On my return to the house I noticed the very extraordinary behaviour of “Jill,” a black setter, one of a pair (“Jack” and “Jill”) belonging to Pierson; she snapped and bit, emitting a peculiar cry, and showed signs of rabies. I shut her up and made inquiries; it appeared that she, an unusually quiet and playful dog generally, had bitten every dog in the house. These were a very fine Arab greyhound and two young bull-terriers of Pierson’s, a Persian greyhound of my own, and a little white dog owned by the cook—for Persians will often own and pet a small, long-haired dog. Undoubtedly all had been bitten. There was nothing for it but (Jill being now certainly rabid, for I had watched her, and she was eating earth and uttering the special cry which, once heard, can never be forgotten) to destroy them all; this I had done, and the cook wept bitterly, but assented to the measure. It is sad, in such a place as Persia, to lose all one’s four-footed friends at one fell swoop; but so it was, and thus ended an exciting day. I have never seen, except on this occasion, a rabid dog in Persia; and as it is a country where water is very scarce, it shows that want of water can have little to do with causing rabies. I never either saw or heard of a case of hydrophobia in Persia. CHAPTER VIII. HAMADAN. Antelope—Hunting and hawking—Shooting from the saddle—Thief-catching—The prince offers his services as head-servant—Our hunting party—The prince takes the honours—Kabobs—A provincial grandee—His stud—Quail-shooting—A relative of the king—Persian dinner—Musicians and singers—Parlour magic—The anderūn—Cucumber-jam—Persian home-life—Grateful Armenians—Lizards—Talking lark—Pigeon-flying—Fantails—Pigeons’ ornaments—Immorality of pigeon-flying—Card-playing—Chess—Games—Wrestling—Pehliwans—Gymnastics. The “poor prince,” Abu Seif Mirza, called one day and suggested our going the next morning to hunt antelope, promising to show us sport. When posting from Teheran we had seen several herds of antelope, generally five or six animals together; and on one occasion, as I have noted, a string had suddenly crossed the road within ten yards of us—a thing very unusual, and which never occurred to me since. The hunting of the antelope is a favourite pastime among the grandees of Persia, and is also practised by the villagers, who will frequently get a pot-shot from behind a stone when the animals visit their drinking-places. They are either pursued with relays of dogs, shot from the saddle, or, rarely, hawked with a specially large kind of falcon, who always succeeds in stopping them till the dogs pull them down. Our plan was the second one. After drinking tea, we started one afternoon and marched out some seven farsakhs into a sandy wilderness; the shah-zadeh (or prince), who was a well-known shikari, shooting several small birds from the saddle while at full gallop, to show his skill.