'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎331] (378/714)

TEHERAN
331
prices, and exhibit a stolid indifference to the offers of the would-be
purchaser. The sale of curiosities, carpets, and stuffs is almost
wholly conducted by dellals, or itinerant dealers, who brin^ their
stores on donkey-back to the residences in the European quarter.
From them must be procured the silks, brocades, or velvets, the
metal work or enamel work, the embroideries or carpets, the painted
mirrors or pen-cases, which the collector may wish to take back to
Europe. The foremost among these dellals, alike for the quality
of their wares and the scale of their prices, appear to be the Jews.
But the passing traveller will find it difficult to procure anything
of much value, the rarities being commonly bespoken in advance
by resident customers, and some weeks being required before a
fresh stock can be collected by the dealers among their private
clients. Such a place as a shop whither, after European fashion,
one can go and see a large variety of articles spread out, before
making one's choice, is unknown in Persia.
The street scenes in Teheran are not to be compared, from the
artistic point of view, with those that may be witnessed either in
fli , the great Indian cities or in the old capitals of Central
Street life A . . ^ J -
Asia. With the Ivajar Dynasty, a hundred years ago,
came in a new and soberer fashion in dress as well as a change of
rulers. The turban has gradually disappeared and is worn only
by merchants, hajis, seyids, and mullahs. The flowing robes and
daring colours of the East, such as one may see alike in Benares
and Bokhara, have been exchanged for tight-fitting garments of
European or semi-European cut, and for neutral tints such as dark
blues, browns, greens and greys, with a very plentiful admixture
of uncompromising black. There is manifold jostling in the streets
and bazaars, and everywhere are the contrast and variety so in
separable from Asiatic life, and from a crowd where three out of
four men are mounted ; but there are not the kaleidoscopic change
and glitter that bespeak the true and unredeemed Orient. A good
deal of colour, however, as well as of noise, is lent to the street life
of the capital by the number of soldiers, in every variety of uniform,
who are seen lounging about the streets, and by the military bands,
which play in the public squares, 1 their favourite tune being_the
1 In 1887 an entire set of instruments for a band of sixty persons was pre
sented by the British Government to the Shah ; but the Persian bands having been
taught to play French instruments, which are in a different key or pitch, they
were relegated to the Museum.