At last one lady showed me a flea-bite on a very round and shapely arm, which literally jangled with glass bangles and gold bracelets. As this was the most serious symptom I had yet seen, I began to think I had better retire, when tea was brought in by a young negress. The ladies, the eunuch, and myself, all partook, but the two ladies did so with shrieks of laughter, in which the negress joined. Suddenly a cry of “Aga! aga!” (the master, the master) was raised, and I saw the Eyn-ul-Molk coming up the garden. The two indiscreet ones became at once staid matrons of the severest type. They sprang to the other side of the room, they drew their kerchiefs, or rather the corners of them, over their faces, leaving the eyes alone visible; and the young negress who had brought the tea became a statue of propriety in ebony, pulling her big print veil over her mouth till she looked like a living bolster. The old nobleman came in, and I was made to feel again the pulses of my patient, and again look at her tongue. But nothing but her eyes and tongue were now visible, and both ladies pretended to look on the infidel doctor with horror. They answered their husband’s questions only in a whisper, and in a few minutes I followed the Eyn-ul-Molk to the “berūni,” or general apartments. I noticed that these were furnished with much less luxury than the women’s side. I now managed to find out that the fair sufferer had that morning very early had a slight attack of intermittent fever, and, with the help of the interpreter, I said that I would prescribe on getting home. The farewell pipe was brought, and I retired, I trust, gracefully. Thus ended my first visit to a Persian patient. I suppose that my remedies were successful, for, though I was not asked to attend again, I received a plate of oranges and two dried salmon as a fee, with a polite message of thanks in a day or two. As this visit had occupied some four hours in all, I came to the conclusion that I should not add much to my income by private practice, the result of an attendance on the wife of a great noble being so small in a money point of view; and though interesting at the time from its novelty, yet I felt that that would soon pass off. I had been regularly robbed of my rest, after the first few dreamless nights that one has at the end of a long journey, by a sort of hooting sound, followed by cries of “ya huc, h-u-u-u-c.” These noises were repeated at irregular intervals all through the night, and I found also that they occurred in the day-time whenever Major S⸺ entered or left the house. They proceeded from the Major’s dervish, and they grew louder and more frequent day by day.