liked better.

There are in Persia a few important European commercial houses, such as
Ziegler and Co., and Hotz and Son, which have extensive dealings with
Persians. Ziegler and Co. deal in English imports and in the exportation
of carpets, etc., whereas Hotz and Son import Russian articles, which
they find cheaper and of easier sale. Both are eminently respectable
firms, and enjoy the esteem of everybody.

Notwithstanding the Swiss name, Ziegler and Co. is an English firm,
although, as far as I know, it has not a single English employee in its
various branches in Persia. The reason, as we have seen, is that
foreigners are considered more capable. It has in the various cities some
very able Swiss agents, who work most sensibly and excellently, and who
certainly manage to make the best of whatever business there is to be
done in the country. For over thirty years the house has been established
in Persia, having begun its life at Tabriz and then extended to Teheran,
Resht, Meshed, Isfahan, Yezd--the latter so far a non-important
branch--and Shiraz, Bushire, Bandar Abbas and Bagdad, where it has
correspondents working for the firm.

The house imports large quantities of Manchester goods and exports
chiefly carpets, cloths, opium and dried fruit. The carpets, which are
specially made for the European market, are manufactured chiefly at
Sultanabad where thousands of hands are employed at the looms, scattered
about in private houses of the people and not in a large factory. The
firm takes special care to furnish good wool and cottons coloured with
vegetable dyes, and not with aniline. Ancient patterns are selected and
copied in preference to new designs. Of course, besides these, other
carpets are purchased in other parts of the country. Carpets may be
divided into three classes. The scarce and most expensive pure silk rugs;
the _lamsavieh_ or good quality carpets, and the _mojodeh_ or cheaper
kind. There is a good demand for the two latter qualities all over Europe
and in America.

Articles specially dealt in are the cotton and wool fabrics called
_ghilim_, the designs of which are most artistic; and to a certain extent
other fabrics, such as the vividly coloured Kashan velvets, the watered
silks of Resht, the Kerman cloths resembling those of Cashmir, the silver
and gold embroidered brocades of Yezd, and the silk handkerchiefs
manufactured in the various silk districts, principally Tabriz, Resht,
Kashan and Yezd.

Th