In the land of the lion and sun, or, modern Persia

by C. J. Wills

A crowd of children and negresses scuttled off into the various rooms which surrounded a well-kept garden, with beds of flowers and playing fountains, some thirty yards by fifteen.

Those who did not go out of sight drew down the big sheets of printed calico that covered their heads, turning themselves into faceless bundles, terminated in bare legs visible to the knee, with feet either bare or thrust into tiny slippers; even the very little girls had veils, though they did not cover their faces, and were mostly pretty little round-faced things, with large eyes, and fringes of black hair cut across their foreheads.

I had been told not to appear to notice anything, as that would be interpreted as a desire to look at the inhabitants of the anderūn, which would be considered the height of bad breeding. So I kept my eyes discreetly fixed on the ground, feeling certain that I should find plenty of time for thorough investigation.

The old eunuch took me into a room, beautifully carpeted, and bare of all furniture save one chair, on which I was directed to sit.

He left me, and I noticed that the room was decorated with small mirrors let into elaborately cut plaster-of-Paris work; the walls were so covered with small facets of mirror that one could hardly see anything of the white plaster, which was arched at the ceiling, arch within arch, in the manner so familiar to us in the decoration of the Alhambra; but a peculiarly chaste effect was produced, for neither colour nor gilding was used—only pure white plaster and mirror. In many places there were panels, where plaster-work, cut (not moulded) in high relief, showed patterns whose effectiveness could not be denied. In fact, the result was one of chastened splendour quite new to me. The doors, which were of polished walnut-wood, were covered by curtains of bright colours of Yezd silk, some six feet by four, simply suspended in front of them. The window, which occupied one entire end of the room, was composed of small pieces of glass of all the colours of the rainbow, set in a wooden frame of a geometrical pattern of a very elaborate nature; as the window was some fourteen feet by ten, and no piece of glass was more than two inches square in size, some idea may be formed of the enormous amount of work in such a piece of carpentry. The wood employed in such work is plane, and it does not warp.

This window was made in three compartments; each one was made to draw up when required, thus giving a full view of the garden; all were, however, at present down, and the coloured light which entered produced a very rich effect—a relief, too, from the strong sunlight outside.

Round three sides of the room were nummuds, or felt carpets, some two inches thick; as one walked on them, it was like going over the softest turf; they were light-ochre in colour, with a pale-blue pattern inlaid. In the centre was a carpet some twenty feet by nine. I had never seen such a carpet; it was very beautiful, but of very subdued colours, and of a rather large pattern.

In each of the three walls there were three recesses or takhjahs, a yard from the ground, and in each of these was placed a glass vase of narcissus blooms; as every vase contained some hundred stems, the perfume was somewhat overpowering.

The eunuch now returned, seated himself on the ground at my side, and a black woman, of hideous aspect, brought me a water-pipe.

While I was smoking it, the curtain at one of the doors was lifted, and two young ladies entered, aged from sixteen to eighteen, though they seemed some three or four-and-twenty to me. I must acknowledge that I was unprepared for such a free display of loveliness, and it was the first time I ever saw Persian ladies in their very becoming, if slightly indelicate, home-dress.