To write really well is considered as great an accomplishment in Persia as to be a successful musician, painter, or sculptor in Europe; and a famous writer of the last century, living in Shiraz, was paid as much as five tomans for every line transcribed.
My favourite walk, after the heat of the day, was to the little cemetery where Hafiz, the Persian poet, lies at rest--a quiet, secluded spot, on the side of a hill, in a clump of dark cypress trees a gap cut through which shows the drab-coloured city, with its white minarets and gilt domes shining in the sun half a mile away.

The tomb, a huge block of solid marble, brought across the desert from Yezd, is covered with inscriptions--the titles of the poet's most celebrated works.

Near it is a brick building containing chambers, where bodies are put for a year or so previous to final interment at Kermanshah or Koom.

Each corpse was in a separate room--a plain whitewashed compartment, with a square brick edifice in the centre containing the body.

Some of the catafalques were spread with white table-cloths, flowers, candles, fruit, and biscuits, which the friends and relations (mostly women and children) of the defunct were discussing in anything but a mournful manner.