An Itinerant Cook preparing Kabobs 224 Bread-making 240 A Mosul Bride 246 A Wonderful Vision 259 Travelling in Winter 296 PART I "So, after the sore torments of the route, Toothache and headache, and the ache of mind, And huddled sleep and smarting wakefulness, And night and day, and hunger sick at food, And twenty-fold relays, and packages To be unlocked, and passports to be found, And heavy well-kept landscape--we are glad Because we entered (Persia) in the Sun." D. G. Rossetti. BEHIND THE VEIL IN PERSIA AND TURKISH ARABIA CHAPTER I EARLY IMPRESSIONS Start for Persia--Arrival at Isphahan--Departure for Kerman--The Land of the Lion and the Sun--A rainy day and its effects--Eclipse--Locusts--Sand-storms--Land of cats--Modes of conveyance--Inhabitants. "'Tis the sight of a lifetime to behold The great shorn sun as you see it now Across eight miles of undulant gold That widens landward, weltered and rolled With patches of shadow and crimson stains." Lowell. "Shadow maker, shadow slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime." Lord Tennyson. Our life in Persia extended over a period of three years, dating from the spring of 1900 to that of 1903.