Another source of revenue to servants is the system of vails. This is, I am glad to say, being lessened. At one time the Europeans encouraged it. I remember, after I had been about a year in the country, going to stay with Pierson in Teheran, on a visit of five weeks: I gave his head-servant to distribute amongst the rest two hundred and fifty kerans, or ten pounds. The man’s face did not express a lively satisfaction, though that was merely policy; and as I was riding out of the gate, the “dog-boy,” a youth retained to feed the five or six dogs my friend kept, seized my bridle, and asked me roughly, “Where was his present?” This was more than mortal man could stand; I thonged the fellow, going back afterwards to explain and apologise to his master, who turned him out then and there. Thus a servant, though he nominally feeds and clothes himself, has his wages, his profits, his presents which each servant gets from his master at the New Year—generally a month’s pay—his vails, and his master’s old clothes; as these fetch a high price in a bazaar, they are an important item in the servant’s budget. In addition to this, he gets a small allowance when travelling, and on the road his master feeds him. So that, taken altogether, his position is not a bad one, the emoluments of my head-man, for instance, being more than those of a native country doctor in fair practice. I felt considerable satisfaction at this time at the visits to my dispensary of the “hakim bashi” (chief doctor), or rather one of those who had that title in Hamadan. He expressed himself as eager to learn, and knew a few words of French. I was, of course, delighted to give him any information I could, and he seemed very grateful for instruction; he, however, turned out afterwards to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and was very nearly the cause of my stay in Persia being brought to an abrupt termination, a matter which will be duly detailed. One day one of the servants brought a “delleh”[11] for sale, a sort of weasel, and of similar size; he was of an olive-green colour, with a bushy tail, having patches of yellowish-white on the body: a boy dragged him in by a string. He was so fierce no one would go near him, and was evidently carnivorous. He was kept on our platform tied to a ring, till one day he gnawed his thong and bolted into a hole. In this hole he remained, just showing his nose in the daytime, but coming out at night, when he was generally pursued by our dogs, who roamed about the place loose. I had been in the habit of feeding the beast on raw meat, of which he was immoderately fond, and after some little trouble I taught him to come to call. The animal got very tame, though extremely pugnacious when teased, bristling his long soft fur out, like the mongoose, biting savagely, and emitting a short sharp cry of rage.