a Persian woman is curiously constructed, the
hip-bones being extremely developed and broad, whereas the shoulder
blades and shoulders altogether are very narrow and undeveloped. The
hands and feet are generally good, particularly the hand, which is less
developed and not so coarse as the lower limbs generally and the feet in
particular. The fingers are usually long and quite supple, with
well-proportioned nails. The thumb is, nevertheless, hardly ever in good
proportion with the rest of the hand. It generally lacks length and
character. The feet bear the same characteristics as the hands except, as
I have said, that they are infinitely coarser. Why this should be I
cannot explain, except that intermarriage with different races and social
requirements may be the cause of it.

[Illustration: Persian Woman and Child.]

[Illustration: A Picturesque Beggar Girl.]

The head I have left to the last, because it is from an artist's point of
view the most picturesque part of a Persian woman's anatomy. It may
possibly lack fine chiselled features and angularity; and the first
impression one receives on looking at a Persian woman's face is that it
wants strength and character--all the lines of the face being broad,
uninterrupted curves. The nose is broad and rounded, the cheeks round,
the chin round, the lips large, voluptuous and round--very seldom tightly
closed; in fact, the lower lip is frequently drooping. But when it comes
to eyes, eyelashes and eyebrows, there are few women in the world who can
compete with the Persian. There is exuberant fire and expression in the
Persian feminine organs of vision, large and almond-shaped, well-cut, and
softened by eyelashes of abnormal length, both on the upper and lower
lid. The powerful, gracefully-curved eyebrows extend far into the
temples, where they end into a fine point, from the nose, over which they
are very frequently joined. The iris of the eye is abnormally large, of
very rich dark velvety brown, with jet black pupils, and the so-called
"white of the eye" is of a much darker tinge than with Europeans--almost
a light bluish grey. The women seem to have wonderful control over the
muscles of the eyelids and brows, which render the eyes dangerously
expressive. The habit of artificially blackening the under lid with
_Surmah_, too, adds, to no mean extent, to the luminosity and vivid power
of the eyes in contrast to the alabaster-like, really beautiful skin
of the younger Persian