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

by C. J. Wills

Pierson’s presence, however, awed the rioters, and silence was after a time obtained, some few of the more noisy among the males being ejected.

I soon found that many of the so-called patients had merely come from curiosity, while others had old injuries to complain of, and did not expect medicines, but miracles.

The replies to the question, “What is the matter?” were sometimes highly ridiculous, one man informing me that he had a serpent in his inside, while another complained of being bewitched.

Among the ladies, Pierson, who bravely stuck to his self-imposed duty of interpreter, informed me that the principal request was for aphrodisiacs, drugs to increase embonpoint, and cosmetics; while many women of apparently great age were urgent for physic for improving their appearance. Many cases of eye-disease presented themselves, and not a few of surgical injury, which had been treated only in the most primitive manner. It was only by four in the afternoon that I succeeded in getting rid of the rabble-rout that had come to my dispensary.

Rome was not built in a day. As the novelty wore off and the sightseers ceased to come, the sick, who generally amounted to from two hundred to two hundred and fifty a day, more or less, became more tractable, and my servants better able to manage them.

I made stringent rules as to seeing all in the order of their coming, and separating the men from the women. Although I saw many thousands of patients in Hamadan, yet I found that I made no appreciable addition to my income; those who could pay, didn’t; and the only grist that came to the mill my two men absorbed. These now bloomed out in silken raiment, and my head-man, whose pay was twelve pounds a year, and clothe and feed himself, actually kept a servant of his own, and adopted a slow and dignified pace, which, as he day by day increased in wealth, became more and more apparent.

I, after some weeks, on some provocation or other, determined to discharge Ramazan, who immediately told me, with many protestations, that on account of the great love he bore me he could not leave me, and was desirous to stay at half-wages. On my remaining obdurate he wished to stop on nothing a month and “find himself.” He begged so hard that I couldn’t turn him out, and forgave him. The fact was, that his pickings from the daily crowd of patients was some ten times as much as his pay.

Often have I been asked by Persian acquaintances, “What is your pay?” “Little enough,” I reply. “Ah, but what is your modakel?” i. e. pickings and stealings.

This system of modakel it is useless to fight against. The Persians, from the king downwards, speak of “my modakel.” The governor of a province buys his appointment: this is the king’s modakel; he farms the taxes for one hundred thousand tomans, and sells them for half as much again; this is his modakel; the buyer exacts two hundred thousand, the difference is his modakel.

I buy a horse, a carpet, or a pound of sugar, ten per cent. is added by my servant to my bill. I sell a horse, and ten per cent. is taken on the price by my servant. I pay a muleteer, and ten per cent. is deducted from the hire. These things are the so-called legitimate “modakel” of my servant, and I cannot avoid it. If pressed, or the thing is brought home to him, he will not even hesitate to acknowledge it.