[Illustration:  A MENDICANT DERVISH OF TEHRAN]

Some of the mendicant dervishes of Tehran are of wild look, with matted locks, and with howling voice go about demanding, not begging, alms.  They regard a giver as under some obligation to them, for affording him the means of observance of a duty imposed by religion.  These stalk along defiantly, carrying club or axe, and often present a disagreeable appearance.  One of them came suddenly by a side-path behind the Minister’s wife, and followed, yelling out his cry of ‘Hakk, hakk!’ It was almost dark, and he did not see the great dogs, which had gone ahead.  His cry and continued close-following steps were disturbing, so I turned and asked him either to go on at once or keep farther back.  He frowned at what no doubt he considered my bad taste in objecting to his pleasing and superior presence, and hastened his pace a little to pass, but stopped suddenly on seeing the ‘lion-dogs’ belonging to the Janab-i-Khanum-i-Sifarat (the Lady Excellency of the Legation), and asked to be allowed to follow us, saying he would be perfectly quiet.  On reaching the Legation gate, and seeing his way clear, the dogs having entered, he left, saying gently, ‘Goodnight; God be with you.’

Formerly a lady could hardly walk about without some little fear of look or laugh calculated to annoy.  This is often the case in a Mohammedan country, the meaning being that the figure and face should be shrouded and veiled.  But in presence of Rex and Dido there is no sign of the light look or laugh; on the contrary, there is rather the respectful gesture of, ‘The road is free to thee.’  The vivid imagination of the Persian pictures the group as personifying the Imperial arms, the Lady with the Royal guard, the Lion of Iran.

Before the warriors of the Mehdi made the term ‘dervish’ better known, it was commonly understood to signify a beggar.  But though the derivation is ‘before the door,’ yet this does not mean begging from door to door.  The dervish originally was a disciple who freed himself from all family ties, and set forth without purse or scrip to tell of a new faith among a friendly people, and to tarry here or there as a welcome guest.  In due course he developed into a regular soldier of the Church, and as schisms arose and the fires of religious animosities were kindled, various orders of fighting fanatics, calling themselves dervishes, sprang into existence.  Such were the Ismailis, first known as the Hassanis, in Persia, in the eleventh century, similar in character to the present dervishes of the Soudan.  In the more favourable sense of the word, the true dervishes of to-day in Persia represent the spiritual and mystic side of Islam, and there are several orders of such, with members who belong to the highest and wealthiest ranks.