It is curious to go thousands of miles to Persia—to cross vast sandy deserts—and at last to find little skirted boys in the mudwalled streets playing tipcat just like their counterparts in our own cities. Hop-scotch and duck-stone too are favourite games, and kites are very popular. The kites are large and square and fly very well, and the boys often fly them from the roofs, sending “messages” up the string just as our boys do. There is a regular game of “wolf” too, played almost exactly as it is in many parts of the world by English-speaking children. I am sorry to say that pitch and toss and gambling with cards are very common.

There is nothing like cricket and football, but in Yezd there is a kind of “rounders” which is played for a fortnight only at the New Year—the Persian New Year, that is, in March. Any evening during that fortnight if you go out into the desert just outside the town walls you will see a crowd of men and boys, some playing, some watching. And any day during that fortnight if you visit the women, some small boy will proudly show his chaftar or rounders stick. For a week or two afterwards an occasional chaftar may be seen but after that it is a puzzle where they disappear to, not one is to be seen till the next New Year.

The little girls in Persia, as everywhere else, depend largely on dolls. The dolls are home made—rag-dolls without much shape, with the features worked in fine cross-stitch, and dressed of course, as Persians. Good European dolls are great treasures, even to the women, and I knew one rich lady who had eight very nice ones all for herself.

In Shiraz they make wooden horses for the children and little models of the kajavehs or covered panniers in which women and children often travel. In Yezd, where the workers in clay are cleverer than the carpenters, little model kuzehs or waterpots are commoner and clay money-boxes and nightingales. Roughly moulded and gaily painted clay animals and men too, are made in quantities—but only at the “Festival of the Sacrifice” when a camel is sacrificed. At the time of this festival there are stalls and shops in the bazaars full of clay toys and toy drums, but they cannot be got at any other time of year, and as clay animals are quickly broken they are only to be seen for a very short time. Among the toys may sometimes be seen a figure evidently copied from an Italian statuette of the Virgin and Child—copied by Muhammadans without any idea of what it represents. But when all is said the games and toys are very few in Persia, as compared with those you are accustomed to. Perhaps they are not so much needed there. The grown-ups are so childish that it is no great hardship to a child to practice grown-up ways instead of playing games of its own. There is so much in ordinary grown-up life that is really a very good substitute for a game—the elaborate greetings to be gone through with each person in turn according to their importance, the tea served in tiny cups no bigger than a child’s teaset, the sweet-eating, the pressing of roseheads into the visitor’s hand, or the more elaborate arrangement of stiff sticks closely covered with roses, the presentation of tiny unripe first-fruits, of melon seeds or nuts ornamented with fluffy bits of silk, of oranges inlaid with velvet, all these would seem a very attractive game to a child. Perhaps they really prefer to join in the games their elders play in earnest rather than play their own in jest. The conversation too is seldom over their heads, but generally interests them as much as their parents. The entertainments of the elders are of a kind to suit the children too. What child does not enjoy the Fifth of November with its Guy Fawkes, its fireworks, and its bonfires? and the Persians, too, have their firework day, when they burn not Guy Fawkes, but ‘Omar, the Muhammadan leader who conquered Persia. They do not burn him, because he conquered Persia, but because he was Khalif or head of the Muhammadans, and the Persians say that ‘Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, ought to have been Khalif and that ‘Omar was a usurper. There are torchlight processions, in which ‘Omar’s effigy is carried, bonfires illuminations, and fireworks in plenty.

All the year round fireworks and illuminations are very popular, so much so that the main work of the Government Arsenals seems to be the manufacture of fireworks. Another very popular form of entertainment is the ruzehkhani], or religious reading. It is considered a very pious act for a man to have a ruzehkhani in his house in the two months of Muharram, and his friends come in crowds and greatly prefer it to an ordinary party. Muharram is the time of mourning for Husain and Hasan, Muhammad’s grandsons.

The courtyard is crowded with people sitting on the ground, and as the professional reader recites the story of the death of Husain and Hasan the people sway their bodies to and fro to the rhythm and gradually work up their excitement. Then they all begin to beat on their bare chests with the open hand and raise a wail that gradually grows in strength, till the wailing and the sound of the blows can be heard several streets off and the tears stream down their cheeks. It is very exciting, and grown-ups and children alike enjoy it thoroughly.

But the day of the year is the day of the death of Husain when the nakhl is carried and the great passion play of the death of Husain and Hasan is played.

This is a general holiday and all through the early part of the day, the villagers come trooping in to the towns. The streets are now full and processions pass along them carrying the nakhls from the squares outside the smaller mosques. In some towns, too, they carry alams, or long poles with a series of handkerchiefs tied to them. When the processions from two different quarters of the town meet there is generally a struggle, often ending in a free fight; so both alams and nakhls are now forbidden in some towns.

I only once met a procession myself, and then it most politely halted to allow me to pass comfortably.The smaller processions being over, everyone crowds to the large squares to see the carrying of the great nakhls of the big mosques.

The nakhls are wooden frameworks carried on poles and hung on one side with looking-glasses, on the other with daggers. Those in the large squares are of immense weight. They are said on this day to be carried across the square by Fatimeh, Muhammad’s daughter, but it is a work of great merit to help her, so as many as can possibly get within reach of the poles join in the work, and the nakhl moves across the square. But the afternoon is the best part when the great play of the death of Husain and Hasan is acted. Then, indeed, there is wailing and beating of breasts. “I enjoy it more than anything in the year,” one lady told me.

One year there was a little boy dangerously ill with inflammation of the lungs when the great day came round. It was considered quite out of the question for any of the family to stay away from the play to nurse him, and being a boy he was not likely to obey the woman servant who was being left in charge of the house. “He would have been all over the roof trying to get a glimpse of the play,” his mother said, “and probably would have fallen off, so we had to take him.” So they took a mattress for him, and he lay and listened to the play from a gallery, and of course got up to watch the exciting parts. It very nearly killed him, but they seemed to feel they had taken the only reasonable course, and he eventually recovered.