We said farewell to our unknown host, stammering broken phrases of polite Persian. ‘Out of his great kindness we had eaten an excellent breakfast; the clemency of his nobility was excessive; we hoped that he might carry himself safely to Tehran, and that God would be with him.’ But though our Persian was poor, gratitude shone from our faces. He bowed and smiled, and assured us that our servant was honoured by our having partaken of his chicken, but he would not shake hands with us because he had not yet washed his fingers, which, as he had used them as knives and forks both for himself and for us, were somewhat sticky. So we mounted our horses, and rode away towards our crude Western world, and he mounted his and passed eastward into his own cities. Who he is, and what his calling, we shall never know--nor would we. He remains to us a type, a charming memory, of the hospitality, the courtesy, of the East. Whether he be prince or soldier or simple traveller, God be with him! Khuda hafez--God be his Protector! _A STAGE AND A HALF_ ‘AS music at the close is sweetest last,’ says Shakespeare. We cling regretfully to the close, but the beginning is what is worth having--the beginning, with all its freshness, all its enthusiasm, all its unexpected charm, Hercules for strength, Atalanta for speed, Gabriel for fair promise. Say what you will, the end is sad. Do not linger over the possibilities to which (all unfulfilled) it sets a term, but remember the glorious energy which spurred you forward at first, and which lies ready to spring forth anew. When we were riding post, we had occasion to study the philosophy of beginnings. ‘Ah, if we could only have gone on like that!’ we sighed when, finding ourselves at the end of a weary day only thirty miles removed from our starting-point, we remembered the sixty flashing miles that had passed beneath our horses’ feet the day before. The long road to the sea seemed an eternity of space not to be measured by our creeping, tired steps. Yet with the dawn our views had changed. However weary, however stiff you may be when in the dusk you reach the last half-farsakh of the last half-stage, the night’s rest will send you on with as keen a pleasure as if you had been lying idle for a week before. The clear day, the low cool sun, the delicious cup of tea flavoured with the morning, the fresh horse, the long straight road in front of you--away! away! A careful jog, a steady canter, who does not feel that he could put a girdle round the earth at the beginning of the first stage? And then the sun creeps higher, shadows and mists vanish, the dust dances in the hot road, your horse jogs on more slowly--how large the world is, how long four farsakhs! And beyond them lie another four, and yet another; better not to think of them--Inshallah, we shall sleep somewhere to-night!