330 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



and wild goat had just been arranged for the benefit 

 of Colonel the Hon. E. Talbot, my fellow-traveller as 

 far as Enzeli, as he had been in command of the 

 Shah's escort of cavalry during His Majesty's visit 

 to England in 1874. He was also accorded an 

 audience, and was presented by His Majesty with a 

 gold coin after the usual custom. But it seems that 

 the Persians in charge of these preserves were not 

 willing to disturb the ground, and the whole affair 

 would have been a promenade or mere pretence had 

 it not been for the expostulations of Mr. Churchill, 

 the British Consul ; and in the end, though no 

 wild goats were killed, yet a large number were 

 seen. 



Travel, except near the city, must be done on 

 horseback. In Teheran, since 1850, the use of car- 

 riages has been introduced, and now no Persian noble- 

 man's establishment is complete without one. But 

 there is another thing without which no Persian 

 nobleman's establishment is complete, and that is a 

 pig. Mohammed, copying from the Jewish religion, 

 made the pig an unclean animal. But yet a Swiss 

 merchant makes quite a handsome income selling pigs 

 to the Persians, which are kept in the stables as scape- 

 goats ; the diseases which the horses might have had 

 are supposed to pass away into the pigs. Then he 

 buys them back and makes bacon of them for the 

 foreigners. 



There is a carriageable road for five miles south, to 

 the mosque of Shah Abdul Azim, where the debtors 



