, 1885-06-12
HOW TO DIE IN PERSIA.
Charms rs a last Reading NOM
the Hired Mourncrs.

Isl James Gazettc.i
The sick man lies in extremis on n
thin mattress upon the floor, covered by
n quilted silken coyerlet. Twenty or
thirty persons are in the room where he
is dying. The smoke of many hubble
bubbles clouds the air; whispered con
yersation is general. The doctors
have declared their patients condition
hopeless, and, as a last resort, certain
charms suggested by a weird looking
dervish have been tried. But the crab
broth, prepared from the tiny crusta-
ceans that inhabit the streamlets round
Shiraz, the patient has been unable to
swallow; and the Geryish points out TO
the relatives OF the dying man that his
panacea has only proved infallible
because it was tried too late. A yelled
woman, the wife OF the dying man, sits
weeping at the side of her husbands
pillow. She frequently holds to his
face a moistened piece Of mud torn
from the wall this wetted mud is sup
posed to have a very reyiving influence,
and is used by Persians as we use smell
ing salts.
Tea is handed round in small cups:
the crowd in the room becomes greater;
every window Is shut, and, as the out
side temperature is 30 degrees, some
idea of the heat within can be formed.
The crowd is not here from mere curios-
ity. A man is sick; then where should
his friends be, they say, if not by his
bedsidei The amovar RUSSIAN tea
urns) steam and bubble; the room is
filled with clouds of tobacco smoke and
the steam from the urns, and now, just
as 200 years < was done in England, a
fowl is killed and placed warm and
bleeding on the patient feet. All is Of
no avail, however. The man has
breathed his last.
The wife yields her place by the bed
side. Moistened cotton wool is placed
in the mouth OF the dead, in the orr.
fees of the nostrils, and in the ears.
A moollah begins TO read aloud he
prescribed portion of the Koran, COM
mencing 20 man, | swear by the in
structiye Koran that thou art one of tho
messengers of God sent to show the
right way" etc. This portion of the
Mussulman's sacred book was called by
Mohammed himself the heart of the
Koran" And now all present witness
aloud that the dead man was a good
pious Mohammedan. The limbs are
composed and a cup of water is placed
at the head of the corpse. No sooner is
this done than a moollah ascends to the
fiat roof Of the house and begins TO read
in a shrill monotone certain verses from
the holy book. This to the
%neighbors that the mar is veritably dead
and at the same moment his relations
shrek and wall, 'ewo, wo. he is
dead; no has passed away" These are
the expressions Of real grief. But pres
emily tho professional mourners arrive
and rend the air with their shrlll
screaming, which is like the 'keening"
Of the Irish.
The house is soon flied with friends
and neighbors, who add their cries to
the screams of the mourners. The
women of the family hasten to array
themselves in bitter" d. Q. somber)
garments-not in actual black, but in
sad colors; neither they nor the men
wash or dress their hair until the fu-
neral and the first days OF mourning
are over. The male relatives do not lit
orally rend their garments, but give
them the right appearance by opening
certain seams OF their coats and cloaks
with a penknife; and instead of casting
dust upon their heads they dab mud on
their hats.
And now come the washers of the
dead" To each parish are attached n
family of these people, who get a de-
spised livelihood by performing the last
offices for the dead. The corpse having
been washed at an ad dining stream,
the hands are placed across the chest,
and it is wrapped in the shroud of cotton
cloth that the deceased has probably
had by him as a sort of memento mort
for years. Camphor real vegetable
camphor) is placed beneath the shroud,
and the body is laid in a rough coffin
made of thin planks and brought back
to the house. The coin in Persia is of
a thin and unsubstantial kind, and the
burial always takes place within twenty
four hours Of decease.