Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-22
PERSIAN SPLENDORS.

PERSIAN SPLENDORS.
1"e Palace of the Shah-S..alta aatab.: tzv
and It's SURROUNDINGS.
In six Months in Persia" Mr.. Edward
Stack writes:
1.-The palaces of the shah deserve some
notice. did not see his town residence:
but OF the many summer lodges which dot
the footslope of Shimran, saw four or
five, notably Saltanatabad, which being
comparatively recent, and on a grand
scale, may serve as specimen of the rest.
1t lies some GOO feet higher than Gulahek,
in the midst of noble garden, where
poplars and planes give ample shade, and
mulberries, plums, apples, and cherries
can be gathered till one grows
tired. Streams of clear water run
by the sides of the alleys. and
fountains with pellucid basins fill
up the vista in various directions, while
great bank, a hundred yards long by sixty
broad, and eight or nine feet deep, occu-
pies the center. Above this stands large
summer house. Its central hall, paved with
blue tiles, is polygon of some twenty
yards in diameter; fountain plays in the
middle, and raised dais occupies a
recess at one side. The angles are adorned
with frescoes, the work of Persian artists.
representing European scenes, though one
cannot imagine what principle has guided
the selection. One picture shows the house
of commons, smother the interior of some
large London restaurant, third the inside
of a church during service, a
fourth the naive of some ca
thedral. The summer-house is three stories
high, and the upper floors are laid out in
rooms illustrated by mirrors and decorated
with pictures of joviality and festive pro-
ceedings between two persons. These are
ludicrous to the last degree, both youth
and maiden being invariably arrayed in
what the artist considered the latest Eu-
ropean fashion, while their eyes have DO
regard for their own concerns, but are
steadily directed on the beholder. One fig
ure bears the figure of gigantic wasp
wasted white crinolined damsel in whose
lap sprawls lover about half her size,
with love and wine at once oppressed
the wine-cup dangling fro1n his
nerveless hand spills its ruby
contents over the white skirt
his sweetheart. had the curiosity to as
cend above she third story into the loft un-
der the roof, and have found it the hotties
place ever entered in my life; hotter no
doubt, than the piombi of Venice, for Te-
heran is nearer the sun, and no roof could
be much thinner than the copper sheathing
of this painted dome.
there are several other buildings in various
r%S of fho =.
tower sixty feet high, mounting in series
of rooms to the Shah's bedroom at the top.
Another is clock tower much of the same
pattern. Another is the Shah's menagerie,
the gallery filled with pictures of wild ami
mails, some of which are copied from En-
glish designs, such as the picture
of the grizzly bear, sit
ting on pine trunk which
bridges canon, while he holds the dead
body of horse under his fore paws-a de-
sign that forms the frontispiece, if I mis-
take not, to the book called 'The Great
Lone Land"-but most of them oriQina |
indeed wonderfully and fearfully So The
expression of the mouth of the hippopota-
mus is especially uncanny. The birds are
much better done. A couple of condors on
dead OK are indeed twice the size of their
quarry, but when that point is overlooked
one finds something tc admire in the rem
dering of the plumage and in the general
pose. The Persians are most successful in
portrait painting. When they lay fancy
aside and go il for faithful representation
of real men they can produce very respect
able likenessss.
"Perhaps what have written will serve
to show that royal state in Persia is half
barborous yet, and decidedly deficient in
finish. It has much that is bright and
striking in color, gliding, and mirror-orna-
mentation, but costliness and splender
will be looked for in vain. The things
that seemed to me in best taste were Ger
tain doors and some windows of carved
wood, where design and execution were
pretty and delicate. The flooring in
room in the women's apartment in Satan
atabad was pretty enough; it consisted of
glass tile laid over a groundwork of blue
resets. In the sardava or underground
chambers of the Nigaristan palace in Te-
heran city, where Faith Ali Shah used to
disport himself with his ladies
in the heat of the summer
day, one can still see, and, if he chooses,
slide down, the sursura, or shoot of white
marble, rubbed smooth by the white limbs
of that gracious monarch's many wives, as
they used to come gliding into his royal
arms. 1t is an inclined plane, down which
one shoots with considerable velocity in
sitting posture, to plunge, if not stopped
into marble tank at the foot. I solemnly
slid dow it, in riding -boots and spur S, feel
ing that but inadequately represented
the spirit of the place.
''Opinion seems to be divided as to
mr. vrAr nrD