Woman's work in Persia, as generally in the East, is multiform as well as menial. The women, of course, do the baking. They use yeast in the making of their bread. Having kneaded the dough, they set it aside to rise, after which they divide the mass into small parts, and with a rolling-pin they roll these pieces of dough very thin, and sometimes to the size of two feet in length by a foot in width, and then stick them to the side of the oven. The latter is a cylindrical hole in the ground, lined with clay and located near the centre of the house. It is about four feet deep, and approximately two and a half feet in diameter. The women make fire in this oven but once a day. The wife bakes once or twice a week, if the family be small, but if large, every day or every other day. This oven, whose top is even with the floor, is also the place around which in cool weather the family gather upon mats to keep themselves warm. The fuel is not wood, which is very scarce, but manure. At first both the smoke and the odor are very perceptible, but when once the fire is burning freely, the impurities of the fuel are drawn up through an opening in the roof, a window, just above the oven. Out of this window, which remains open day and night, the smoke is supposed to go, as indeed it will, if ample time be given. The Persian housewife is thus enabled to keep her house ventilated, but its walls and ceilings soon become very black with soot. In rainy weather the good housewife must place a pan or other receptacle immediately under the window--for this opening in the ceiling is both the avenue for light and for ventilation, hence must not be closed. If a woman wishes to know her neighbor's business, she will creep upon the top of her neighbor's roof--for houses are very often close together, and eavesdrop through the open window. Weaving is done both by women and by men. The weaving and spinning apparatus, as well as the crude cotton-gins, are in the same room where the family eats, sleeps, cooks, and converses. As a rule, the men weave the light goods, such as cotton fabrics, while the women make the carpets, rugs, and the like. The women are the spinsters, and, with untiring energy, they rise early and spin all day. It is said that a woman of ordinary skill can spin a pound of cotton a day, provided she works very hard. For this she receives, if done for another, about twenty cents.