e good people!

* * * * *

[Page Heading: A LETTER FROM TEHRAN]

_To Lady Clementine Waring._

BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN,
_22 March._

DARLING CLEMMIE,

I am coming home, having fallen sick. Do you know, I was thinking about
you so much the other night, for you told me that if ever I was really
"down and out" you would know. So I wondered if, about a week ago, you
saw a poor small person (who has shrunk to about half her size!) in an
empty room, feeling worth nothing at all, and getting nothing to eat and
no attention! Persia isn't the country to be ill in. I was taken to the
Russian hospital--which is an experience I don't want to repeat!--but
now I am in the hands of the Legation doctor, and he is going to nurse
me till I am well enough to go home.

There are no railways in this country, except one of eight miles to a
tomb! Hence we all have to flounder about on awful roads in motor-cars,
which break down and have to be dug out, and always collapse at the
wrong moment, so we have to stay out all night.

You thought Persia was in the tropics? So did I! I have been in deep
snow all the time till I came here.

I think the campaign here is nearly over. It might have been a lot
bigger, for the Germans were bribing like mad, but you can't make a
Persian wake up.

Ever, dear Clemmie,
Your loving
S. MACNAUGHTAN.

So nice to know you think of me, as I know you do.

* * * * *

_26 March._--I am getting stronger, and the days are bright. As a great
treat I have been allowed to go to church this morning, the first I have
been to since Petrograd.

* * * * *

_To Miss Julia Keays-Young._

BRITISH LEGATION, TEHRAN.
_1 April._

DARLING JENNY,

In case you want to make plans about leave, etc., will you come and stop
with me when first I get home, say about the 5th or 6th May, I can't say
to a day? It will be nice to see you all and have a holiday, and then I
hope to come out to Russia again. Did I tell you I have been ill, but am
now being nursed by a delightful English doctor and his wife, and
getting the most ideal attention, and medicines changed at every change
in the health of the patient.

I've missed everything here. I was to be presented to the Shah, etc.,
etc., and to have gone to the reception on his birthday. All the time
I've lain in bed or in the garden, but as I haven't felt up to anything
else I have