d
asked to be allowed to follow us, saying he would be perfectly quiet. On
reaching the Legation gate, and seeing his way clear, the dogs having
entered, he left, saying gently, 'Goodnight; God be with you.'

Formerly a lady could hardly walk about without some little fear of look
or laugh calculated to annoy. This is often the case in a Mohammedan
country, the meaning being that the figure and face should be shrouded
and veiled. But in presence of Rex and Dido there is no sign of the
light look or laugh; on the contrary, there is rather the respectful
gesture of, 'The road is free to thee.' The vivid imagination of the
Persian pictures the group as personifying the Imperial arms, the Lady
with the Royal guard, the Lion of Iran.

Before the warriors of the Mehdi made the term 'dervish' better known,
it was commonly understood to signify a beggar. But though the
derivation is 'before the door,' yet this does not mean begging from
door to door. The dervish originally was a disciple who freed himself
from all family ties, and set forth without purse or scrip to tell of a
new faith among a friendly people, and to tarry here or there as a
welcome guest. In due course he developed into a regular soldier of the
Church, and as schisms arose and the fires of religious animosities were
kindled, various orders of fighting fanatics, calling themselves
dervishes, sprang into existence. Such were the Ismailis, first known as
the Hassanis, in Persia, in the eleventh century, similar in character
to the present dervishes of the Soudan. In the more favourable sense of
the word, the true dervishes of to-day in Persia represent the spiritual
and mystic side of Islam, and there are several orders of such, with
members who belong to the highest and wealthiest ranks.

In the time of Fateh Ali Shah, the mendicant dervishes, who were then as
numerous and profligate in Persia as vagrant monks used to be in Spain
and Italy, became such a pest that one of the first acts of his
successor, Mahomed Shah, was to direct that no beggars should be
tolerated except the lame, the sick, and the blind, and that all
able-bodied men appearing in dervish garb were to be seized for military
service. The profession fell out of fashion then, and there are now
comparatively few mendicant dervishes to be seen. Those that still wear
the 'ragged robe' do not all appear to follow the rules of poverty,
self-denial, abstinence, and celibacy. One there was, a negro fro