378 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by E. K. De Witt 



A STREET CROWD ON A RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY: PERSIA 



This is not only an interesting study of Turko-Persian racial types, but also an enter- 

 taining exhibition of Persian headgear so useful in identifying the residence and class of the 

 wearer, the rough felt dome of the peasant or artisan, the black pill-box of the merchant or 

 student, the skull cap of the porter, the white lamb's wool of the police officer, and the 

 cushion-like turban of the ecclesiastic in the right foreground being but a few among a strange 

 variety. 



Fastidious, self-important Persian gentle- 

 men of leisure, garbed in frock coat or 

 flowing mantle, saunter along, jostling 

 humbly dressed tradesmen or peasants, 

 and an occasional Westernized Armenian 

 family elbows through the crowd. But 

 the hurrying European intruder usually 

 takes to the street, where the faithful 

 modern police force has had better suc- 

 cess in training the drosky drivers to 

 keep to the right than in regulating the 

 confusion on the sidewalks. 



Persian women are conspicuous for 

 their absence, and if a few brazen ones 

 do appear they suggest nothing quite so 

 much as black shrouds tottering along on 

 high-heeled slippers ; even their faces are 

 concealed by black horse-hair blinders. 



The variety of architecture along this 

 avenue is more striking than its quality. 

 Modern shops, with show-windows dis- 



playing actual European creations or 

 their ludicrous imitations, alternate with 

 junk-shops and second-hand stores, 

 where every conceivable commodity can 

 be unearthed, all the way from rusty 

 opera hats to astronomical telescopes. It 

 is the accepted custom for homeward- 

 bound foreigners to dispose of their dis- 

 carded effects, at a profit, to these enter- 

 prising traders ; so it is not unusual to 

 see the familiar last season's wardrobe of 

 some legation-circle society leader dang- 

 ling from a shop door as a ghostly re- 

 minder of the departed, later, no doubt, 

 to adorn some brown-eyed harem beauty. 



STREET EIEE SUGGESTS A TRAVELING 

 CARNIVAL 



The precursors of the popcorn wagon 

 and the peanut- vender are there too. The 

 man pushing the red and yellow perambu- 



