he smiled and said, “Ah, we Persians know a trick to get over that; we apply a sharpened tent peg to the crupper bone (os coccygis) and knock till he opens.”  A well known missionary to the East during the last generation was subjected to this gross insult by one of the Persian Prince-governors, whom he had infuriated by his conversion-mania:  in his memoirs he alludes to it by mentioning his “dishonoured person;” but English readers cannot comprehend the full significance of the confession.  About the same time Shaykh Nasr, Governor of Bushire, a man famed for facetious blackguardism, used to invite European youngsters serving in the Bombay Marine and ply them with liquor till they were insensible.  Next morning the middies mostly complained that the champagne had caused a curious irritation and soreness in la parse-posse.  The same Eastern “Scrogin” would ask his guests if they had ever seen a man-cannon (Adami-top); and, on their replying in the negative, a grey-beard slave was dragged in blaspheming and struggling with all his strength.  He was presently placed on all fours and firmly held by the extremities; his bag-trousers were let down and a dozen peppercorns were inserted ano suo:  the target was a sheet of paper held at a reasonable distance; the match was applied by a pinch of cayenne in the nostrils; the sneeze started the grapeshot and the number of hits on the butt decided the bets.  We can hardly wonder at the loose conduct of Persian women perpetually mortified by marital pederasty.  During the unhappy campaign of 1856-57 in which, with the exception of a few brilliant skirmishes, we gained no glory, Sir James Outram and the Bombay army showing how badly they could work, there was a formal outburst of the Harems; and even women of princely birth could not be kept out of the officers’ quarters.

The cities of Afghanistan and Sind are thoroughly saturated with Persian vice, and the people sing

          Kadr-i-kus Aughan danad, kadr-i-kunra Kabuli: 
          The worth of coynte the Afghan knows:  Cabul prefers the
other chose![FN#403]

The Afghans are commercial travellers on a large scale and each caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman’s attire with kohl’d eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and henna’d fingers and toes, riding luxuriously in Kajawas or camel-panniers:  they are called Kuch-i safari, or travelling wives, and the husbands trudge patiently by their sides.  In Afghanistan also a frantic debauchery broke out amongst the women when they found incubi who were not pederasts; and the scandal was not the most insignificant cause of the general rising at Cabul (Nov. 1841), and the slaughter of Macnaghten, Burnes and other British officers.

Resuming our way Eastward we find the Sikhs and the Moslems of the Panjab much addicted to Le Vice, although the Himalayan tribes to the north and those lying south, the Rajputs and Marathas, ignore it.  The same may be said of the Kash mirians who add another Kappa to the tria Kakista, Kappado clans, Kretans, and Kilicians:  the proverb says,