them, and perhaps abstinence for some time, in desert regions. I could see that Abbas was in his element as he went about like a sprite, busying himself with his new charges, and he was especially delighted to find among them some powerful Turkman camels with which he had travelled two years before on the great road through Khorasan. The gentlemen of the British legation came, one after another, to admire my four-legged travelling companions, and Mrs. Grant Duff did me the honour of photographing me as I sat perched up between the humps of the largest in the troop.
New Year's Eve was kept in grand style in Teheran. After a last pleasant dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Grant Duff I betook myself to the French Embassy, where Count d'Apchier had gathered together all the Frenchmen living in Teheran, and where the dancers glided smoothly and lightly through the handsome rooms to the tune of well-known melodies. When the midnight hour struck, the good Count called for silence, and, while the guests gathered round him with champagne glasses raised, in eloquent words and in the beautiful language of his native land he wished one and all of those present, and France far away in the west, a good New Year. The entertainment was a success, quite as brilliant as the Christmas ball given a few days earlier by the Grant Duffs to the English colony. Lastly, during the small hours of the morning I took part in Count Rex's New Year's vigil, when the host drank success to my journey in Swedish punch.
I had, then, a very tiring New Year's Eve, especially as I had already spent most of the day in farewell visits to my friends, and had to pack up after my return from the last feast of the night. But I was up again at eight o'clock on New Year's morn, inspected the loads which lay arranged in pairs ready to be hoisted up on to their bearers, saw the camels loaded and led, tied together in three detachments, out through the streets to the sound of the bells to Shah Abdul Azim's gate. And after a last lunch with the Grant Duffs I thanked them for all their generous hospitality, and just as the stream of New Year
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