The Persians, as representing the Shiite division of the Mohammedan religion, consider themselves by long odds the holiest people on the earth, far holier than the Turks, whom they religiously despise as Sunnites and unworthy to loose the latchets of their shoes.  The Koran strictly enjoins upon them great moderation in the use of intoxicating drinks, yet certain of the Persian nobility are given to drinking this raw intoxicant by the quart daily.  When asked why they don’t use it in moderation, they reply, " What is the good of drinking arrack unless one drinks enough to become drunk and happy. " Following this brilliant idea, many of them get " drank and happy " regularly every evening.  They likewise frequently consume as much as a pint before each meal to create a false appetite and make themselves feel boozy while eating.  In the morning the moonshi bashi, with a soldier for escort, accompanies me on horseback to Khoi, which is but about seven miles distant over a perfectly level road.  Sad to say, the moonshi bashi, besides his yearning affection for fiery, untamed arrack, is a confirmed opium smoker, and after last night’s debauch for supper and “hitting the pipe " this morning for breakfast, he doesn’t feel very dashing in the saddle; consequently I have to accommodate myself to his pace.  It is the slowest seven miles ever ridden on the road by a wheelman, I think; a funeral procession is a lively, rattling affair, beside our onward progress toward the mud battlements of Khoi, but there is no help for it.  Whenever I venture to the fore a little the dreamy-eyed moonshi bashi regards me with a gaze of mild reproachfulness, and sings out in a gently-chide-the-erring tone of voice:  “Kardash.  Kardash.” meaning " f we are brothers, why do you seem to want to leave me.”  Human nature could scarcely be proof against an appeal wherein endearment and reproach are so beautifully and harmoniously blended, and it always brings me back to a level with his horse.  Reaching the suburbs of Khoi, I am initiated into a new departure — new to myself at this time — of Persian sanctimoniousness.  Halting at a fountain to obtain a drink, the soldier shapes himself for pouring the water out of the earthenware drinking vessel into my hands; supposing this to be merely an indication of the Persian’s own method of drinking, I motion my preference for drinking out of the jar itself.  The soldier looks appealingly toward the moonshi bashi, who tells him to let me drink, and then orders him to smash the jar.  It then dawns upon my unenlightened mind, that being a Ferenghi, I should have known better than to have touched my unhallowed lips to a drinking vessel at a public fountain, defiling it by so doing, so that it must be smashed in order that the sons of the “true prophet” may not unwittingly drink from it afterward and themselves become defiled.  The moonshi bashi pilots me to the residence of a certain wealthy citizen outside the city walls; this person, a mild-mannered, purring-voiced