clean and perfect, and freshly sprinkled; and the sprinkling and consequent evaporation make a grateful coolness.  In the flower-beds are irregular clumps of marvel of Peru, some three feet high, of varied coloured blossom, coming up irregularly in wild luxuriance.  The moss-rose, too, is conspicuous, with its heavy odour; while the edging, a foot wide, is formed by thousands of bulbs of the Narcissus poeticus, massed together like packed figs; these, too, give out a pleasant perfume.  But what strikes one most is the air of perfect repair and cleanliness of everything.  No grimy walls, no soiled curtains, here; all is clean as a new pin, all is spick and span.  The courtyard is shaded by orange trees covered with bloom, and the heavy odour of neroli pervades the place.  Many of the last year’s fruit have been left upon the trees for ornament, and hang in bright yellow clusters out of reach.  A couple of widgeon sport upon the tank.  All round the courtyard are rooms, the doors and windows of which are jealously closed, but as we pass we hear whispered conversations behind them, and titters of suppressed merriment.”

“The interior resembles the halls of the Alhambra.  A priceless carpet, surrounded by felt edgings, two inches thick and a yard wide, appears like a lovely but subdued picture artfully set in a sombre frame.  In the recesses of the walls are many bouquets in vases.  The one great window—­a miracle of intricate carpentry, some twenty feet by twenty—­blazes with a geometrical pattern of tiny pieces of glass, forming one gorgeous mosaic.  Three of the sashes of this window are thrown up to admit air; the coloured glass of the top and four remaining sashes effectually shuts out excess of light.”

Such is the coup d’oeil on entering an anderoon.  With such surroundings, one would expect to find refined, if not beautiful women; but, though the latter are rare enough, the former are even rarer in Persia.  The Persian woman is a grown-up child, and a very vicious one to boot.  Her daily life, indeed, is not calculated to improve the health of either mind or body.  Most of the time is spent in dressing and undressing, trying on clothes, painting her face, sucking sweetmeats, and smoking cigarettes till her complexion is as yellow as a guinea.  Intellectual occupation or amusement of any kind is unknown in the anderoon, and the obscene conversation and habits of its inmates worse even than those of the harems of Constantinople and Cairo, which, according to all accounts, is saying a good deal.  A love of cruelty, too, is shown in the Persian woman; when an execution or brutal spectacle of any kind takes place, one-third at least of the spectators is sure to consist of women.  But this is, perhaps, not peculiar to Persia; witness a recent criminal trial at the Old Bailey.