Persian confectionery has attained a high pitch of excellence, everything being pretty to the eye; but they have little idea beyond the flavour of lemon-juice, so that most of their efforts are sickly sweet. Toffee (“sowan”) is well made and like our own. Their ices and sherbets (syrups in iced water) are excellent. Jams are numerous and good; conserves of melon and cucumber, also citron, are made. Dried fruits are abundant; cherries, apricots, peaches, apples. Pickles are made in all the varieties, similar to English ones, but in addition grapes, oranges, apples, lemons, aubergines, chillies (green), and tomatoes are common pickles. Dried and salted fish are much used, but fresh-water fish are little valued, except the salmon and the trout. Dried prawns and shrimps are carried all over the country from the Persian Gulf. Dates are the _staple_ in the south of Persia, and form a large portion of the food of the poor all over the country. Fresh and preserved dates are a dessert luxury. Melons, pumpkins, water-melons, are much consumed, while all the common English fruits, save the gooseberry, currant, and medlar, are cheap and within the reach of all; as are also grapes, in endless profusion, peaches, nectarines, and apricots. The bamiah (lady’s finger) and aubergine are additions to the usual English list of vegetables, and the nohl-kohl is in common use, while radishes the size of a fist are a common food of villagers. Cheese and butter are cheap, being about twopence a pound, while flour in the great cities seldom exceeds a penny a pound (bread is the same price), and in villages is much cheaper. With all these things to be got, Persia is really the poor man’s paradise; in fact, _to live in, the cheapest country in the world_. Tea and coffee are much drunk; the prices are those of Europe for tea, but the best _Mocha_ coffee is only a shilling a pound. The only dear necessaries are lump-sugar and European candles. Good wine may be got for from threepence to one shilling a quart, and native arrack is from one-and-threepence to one-and-ninepence a bottle. In the bazaar are cook-shops where the labouring people resort; here are sold bowls of soup, pillaws, kabobs (a separate trade), and a cut off a sheep roasted whole may be had in Ispahan. The trade of kalleh-puz, or cooker of sheep’s heads and feet, is a common one; the head and feet of sheep are slowly simmered for some twelve hours, and the liquor sold as soup; the feet, tongues, and heads being retailed to peripatetic vendors. The butchers sell by weight, and have no idea of joints; the buyer is allowed to hack off a large or small portion, and price is the same, irrespective of part. The liver, lights, and kidneys, with the heart, are only eaten by the poor, while the suet is carefully removed for the candle-maker, and can only be had at a higher price than the meat. The huge tail of the Persian sheep is looked on as a delicacy, and a portion is allotted to each buyer.