er of the West--an incessant talker, and knows all the
scandal of the town. While at work he has a bowl of clean water by his
side which he uses on the patient's face or top of the skull and neck,
which are in male Persians all clean-shaved. No soap is used by typical
Persian barbers. Their short razors, in wooden cases, are stropped on the
barber's arm, or occasionally leg, and are quite sharp.

The younger folks of Persia shave the top of the skull leaving long locks
of hair at the side of the head, which are gracefully pushed over the ear
and left hanging long behind, where they are cut in a straight horizontal
line round the neck. This fashion is necessitated by the custom in
Persia of never removing the heavy headgear. The elder people, in fact,
shave every inch of the scalp, but balance this destruction of hair by
growing a long beard, frequently dyed bright red or jet black with henna
and indigo.

The bread-shops of Persia are quaint, a piece of bread being sometimes as
big as a small blanket and about as thick. These huge flat loaves are
hung up on slanting shelves. In Central and Southern Persia, however, the
smaller kind of bread is more commonly used, not unlike an Indian
_chapati_. A ball of flour paste is well fingered and pawed until it gets
to a semi-solid consistency. It is then flung several times from one palm
of the hand into the other, after which it is spread flat with a roller
upon a level stone slab. A few indentations are made upon its face with
the end of the baker's fingers; it is taken up and thrown with a rapid
movement upon the inner domed portion of a small oven, some three to four
feet high, within which blazes a big charcoal fire. Several loaves are
thus baked against the hot walls and roof of the oven, which has an
aperture at the top, and when properly roasted and beginning to curl and
fall they are seized with wonderful quickness and brought out of the
oven. Gloves on the hands and a cover over the baker's face are necessary
to prevent burns and asphyxia from the escaping gases of the charcoal
from the aperture over which the man must lean every time.

In the bazaars of large cities one finds every now and then large
caravanserais, handsome courts with a tank of water in the centre and
shops all round. It is here that wholesale dealers and traders have their
premises, and that caravans are accommodated on their arrival with goods.
There are generally trees planted all round these cour