re so different, and, to most
travellers, uncongenial, and only to be tolerated for a time.

I have met Mr. Mclntyre in Teheran, so we are not total strangers, which,
of course, makes it still more agreeable. After the customary interchange
of news, and the discussion of refreshments, Mr. Mclntyre hands me a
telegram from Teheran, which bears a date several days old. It is from
the British Legation, notifying me that permission is refused to go
through the Turcoman country; an appendage from the Charge d'Affaires
suggests that I repair to Astrakhan and try the route through Siberia.
And this, then, is the result of General Melnikoff's genial smiles and
ready promises of assistance; after providing myself with proper money
and information for the Turkestan route, on the strength of the Russian
Minister's promises, I am overtaken, when three hundred miles away, with
a veto against which anything I might say or do would be of no avail!

Sultan Ahmed Mirza, a sou of Prince Anushirvan, is deputy governor of
Shahrood, responsible to his father; and ere I have arrived an hour the
usual request is sent round for a "tomasha," the word now used by people
wanting to see me ride, and which really means an exhibition. His place
is found in a brick court-yard with the usual central tank, and the airy
rooms of the building all opening upon it, and once again comes the
feeling of playing a rather ridiculous role, as I circle awkwardly around
the tank over very uneven bricks, and around short corners where an upset
would precipitate me into the tank--amid, I can't help thinking, "roars of
laughter." The Prince is very lavish of his flowery Persian compliments,
and says, "You English have now left nothing more to do but to bring the
dead back to life." In the court-yard my attention is called to a set of
bastinado poles and loops, and Mr. McIntyre asks the Prince if he hasn't
a prisoner on hand, so that he can give us a tomasha in return for the
one we are giving him; but it is now the Persian New Year, and the
prisoners have all been liberated.

Here, gentle reader, in Shahrood--but it now behooves us to be dark and
mysterious, and deal in hints and whispers, for the Persian proprieties
must not be ruthlessly violated and then as ruthlessly exposed to satisfy
the prying curiosity of far off Frangistan that would never do.

Behold, then, Mr. Mclntyre absent; behold all male humans absent save
myself and a couple of sable eunuchs, whose