The pale Yankee drew himself up, and, in the national drawl, quietly replied, “Waal, for your sake, X⸺, I hope you’re right.” That parson was more than a match for his opponent.
Another Persian tale of these latter days is the answer of a lady as witty as she was prepossessing. On the high-road to the capital from the Caspian, the members of the expedition sent by the German Government to observe the transit of Venus met a lovely vision in habit and hat, on a prancing steed. They halted, saluted, and declared their errand.
“To observe the transit of Venus, ah—well, you can go home now, gentlemen; your duty is done; good-bye;” and the pretty vision disappears at a smart canter “away in the ewigkeit,” as Hans Breitmann says. That joke dawned on those Germans after some hours.
There was once a little paper published in the Persian Gulf, called the Jask Howl, to which I was a contributor, but it died a natural death, after becoming very personal.
Theatricals, too, had their day, both in the capital and down country. Lawn tennis, played on a ground of prepared mud, was the great amusement when I left Teheran.
Riding, however, is the never-failing pastime, and the poorest European can afford a horse.
Photography was to me a pleasant way of beguiling the tedium of Persian down-country life. I spent many hours a day, and obtained a fair proficiency; but finding myself becoming a slave to it, I gave it up, though reluctantly. In the meantime I had taken innumerable likenesses, and some two hundred types. I had also had the barren honour of having large photographs reproduced in the Graphic and Illustrated.
I patronised art in Persia to the extent of having some enamels painted on small gold plaques. This art is rapidly being lost, and the continued marring of an otherwise pretty picture by errors of drawing and perspective is very annoying.
I also commenced having illustrations to the wonderful novel of ‘Hadji Baba,’ by Morier, executed by native artists; but the men I employed raised their prices in almost geometrical progression as each fresh picture was executed. They are, however, very spirited, and well exhibit Persian life.
While I was in Ispahan, M. P⸺ was sent by the ‘Magazin du Louvre’ to buy curios, china, etc., of every description.