PERSI

Baku to-day. We found our little party at the Métropole Hotel. Went to the MacDonell's to lunch. He is C

and no trees, and all enterprise in the way of town-planning and the like is impossible owing to the Russian habit of cheating. They have tried for sixteen years to start electric trams, but everyone wants too much for his own pocket. The

urther out. One of the directors, an Armenian, went with us, and gave us at his house the very largest lunch I have ever seen. It began with many plates of zakouska (hors d'?uvres), and went on to a cold entrée of cream and chickens' livers; then grilled salmon, with some excellent sauce, and a sala

. Also, I found I could be of use to Mr. Scott of the Tehran Legation, who was going there. We travelled on the boat together, and had an excellent crossing to Enzeli, a lovely little port, and then we took my car and drove to Resht, where Mr. and Mrs. McLaren, the Consul

SV

e in the snow. The moonlight was marvellous, and the mountain passes were beyond words picturesque. We passed a string of 150 camels pacing along in the moonlight and the snow. All

ge of the journey in the Legation car to Tehran. We were delayed one day at Kasvin, which was passed very pleasantly in the sheltered sunny compound of the house. My lit

n Williams and I left Kasvin

nd ate some sandwiches which we carried with us. I also had a flask of Sandeman's port, given me last Christmas by Sir Ivor Maxwell. I think a glass of this just prevented me from being frozen solid. We drove on to the top of the pass, and arrived there about 3 o'clock. We found some Russian officers having an excellent lun

ir strong horses. We began to get near war once more, and to see transport and guns. Gener

e clay-built, flat Persian town of Hamadan about 10 p.m., but the car couldn't make any way on the awful roads, so I left Capt

L AT H

n the scene, so we began to get forward a little (although it seemed to me that we stood about in the snow for a terrible long time and I got quite frozen!). As it was then past midnight I felt I had had enough, so I made for the American missionary's house, which was pointed out to me, and he and his wife hopped out of bed, and, clad

ngs, as we have been in a heavy mountain fog ever since I got here. There is a little English colony, the bank manager, Mr. MacMurray, and his wife-a capable, energetic woman, and an excellent working partn

for my liking. The fire of the French, the dogged pluck of the British, seem quite unknown to them. Literally, no one seems much interested. There is a good deal of fuss about a "forward movement" on this front; but I fancy that at Kermanshah and at -- there will be very little resistance, and the troops there are only Persian gend

Charles

Vice-C

ma

ruary,

arest

t get through the snow. One sees "breakdowns" all along the routes, and everywhere we go we have to take food and blankets in case of a camp out. I have had to buy a motor-car, and I got

CULTY OF

and expeditiously as possible, and this can only be done by motor-cars. Only one of Mrs. Wynne's ambulances has yet arrived, and in the end I came on here without her and Mr. Bevan. I was wa

-gown and gauze underclothing, and wonder why it is that no one seems able to tell one what a climate will be like. I have warm things too, I am glad to say, although our luggage is now of the lightest, and is only wha

One woman was newly married, and had only one wish in life, and that was for acid drops. Poor soul, she wasn't well, and I mean to make her the best imitation I can and send them to her. They make their houses wonderfully comfo

s. Of course we are only waiting to push on further. The political situation is most interesting, but I

s just about "through." Now I am in a bachelor's little house, full of terrier dog

re we stayed, and something made me think his wife was bullied and not very happy. A husband would have to be quite all right to compensate for exile, mud, and solitude. Always my feeli

s, my

r l

cnaug

mail. Some people called --, living near Glasgow, had nine sons, eight of whom

With Russians anything may happen. I have begun to suffer from my chillsome time getting here, and also my mouth and chin are very

RIES AND

, "He never tried the Gospel on with me." A religious young man means a sneak, and one who swears freely is generally rather a good fellow. When one lives in the wilds I am afraid that one often finds that this view is the right one, although it isn't very orthodox; but the pi-jaw which passes for religion seems deliberately calculated to disgust the natural man, who shows his contempt for the thing wholesomel

mporaries saddle me with noble deeds, but I still seem unable to strike the "noble" tack. Even my work in hospital has been stopped by a telegram from the Red Cross, saying, "D

TRAVELS

hes; but in a tight place one knows how cool he would be, and for yarns there is no one better. He tells one a lot about this country, and he knows the Arabs like brothers. Their system of communicating with each other is as puzzling to him as it is to everyone else. News travels faster among them than any messenger or post can take it. At Bagdad they heard from these strange people o

dge, Jimmy, and the puppy. Most of the conversati

his master but himself. He believes in the British. He worships British rule, and he speaks no language but his own, though he probably knows English perfectly, and listens to it at every meal without even the cock of an ear! He is never hurried, never surprised. What he thinks his private idol may know-no one else does. His master's boots-especially the brown sort-are part of his religion. He understands

ish Sabbath, and Sunday, the Armenian Sunday. On these three days neither bazaars nor offices are open. Business is at a standstill. The Consulate smokes pipes, develops photographs, and reads old novels. On the four b

what Mr. MacMurray has said and Mr. McLean thought, and sometimes one of the people from the Russian hospital comes in. About 3 we put on goloshes and take exercise single-file on the pathways cut i

inning to sympathise with the Americans who insist upon doing two cities a day. We

Persia found among Mis

D ARTICLE

a temperature of 8 degrees below zero. The rays of the sun are popularly supposed to minimise the effect of this cold, and a fortnight's fog on the Persian highlands has still left one a believer in this phenomenon, for when the sun does shine, it does it handsomely, and, according to the inhabitants, it is only when strangers are here that it turns sulky. Be that as it may, the most lo

s little trade and the horrible weather. Before him, in the narrow alleys of the bazaar, Persians walk with their umbrellas unfurled, and Russians have put the convenient bashluk (a sort of woollen hood) over their heads and ears. The Arab, in his long camel-skin coat, looks impervious to the weather, and women with veiled faces a

ally, of climate that one speak

s a country and the Persians are people who seem fated by circumstances and by temperament to endure ill-government. A ruler is either a despot or a knave, and frequently both. Any system of policy is liable to change at any moment. Property is held in the uneasy tenur

G PERSIA

ers, which helps to make the situation in Persia not only difficult but almost impossible to follow or describe, and it is, above all, the temperament of the Persians themselves which is the baffling thing in the way of Persian reform. Yet reform has been spoken of loudly, and again and again in the last

909, when the Constitutional Party came into power, forcibly, and with guns ready to train on Tehran, and

al to-day. Mr. Lightfoot and I went to Hamadan, plodding our way through little tramped-down paths, with snow three feet deep on either side. By way of being cheerful we went to see two tombs. One was an old, old place, where slept "the first great physician" who ever lived. In it a dervish kept watch in the bitter cold, and some slabs of dung

n for thirty-three years. She has schools, etc., and she lives in the Armenian quarter, and devotes h

s quite blocked, and no one can come or go. The snow falls steadily in fine small flakes. My car has disappeared, with the chauffeur, at Kasvin. I hear of it bei

fever, some boils, three dogs, and a blizzard, is about

all day, with the ancien

rn of th

RN OF TH

e. They nearly all tell of the return of the Prodigals, but they leave out the return of the Pilgrims, and that is why t

somely or unwholesomely as the case may be. The Prodigal is generally accounted one of those whose sane mind demands an outlet; but he lands in trouble, and gets hungry, and

ng pleasures. Preachers have always been fond of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The stor

ll, and the road thither is very steep and very long, but the Pilgrims start out bravely. They know the way! They carry torches! They have the Light within and without, and "watchwords" for every night, and songs for the morning. Some walk painfully, with bleeding feet, on the path that leads to the beautiful country, and some run joyously with eager feet. Wha

PPOI

they have met with many things on the road which do not match the watchwords, and they have heard many wonderful things which, truthfully considered, do not always appear to them to be facts. They have called Poverty beautiful, and they have found it very ugly; and they have called Money naught, and they have found it to be Power. They have found Sacrifice accepted, and then claimed by the selfish and mean, and ev

and cook some little thing-Bovril or hot milk-on my Etna stove. Then I am too tired to eat it, and the sickness begins all over again. Oh, if I could leave this place! If only someone

y, hoping someone will come and take me away, though

t. I just made a great mistake coming out here, and I have suffered for it. Ye gods,

IES O

lon"-a small "salon," indeed! But I can hardly believe now in my crowds of friends, my devoted servants, my pleasant work, the daily budget of letters and invitations

about alone without knowing the way and the language of the people. Permits are difficult, nothing is possible unless one