From the very first the baby is given _kaif_ every-day, that is, something to make it sleep; this _kaif_ is almost invariably opium. After the first week most babies are also given tea every day, without milk but with a great deal of sugar in it, or better still sugar-candy. This is considered specially good for babies, but it takes a long time to dissolve. Both opium and tea are very bad for the baby’s digestion, so we are not surprised to find that nearly all Persians suffer from indigestion. [Illustration: A BABY IN HAMMOCK] There is one Persian custom connected with babies that boys and girls of other lands would probably like to introduce into their own country. The newly-arrived baby is weighed and its weight in sweets is handed round to the people in the house, and it is supposed to bring bad luck to the baby if anyone refuses its sweets. Plenty of people always drop in when they hear that a new baby has arrived. Another Persian rule for babies would not please your mothers at all. After the first bath no baby must be washed all over till it is a year old. One Persian lady, who was better educated than most, and had been reading about European ideas on health and cleanliness, told the missionaries that she was bringing up her little boy just like a European baby. She said she gave him a bath every day and generally let him kick instead of tying his legs up to make them straight. She was delighted and triumphant when, instead of getting crooked, his legs grew so strong that he walked at about half the usual age. But when he was nearly a year old his body became covered with sores and the missionary doctor told the mother to wash them not with ordinary water in the bath, but with a lotion. “I should never think of washing them in the bath,” she said. “His body must not be washed till he is a year old.” “But I thought,” said the doctor, “that you gave him a bath every day.” “Oh dear no,” she replied; “I don’t wash his _body_. It is his _legs_ that I wash every day.” When a Persian baby learns to talk it begins just like any other baby, so that the Persians declared with great glee that the English babies were talking Persian when they said “Baba” and “Dada.” But instead of “Daddy” and “Mummy” Persian babies call their father and mother _Bābā_ and _Nana_. When the baby is shown to anyone the mother generally remarks that it is an ugly little thing, and similarly the visitors are expected to say how ugly and dark it is, though there is no need to say it with any great conviction. It is possible to say “How ugly you are” just as affectionately as “You little darling.” But such uncomplimentary remarks are used to avert bad luck and to guard against any suspicion of the evil eye. If the visitor makes any complimentary remark she must add “_Māshā’ allāh_” (_i.e._“May God avert it”), or the parents will be seriously alarmed, and Baby’s admirer may be held responsible for any calamity which befalls him for weeks afterwards.