Five Years in a Persian Town

by Napier Malcolm

Of course there is no form of door fastening which can be used from both sides, and in this way as in others a Persian house is distinctly inconvenient. Still the style of building when fresh is very pretty. These masses of French windows with their coloured panes artistically arranged, the lines of white arches all along the sides, and the high-arched ceiling with its curious mouldings give the room an ecclesiastical appearance. At the back of the room there is not infrequently a corresponding line of door-windows, leading to one of those cupboard-rooms which I have before mentioned. This arrangement increases the regularity of the general design.

Before passing on to describe the furniture I must mention that there is one other totally different style of window, which lifts up in a sash, without pulleys, and is supported when open by metal stays. Also it is very common to find wooden lattices unglazed. Paper or calico is pasted over these in the winter.

There are one or two other forms of ornamentation that are not uncommon. Perhaps a line of painting, quaint but distinctly artistic, may run round the room just below the taqchas, giving the effect of a dado. Sometimes the roof is much more elaborately moulded, and is spangled with little bits of looking-glass; when this is not overdone the effect is pleasing. It is not uncommon to find very poor looking-glasses, about twelve by six inches, let into the walls. There are in almost every room rings attached to staples, which are intended to support the baby’s hammock. Fireplaces are a European importation, but they are generally to be found in at least one room of the better class houses. They are almost always narrow, and comparatively high, so as to conform to the arch design, and they are made in the wall without any metal. The metal fittings of the room, such as hammock-rings, staples, and door and window latches, are made of whitened iron curiously engraved; and nails of the same material with very large heads, from one inch to three or four inches across, are used freely by the Persians for ornamenting woodwork.

The movable furniture of a Persian room is very simple. Curtains are not used very freely, and those that are used are rather scanty. Generally they are hung up by the corners without any string. In the men’s apartments they are used more for doors than for windows. The favourite pattern is a very crude green or red with a large lozenge in the middle, like the design on a watered silk.

The only really valuable things in a Persian room are the carpets. In some cases these are laid right up to the walls, and a piece of drugget something less than a yard wide is also laid along the walls, usually on three sides of the room. In other cases there is a border of very thick clumsy felts arranged round the carpet which occupies the centre of the floor. The felts are self-coloured, with a small amount of stamped pattern. They have not got cut edges, but are made in one piece, consequently the shape is very inaccurate. They cost nearly as much as good carpets, and are often protected with druggets in the same way. In the place of honour, furthest from the door, is a mattress stuffed with cotton, covered with some sort of chintz or cretonne, and furnished with one or two very large round bolsters. In the winter there is also occasionally a kursī in evidence, but they are less common in Yezd than in other Persian towns. The kursi is a rough stool, about as high as a milking-stool, and about eighteen inches square, completely covered with cotton quilts and rugs, which trail on the ground on every side. Beneath this an iron brazier of lighted charcoal is placed, and the family tuck their legs underneath the wraps, and squat round the kursi on the floor. This, however, is not generally kept in the room except in the coldest weeks. During the remaining seasons the brazier is often brought in on a large copper tray, either for heating the room, or for keeping the teapot warm and for opium smoking. All copper and iron utensils in Persia, such as these trays and braziers, are carefully tinned.

Tables in Yezd are made in the roughest fashion, but the legs are nicely turned, the Yezd carpenters being greatly inferior to the turners, who are entirely distinct from them, and who produce very good work with the simplest class of hand-lathe worked with a bow. The carpenter, on the other hand, is incapable of putting up a shelf straight. He never dovetails, and he disguises the inaccuracy of his joints with plentiful deposits of clay.

Many of the Yezdis use little tables about three feet by two, and standing about twelve inches high. These are used only for tea-things. But tea is generally made by an inferior, standing at a tall table in the corner of the room. These tables are rather larger, not less than four feet by two. They stand as high as an English sideboard, and have a rough border of curved or dog-tooth pattern falling down from the slab, so that they very much suggest a rough dressing-table. They are often brought in and out of the rooms as they are wanted. People who wish to be thoroughly European in their manners sometimes have a larger table of the same kind permanently in the room, surrounded by a few bentwood chairs, which are brought up from Bombay, or folding-chairs with cane seats, which I think they bring from Isfahān, and about which the less said the better. Such a table is always covered by a white cloth, the most fashionable variety being a Turkey bath-towel.

These chairs and larger tables are no real part of Persian plenishing, while the tea-tables are being continually carried backwards and forwards, and are not necessary to the equipment of the room. Consequently the room does not present a very filled appearance. The few utensils which it contains, other than those mentioned, are placed upon the taqchas. On one of these taqchas may be seen a pair of lālas. The lala is a spring candlestick with a globe, and is, I believe, made in Europe. The candles are also imported. All lights in Persia have to be carefully protected from the wind, as the house is not a continuous building, but a series of outhouses. On another taqcha will be found a lamp, also of European manufacture. Persian lamps, which are simply saucers of native vegetable oil with a floating wick, are used freely about the house when a strong light is not required, but they have the disadvantage of blackening the gypsum of the walls. With regard to the imported lamps it is a curious thing that, although the lamps used are of the cheapest variety, with stems and reservoirs of blue or white glass, lamps with short stems, which might be brought into the country at an infinitely less cost, do not seem to have come into fashion. On a third taqcha is sure to be found a specimen of the Persian hookah, or qaliān. This is a most elaborate pipe, and is both made and bought in sections. The large bowls, however, when they are made of glass, are, I believe, imported; also some of the china heads.

Sometimes you will find on the taqchas a pair of European vases. In Yezd the pattern is almost always that of the hand rising up from a stand and grasping a tapered vessel. Sometimes also you will find cheap Continental oleographs, generally ladies’ heads. These are bought by the pair, and you will find two copies of the same picture standing side by side. Another European import to which the Yezdis are much attached is a looking-glass. These are of the oblong shape, with varnished or gilt frames. Perhaps also one will see on the taqchas a covered glass vessel with a long spout, containing rose-water.

In the women’s rooms there is occasionally a large wooden trunk for clothes, covered with gold and silver paper, and of a very clumsy design. The taqchas may be covered with plush cloths, and this is sometimes the case in the men’s apartments. The women are also fond of highly ornamented trinket boxes.