Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1886-06-30
THE PERSIANS.
Some characteristics OF An
Oriental People.
A Country Of Natural Liars and Alto
gether Hopeless PrOcrastinators'


says a Tehcran letter to the San Francis
co Chronicle. 1t goes against his grain,
against all he holds most sacred in this
queer world, to speak the truth. 1t is
born with him, this invetcratc love of
and it is bred in the bone
for generations and generations. / have
noticed with the interest the student of
human nature is liable to feel in such
cases how astonished the Farsee is when
he has caught himself unaware telling
the truth. He then IS out OF his role,
and feels so abashcd and ashamed of him
self that he looks shcepish and guilty;
much as an American might after get
ting off an awful fb. Even with such a
people, however, where the noble art Of
romancing is carried to such perfection,
moments will arise when it is desirable
to know and hear the truth. And for
such occasions the stock of Persian ad-
juration, oaths, curses and appeals seems
almost inexhaustiblc. One of the fun
niest is "Rihe mero Ha~,m Rcrdi"
Uiteraly, May you put my beard in the
winding shccO.
Procrastination is another bcsctting
sin of theirs. "F6raR mitonam" is their
reply when you want n thing done at
once, and another great phrase of theirs
is GLEASON (meaning "By my eyes I'll do
it). But that means an hour, next day,
next month, or next year, according to
circumstances--ncver at once. To dcs-
patch a thing and be done with it, to
"hurry up" seems to be utterly impossi-
bic to the Persian, who is lavish of moth
ing so much as Of time. You give your
servant, for instance, a tchbouk to be
mcnded, and tell him you must have it
back repaired next morning. Your SER
want knows he will "gct fits" if he does
not attend to it at once, and that he will
probably get little money if he does.
The pipemaker across the street keeps
little shop, and has a large and hungry
family at home to keep out of the very
slender profit of his trade. He knows,
too, he will be paid thrice the ordinary
price if he does the job at oncc-cnough
to keep the pot boiling for his entire
family for one day at least. Still, so in
grained is the policy of tardincss with
both these gentlemen that you are mighty
lucky if you get your tchbouk back in
week.
The other day had business at the
central post office here. I wanted to
register five letters and buy postage
stamps for eight other ones. l entered
the little office-eight feet by TENN
which the registration of letters is per-
formed Four native gentlemen, seated
around huge table, on which stood
clumsy scale, where extremely busy do
ing nothing; Or, rather, they chatted and
took pulls by rotation from common
ghatyan. The chief came in at this
juncturc-a very handsome but foppish-
looking man-to whom was introduced.
The chief sat down and made the fifth in
this happy gathering. / told them | was
in hurry and wished to have my letters
registered and to buy fourteen kcrauns'
worth of stamps. They could not under
stand how | could be in hurry. They
were very polite and amlablc and talked
pleasantly, but it took ten minutes of my
cloQuencc to induce one Of the quartet to
let up on his ghatyan and tend to busi-
ness, and it took ms just forty minutes
to have my letters registered and to buy
those stamps. The latter he counted
over at least score of times, very slowly
and deliberately, before he consented to
release his hold on them. 1t was not
cussedncss on his p0rt-t was just his
natural love of doing things slowly. His
chief sat there and evidently thought
his clerk very rash and suspiciously
active young man. And for Persian
the young fellow had really been quick
about it.
1t is one of the great trials which every
foreigner has to go through with after his
arrival here-thc promiscuous lying 60
ing on all around him, and the eXaspor-
ating slowness Of people. To see Per-
sian write letter or sign document is
treat. He scizcs his reed pen with an
awful deal of circumspcction, and dips it
slowly, hesitatingly, into the ink, then
as slowly brings it on a straight line with
his optics and examines it carefully,
if the ink hasn't since disappcorcd-van-
ished into thin air, as it were. Having
convinced himself that n such piece Of
magic has been performed by an unseen
power he gets himself into shape to pen
his first letter. This requires various
painful and violent contortions of the
body, similar to those Sammy Weller, Of
Pickwickian fame, used to undergo
when indicting his valentine, and then
the paper is scizcl again very slowly
and unwillingly, and brought to within
six inches of his nose. Then n dab is
made. The first letter is done. 1t Is
taken up and duly admired, whcreupon
a rest of five minutes is taken, when the
same series of cvoutions and manUuvres
is repeated to give birth to another letter,
and so on. l watched professional
mira (scribc.) the other day. He was a
man noted for his quick work. 1t took
him eighteen minutes by the watch to
write. his first line.
1t is related of Old Doc, horse OF the
Ern do rpnnptly killnI