The bazaar is, notwithstanding, extensive and well supplied.

Koom is noted for the manufacture of a white porous earthenware, which is made into flasks and bottles, some of beautiful design and workmanship.
The city is entered from the north by a substantial stone bridge, spanning a swift but shallow river.

It presents, at first sight, much more the appearance of a Spanish or Moorish town than a Persian one.
The dirty brown mud huts are replaced by picturesque white houses, with coloured domes, gaily striped awnings, and carved wooden balconies overhanging the stream.

Riding through the city gate, we plunge from dazzling sunshine into the cool semi-darkness of the bazaar, through which we ride for at least a quarter of an hour, when a sudden turning brings us once more into daylight in the yard of a huge caravanserai, crowded with mule and camel caravans.
The apartment or cell allotted to us was, however, so filthy that we decided to push on at once to Pasingan, the next stage, four farsakhs distant.

Koom is noted for the size and venom of its scorpions; and the dim recesses of the dark, cobwebby chamber, with its greasy walls and smoke-blackened ceiling, looked just the place for these undesirable bedfellows.
So we rode on again into the open country, past crowds of beggars and dervishes at the eastern gate, as usual, busily engaged, as soon as they saw us coming, at their devotions.