As to the Jews, their position is terrible. Probably in no country in the world are they treated worse than in Persia. Beaten, despised, and oppressed, cursed even by slaves and children, they yet manage to exist, earning their living as musicians, dancers, singers, jewellers, silver- and gold-smiths, midwives, makers and sellers of wine and spirits. When anything very filthy is to be done a Jew is sent for. CHAPTER VII. HAMADAN. Tomb of Esther and Mordecai—Spurious coins—Treasure-finding—Interest—A gunge—Oppression—A cautious finder—Yari Khan—We become treasure seekers—We find—Our cook—Toffee—Pole-buying—Modakel—I am nearly caught—A mad dog—Rioters punished—Murder of the innocents. Hamadan has no show place save the shrines of Esther and Mordecai. A poor-looking, blue-tiled dome or “gōmbeza,” some fifty feet in height, surmounts the shrine, and covers the tombs themselves; the rest of the building is in red brick, in many places mudded over. It presents the appearance of an ordinary minor shrine. In the outer chamber is nothing remarkable. A low door leads to another apartment by a passage; on crawling through this inner passage, which can only be done with considerable discomfort, almost on hands and knees, one enters a vaulted chamber, floored with common blue tiles. There is no splendour here, and nothing to attract the cupidity of the Persians. In one corner lay a heap of common “cherragh,” or oil lamps of burnt clay, covered with blue glaze, such as are used by the poor. They are on the same principle as the classic lamp, a reservoir for the oil or fat, with a projection in which lies the wick of twisted cotton or rag; these lamps will give a dull, smoky light for some hours without trimming. Our guides, two evil-looking and squalid Jews, informed us that twice a year the place was illuminated. In the centre of the apartment stood two wooden arks, almost devoid of ornament, but of considerable age; these were thickly sprinkled with small pieces of paper, on which were inscriptions in the Hebrew character, the paper being stuck on as is a label. Our guides could only tell us that pious Jewish pilgrims were in the habit of affixing these to the arks. We could not even ascertain which was the tomb of Esther and which that of Mordecai. The arks were shaped like dog-kennels, and had a slightly ornamented pinnacle of wood at either extremity of their roofs. The guides declined to allow Pierson to make a drawing of them; but I fancy this was merely done to extract a further gratuity. Nothing else was in the place save a poor and much-thumbed copy of the Jewish Scriptures, quite modern and in the book form.