Children of Persia

by Mrs. Napier Malcolm

The rooms were large and very nicely furnished with beautiful Persian carpets, and a mattress and pillows of gay designs, and Ahmad, little rascal though he was, would never have dreamed of treading on those carpets with his shoes on; all shoes were left at the door. One small table for the tea-urn completed the furniture. And upstairs? Upstairs was the roof, such a lovely large flat roof, Ahmad loved it, and he often terrified his mother by the way he leaned over the low wall to look down at the street, for the house had no window looking to the road. All the windows looked into the garden, which might be said to be in the middle of the house, for the rooms were built round it. The windows, too, were all doors; some of the rooms had as many as five double doors all in a row, and when they were all open the room was very airy and bright.

There was no grass, and no gravel path for Ahmad to play on, but there was a nice wide brick-paved walk all round the garden, which gave him plenty of room. In the centre were the beds, which were watered by turning a stream in and flooding them once a week. There were watering cans, but they were only used for watering the path and roof, and even the rooms, to keep them cool, not for the flower beds. There was a large tank, too, in the garden with gold fish in it, where Ahmad loved to cool his feet on a hot day, and the days can be hot in Persia.

When it was dinner-time in Ahmad’s home a cloth was spread on the floor, and he sat on his heels beside it, and had a loaf of bread for a plate. It was flat and round, and about as thick as a plate, so it did very well. But he had no spoon or fork.

One of the things he liked best was rice, and when his mother put a few handfuls on his bread he would eat it quickly and tidily with one hand, without spilling any, which is not as easy as it sounds.

Sometimes Ahmad went out for a walk in the town with his father, or with his mother and a servant, and he passed along streets that had not any names, and by houses that had not any names or numbers. There was no pavement except sometimes a narrow strip in the middle of the road for the mules and donkeys. There were no gardens in front of the houses, there were no windows facing the road, all he saw was a sandy road with a high mud wall on each side, and a heavy wooden door here and there, the front door of a house.

A STREET OF SHOPS

Sometimes they came to a “bāzār” or street of shops. Here the street was covered over with a mud roof so that goods and sellers and purchasers might keep cool in hot weather and dry in wet weather. He did not need to go into the shops, for the counters were all along the street and there were no windows.

When the summer was getting very hot, it was decided that Ahmad and all his family should go for a summer holiday to a village in the hills.

What a packing up there was! They packed the carpets, they packed the beds, they packed the kettles and saucepans. Then a number of mules were brought to the door and such a shouting and bustle began as the loads were roped together, two and two, and slung across the big padded pack-saddles. One mule carried two great covered panniers and these were filled with cushions, and Ahmad’s great-grandmother got into one, and his mother got into the other to balance her, and they pulled the curtains well over the front, so that no one might see them. Ahmad himself sat in front of a servant who held him safe, and some of the bedding made a nice broad soft seat for them on the mule’s back. At last all the mules were ready with their loads and off they set through the streets, and soon they found themselves outside the town, going mile after mile across the bare desert plain. This went on for fifteen miles and then they reached a large village at the foot of the hills. They had been riding five hours and were tired and hungry, so they dismounted at the caravansarai or inn. One of the servants took a carpet off one of the loads and got a cloth and some food wrapped up in a large handkerchief out of the saddlebags and spread a meal on the ground, while another got the tea-urn and charcoal, boiled the water and made the tea. After a few hours’ rest on the roof, the shouting and loading began again and off they went, up the hill, which was terribly steep in some places. Now they saw scattered and stunted plants growing here and there, and finally, after another seven hours, they reached their summer holiday quarters in a little hill village.