WOMAN’S TRAVELS IN PERSIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2488, 5 July 1909, Page 7

WOMAN’S TRAVELS IN PERSIA.

In times of peril in Persia the medical missions have proved to be the safest places not only for Europeans but also for the Persians themselves. Dr. Emmeline Stewart, niece of the veteran Bishop Stewart, had a remarkable story to tell of her own experiences when preparing to leave the country. The only escort available through the disturbed country from. Ispahan to Teheran was offered to her by the. military authorities, and she accepted it, to find that it entailed travelling on a .gun. carriage harnessed six in hand and that for ten days double stages were affected at a hard gallop, while the shelter of the carriage formed' her canopy at night. Dr Stewart testified to the unfailing courtsey and kindliness of the officers to the traveller placed in their charge and she reassured the committee as to the absolute safety of the missionaries during this period of unrest by saying that the mission compound at Ispahan was one of the safest places in the city. In fact members of the families of the officers of the Shah have in the last few months resorted to it as an asylum. Lord Kitchener, who leaves India next August, has lately been devoting a great amount of his spare time to gardening, which has been for many years a favorite recreation of his (says a writer in this week’s “M.A.P.”). His official residence in the Fort at Calcutta possesses rather extensive grounds, and these he keeps under his personal supervision when he is staying there. He is a very early riser, and gives two or three hours every morning to his gardens, digging and arimming the ■ soil with all the ardor of a professional. He has of late years taken groat interest in orchid culture, and has visited recently some of the more famous of the Bengal collections. It is his intention when he settles down in England to purchase a small estate, somewhere within easy reach of London, where there is space to collect orchids on a large scale.