The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

PERSIA AND THE PERSIANS.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SIR H. R.MLINSON, K.C.8., On
Monday afternoon delivered to a numerous and
fashionable audience, assembled in the lecture
theatre of the United Service Institution, Whitehall.
yard, a lecture on Persia and the Persians.
Sir H. Rawlinson said, that Persia geographically
considered was a country per se. I c was an immense
piateau or tableland shut in between ranges of
mountains on the north and the south-west, the
former being a continuation of the Caucasus and
the latter of the Taurus. This plateau sloped
gradually towards the east, and its principal
characteristic was that it was intersected by ranges
of mountains, parts of the two great ranges which
he had mentioned, having narrow valleys between
them. Under these circumstances the general
character of the country was necessarily one of ex-
treme sterility. The climate was sub,ect to varia
tions from extreme cold to extreme heat. In the
north the cold was greater than in England, while
on the coast of the Persian Gulf the heat was more
intense than that of India. Dwarf oaks grew along
the mountains, but with this exception, and that of
a strip of land along the banks of the Caspian Sea,
the only wood to be found in Persia was grown in
gardens, which, in the entire absence of hedges,
were divided by mud walls. Rose gardens and
nightingales existed only in the imaginations of
poets. The prevailing evil of the country was the
want of water, a want which was to some extent
supplied by means of subterranean aqeducts, which
were of great depth and twenty or thirty miles in
length. These aqueducts had been introduced from
Chaldea, they were called by a Chaldean name, and
mention of them was found in the earliest Chaldean
inscriptions. Near the northern frontier of Persia
was a mountain called Ararat ; this, though long
supposed to be so, was not really the Ararat of the
Bible, on which the Ark rested, that mountain being,
not in Armenia, hut to the north of Mosul. Under
Ararat was a district of which the Russians were
very anxious to obtain possession, not on account of
its extent (because it was very small), but because
tan au it passed all the European trade with Persia.
Were Russia to obtain possession of this tract of
country our trade with Persia, of the value of a
millioa and a half or more annually, would have to
pass through Russian territory, where it would be
subjected to an almost prohibitory tariff. The centre
of Persia was occupied by an immense salt desert,
which was almost uninhabited. and in which it was
scarcely possible that any population could be sup-
ported. The eastern province was well cultivated
and well pe-ipled. The ethnic division of the exist-
ing population of Persia was into Persians and
Turks, the later of whom were of the same race as
the Osmanli Turks, and crossed the Oxus about
1,400 years ago; but there was a still more
strongly marked division of the population into
livers in houses and livers in tents. The latter of
these classes devoted themselves almost entirely to
pastoral pursuits, and lived upon the produce of
their Hocks and herds, while the former were
husbandmen, and supported themselves and their
families by the cultivation of the soil. The pastoral
tribes furnished the gi eater portion of the soldiers,
and were superior both in mental and bodily quali-
ties to the dwellers in houses. They were compara-
tively honest, were certainly brave, and had many of
the characteristics which were to he found among
highland tribes in Europe. He then passed on to
notice the Persian army, which, he said, consisted of
four divisions—regulars, irregulars, artillery, and
cavalry. The military service was held in but little
esteem, because the men were but ill taken care of,
their pay was small, and small as it was they often
never received it ; that was, they were frequently five
or six years in arrear. Commissariat there was
none, and he had on some occasions seen the
soldiers compelled to eat hips, grass, dry corn, or
acorns. Notwithstanding this the endurance of the
men was wonderful. Abbas Mirza performed a
march of about 2,500 miles at the rate of 214 miles
per day, and on one occasion when he (Colonel
Itaalinson) dismissed a regiment the men walked to
the r homes, 150 miles off, in three days. The
Persians certainly had greater power of endurance
than any other troops in the world, and could, he
believed, travel at the rate of 50 or 60 miles a day
as long as ycu pleased. The army as now con.
stituted owed its existence entirely to the exertions
of the British Government, which, about 50 or 60