The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-07-04
DYING IN PERSIA.

The Correct Way of Shutting on Mortal
Integuments in the Dominions of the
Shah.
The sick man lies IN ertrentS on a
thin mattress upon the floor, covered
by quilted silken coverlet. Twenty
or thirty persons are in the room where
he is dying. The smoke of many
hubble-bubbles clouds the air. whispered
conversation is general. The doctors
have declared their patients condition
hopeless, and, as last resort, certain
charms suggested by a wierd- blocking
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
swallows and the dervish points out to
the relatives of the dying man that his
panacea has only not proved infallible
because it was tried too late. A yelled
woman, the wife Of the dying man, sits
weeping at the side of her husband s
pillow. She frequently holds to his
face moistened piece of mud torn
from the wall (this wetted mud is sup
posed to have very reyiving influence,
and is used by Persians as we use
smelling 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 ninety degrees,
some idea of the heat within can be
formed. The crowd is not here from
mere curiosity. A man is sick; then
where should his friends be, they saw,
if not by his bedside? The samovars
! (Russian tea urns) steam and bubble;
the room is filled with clouds Of tobacco
smoke and the steam from the urns.
And now, lust as two hundred years
ago was done in England 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 cottonwood 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 the pre-
scribed portion of the Koran, commence
ing 80 man, | swear by the instructive
Koran that thou art one of the messen-
gers Of God sent to show the right
way" etc. This portion of the Mussel-
mans sacred book was called by Mo-
hammed himself 1.-The heart of the
Koran" And now all present witness
aloud that the dead man was a good
and 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 as
cendc to the fiat roof OF the house and
begins TO read in a shrill monotone Ger
tain verses from the holy book. This
announces to the neighbors that the
man is verbally dead; and at the same
moment his relations shrek and wall:
''Woe, woe, he is dead; he has passed
away" These are the expressions of a
real grief. But presently the profess
sional mournerS arrive and read the air
with their shrill screaming, which is
like the ''keening' of the Irish.
The house is soon filled with friends
and neighbors, who add their cries to
the screams of the mourners. The
women of the family hasten to array
themselves in "btter" &. C., sombre)
garments-not in actual black, but in
sad colors; neither they nor the men
wash or dress their hair until the funer-
al and the first days of mourning are
over. The male relatives do not liter,
ally rend their garments, but give them
the right appearance by opening GER
tain seams of their coats and cloaks
with a penknite; 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 at
tacheds a family of these people,
who get despised livelihood by per-
forming the last offices for the dead.
The corpse having been washed at an
adjoining stream, the hands are placed
across the chest, and it is wrapped in
the shroud of cotton cloth that the de
ceased has probably had by him, as a
sort of naenentO mori. for years. Cam,
phor (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 coffin in Persia is of thin
and unsubtantial kind, and the buriaI
always takes place within twenty-four
hours of decease. 81. James G0gette
Wet Land.
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