'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎152] (183/360)

152 THROUGH PERSIA ON A SIDE-SADDLE
was my great difficulty. One could not (at least I could
not) talk for ever about sport and horses, and it would have
been contrary to all laws of Eastern etiquette to question
them about their womankind, in whom I was deeply inter
ested. Books were scarce at Kerman, and as they had not
the vaguest idea of history, geography, or of the events that
were even then passing in the world, I was often completely
nonplussed in my attempts at conversation.
One of the most intelligent of our habitues once told me
that Persia was, as it were, at the last act of the Tazieh, or
1 assion Play ; for when the audience perceives that the
play is about to conclude, one man gets his slippers ready,
another wraps his cloak around him, while a third hunts for
the bag of dried fruits with which he has been regaling
himself at intervals. No one attends to the actors in the
least; all are thinking of themselves and their belongings,
and how best to hurry out of the theatre. And our friend
applied the analogy by remarking that thus it was with
Persia at the present time, every Persian thinking that the
kingdom was nearing its end, and being fully occupied in
looking out for his own interests.
On anothei occasion he interested me by saying that
there was a certain bird that travelled from country to
country. Rome, Carthage, Spain, and many another land
had been blessed by its sojourn among them, and now, he
affirmed, it had fixed its abode in England. Upon asking
what attracted the ' bird to a country, I was given the
answer in earnest tones. "Good laws, justice, an incor
ruptible Government—everything in short, that England
has, and Persia lacks."
As they got to know me by degrees, some of them spoke
bitterly about the need of education for their women, com-