The diamonds are perhaps the finest as regards quality, but there is a roughly cut ruby surmounting the imperial crown, said to be the largest in the world.
Though it was very cold, and the snow lay deep upon the ground, my stay at Teheran was not unpleasant.

The keen bracing air, brilliant sunshine, and cloudless blue sky somewhat made amends for the sorry lodging and execrable fare provided by mine host at the Hotel Prevot.
I have seldom, in my travels, come across a French inn where, be the materials ever so poor, the landlord is not able to turn out a decent meal.

I have fared well and sumptuously at New Caledonia, Saigon, and even Pekin, under the auspices of a French innkeeper; but at Teheran (nearest of any to civilized Europe) was compelled to swallow food that would have disgraced a fifth-rate _gargotte_ in the slums of Paris.

Perhaps Monsieur Prevot had become "Persianized"; perhaps the dulcet tones of Madame P., whose voice, incessantly rating her servants, reminded one of unoiled machinery, and commenced at sunrise only to be silenced (by exhaustion) at sunset, disturbed him at his culinary labours.

The fact remains that the _cuisine_ was, to any but a starving man, uneatable, the bedroom which madame was kind enough to assign to me, pitch dark and stuffy as a dog-kennel.
A long conference with General S--, an Austrian in the Persian service, decided my future movements.