Litchfield enquirer., 1877-06-07
A RIDE THROUGH PERSIA.

and Bright Go. are partners for life.
 A RIDE THROUGH PERSIA.
 MT Arthur Arnold's interesting volume, Through Persia by Caravan" which has just been published by Harper X Brothers, we can warrant to be complete eye-open- CT, to all who have been accustomed to look on Persia through the spectacles of the poets. In the winter of 1S75-6 Mir Arnold, very 1nteliigent Englishman, travelled with his wife through the empire of the great Shah-in-Shah. It was an un- favorable season of the year, it is trhe; but even in winter one would scarcely have expected to find SO great part of Persia scene of Polar desolation and killing cold. It is a very mountainous country, and MT. Arnold crossed all the great mountain chains, some of them hav- ing summits nearly as high as Mount Washington piled on top of Mont Banc, and even the travelled passes (there are no roads) were seven or eight thousand feet above the sea. Of course he met with deep snows and piercing cold; but the great plains seem to be little better-the sites of the cities, as Teheran, Ispahan, and even .Shiraz, the city of Hafiz and the bulbul. He entered from Russia and Cas- plan sea; found it warm among the marshy reeds on the southern shore of the Caspian (there are lions there), but soon rise into high bleak plains, and suf- fered from piercing winds. He travelled in IA singular looking vehicle called takht- fences in Persia. The mules are driven anywhere you please, over the boundless stony plains, which are marked by the tracks but there seems to be nothing like a road. At night the traveller must sleep in ch0p0r- -kh0nGh, sort ot mud-wall ruin, with doors that will not shut, and holes for windows that must be stopped by tacking up a horse cloth, that the traveller brings with him. The mules are stabbed close to the place where the trav- eler sleeps his couch being a dark arch opening in little way from the floor, and just big enough to get into. The fire place goes into chimney, or hole, that does not 'draw;" and the room is soon filled with smoke, some of which escapes by hole in the roof. The traveller must bring everything - bedding, firewood (which is scarce and dear), and furniture if he wants any. These dismal buildings (which, like all horses in Persia, are sun- baked mud walls) are met with in every days journey, and sometimes there ap- pears an owner, who looks for a small fee. They are cold and dark. In winter the temperature at night is near zero, after all the tacking up of carpets to keep out the cold. Every traveller must sweep out, or shovel out, the dirt Tn the chapar- khanah, if he would avoid pigs rest; MT. Arnold's party did not forget to car ry their own brooms. Few travellers are seen; MT. Arnold party came upon none, at any of the chapar-khanahs. but some times met parties on the way.
 The view of the manytlnted mountains. from any of the great plains, constantly impressed MT. Arnold, and at all times arrested his gaze. But the country is sparselypopulated, and the towns wretch ed. All the towns are built of sun-baked bricks and mud walls; and in the chief cities the streets are half filled with ruins The broken walls of deserted tenements topple over into the streets, and there they lie; nobody ever attempts to remove them. As consequence it IS not easy or pleasant getting about Ispahan, Teheran, or Shiraz, Tn the day time when the ba- zars are crowded with people and don- keys; in the winter our traveller found the streets filled with frozen heaps of dirt, rubbish, snow, filth, and all refuse; what these streets must be in summer, one may imagine. The Persian summer, by the way, is as intensely hot as the winter is cold, Even in southern Persia, at Shiraz. they seem to have in winter, our New England snow and weather. Only after crossing fiual range of mountains, on the way from Shiraz south, does the climate change-but the change is then complete. The plain that lies between Bushire, port on the Persian Gulf, and this mountain range, lies hke a picture of eternal, in the view of the traveller who has scaled the last of the ugly peaks and escaped the last of the terrible precipices of that snowy waste. Strange to say, in the woods, among these snows, and Tn this winter weather, there are said to be lions and they attack the unguarded travel CT.
 The government of Persia is probably the most corrupt of any in the world-un- less an exception be made of Turkey, and that can hardly be. According to MT. Arnold, all officials take bribes, from tax gatherer to shah; even criminals under the death sentence can and do. buy of the order for their execution, when they have money. It is absolute despotism. The word of the shah consigns one to death. or to honor and prosperity. The grossest abuse prevail. Of course the burden of such state of things falls on, the wretch ed producers the men who till the soil, or get living by work. The shah con- signs whole districts, as large as Pennsyl vania, to the mercy of a head official. who farnas out the privilege of collecting the taxes: he buys the privilege, of the gov ernment, and, so long as he pays h1s price, nobody at Teheran cares what he does to the poor people, or how much he collects. Even tariff duties are permitted to be managed in this way, as at Bushire. The officers rule is simple one; he takes all the people have. It makes no differ ence to them who is governor; they know they are ''in for it, every time. If they don't "fork over, woe to them. "A hun dred sticks" is the common order. given alike by shah, or by the moollahs, or fe. rocious head priests of the Mohammed. the shah. The wretch is strung up by tue feet, with only his head and half his body on the floor. and his feet, so i'm. prisoned in machinery that he cannot move them, receive the blows of the ex ecutioners. The ''sticks," 100 greer | withes as thick as mans thumb, arc ! used up-used till they are unseryiceable
 Men are crippled and sometimes killed II this way; but other and still more barbar-
 ous methods of execution prevail.
 The country is wretchedly poor. The
 corrupt officials, fatteniug on plumber and
 corruption, are only intent to live theil
 hour, and '.after us, the deluge" No much is known by any of them of the ac
 tual condition of the country-and the,
 care stlll less. -
 Troops stationed in Alaska having beer | ordered to remove to some more eligibl,
 point on the Pacific coast, San Francisc.
 has sounded a note of complaint to tn
 effect that there will hereafter be no pro
 tection to life or property in Alaska. l
 is the general testimony, however, O
 those understanding affairs in that seoun
 try that the Indians of Alaska are not Q
 troublesome character, and that, even i
 they were, the troops which have bee
 stationed there could be of little genera coru;no rr oooounk If fhn naNnliar char