veiled as it is from the public gaze? The English "khanum" used to give me most fervid descriptions of it, with comparisons about the gazelle, "the antelope eye," and so forth. I will on this point quote a little from one of their own authors, whose etherial descriptions of woman are so fervid, so unsubstantial, so sunny, so feminine, that I shall be excused for this brief extract.

"Who would care to die, to be pillowed upon the silver couches of clouds in the purple-aired Paradise, while the dark-eyed daughters of the Paradise of Eden bent over him! Beauties with eyes soft as the gazelles to watch his slumber, and awaken him with the babbling honey of their voices! Beings whose long lashes arch like the stem of a wild blossom when it stoops to kiss the river! Oh, let me die and be carried to the pearly abodes of the Peris! When I am wearied, let them lull me to slumber by their murmuring kisses! Let me dance with them on beds of undying flowers, to the singing of celestial birds, in a land where the trees murmur in music so soft that the sound seems distilled, and only the sweetest is borne along the fragrant air, not harsher than the silver note of the low voiced seraphim.

Or let me live among them on some flowery island in a far off ocean, where there is no night; nothing but the waving of roses, and the sound of sweet bells, the low murmuring of the ocean, and the flapping of white birds' wings, their own soft words dropping with gentle cadences. Oh! I would nestle in the midst of them like a bird; they should sit in a circle, and form my nest. I would have no sighing, nothing but a dreamy exchange of looks the slow, deep current of indolent delight."

In closing my account of the domestic life of Persia, I must remark that it appears to me any thing but that "home" thus beautifully described by the poet :

the resort

Of love, of joy, of peace; where,

Supporting and supported, polished friends,

And dear relations, mingle into bliss."

73

CHAPTER V

JOURNEY FROM TEHRAN TO ERZROUME.

*

This

A SLIGHT Itinerary of the journey from Tehran to Erzroume may be useful to travellers. was my second visit to the capital of Persia. I had exhausted all it had to offer of entertainment-its bazaars, gardens, baths, &c., and was filled with new-born expectations of revisiting Ferengistan.

On the 23rd of August we started for Sulimania, which was my favourite place, already alluded to. Our party was increased by Baron Hyter, a Polish nobleman, whose occasional gaieties sometimes amused us, whose eccentricities injured us, and whose triste reminiscences of his • See Appendix.

VOL. II.

E

father-land grieved us.

Thrown suddenly on the wide world to seek a home and the means of existence, unacquainted with any profession but that of war, Persia was the only part of the world that offered any scope for his professional pursuits -the Prince being then marching against his rebellious subjects in Khorassan, and a countryman of the Baron's, Borosky, being then similarly engaged, who was deemed the "lion of the camp." The Adjemies were astonished at this officer's impetuosity, which at the siege of Herat in 1836 cost him his life.

The Baron Hyter arrived at Tabreez in the spring of 1833, destitute and friendless; but having a letter of recommendation from the British Consulgeneral at Constantinople to Dr. Cormick, he was hospitably entertained by him, and sent on to Tehran, and from thence to Khorassan, at the expense of the British Elchee. He sought the Prince's service, and was immediately engaged, at two hundred tomauns per annum, and an outfit of carpets, forage, &c.

His trusty sword in his scabbard was the only emaining patrimony of the poor Baron, and it

ht have been imagined that he would scarcely

draw it against his own countryman; but, "jealous and quick of honour," of a fiery and untameable temper, his fighting propensities were uncontrolable, and in the course of three days he chose to quarrel with Borosky, and challenged him with pistols across the table at the short shot! Borosky complained to the Prince, and the Baron was discharged with a present of a hundred tomauns for his services.

Under these circumstances, he requested the Khan to be allowed to join our party to Tabrecz, which was immediately assented to. Wayward and spoiled, adversity never seemed to have chastened him to any purpose; the old leaven would occasionally break out, much to our discomfort, always to his cost. "I like not this"-"I like not that"when he had neither food to eat, nor the means to purchase any! I was much amused at his angry independence. Nothing would please him, and the Khan did his utmost even to humour his waywardness, much to our inconvenience. He was always at cross purposes; he would occasionally branch off the road, and gallop on in a different direction, that we might have to wait his return, or be at the trouble to send for him. He was fighting his way, as it were, always in arms, and