Seven years after, one of my two, who were taken as stable-helps, was getting pay from me at the rate of thirty shillings a month, and was my head groom, and would anywhere obtain that pay. Two were taken as markers in the billiard-room, and are now respectable servants. As the famine ceased, the _unclaimed_ orphans were apprenticed to good trades, or placed in the houses of wealthy Persians as servants. No attempt at proselytism was made, but a Persian priest was engaged to teach the usual rudiments of reading, writing, and the Koran. Many villagers came in and claimed their children, and these were often loath to leave their clean quarters and good food, to return to hard drudgery and rags in their native villages. It may be safely said that no _deaths_ from starvation took place in Shiraz after the arrival of the first instalment of relief money from England. Of course, the application of the funds was carried out irrespective of the religion of the applicants; and this application was easier in Shiraz than in Ispahan. The Armenian community in Shiraz were very few, and only some four families needed relief; while, on the contrary, the Jews were many and terribly poor. As to the labour question, a few of the more able-bodied were set to the nominal work of picking the stones off the high-road, but no heavy labour was insisted on. In the winter, too, the snow having blocked the streets, the poor were employed in removing it for the general good. I happened to go to Ispahan, and also assisted in the distribution there. The Ispahanis are much more provident than the people of Shiraz, and I do not think the distress would have been so great but for the influx of villagers. At Koomishah, the third stage from Ispahan towards Shiraz, the effects of the famine were very severe, and I was glad to be able to distribute some four hundred kerans of the Poor Fund, both going and coming, there. Of course this amount did not go far, and I was besieged in the post-house by the hungry crowd of women and children; the sum was too small to permit of giving anything to the men. First we admitted all the aged women, and gave them a keran and a half each; then each child was given a keran, and, when they had secreted it, the whole number were passed out and the gates closed. From the roof of the post-house I perceived a big burly villager, who was employed in robbing the children, as they went out, of their slender store, even throwing them on the ground and taking the coin from their mouths. The other villagers, of whom there was a large mob, merely laughed, but did not interfere. But getting down from the back wall of the post-house by means of horse-ropes, the postmaster, my groom and I succeeded in catching the fellow, and dragging him into the post-house, and then the post-boys gave him a good hiding by my order, and we took the money away. He, of course, complained to the local Governor, who requested an explanation.