SUCKLING OF INFANTS. 
107 
It was with the greatest difficulty that a wet-nurse was procured for 
the Ambassador’s infant. There were objections on both sides. In 
the first place, the milk of the greater part of those who presented 
themselves, was considered too old for the use of an infant. One came 
to offer herself who was then suckling a boy three years old. The 
Persians, and Asiatics in general, give milk to their children much 
longer than Europeans, a circumstance from which Mirza Abul Hassan 
Khan, concluded that our English children were so much more forward 
in their mental acquirements than those of his country. The Persians 
make a distinction between males and females. To a boy they give the 
breast for two years and two months, and to a female only for two years 
complete. On the day that the child is to be weaned they carry it to 
the mosque, (in the manner perhaps that Hannah took Samuel to the 
house of the Lord, when she had weaned him, 1 Samuel, i. 29. *); 
and after having performed certain acts of devotion, they return home, 
and collecting their friends and relations, they give a feast, of which 
they make the child also partake. The coincidence with Scripture is 
here remarkable. And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham 
made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned, f Genesis, xxi. 8. 
There was also an objection on the other side; for many of the Per¬ 
sian women felt an antipathy to suckle the child of a Christian. One 
came, remained one night, and could not be persuaded to remain 
longer, although many pecuniary advantages were offered to her, 
because she had been persuaded by her friends that all sorts of mi¬ 
series would befal her if she suckled a Christian child. It is no wonder 
that such prejudices should exist amongst them, when we remark the 
spirit of hatred to Infidels that reigns throughout the Koran, and forms 
one of the most prominent doctrines of the law of Mohamed. 
The Persian nurses were quite astonished at our manner of treating 
infants, and particularly the washing them all over with cold water every 
* This was a special case, and not a common custom ; Samuel was not carried home 
again; Hannah had vowed to devote him to God. The feast at weaning was customary. 
f From some old authorities it is said, that Isaac was not weaned till he viasfve years of 
age. 
P 2 
