Connecticut western news., 1886-02-17
AMONG THE PERSIANS.
An Afternoons Walk in the
 Chief City.
Our Late Minister Describes Some of the
 Sights of Teheran.

Sights of Teheran.
 s. G. w. Benjamin late United States minister to Persia, describing an after noon in Teheran, says, in Harper's, It is the hour of peace; a rosy light bathes the house-tops, but the stately avenues leading north and south are in shadow, and cooled by the water thrown by tho sakkahs. The tender evening light also rests on the snowy crests of the vast ridgc of the Shim Tram, or Light of Persia, which scars to a height of 1a,ooo feet across the northern side of the plain, but ninc miles away. The evening glow, be- fore 1t fades into twilight, fingers last on the snowy cone of Demavend, 21, 900 feet high, ever present in every view, iko the presiding genius that protects the capital of Persia.
 With slow and dignifed steps the Per sian gentlemen stroll through these invit- ing avenues, engaged in genial converse. Their long robes, their massive boards, their lofty caps or voluminous turbans, give them a lofty stateliness as they wend along, undisturbed by the numerous hor- ses or carriages, or the hideously unkcmpt and filthy dervishes who claim aims on account of their sanctitied rags.
 At this hour the tea-houses arc in full blast. The reader may be surprised to learn that the national beverage of Persia is not coffee but tea. One would natu- rally suppose that 0 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 con- stunned by the Pcrsians, but the fact re- mains that they arc essentially 0 tea drinking race, drinking 1t in vast quanti- ties favored with lemon or lime, and sweetoned almost to O syrup. The habit is probably the result of the commercial intercourse which at an early period exist ed between Persia and China, and which, as is now well known, gave an impulse to the arts of Persia, of which evidences appear at various stages of her esthetic history. At Teheran the tea houses take the place of tho coffee-houses of Constantinople. One meets them at every turn, of every rank, but all alike resorts for rest, leisure, and entertainment. There one may see public dancers, who by law are now invariably men, although women contrive to evade the laws some- times and exhibit in the harems. The male dancers are brought up to this voca- ton from boyhood, and invariably wear long hair in imitation of women, and shave their faces smooth.
 What interests an intelligent European more at these tea-houses than the dances are the recitations from the poets. The songs of Hafz may be heard there, and entire cantos from the great epic of Fer doonsee, repeated with loud, sonorous modulation, heard sometimes at quite a distance at the more inspiring passages, and listened to with enthusiastic rapture. Here too, one may hear the "Arabian Nights" tales given without any attempt at expurgation, exactly as in recent translation. The reader will recollect that the characters in the "Arabiap Nights" arc constantly and at every op portunity quoting long and appropriate passages from the poets. This may te the European appear to be an affectatior or freak of poetic license on the part o1 the author of these tales. On the contra ry, he was simply giving us another o1 those traits of Oriental character the record of which has given to those ini mitable narratives immortality as the fin est picture ever given of the life of tn, East, which, after thousands of years, i only just beginning to feel the transform ing influence of western civilization.
 As one continues his ramble througl Teheran at this hour, he sees 0 crowd amused by baboons dancing to the bea of tambourines-animals which, If the do not get all the happiness they deserve at least well fulfill their mission in minis tering to the pleasure of myriads by thei absurd antics and grimaces. Or VIC SCI chained honess put through her pace or, fatigued by the part she has bee1 forced to play in life, and unable to es cape from it by suicide, is sleeping heavi ly on the pavement. But one of the mos common spectacles of Teheran in the lat afternoon-a sight which always draws crowd-is match of trained wrestlers or athletes exercising with clubs, as bot of which the Persians are very exper although they mako no great figure i jugglery.