occur, that are of real confequence. If he chances to ftumble on a subject that is interefting in itself, he is unable to explain it in a fatisfactory manner. Some faint glimmerings of light he has, indeed, thrown on the hiftory of Ruffia; but thefe. point to nothing great or conclufive. His relations are neither entertaining nor folid; and, indicating great weakness of mind, and a total ignorance of the language in which he writes, they either excite our pity or contempt.

One of the most unexceptionable articles in his work, is, the account that is given of the manners of the Perfians; and, for this reason, we fhall extract it for the entertainment of our Readers.

The Perfians, fays Mr. Cook, are naturally a very agile, lively people, the generality of their men are middle fized, rather of the fmaller kind, but very well made, tawny, blackeyed, with black hair, Roman nofed, and thick lipped. They all wear high caps gathered at the tops, which are tapering; they love the red colour, because their foldiers caps are of that colour, and therefore they are called Kifelbafhee, or red heads. Their coats and vefts are fhort, and they wear long drawers and hose made of cloth; in place of fhoes they wear univerfally flippers, with longer and more tapering heels than thofe wore by our British Ladies; which make them appear, in standing or walking, as if they had no mufculous pofteriors; becaufe they are forced to ftand very erect.

Their foldiers confift chiefly in horfe; I have feen foot alfo; and they are esteemed, justly, I imagine, the best horiemen in the world. They have a fingular way of managing their horses: they ride at a gentle trot, or walk them; but as they are not regular, they very frequently run off at a full gallop, and at once. ftop their hories; then pufh on, turning nimbly, frequently to the right or left fide, as the rider thinks proper. If they are near a fleep low hill, they love to run up it as fast as the horfe is able. When they arrive in their camp, they cover their horfes over with cloths. three or four folds. thick; then they tether their horfes by the hinder feet, keeping them at a distance; fo that they cannot eafily lie down; they then place cut-ftraw, or hay at fuch diftance, that the horfe can but get to it; fo that the beaft is, as it were, conftantly upon the stretch. They feed them twice daily with good bar. ley, with which we were obliged to feed ours, which purged them fmartly for two or three days at firft; but it had a good effect, in making them very clear fkinned. The Perfian foldiers rub down their horfes frequently through the day: they ace fonder of their horfes than of their wives.

By the Mahometan law, the Perfians can, and frequently do, marry four wives, and are at liberty to keep as many con

cubines

cubines as they pleafe. The world cannot produce greater flaves than the Perfian women are to their husbands. We were told, that a husband may chastise his wife, but must take care that his feverity does not prove the caufe of her death; for if, upon enquiry, it proves to be fo, and the wife has relations who can profecute the murderer, the judge delivers the criminal to the relations of his deceased wife, who never fail to put him to death after the fame manner he killed his wife: this, however, is not always the cafe..

The women in Perfia are well enough proportioned; but I was informed they were not very beautiful, having had but few opportunities of feeing them myself. At Cura I one day faw an elderly woman dreffed in a ragged filk gown, whom hunger had forced into our camp, followed by two young girls, who paid her great refpect. As fhe paffed through, the carefully picked up fome barley out of horse-dung and eat it; at which one of our dragoons would have beaten her, if I had not prevented him. The Prince having been informed of her diftrefs, caufed feed her and her attendants, as long as we ftayed there. She faid, that she was well born, and had been married to a Khan; but that her family happening to fall under the Shach's displeasure †, was utterly extirpated, and that none remained with her but the two girls, who never would leave her. This woman never had been a beauty. I have feen many girls, especially at Refhd, who were very beautiful; but I was informed that these were Georgians.

One day, paffing by a houfe out of the city, five or fix beautiful girls appeared at the door uncovered, and feemed to be very merry they laughed, and made fome figns, as it were, inviting my comrades and me to go into the house; and I was told by others, that I was not mistaken, for they were common

to any.

I once faw a few girls who were kept by one of the Generals of the Perfian army, look out of a tent uncovered, as we palled by; but I was told, that if their Lord knew that they had expofed themselves, he would have punished them molt feverely. They were young, very pretty, and faid to be Georgians. I was informed that the Perfian women, in general, would fooner expofe to public view any part of their bodies

than their faces.

• One of the British merchants at Refhd told me, that one morning very early, as he was walking by a burial place, he there faw a very comely young woman fitting in her shift, be

* Our Author accompanied Prince Galitzin in his embaffy to Perfia. †The famous Nadir Shach,

ing extremely hot weather, giving her child fuck: he was very near her before the fpied him; which the no fooner had done, than the covered her face with her fhift, expofing what our women carefully conceal. Many fuch ftories I was informed of, which are not worth repeating.

Men.may. marry for life, or for any determined time in Perfia, as well as through all Tartary. I was affured, that merchants, and other travellers, who intended to stay a month, or longer in any city, commonly applied to the Cadee, or Judge, for a wife during the time he propofed to ftay. That the Cadee, for a ftated gratuity, produced a number of girls, .whom he declared to be honeft, and free from difeafes, and became furety for them. It is faid, that, amongst thousands, there has not been one inftance of their difhonefty, during the time agreed upon, I have been alfo told, that merchants who trade in different cities, whofe bufinefs obliges them to live in these cities fome time every year, or who keep a warehouse, marry a wife for life; and that they fuperintend their house in their abfence, and generally prove very true to the trust reposed in them.

The Perfian women are all dreffed in long gowns of filk or cotton they all wear filk or cotton drawers, which reach down to their ankles; they wear bracelets of gold, either wrought or fet with precious ftones about their ankles and wrifts; and the foremoft parts of their fhifts, which are commonly of filk, from a point immediately below the navel, are embroidered down to the bottom with gold or filver figures, forming a large triangle, whofe upper angle is acute. They never cut the nails of their fingers, as we do, but let them grow long and pointed; they are coloured with red on the first joint of each finger. I have fometimes been confulted about their difeafes; and though great care was taken, upon fuch occafions, that I fhould fee no part of their perfon, yet they could not hinder my feeing their hands when I felt their pulfe: and though frequently it is very neceffary to fee their faces, in fome difeafes, the Perfians never would permit them to be unvailed. When they go to the bath, which they do twice or thrice in a week, they are veiled with white linen, but have a piece of net-work before their eyes, which renders every thing visible to them, but prevents any from feeing them.

The Perfian women endure all forts of hardships, and undergo all kinds of drudgery; the common women especially, drefs the land, plant the rice, and clean their fields, and do every other hard work, while their hufbands only look after markets, and fmoke the callian.'

Before we bid adieu to Mr. Cook, it would be injuftice to him, not to declare, that, from the advantages he enjoyed, he REV. Feb. 1771.

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has

has been able to make some pertinent ftrictures on the travels, and the candour, of Mr. Jonas Hanway.

ART. XII. A Course of experimental Agriculture, &c. 2 Vols. 4to. 21. 10 s. bound. Dodfley. 1770.

T

HE dedication of this confiderable work, to the Marquis of Rockingham, (that illuftrious cultivator!) informs us, that its Author is the indefatigable and useful Mr. Young, whofe former labours we have recommended to the attention of the public.

This course of experiments is the basis of a scientific study of agriculture; a great national object! and it is no eafy matter to determine in what way moft advantageous to the public, and just to the Author, fuch a work ought to be reviewed. Curfory remarks and occafional extracts may gratify the curiofity of many Readers who defire to be able to figure in confequence of their reading; but we apprehend that this method, though much the eafieft to ourselves, would not be fo fatisfactory to the bulk of Readers, for whom fuch a work as Mr. Young's is defigned. On the other hand, an accurate review of near 2000 experiments, in two 4to volumes, containing about 1000 pages, would amount to a very confiderable work itself.

We have therefore adopted a middle plan, which, we hope, may in a good measure fatisfy the generality of fuch Readers as are competent judges of Mr. Young's merits; viz. to go through an accurate review of the Author's experiments on WHEAT, at leaft; and to add fuch further but mere curfory examination of the rest of this large work, as the expectation of our Readers may feem to call for. By our review of Mr. Young's experiments on this nobleft crop, (a confiderable article of our exports) we hope to be able to eftablish a juft idea of Mr. Young's fuccefs as a cultivator, and to affift fuch Gentlemen as choose to examine his operations on fubjects of lefs import

ance.

But before we begin this principal part of our work, as Reviewers, it feems neceflary to take fome notice of his Preface, as leading us to the knowledge of his defign, and the materials of his execution of it.

He affures us (p. 5.) that he has formed a clear idea of perfection. He owns, that he had ance ardent hope to reduce every doubtful point to certainty, but has now the chagrin of poorly anfwering even his own expectations. He justly regrets the omitting a multitude of minutes in the first year of his experiments, many in the fecond, &c.

Matters foreign to agriculture (he tells us) permitted him not to continue his experiments on the fame land; otherwife he

would

would not have published this courfe of experiments of many years; for every fucceeding year would have convinced him of the expediency of connecting in one chain a long feries of trials: but change of foil from Suffolk to one totally different in Hertfordshire, has broke all connection, as he justly owns, betwixt thofe [experiments] he has made and is preparing for.' He is forced, he says, to make a pause almost at his beginning. He blushes at the imperfection of his present sketch, which is but the out-line of what he wifhed.-So much modesty befpeaks the candour of his Readers.

He affures us of the accuracy of his experiments however; and declares his register fo minutely genuine, that from fome experiments scarce any conclufion can be drawn, owing to unlucky accidents or other causes.

He acknowledges that in numerous inftances he has been a very bad farmer, &c.-but fays, he began with this principle, to keep minutes of every thing;' yet omitted many in the two firft years, and owns that omiffion fomewhat inconfiftent with that defign,' as it certainly was. He affirms however that he was never abfent a fingle week from his farm, without leaving a bailiff whom be could fully truft, who gave him accounts. He adds, and we believe, truly, that no experiment has been here formed with an eye to confirm a favourite notion. No wonder then that he fhould declare that it is very difficult to difcover, here, even the leaft trace of prejudice for or against any object.'

Our duty to the public obliges us to confider the force of thefe conceffions, in abatement of the usefulness of this course of experiments.

It must surely be allowed a very great lofs to the public, that any thing foreign to agriculture fhould oblige our Author to make a paufe almoft at the beginning of a course of experiments publifhed as the bafis at least of a new method of studying agriculture as a science! In the fame light we view at present the omission of many experiments (inconfiftent with his professed defign) as we know not what effect the giving them might have had on the conclufions we ought to make. Nor can we view Mr. Young's leaving his farm to a bailiff, for weeks, in the fame favourable light that he does. A mafter may be fully fatisfied with the fidelity of a fervant, whom he ought not to truft: at the beft, the public can never have the fame foundation of confidence in a fervant which a mafter may; and on a fubject where fo many temptations to a mifreprefentation of work, produce, &c. occur, great diffatisfaction will remain in the minds of many Readers.

Mr. Young justly obferves, that the merit of books in genevalis independant on the reputation of their Authors; but that

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this