TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



stared at in the streets. There are practically no 

 police, yet disturbances or robberies are very rare. 

 The climate is so cool that the Persians here are 

 much less sallow than those of Teheran, and the 

 children have pretty, rosy faces. No tourists ever 

 come to this old-world city of Tabreez, and there is 

 no hotel ; and only a Persian can set foot in a Persian 

 house. However, I was most hospitably received 

 by two English merchants and their wives named 

 Stevens. 



I had covered the final hundred miles in twenty- 

 eight hours, using a Persian saddle. After several 

 I should fear to say how many cups of tea, so 

 delicious that they seemed to have been lightly 

 earned at the expense of the fatigue from which I was 

 suffering, I was informed that the whole of a large 

 Armenian hammam next door had been reserved for 

 me, prescribed under these circumstances as the best 

 of recuperators. These institutions, picturing those 

 of ancient Eome, unrivalled in their oriental luxuri- 

 ance, are entered through swinging doors, each 

 chamber being slightly hotter than the last, leading 

 into a great hall which the light enters in a subdued 

 form through a multitude of star-like apertures in 

 the dome, and filled with warm vapour. In the 

 centre is a marble raised dais and at the four corners 

 are chambers with smaller domes. 



It is perfectly astounding what an amount of lather 

 one man can produce almost instantaneously, simply 

 by means of a long bag and a morsel of the indispens- 



