1 artfully
waives further examination by heaping imprecations on the unkempt head of
a dervish, who at this opportune moment commences a sing-song monotone,
in a most soul-harrowing key, outside our menzil doorway.
A slight drizzling rain is falling when the early riser of the company
wakes up and peeps out at daybreak next morning, but it soon ceases, and
by seven o'clock the ground is quite dry. The road for a mile or so is
too lumpy to admit of mounting, as is frequently the case near a village,
and my six companions accompany me to ridable ground. As I mount and
wheel away, they wave hats and send up three ringing cheers and a
"tiger," hurrahs that roll across the gray Persian plain to the echoing
hills, the strangest sound, perhaps, these grim old hills have ever
echoed; certainly, they never before echoed an English cheer.
And now, as my friends of the telegraph staff turn about and wend their
way back to Teheran, is as good a time as any to mention briefly the
manner in which these genial lightning-jerkers assisted to render my five
months' sojourn in the Persian capital agreeable. But a few short hours
after my arrival in Teheran, I was sought out by Messrs. Meyrick and
North, who no sooner learned of my intention to winter here, than they
extended a cordial invitation to join them in their already established
bachelors' quarters, where four disconsolate halves of humanity were
already messing harmoniously together.
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