Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-12-27
AuAffernoOn I'm geheran.

! harper TOT JAuuhTysl
Ii is the hour of peace; rosy light
battles the house.tops, but the stately
avenues leading north and south are in
shadow, and cooled by the water
thrown by the sakkahs. The tender
evening light also rests on the snowy
crests of the vast ridge of the Shim
Iran, or light of Persia, which scars to
height of 1900 feet across the north
ern side of the plain, but nine miles
away. The evening glow, before it fades
into twilight, fingers last on the snowy
cone of Demayend, $1,000 feet high,
ever present in every view, like the pre-
siding genius that protects the capital
of Persia.
With slow and dignifed steps the
Persian gentlemen stroll through these
inviting avenues, engaged in genial con-
verse. Their long robes, their massive
boards, their lofty caps or yoluminous
turbans, give them a lofty stateliness
as they wend along, undisturbed by the
numerous horses or carriages, or the
hideously unkempt and filthy dervishes
who claim aims on account Of their
sanctitied rags.
At this hour the tea-houses are in
full blast. The reader may be sur
prised to learn that the national beye-
rage of Persia is not coffee, but tea.
One would naturally suppose that
country so near Araby the Blest and
the aromatic groves of Mocha would,
like the Turks, prefer coffee. OF course
great deal of coffee, prepared in the
Turkish way, is consumed by the Per-
slams, but the fact remains that they are
essentially a tea-drinking race, drinking
it in vast quantities, favored with lemon
or tourchee, which is the prepared
| Juice of the lime, and sweetened almost
to a syrup. The habit is probably the
result of the commercial intercourse
which at an early period existed be-
tween Persia and China, and which, as
is now we'll known, gave an impulse to
the arts of Persia, of which evidences
appear at various stages of her aesthetic
history. At Teheran, the tea-houseS
take the place of the cofiee-houses
of Constantinople. One meets them at
every turn, of every rank, but all alike
resorts for rest, leisure, and entertain
ment. There one may see public
dancers, who by law are now invariably
men, although women of questionable
repute contrive to evade the laws some
times and exhibit in the harems. The
male dancers are brought up to this
vocation from boyhood, aud invariably
wear long hair in imitation Of women,
and shave their faces smooth.
What interests an intelligent Euro
pean more at these tea-houses than the
dances are the recitations from the
poets. The songs of HATH may be
heard there, and entire cantos from the
great epic Of Ferdoonsee, repeated with
loud, sonorous meditation, heard some
times at quite distance at the more in
spring passages, aud listened to with
enthusiastic rapture. Here, too, one
may hear the Arabian Nights" tales
given without any attempt at expurga-
ton, exactly as in recent translation.
The reader will recollect that the
characters in the "Arabian Nights
are constantly and at every oppor-
tunity quoting long and appropriate pas
sages from the poets. This may to the
European appear to be an affectation or
a freak of poetic license on the part of
the author of these tales. On the cor.
trary. he was simply giving us another
| oil those traits of Oriental character