor. The cottage occupies one side of the court which is enclosed by the mud wall, which alone appears towards the street ; and it generally consists of two rooms, which are often only separated by a wall three or four feet high, and sometimes only distinguished by the floor of the one being a little more raised than that of the other. One of these rooms is used for the common purposes of a habitation, and the other as a store-room or a stable for the common use of the horses, cows, sheep and poultry.

H. All under the same roof, and almost in the same room, then?

U. O. Yes: and here again it is much the

same as in Ireland; and I think of the two that a residence almost in common with the cattle is managed rather less awkwardly by the Persians than the Irish. Well; these cottages, or rather hovels, are never plastered on the outside, and very rarely within, and then only with mud more finely tempered than that which forms the substance of the walls. Such an article as paint is never used any where about these dwellings.

The walls are very thick-thicker than in our houses of four and five stories. This has one advantage at least, as it enables the people to have greater accommodation in their rooms by having a number of recesses or hollows formed in the wall. These occur in all Persian houses, and are of various forms and sizes; but in the cottages they are usually square, and of at least a foot in depth. They serve for shelves, cupboards, and various other uses.

in.

F. They must be very handy to keep books

U. O. But the Persian peasantry have no books to keep in them. In the part used as a stable, some of these cavities have a ledge of stone in front, and are made so high as to serve for a rack and manger, having a space above for

straw.

grass, and another below for grain and chopped About eighteen inches beneath this, there is a hole with a stick across it, to which the head ropes of the cattle are tied.

H. That seems an odd contrivance. Why don't they drive in a staple with a ring to it?

U. O. I am afraid a mud wall would afford no hold for such a thing as a staple; besides, as iron is not so very plentiful in Persia, it is not applied to so many uses as with us. There are similar cavities for cattle, along the inside of the wall of the court-yard. In the corners of the room, there are generally brackets, or projections of mud, which look like swallows' nests, and serve to hold the lamp which at night throws a glimmering light through the room. The lamps are generally shallow cups of earthenware glazed green, with a lip for the wick to project from, the flame being fed by a lump of fat placed in the lamp.

H. Have they no candles or oil?

U. O. In some parts of the country oil is not common; and is not any where much used for lamps. Candles cannot be got in villages, but they may be obtained in the towns, and my servants used to buy them in towns, and carry

them on the journey, for our own use in the villages. I observed that the people of the cottages in which we stopped at night were always anxious to get the ends of candle-and sometimes took them away without the consent of my servants.

Mr. Dillon. Since candles are to be had in towns, the people of course use them there?

U. O. Yes, Sir, they use them, but not generally; and I think not at all in summer. There is an objection to the use of candles in a warm climate, which perhaps does not occur to you. This is, that the heat so softens the tallow that it is scarcely possible to keep them upright. I have had candles kept in the cellars, and they have been brought up quite hard for use; but in half an hour or so, I have been quite startled to see them bend down suddenly over the candlestick, and if I then put my finger on them, I found them as soft as our butter becomes in warm weather. I could find no way of using candles in summer but by wrapping them in wet cloths while burning; and it was very troublesome to be continually removing a portion of the bandage as the candle burnt down. I became convinced that the people were in the

right to prefer their own simple plan of sticking a cotton wick or a bit of rag in a lump of fat.

H. But do great people use the same sort of lamps to burn this fat in, as the villagers do?

U. O. No. They have a utensil which we should rather call a candlestick than a lamp. It is generally of brass or copper, and has a very broad flat bottom, and a very tall shaft, on the top of which is a sort of a saucer, also of brass, and of a piece with the shaft, and this contains the fat with the wick in the midst of it. But let us return to the cottages.

Having seen how they are lighted at night, I will now show you how they receive the light of day. They are generally without windows; as the light which comes in at the door is in most cases considered sufficient. However, there are sometimes one or two small holes at the end of the room most distant from the door. They are high up in the wall, just below the roof, and are quite as much intended to let out the smoke as to admit the light. They are seldom closed, except when it rains or snows, and then a man goes outside and stuffs some straw or old rags into them. Yet I have now and then seen these holes in the wall cut with some regularity, and