lms are as dew-drops from
the heavens,' a most appropriate speech in the sandy waterless waste.
Membership with the higher dervish orders appears to signify and
convey something of the character of Freemasonry. I know of one
highly-placed Persian gentleman who is a dervish, and also of a European
gentleman of Oriental light and learning who has been admitted to the
same order. A famous Prime Minister of Persia in past time, Haji Mirza
Aghasi, was a well-known but rather eccentric dervish. My knowledge of
this was the means, on one occasion, of averting a disagreeable display
of violence by a gay sort of madcap, the relative of a post-house
master, who had attached himself as groom to the stable establishment.
My smart Armenian servant, who was equally good as groom or table
attendant, had taken off his warm pea-jacket to help in bracing up the
loads on my baggage post-horses, which were to be driven loose at a
canter, the usual practice when riding post with extra baggage. A
powerful, merry-talking groom, who came forward with the horses, picked
up the jacket and put it on, saying that the morning was cold. And so it
was, for the month was November. When all was ready for a start, my
servant asked him for the jacket, but the laughing _diwana_, or
eccentric fellow, said it was a gift to him, and refused to part with
it. Warm words passed, and I intervened and told him to drop his
dervish ways and give back the jacket. The _diwana_ became excited, and
shouted to all who were standing by that I had called him a dervish, and
had hurt his feelings badly. I then told him he was hard to please, as
surely a High Vazir was good enough to be compared with, for was it not
true that the famous Haji Mirza Aghasi was of the noble order of
dervishes. He took in slowly what I said, then smiled, and gave back the
jacket with a good grace. The Persians have a proverb similar to our own
regarding giving to beggars, '_Avval khesh, baad darvesh_' (First our
own, then the beggar. Charity begins at home).

The ordinary Persian horses are small, but very wiry and enduring. In
harness they are also capable of very long journeys in light draught, as
proved in the carriage service between Tehran and Kasvin. The distance
is about ninety-seven miles, divided into six stages. On arriving at one
of these, I found that all the posting horses had been taken by a
Russian Mohammedan merchant who was travelling ahead of me in great
style, with five carria