156 By Mountain , Lake, and Plain 



but " qu'il y a des accomodements avec le ciel ! " 

 God is very merciful, and the sin a very small 

 one. The difference in this respect between a 

 Persian of the present day and an Englishman 

 of a generation or two ago, is that the gentleman 

 of Persia prefers his liquor before eating. His 

 taste in wines is not very discriminating. He 

 prefers Shiraz and the muddy vintages of his 

 own country to the produce of France and Portu- 

 gal, champagne excepted ; but the toleration ex- 

 tended to the latter is mainly on account of its 

 expense. The potion that meets with the most 

 whole-hearted approval in Persia is brandy, and 

 generally speaking the more degrees above proof 

 a spirit is the more it is liked. Beer is looked 

 askance at, being ab-i-jo (lit., barley-water), the 

 drink indulged in by the persecutor of the 

 martyred Hussein. 



The Persian taste in music is similarly patriotic. 

 I have often heard gramophone records by Mme. 

 Melba and other European stars interlarded with 

 the latest from the capital, a ghazal, we will say, 

 by "Rose of the World," and it was certainly 

 not the singers of the West that gained the 

 most applause. One evening, after a " Persian " 

 dinner, when the gramophone had emitted the 

 last of the Teheran prima donna's nasal shrieks, 



