astrologer will come with his conjurations
and discover the thief by magical arts. Then
every one will be in such a fright that the
lost article will be speedily found, or the thief
will have taken sanctuary at the tomb of a
saint, leaving his place vacant in the household.
Then my nozzir will tell me how, once upon a
time, wishing to dispose of an enemy, he
appealed formally to the said astrologer, who
caused his enemy's death by writing the name
of that enemy upon a piece of paper, and burying
it in the earth. He will assure me that no
secrets are hidden from the astrologer; and that
he is the most potent of magicians.

My cook wishes to go to the bath. If I
gently hint to him that we have not dined, he
admits this cheerfully, but adds that his brother
will cook to-day, for he has tried a fall in the
Koran, and finds that it will be lucky for him
to bathe now. There is no resisting such an
argument as this. So his brother arrives
speedily to cook the dinner. He is a yellow
man, and comes on horseback of course, bringing
other brothers with him; and a lamb which
is to be roasted whole in my garden. It is soon
skinned and spitted on the branch of a tree, a
large fire is made upon the ground, and it roasts
merrily. Bearded figures, eager for the feast,
gather busily round it, thwacking each other,
and quarrelling loudly from time to time.
Among them is a bottle of wine as big as a
watering-pot. It must hold at least two gallons.
No such bottle and no such cooks are to be
seen elsewhere but in a pantomime. The lamb
roasted whole is brought in at last with a mighty
fuss and bustle, and a slice from the shoulder,
which is supposed to be the daintiest morsel, is
specially cut out for me. For a lamb is rather a
rarity, and is not always to be had in Persia. A
lamb, say the shrewd shepherds, grows up to be
a sheep, and a sheep is worth more than a lamb.

During the Moharrem, my gardener asks for
leave to go to a mosque and weep for the
imaums. I inquire why he wants to weep! and
he tells me that moollahs say that angels
descend and catch the tears of all who weep for these
saints; and that their tears are carefully
preserved and kept at the gates of paradise. Tears
so shed, he assures me, should be put in a flask,
for they are sovereign charms against sickness
and the evil eye. Then I remember how ancient
is the custom, and the words of the Psalmist,
"Put thou my tears into thy bottle."

One servant stops abruptly while eating fruit,
of which the Persians devour an incredible quantity
in summer, and coming softly up to me,
bows himself sideways, after the manner of his
people, and respectfully inquires the exact time.
I answer him, and he then asks to be excused
from further attendance that day, in order that
he may go immediately to a tailor and order the
new coat which I have promised him. The stars,
he declares, would not be propitious were the coat
to be cut out at any other time. My nozzir begs
that I will defer having a window mended till
the next day, in order that he may consult a
friend, who is a magician, on the subject.

Then I am of easy faith, for there is a
marvellous childlike flavour about my servants' talk
and stories, very Eastern and very charming. I
love to be borne along in the far away current
of these strange things, and let my household
do with me as they will, following their customs,
leading the same life as they do, which is a
pleasure ever curious and new to me. It is
said that the Persians are liars, and that the
fine old tradition that they only know how to
draw the bow and speak the truth is a fable. I
do not say so. I think that they love to let
their imaginations banquet upon mysteries.

My servants all have houses of their own, and
speak very grandly about them. One servant
knows a little English, and every now and then
he comes to me with a melancholy face, and says,
"I vont too goo too ooze," which means to say
that he is wife-sick.

If I ride abroad, the deevs—genii—are with
me in the shape of five gorgeously-arrayed and
mounted servants. If any person gets in our
way, he is beaten out of it. My servants ride
up to him at a hobbling canter, take his own
stick from him, and belabour him soundly with
it, one holding him by the collar, while another
whacks away at him with both hands in the
Punch and Judy style. The man who was in
the way receives his beating very humbly,
noticing it little more than if he was a wooden
man; but sits quietly on his horse till my
servants are out of breath, and return him his
stick. Then he seems quite refreshed, and
prances away playfully, flourishing his hand in
the air as if nothing had happened, and they all
go wheeling and capering round and about
together. It must be a pantomime, or enchantment.

When we ride abroad, it is quite a jubilee.
My servants, those wild horsemen, gallop round
and round me, and have mimic fights with each
other, and fire joy-volleys with their guns in the
air, falling over and over often, and getting up
again like wooden men who can do themselves
no harm.

My horse is a milk-white Arabian. His
housings are of gold and precious stones. The
reins of his bridle are of light-blue silk, and
tassels of silver hang from his neck with a talisman,
upon which is written a verse from the
Koran, to preserve us from the evil eye. On
such a steed Firouz-Shah bore off the Princess
of Bengal, and Codadad appeared for the first
time before the King of Dyarbekir.
Sometimes in our ride we meet a great lord who
lives on the other side of the valley. It is
the Sadrazam, the mightiest of the servants
of the king of kings. He is a handsome man,
of a noble and dignified presence. Toil, and
thought, and public care may be read upon every
line of a face such as men can hardly look upon
without liking, or women without love. He
rides along, attended by a splendid train of
nobles, with their squires and men-at-arms,
towards his country-house hard by. For his
highness loves his garden, too, in this wonderful
summer-time.

Occasionally we meet the king himself with a