probably forget all about her, and she must
then, according to custom, remain in a state of
widowhood for the rest of her life. A shah
being an awful person in Persia, his majesty is
said to have expressed such resentment at being
crossed in his caprice, that for a long time the
khan did not dare to marry his daughter to any
one.

'There appears to be no such thing as a
mésalliance in Persia. One of the innumerable sons
of Fat-ali Shah fell in love with a very old and
ugly woman in humble life. The king tried to
joke the young man out of this strange fancy.
"Ah, sir," replied the prince, "if you could
only see her with my eyes!" This vague answer
of sententious Oriental flavour was considered
to settle the affair completely, and to reply to all
objections: which perhaps it did. Even the
present king has illustrated the prevailing
sentiment of his subjects very prettily. His queen
and favourite wife, Geiran, or she-Antelope, was
a peasant's daughter who attracted his majesty's
eyes one day as he rode through a village, and
whom he has loved ever since with an unchanging
affection, and most manly tenderness. His passion
for her, appears to be the master feeling of
his life. Once upon a great day, when her son
was proclaimed heir-apparent to the throne, and
when all his women-kind appeared before him
arrayed in their best apparel, his quick eye saw at
once that she was not among them; turning
coldly away from the rest, he asked, "Where is
the Khanum?" No festival could be a festival
without her, and there was no light for him in
his palace or his court until she came.

Persians have not the same jealousy about
their women as the Turks have. 'If you
are really intimate with a man, he would be
very likely to introduce you to his wife; and
the anderoon is by no means closed like the
harem.

The life of the anderoon is made up of
domestic plots and quarrels, gossiping, visiting,
smoking, bathing, and pulling about finery. It
is chiefly governed by doctors and old women,
who pretend to a knowledge of necromancy and
magic, with the making of love philters. Fearful
cruelties are said to be practised among the
women, especially towards their servants; and
it is to be more than suspected that the deep
inner nature of the Persian khanum is that of the
panther or the tigress. There are no fiercer
viragoes in the world than some of these dyed
and painted Orientals. An acquaintance of mine
having lost a sum of money, suspected his
Armenian housekeeper of having stolen it; he was
imprudent enough to tell her so; and the next
morning, as he was taking tea, he was disturbed
by strange noises, which appeared to him to
come from a room at the other side of the house.
He went to see what was the matter there, and
found that the Armenian woman, having
discovered the real thief, had enticed him into a
room with some of her female friends; they had
then thrown him down upon the ground,
gagged him, trussed him like a fowl with his
legs and arms behind him, and had then
proceeded to nip little pieces out of his body
with red-hot pincers, which they heated in a
pan of charcoal. They were thus agreeably
employed when my friend found them, and
they would doubtless have extracted a
confession of the robbery if they had not been
interrupted.

The women's apartments are usually very
dirty and slovenly, untidy, and out of order.
Beautiful china, cut glass, gold trays, and
jewelled pipes, everything to eat, everything to
drink, the sweetmeats, the sherbets, the coffee,
the tea, the fruit, are all equally and abominably
dirty.

There is little furniture in the anderoons, except
carpets, and cushions, and a great many
looking-glasses of the very worst quality; but
the walls and ceilings are usually painted very
prettily, and have a gay and cheerful appearance.
Still, carpets, curtains, cushions, shawls, and
ladies, all reek with dirt. Even the use of tooth-
brushes seems unknown, although the women
over-eat themselves sadly with coarse kabobs
and garlic.

There is great licence in manners at Tehran:
women of the highest rank pay visits to men
without scruple: usually coming dressed like
beggars, to avoid observation. The visits of
ladies to each other are interminable. They
call at seven or eight o'clock in the morning,
and stop all day, smoking and eating and
bragging about their clothes and their
husbands.

Public scandals are rare. If a husband should
be too inquisitive, he is apt to be poisoned;
and if a lover should be indiscreet, he may
chance to be short-lived. A great khan was
stabbed by an unseen hand in broad daylight
not long ago, at Tabreez, for boasting of a
love affair.

Owing to the almost unrestrained liberty
they enjoy, women mix themselves up with
everything in Persia; nothing is done without
them; they have immense political influence;
and they, with the wretched tribe of beldames
and fortune-tellers who hang about the
anderoons, overturn viziers and ministers
at will.

Human life is held cheap in Persia; and the
majesty of death has neither awe nor terrors
there. A criminal who has been executed will
be left a ghastly and fearful object in the
market-place, for the dogs to gnaw at. My
horse has often stumbled and shied at the
uncanny thing; but the heedless crowd, any
one of whom might be singled out in a
minute for the same fate, pass by jesting or
unconcerned.

As there is neither comfort, cleanliness, repose,
nor attraction in Persian houses; as wives
are neither companions nor friends, and the
sweet ties of home are almost unknown; so
there is little domestic affection. A good-
natured old lady of two or three-and-twenty,
once told me, with a sly look, "My husband
would have divorced me long ago, but that I
am such a good cook." "He likes me best,"