l?" I queried to myself, as the driver pulled
up in front of an appallingly dirty flight of steps. There seemed to be
no one about, and after going through the greater part of the building, I
eventually came across a semi-starved Persian servant, who assured me
that it was. The proprietor, when found, received me with an air of
condescension that was entertaining. He led me to a room which he said
was the best in the house. On inspection, the others, I agreed with him,
were decidedly not better. The hotel had twelve bedrooms and they were
all disgustingly filthy. True enough, each bedroom had more beds in it
than one really needed, two or even three in each bedroom, but a
_coup-d'oeil_ was sufficient to assure one's self that it was out of the
question to make use of any of them. I counted four different coloured
hairs, of disproportionate lengths and texture, on one bed-pillow in my
room, leaving little doubt that no less than four people had laid their
heads on that pillow before; and the pillow of the other bed was so black
with dirt that I should imagine at least a dozen consecutive occupants of
that couch would be a low estimate indeed. As for the sheets, blankets,
and towels, we had better draw a veil. I therefore preferred to spread my
own bedding on the floor, and slept there. The hotel boasted of three
large dining-rooms in which a few moth-eaten stuffed birds and a case or
two of mutilated butterflies, a couple of German oleographs, which set
one's teeth on edge, and dusty, stamped cotton hangings formed the entire
decoration.

To give one an appetite--which one never lost as long as one stayed
there--one was informed before dinner that the proprietor was formerly
the Shah's cook. After dinner one felt very, very sorry for the poor
Shah, and more so for one's self, for having put up at the hotel. But
there was no other place in Resht, and I stuck to my decision that I
would never get angry, so I stood all patiently. The next day I would
start for Teheran.

One talks of Persian extortion, but it is nothing to the example offered
to the natives by Europeans in Persia. The charges at the hotel were
exorbitant. One paid as much per day as one would at the very first hotel
in London, New York, or Paris, such as the Carlton, the Waldorf, or Ritz.
Only here one got absolutely nothing for it except very likely an
infectious disease, as I did. In walking bare-footed on the filthy
matting, while taking my bath, some in