Bookbinding in Persia is an art, and not a trade; and here the flower and bird painter finds his employment. Bright bindings of boards with a leather back are decorated by the artist, principally with presentments of birds and flowers, both being a strange mixture of nature and imagination; for if a Persian artist in this branch thinks that he can improve on nature in the matter of color, he attempts it. The most startling productions are the result; his nightingales being birds of gorgeous plumage, and the colors of some of his flowers saying much for his imagination. This method of “painting the lily” is common in Persia; for the narcissus—bouquets of which form the constant ornament in spring of even the poorest homes—is usually “improved” by rings of colored paper, silk, or velvet being introduced over the inner ring of the petals. Startling floral novelties are the result; and the European seeing them for the first time, is invariably deceived, and cheated into admiration of what turns out afterwards to be a transparent trick. Of course, this system of binding each book in an original cover of its own, among a nation so literary as the Persians, gives a continuous and healthy impetus to the art of the flower-painter. Enamelling in Persia is a dying art. The best enamels are done on gold, and often surrounded by a ring or frame of transparent enamel, grass-green in color. This green enamel, or rather transparent paste, is supposed to be peculiar to the Persian artist. At times, the gold is hammered into depressions, which are filled with designs in enamel on a white paste, the spaces between the depressions being burnished gold. Large _plaques_ are frequently enamelled on gold for the rich; and often the golden water-pipes are decorated with enamels, either alone, or in combination with incrusted gems. Yet another field remains to the Persian artist—that of engraving on gold, silver, brass, copper, and iron. Here the work is usually artistically good, and always original, no two pieces being alike. Something must be said about the artist and his studio. Abject poverty is the almost universal lot of the Persian artist. He is, however, an educated man, and generally well-read. His marvellous memory helps him to retain the traditional attributes of certain well-known figures: the black-bearded Rustum (the Persian Hercules), and his opponent the Deev Suffid or White Demon; Leila and Mujnūn, the latter of whom retired to the wilderness for love of the beautiful Leila; and in a painfully attenuated state, all his ribs being very apparent, is always represented as conversing with the wild beasts, who sit around him in various attitudes of respectful attention. Dr. Tanner could never hope to reach the stage of interesting emaciation to which the Persian artists represent Mujnūn to have attained. Another popular subject is that of Solomon in all his glory.