LONDON GIRLS IN A PERSIAN HAREM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10413, 10 April 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

LONDON GIRLS IN A PERSIAN HAREM.

A most singular story is recorded in the last letter received from the three cycling commissioners of Travel—Messrs. Fraser, Lunn, and Lowe—who hove just left the •jsjSl Persian capital, and, as we learn from a /■ telegram just received, after un arduous journey across the mountains, have reached Ispahan. They say, writing from Teheran : —"There Is a harem story which we know to be true, and which to England will be now. When the lute Shah was in Europe he was accompanied by a stout, grey-headed old fellow whose chief amusement seemed to be to make love to the girls who sell knick-knacks at the Crystal Palace. He made love so industriously in one quarter that he quite bewildered a pretty nineteen-year-old young lady with stories of the marvellous laud of the Sh&b. Ho married Lor, and then induced her sister, aged 16, who kept another stall at the Crystal Palace, to accompany her out to Persia. What was the wife's amassment, on reaching Teheran— she anticipated a different state of tiling— find her husband had several Mof'roi wives! Both she and her sister were confined in the harem, living and dressing like Persian women, and for two years their existence was unknown to any English folk Id the capital. In the streets they dared nob speak to Europeans, and for a European mart to speak to a Moslem woman, even to ask her en innocent question, would be death to both. Once, however, an Englishman Was considerably i surprised, as two veiled figures walked by him, to hear one say, ' We ate English ; we ■. ■ (me been hen for two years, but we mutt ■/■. ' not be seen speaking to you. But can't v. , -you'help us!' The English colony soon ■'I knew of the two London girls in the Persian '■' harem. The Persian husband, however, )•. , metdiSicultiw half-way bjf inviting English

people to his house, and allowing hie wives to ait and chat with them. Hβ thue got rid of the younger eirl, who married an eraployiS of the British Government, »nd is now living , in another part of Persia. The wife eet out with her husband on a pilgrimage to some sacred shrine. He died a Kuiu. She is now a young widow of 26, with a little son, carefully guarded by her husband's relatives lest she should escape to England. Of course she is a Persian, and she must submit to Persian customs."