beauty, and to talk of it.... Girls are not _shut up_ in Persia till
they attain the age of six or seven years; before that age they go out
of the seraglio, sometimes with their father, so that they may then be
seen. I have seen some wonderfully pretty. They show the neck and bosom,
and more beautiful cannot be seen."

Hanway gives the following account, _Travels in Persia_, vol i.
185:--"The women in Ghilan are fair, their eyes and hair black; but
here, as in other places, they often use a drug with which they blacken
their eyes. In this province their features are small: these, as well as
their stature, partaking much of the delicate. But in general the
Georgians are most esteemed for the charms of their persons. The females
who do not labour in the field, are seldom seen abroad, except in a
morning before the sun rises, and then they are covered with _veils_,
which reach down to their feet. When they travel on horseback, every
lady of distinction is not only veiled, but has generally a servant; who
runs or rides before her to clear the way; and on such occasions the
men, even in the market-places, _always turn their backs till the women
are past_, it being thought the highest ill manners to look at them; but
this awful respect is a proof of the slavery in which they are doomed to
live. The care which they take to conceal their faces, to avoid the
imputation of acting indelicately, and contrary to custom, has made so
strong an impression on them, that I was told of a woman who being
accidentally surprised when bathing, showed her whole person except her
face; to hide which all her solicitude was employed."

From Volney, vol. ii. p. 481, we have the following:--"In Asia the women
are rigorously secluded from the society of men; constantly shut up in
their houses, they have no communication but with their husband, their
father, their brother, or at most their cousin german. Carefully