In order that I might fully recover from the fatigues of the journey,ÁrminiusVambé the good Osmanlis surrounded me with every imaginable comfort. I was put into a tent by myself and provided with a horse and a servant; in short, I was transferred from a poor traveller into a great lord. I was thus placed in a position to study at my leisure Teheran, the capital of Iran.
The first thing the stranger is struck with is the utter want of cleanliness in the streets, as well as in the interior of the houses. The Persian covers the large unfurnished halls--what we should term drawing-rooms--of his house with costly carpets, and decorates its walls with rich ornaments, but the kitchen, the room he lives in, and the pantry are most shamefully neglected by him. It is the same with his dress. A person who will spend from fifty to a hundred gold pieces for his outer garments is rarely the owner of more than two or three shirts. Soap is looked upon as an article of luxury, being hardly ever used, and I have met with Khans of high social standing and refinement who made use of their servants' pocket-handkerchiefs. The henna-painting, however, is that which renders every Persian grandee particularly loathsome, in spite of his outward splendour and rich dress. Henna is a yellow powder obtained from a plant called _Lawsonia inermis_, which, by being dissolved in water, furnishes a red dye of brick-colour. With this henna they dye their fine black beards and their very eyes red, the colour of bricks. Persons of standing also dye with henna their finger-nails and hands. The coat of paint hides the dirt; and a gentleman or lady, having made use of it, can afford to do without washing for several days.
Knives, forks and spoons are things unknown in Persia. It is utterly repulsive to the European to see the master of the house pulling to pieces, with his fingers, a boiled chicken, and giving each guest a piece of it, or having a cup of sherbet passed round, in which a dozen men have already steeped their henna-dyed moustaches.
Persian refinement is confined only to gestures, speech and conversational manner. But in these they excel all the Eastern nations--perhaps the nations of the West, too--and these elegant manners are, of course, to be found in their highest perfection at the capital. Volumes could be filled with the strict laws laid down for visits and return visits, and the proprieties of correspondence and conversation. Each Persian wishes to surpass the other in expressions of politeness and delicacy, which seem the more absurd the more we happen to know of the private lives of the Persians.