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.