PERSIA.

From the remotest period of antiquity Persia has been celebrated as one of the most powerful empires of the East, the seat of wealth and luxury when Europe was in a state of barbarism. The conquest of Babylon was the commencement of her future greatness; and her warlike monarchs continued their victorious course until they had established a kingdom which extended from the shores of the Mediterranean eastward to the Indus. Their progress westward was resisted by the bravery of the Greeks, by whose united force, under Alexander of Macedonia, Persia was finally subdued, and remained for several centuries under the sway of Greek sovereigns. Her independence was finally re-established under a race of native monarchs about 200 years before the Christian era; and though again subdued by the Moslemin armies, by the Tartar hordes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and by the Afghans, Persia emerged into independence under a native dynasty in 1506, under whose rule the country has ever since remained.

The most fallacious ideas have generally been entertained in Europe respecting the remote countries of the East. These have been famed in all ages for wealth, for boundless magnificence, and for the richest products both of nature and art; and it is remarkable that Persia should have been the peculiar subject of these hyperbolical descriptions, a country of rugged mountains and arid deserts being the least likely to realize them. Nor has the illusion been fully dispelled by modern travellers, several of whom, though they no longer represent Persia as a fairy-land, have yet failed to convey a true impression of its decay and misery. The following account of its geography, its population, commerce, resources, manners, and institutions, is founded on the well-authenticated accounts of those who have recently visited that country, and who have had access to the best sources of information.

The boundaries of Persia have been variously stated, and they have fluctuated with the vicissitudes of war and revolution. The Euphrates and the Tigris, with the mountains of Armenia and Koordistan on the west, the Persian Gulf on the south, the arid and saline deserts on the east, which extend as far as the Indus, and rise into the mountain deserts of Hindu Coosh and Parapamisus, and the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Caucasus on the north, may be considered as the present boundaries of this empire. Geographers have sometimes assigned the Indus as its eastern limit; but the intervening countries of Caubul and Candahar cannot with any propriety be included in the dominions of Persia, having been long independent of her authority; and still less can the southern deserts of Mekran and Beloochistan, which would make the Indian Ocean the southern boundary; since we know, from the most recent accounts of travellers, that they are inhabited by fierce and independent tribes, who have long thrown off their allegiance to the Persian monarchs, and live in wandering communities under their own sheiks.^[1. Morier’s Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, p. 49. ]

With the exception of the provinces of Mazanderan and Gheelan, and other parts of less extent, the general aspect of Persia is that of poverty and barrenness. It has been termed a country of mountains; and a large portion of its surface is certainly mountainous, diversified with extensive tracts of desert plains, in which salt is the chief production, and, in a small proportion, chiefly along the banks of the rivers, with beautiful valleys and rich pasture-lands. The valleys are not generally broad, but some are of great length, being often more than a hundred miles. The greater part of the country may be described as a table-land, supported on every side by high mountains. This table-land stretches on a level along a great part of the Persian Gulf and the river Tigris on the south, and, under various appellations, along the Caspian Sea, forming a strip of country which extends about sixty miles to the foot of the Elburz Mountains, and there meets with the plains of Tartary on the north. The height of this plateau, though it was not accurately measured, is estimated by Frazer at 3000 feet; and from its elevated surface the mountainous ranges rise to various heights, sometimes enclosing valleys, or apparently insulating the plain, which often surpasses them in extent. A level country also extends from the mouth of the Indus, along the shore of the Indian Ocean, to the river Euphrates; which is an arid desert, that for a distance of more than twenty degrees does not boast of a single river which is navigable above a few miles from the ocean, and presents to the eye one continued and cheerless succession of sandy plains.^[2. History of Persia, by Sir J. Malcolm, vol. i. chap. i.; Morier’s Journey, &c. p. 393; Frazer’s Narrative of a Journey into Khorassan, p. 162. ]

The aspect of the Persian mountains is peculiarly bare and forbidding, rising abruptly from the plain, and presenting nothing to the eye but huge masses of gray rock piled upon each other; and even when they are covered with a little mouldering rock, they are still without either wood or shrubs. If for about two months in spring a scanty verdure clothe their sides, it is scorched by the heat of summer, and the country soon resumes its former barren aspect. Nor is the appearance of the plains more inviting, consisting for the most part of gravel washed down from the mountains, or of other equally unproductive matter, in deep and extensive beds, or of a hard clay, which, where water is wanting, as in most parts of Persia, is bare and barren. “The livery of the whole land,” says Frazer, “is constantly brown or gray, except during the two months of April and May.” Amongst other disadvantages, Persia labours under a general scarcity of water. The rivers are few and small, and rivulets by no means common, so that irrigation can only be applied to a small portion of the land. “In the best districts,” says the above-mentioned traveller, “the small proportion of cultivated land resembles an oasis in the desert, serving by contrast to make all around it more dreary. Plains and mountains are equally destitute of wood: the only trees to be seen are in the gardens of villages, or on the banks of streams, where they are planted for the purpose of affording the little timber that is used in building: they chiefly consist of fruit-trees, the noble chinar or oriental plane, the tall poplar, and the cypress; and the effect which a garden of these trees produces, spotting with its dark green the gray and dusky plain, is rather melancholy than cheering. In picturing, therefore, to the imagination the aspect of a Persian landscape, or indeed the landscape in any of the contiguous countries to the north and east of it, the mind must endeavour to divest itself of every idea that gives interest or beauty to a European scene. There are no beautiful or majestic woods, no verdant plains or grassy mountains, no winding rivers or babbling streams, no parks or enclosures, no castles or gentlemen’s seats, no sweet retired cottages, with their white walls glimmering through foliage.”^[3. Frazer’s Narrative, p. 163. ]
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As already mentioned, the provinces of Mazanderan and Gheelan adjoining the Caspian Sea, with parts of Azerbijan and Armenia, form exceptions to this general description. These provinces are divided from each other by the great range of the Elburz Mountains, which are connected with the mountains of Armenia, and with the mighty Caucasus chain, and eastward, by a continuous chain, with the great ridge of the Hindu Coosh. They take an easterly course along the shore of the Caspian Sea, and send various ramifications southward; whilst other elevated ridges spring from the Caucasian Mountains, and penetrate the country in a south-east direction, dividing the provinces of Irak and Kusistan, and extending along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and with other parallel chains farther in the interior, into the province of Mekran. The Caucasian chain forms the barrier between the empires of Turkey and Persia; it occupies the space between the Black Sea and the Caspian; and it is inhabited by barbarous tribes, who owned at any time but an imperfect allegiance to Persia, and who have been now. brought chiefly underthe more rigorous sway of Russia. The Elburz Mountains present their loftiest face to the interior desert; yet they sweep down in a manner so gradual, that the valleys and ravines which they form are found to contain rich and fertile lands, well watered by numerous rivulets, and well cultivated and peopled. The loftiest peak of this range is Mount Demavend, which rises to the height of 10,000 feet. Here is that remarkable pass, forming a strong barrier against the progress of an invader, which was denominated by the ancients the Caspian Gates, and which for twenty-eight miles is a narrow road between high rocks, through which a single chariot could scarcely pass, and where a handful of men might oppose the advance of an army. These districts are beautifully diversified with wood, water, and mountains, in their most varied forms, and present a luxuriant verdure all the year round. On the northern side of these mountains, the provinces of Mazanderan and Gheelan, and the district of Astrabad, are equally fruitful and productive. Mazanderan is most celebrated for its culture of rice, which is of very superior quality. In the central provinces of Fars, Irak, and Khorassan, the valleys are generally level; in Azerbijan, to the west of the Caspian Sea, they lie between a succession of eminences; and Kurdistan, to the north, is almost one immense cluster of small mountains, intersected occasionally by loftier ranges, on which extend table-lands of great elevation, and subject to extreme cold, as in other parts of Persia.^[4. Sir J. Malcolm s History of Persia, vol. i. p. 5. ] The salt deserts which occur in various parts of the country form one of the most striking objects in its scenery, and may be distinguished from the general dreariness of the country by a saline efflorescence, which is seen glistening in the rays of a fierce sun. This appearance, extending over an immense plain, varied by a black rock here and there protruding from its surface, its image contorted into a thousand wild and varying shapes by the effect of the mirage, which produces the most curious optical illusions on those wide extended level tracts, is a sure indication of the total desolation which reigns around. The most remarkable of these salt deserts is that which extends northward from Helmund, the Elymander of the ancients, a river which takes its rise to the north of Cabul, in the range of hills that divide the country of Beloochistan from Lower Mekran, a distance of about 400 miles. In breadth, from Nooksy north-west to Jalk, it is nearly 200 miles. There are also extensive salt deserts in the provinces of Fars and Kerman, so that a large portion in the very heart of the country is desolate; and another great salt desert extends north-east from the western limit of Khorassan along the provinces of Kashan and Ispahan, and continuous with the deserts of Fars, Kerman, and Seistan; several mountainous projections, however, and cultivated tracts, intervening. This desert occupies a great space in the centre of the country: it extends north-east from the provinces of Ispahan and Fars as far as Tubbus, and with somewhat more frequent interruptions to Toor-sheez; and on the east it is encroached on by projections from the more cultivated districts of Furrah, Subsawur, and Herat. The appearance of these deserts is not altogether uniform. In some places the surface is dry, and produces plants which thrive in a salt soil; in others the saline efflorescence is seen on a crackling crust of dry earth; marshes occupy a considerable portion of this country; and there is accumulated in the winter months water, which is evaporated during the heats of summer, leaving a quantity of salt in cakes upon a bed of mud. In some places the soil is a perfectly hard-baked and barren clay; and in others, again, sand abounds, which is formed into hillocks in the shape of waves by the wind, and is so light and impalpable that it is blown aloft in clouds, as in the Arabian deserts, by the violent north-west winds which prevail in summer, and proves dangerous, and frequently fatal, to travellers.^[5. Frazer’s Narrative, &c. chap. xi. ]

Persia has hardly a single river that can be termed navigable, for the Euphrates and Tigris cannot be considered as running within its territory. The Karoon, which flows into the Euphrates through the province of Kusistan, and the Aras or Araxes in Azerbijan, which flows into the Black Sea, neither of them being considerable streams, are still its two largest rivers. The Helniund cannot with any propriety be termed a Persian river, as it flows eastward of Persia, through the independent territory of Afghanistan.

The nature of the soil in Persia may be inferred from the description given by travellers of the aspect of the country. Yet it is extraordinary how vegetation thrives in the country, even with the rudest cultivation, whenever there is the smallest supply of moisture. Morier mentions, that in the plain of Bushire, which stretches into the interior from the Persian Gulf, which all travellers agree in calling a barren land, and which has no other moisture than the dews, and occasionally winter showers, the seed produces one hundred to seven; and that a sprinkling of seed, with the most superficial furrows, returns everywhere in this district abundant produce. The same traveller observed, in his journey from Teheran to Tabriz, several spots where, by the aid of water, the country was one carpet of verdure. Water in Persia is so essential to vegetation, that almost the only species of improvement which is carried on is the construction of subterranean canals, for the purposes of conveying water to lands which are destitute of any natural supply. These canals, when they are finished, are often let at high rents. Frazer mentions one small stream which brought an annual rent of 4000 rupees, equal (the Persian rupee being valued at Is. 4½d.) to L.375; and another canal, opened by the governor of Kauzeroon, and employed in irrigating a fruit-garden, was rented at five or six times that sum. The products of Persia are, wheat of the finest quality, barley, and other grains. Rice might easily be produced in the southern provinces, were it not for the deficiency of water, of which this grain requires so large a supply. The vine flourishes in several provinces; and the wine of Shiraz has often been highly celebrated, as well as the wines produced from grapes raised upon the side of the Caucasian Mountains. The vines at Shiraz are trained as standard bushes, without any support, andare set, with some attention to regularity, from eight to ten feet asunder. The mulberry is produced in great abundance in the northern provinces of Mazanderan and Gheelan, of which silk is one of the great staples, and also in other parts; and the rich and well-watered plains of Gheelan and Mazanderan yield in abundance the sugar-cane, though the art of refining is not understood in thisrude and semi-barbarous country. Amongst [7:17:243]the other products of Persia which, being useful, are articles of trade, are gum tragacanth, assafoetida, the plant of which grows in abundance on the plains and hills all around the city of Herat, yellow berries, saffron, henna, but not so fine as that of Egypt; madder roots, which grow wild upon the mountains, and are brought down for sale by the Ee-lauts and other wandering tribes. Indigo is cultivated near to Kherat and on the Laristan, but is not so fine as the indigo of India, which is largely imported into Persia. The leaf is used for dyeing the beard, a curious fashion in Persia, as in other parts of the East. Cotton is produced to supply the internal consumption; and also hemp and hops. Fruits are produced in the garden-grounds in great abundance and perfection. The date is one of the most important products, being used here, where the climate is extremely hot, as an article of food, in the same manner as in other parts of the East. Those produced at Dalakee, in the province of Fars, are celebrated over the country for richness and flavour. The other fruits are pomegrantes, a luscious fruit here, and much superior to those which are produced in Turkey, some that Morier saw being twelve inches in circumference; sweet and water melons, the shaddock, limes, oranges, for which the climate of the high table-lands is too cold, although they grow to perfection on the plains and on the banks of the Caspian Sea; apples, pears, apricos, pistachio-nuts, walnuts, and some others. Timber is scarce on the arid plains, but in more favourable situations the soil seems well adapted for the growth of wood, and indeed of trees of every description. The mountains of Gheelan, Mazanderan, and Azerbijan are clothed with the finest woods, amongst which are the oak, the beech, the elm, the alder, boxwood, with thickets of wild cherry and thorns, and luxuriant vines climbing up the trunks of the trees, and hanging in wild festoons from the one to the other. These form a striking contrast to the long ranges of naked and barren mountains in the central and southern provinces. In several provinces grows the poppy, from which is made opium of a very fine quality. The liquorice-plant covers the plains of Mérdusht, and the neighbourhood of Shiraz. The tamarind, which flourished near the water-courses, and several of the thorny plants that sprinkled the same districts, had been superseded, when Frazer visited these parts, by various aromatic herbs, amongst which a species of fragrant rice was abundant. The most interesting of all the plants is that which yields the gum ammoniac. It resembles hemlock, and rises to the height of from three to six feet. It is remarkable in its season for its rich dark-green verdure; and it is then so full of juice, that on the least scratch it flows in streams to the ground, and congeals on the stalk. It is thus gathered for sale. Such vegetables as carrots, turnips, cabbages, spinach, beet-root, and the like, are common. In the more fertile parts of Persia flowers grow to great perfection and luxuriance; the rose, and every variety of the crocus species, primroses, violets, lilies, hyacinths, and others no less lovely than unknown.^[6. Frazer, chap, xxiii. ] Aromatic and thorny plants, and beautiful mountain shrubs, also abound, and clothe the ground in all the rich attire of luxuriant vegetation.

Notwithstanding the numerous ranges of mountains which intersect the country of Persia, its mineral products are of little value, partly from ignorance of the art of mining, and partly from the general indolence of the inhabitants, owing to the discouragement of tyrannical and rapacious rulers. Morier supposes that coal of a very fine quality must exist in the northern provinces of Mazanderan, by the account he received from the prime minister of a stone which is burned in that province instead of wood or furze, the common fuel in other parts of Persia, and very scarce. He did not learn, however, that any mines were worked. There are, nevertheless, copper mines in the mountains, from which the metal is extracted in such quantities as to render it an article of exportation; and there is little doubt that iron and silver would be obtained if proper means were applied. The mineral production most common in Persia is salt, which, as has been already mentioned, covers vast tracts, and occurs everywhere in great abundance. All the lakes are salt, and every considerable collection of water is impregnated with this mineral. Salt mines are also found in different parts. At Nishapore, in the north, there is a salt-mine consisting of three excavations, in each of which a vein of salt is found from six to eighteen inches in thickness. The salt is beautifully white, and the crystals so clear that Mr Frazer could see distinctly through a mass two inches in thickness, as through a pane of glass. This mine pays a small rent, and the salt is highly esteemed throughout the country. One of the most remarkable productions of Persia is naphtha or bitumen, which is burned by the natives in lamps instead of oil, and also answers all the purposes of pitch, being used in covering the bottoms of the vessels which navigate the Euphrates. It is found in pits three feet in diameter and from ten to twelve feet in depth, which are gradually filled from springs. There is also another species of white naphtha, different from the other, which is found floating like a crust on the surface of the water, and affords a more agreeable light than the black naphtha. A black and liquid petroleum of an agreeable odour flows in small quantity from a mountain in Kerman; it is reserved for the use of the king, and is given away in presents. The mines are carefully sealed and guarded. The northern mountains of Persia contain considerable varieties of valuable marble; and the turquoise stone, which is peculiar to the country, is found in the mountains of Khorassan. The mines which produce this stone were visited by Frazer, who gives a detailed account of their produce, as well as of the very rude manner in which they are worked. The hills in which these stones are found consist of a very red and brown rock. The whole, range is deeply tinged with iron. The substances of which the rock is composed are a dead gray earth, heavy hard brown rock, soft yellow stone, and a rock which is pervaded with specular iron-ore. There are five principal mines or pits from which the gem is taken. The mode of management in these mines, which from time immemorial have furnished these highly valued gems, is the most wretched that can be conceived. There is no system whatever, neither skill nor ingenuity, in the mining process; nor any sort of contrivance to economize either labour, or time, or materials. They are not even at the pains to remove the refuse, which soon encumbers and finally puts a stop to their operations; and they break down, quite at random, with picks and hammers, the rock which forms the walls and roofs of the mine, without any attention to preserve the veins in which the gem appears. No shafts or chambers are formed on any regular plan; and if water collects in the mine,'they have no means of drawing it off; and, finally, they have no plan for freeing the precious material from the rock in which it is embodied, with the least possible injury.

The climate of Persia, in which, according to its latitude, heat should predominate, is considerably modified by the height of the ground; so that, according to Kinneir, the traveller may pass in a few hours from the air of Montpellier to the cold of Siberia.^[7. Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, p. 21. ] It is intensely cold during the winter; indeed the highest ranges of mountains are covered with snow during a part of the year, and some of the highest peaks throughout the whole year. Demawend, in the Elburz Mountains, which rises to the height of about 10,000 feet,’ wasseenby Morierburiedindeepsnow in May; and in 1810, Kinneir mentions that the mountains were covered with [7:17:244]snow in July. Severe storms also prevail. To the north of Shiraz, especially, cold predominates, insomuch that in the vicinity of Teheran and Tabriz all communication is frequently cut off for several weeks between these cities and the adjoining villages. The cold commences in October, and the winter is ushered in with severe storms of snow. Frazer, after leaving Shiraz, suffered severely from cold in this month. The thermometer fell to twenty-eight degrees, and on the next morning, the 27th of October, to twenty degrees; and in the following month he arrived at Teheran, after encountering so severe a storm of snow that a traveller was carried to a caravanserai frozen to death on his horse. In January, when Frazer was at Nishapore, which is in the north of Persia, in about lat. 36. 25. the thermometer fell during the night to sixteen, nineteen, and twenty degrees, and rose during the day to forty in the shade; and in many parts the temperature varies between the night and the ιι day from sixty-four to twenty-five and twenty-six. The cold, especially to the north of Shiraz, continues, with short intervals of warmer weather, till March or April. At Teheran, which is in the north of Persia, near the Elburz Mountains, Morier describes the progress of the season and the vicissitudes of the temperature. On the 10th of March there was a fall of snow, followed by an intense frost. On the 23d, the mildness of spring was experienced. On the 19th of April the thermometer rose to 82° in the shade. At Shiraz, Morier mentions, that after the middle of June the thermometer was scarcely ever under 100°. It then rose to 105°, 108°, and 110°. “When spring commences,” says Sir J. Malcolm, “there is perhaps no spot in the world where nature assumes a more lovely garb than at Ispahan; the clearness of its streams, the shade of its lofty avenues, the fragrant luxuriance of gardens, and the verdant beauty of wide-spreading fields, combine with the finest climate to render it delightful.”^[8. History of Persia, vol. ii. chap, xxiv. ] The regularity of the seasons in this part of Persia is extraordinary, and affords a remarkable contrast to the sudden changes which take place in the northern provinces. In Bushire, to the south of Shiraz, Frazer states the range of the thermometer in July to be from 103° to 109°; but during the night it remained at 90°. About the end of August the weather became cooler, and the thermometer fell to 86° and 87°, and gradually during the day to 75° and 70°. In these southern regions, which include the provinces of Kerman, Laristan, Fars, and Kusistan, situated between the mountains and the shores of the Persian Gulf, the heat is increased by the barren and sandy plains with which this tract abounds. The hot winds known under the name of the simoom or sirocco prevail occasionally, but are not attended with danger, owing to the narrowness of the space between the sea and the mountains. In winter and spring the climate is delightful. It is never very cold; and snow seldom falls on the southern face of the mountains by which these provinces are divided from the north of Persia.^[9. Ibid. ] Upon the whole, however, the climate of this country, notwithstanding the sudden transitions from heat to cold in some of the provinces, is very healthy; the air is dry, and the atmosphere always clear, so that the brightest polished metal may be exposed to it without being rusted. Nor are the dews insalubrious; whilst at night the planets shine with a lustre unknown in the cloudy skies of the north. It seldom rains, and there are consequently none of those damp and pestiferous exhalations so common in the woody parts of Hindustan. The fertile provinces of Gheelan and Mazanderan, and the district of Astrabad, which are subjected to the periodical visitation of disease, form the only exceptions to this general character. The heavy rains which fall in these mountainous regions, stagnating in the deep forests, turn them into impassable marshes, which becoming putrid from the quantity of vegetable matter that they receive, exhale, during the heats of summer and autumn, a most pestilential vapour, so that the wandering tribes of these countries fly from its influence, and prefer living on the verge of the burning sand, and carrying their water from the distant river, to the least exposure to these noxious effluvia. Those who are forced to remain suffer severely from fevers, putrid as well as intermittent, from dropsies arising from cold, rheumatic affections, palsies, and other maladies. The appearance of the people, however, Frazer remarked, did not indicate either weakness or disease, being remarkably stout and athletic in their persons.

The domestic animals of Persia are the camel, the horse, the mule, the ass, the goat, sheep, cow, &c. The Persians are expert and fearless horsemen; and they have different breeds of horses peculiar to the country. The native horse of Persia has been improved, both in strength and bottom, by an admixture of Arabian blood. But the original breed, which is now restored, is a tall, lank, ill-formed, and generally vicious animal, which often vents its rage upon its neighbours or its riders, by kicking or biting them. It is useful, indeed, for hard work; but is not to be compared, for the purposes of riding, with the action and docility of the Arab. There is another race of horses, reared by the Turcoman hordes, not somuch distinguished by grace or beauty, as by its hardiness and patience of fatigue, for which it is celebrated all over Asia. It is said to have been crossed with an Arabian breed imported by Nadir Shah. The native horses are noted for size and bone, which appear to be indigenous; but figure and blood they owe to their Arab progenitors. “They have,” says Frazer, “large and powerful quarters, resembling those of the English horse; the shoulders are often fine; their legs clean and strong; though generally spare of flesh, what they have is firm and good;” and not being burdened with a load of fat, they support the weight of the rider for an astonishing length of time. Their powers of endurance are almost incredible. They will carry their riders for seven or eight days together at the rate of eighty or a hundred miles a-day. There is also a breed of ponies, fully as remarkable, if not superior to the large horses in their powers of enduring fatigue. Such horses cost a sum of money equal in value to from L.150 to L.200 sterling, and those of the best quality from L.350 to L.400. These horses are used in plundering expeditions; and they are chiefly prized on this account for their hardy qualities. In the parched and sandy tracts of Persia exposed to great heats, camels are preferred, for carrying burdens, to other animals, and they constitute the chief wealth of the inhabitants; but in almost all the other parts of the kingdom mules are more generally used, for which they are well fitted, by their extraordinary strength and activity, and their power of enduring fatigue. Sheep are very abundant in Persia, and constitute the wealth of the wandering tribes; but the latter pay no attention to improve the breed. The dog, though esteemed an unclean animal by the Mahommedans, is yet found so useful that every prejudice has given way; and a very fierce breed is maintained by the wandering tribes, for guarding their flocks and tents, and aiding in their field-sports. The desolate parts of Persia abound in wild animals, amongst which may be numbered the lion, which is seen along the woody banks of the rivers; the tiger, which is more rare; the wolf, the jackall, the hyena, the fox, found in great numbers of a white colour, the porcupine, the man-gaush, the wild sheep, the mountain goat, the wild ass, die wild boar, the antelope, and deer in great variety. Tigers are seldom seen, but it is certain that they are to be found, as it is mentioned that the skin of a royal tiger, which was killed in the neighbourhood of Tabriz, was exhibited, and was in possession of Mr Campbell. A tiger was also seen [7:17:245]by the shepherds at the time that he was at Tabriz; and one of the Persian princes had gone out to hunt, with a large retinue, in the hope of meeting it. The wild ass is common in Persia, but is extremely shy, and not easily caught. Morier mentions, that one morning in the desert they gave chase to two wild asses; but they distanced the horses at such a rate that they stood still and looked behind at them, “snorting with their noses in the air, as if in contempt of our endeavours to catch them.” The hunters sometimes succeed in killing them, but it requires great dexterity and knowledge of their haunts; and then it is only by relays of horses and dogs upon the track which they are known to pursue. The same traveller also observed large herds of antelopes, to which he gave chase, but could never come up except with one big with young; so great is the speed of this beautiful animal. The wild hog abounds in Persia, and is exceedingly fierce. Frazer, along with a party of well-mounted Turcomans, joined in chasing a herd of them; and one being singled out, was assailed with swords and spears, which made no impression on his tough hide; and though wounded by a pistol shot, he continued his flight, until an old man, mounted on a powerful Turcoman horse, rode up and wheeled rapidly round, when the steed, trained to the work, struck the hog on the head with its heels, and tumbled it over dead on the spot. The wild sheep is a very fine animal, bold, portly, and very strong; thick like a lion about the neck and shoulders, and small in the loins; covered with short reddish hair curled loosely about the neck and fore-quarters, and bearing an immense pair of crooked and twisted horns.

If the face of the country in Persia disappoint the European traveller, his expectations will be still less gratified by the aspect of the towns, which present to him one mass of misery, filth, and ruins; for which, forming his ideas of the eastern towns from what he has read of Ispahan, Bagdad, Shiraz, Bassora, and other cities famed in story, he can scarcely be prepared. He looks in vain for the hum of a crowded population and the bustle of business which animate the cities of Europe. Instead of the road crowded with passengers, vehicles, and an active traffic, bordered with hedgerows and green enclosures, and with gay habitations, he has to thread his way through the narrow and dirty lanes, amidst the ruins of mud walls and old buildings, amongst heights and hollows, and clay pits that produce bricks, and high inclosures that conceal the only verdure the place can boast; till at last he reaches the dilapidated walls of the city, and, entering the gateway, watched by a few squalid guards, he finds himself in a mean bazaar, or more probably in a confusion of mere rubbish. There are no streets, and scarcely a house; for it is only the dwellings of the poor which are seen, the houses of the rich being carefully shrouded from the view by high walls of mud or of raw bricks, very unseemly in their appearance; and outside of these are clustered, with the utmost contempt of order, the houses of the poor. There is scarcely room for a loaded ass to pass between the narrow passages that give access to these dwellings; and as no attempt is made to level the paths, the passenger has to make his way over all impediments, diving into hollows, scrambling amongst ruins, stumbling over grave-stones, or falling into holes, especially at night, as no town is lighted in any of these countries. The bazaars are the only thoroughfares which deserve the name of streets; and these have received merited praise from many travellers, namely, those of Shiraz, the continuous bazaars of Ispahan, which extend for miles, some of those at Teheran, Tabriz, &c., all of which are comparatively spacious, lofty, and built of materials more or less solid; though the majority of Persian bazaars are as wretched as the towns. These bazaars are generally arched over with well-constructed brick-work or clay, or, as in the inferior constructions, with branches of trees. Here, as in India, are collected all the different trades, the smiths, the braziers, the shoemakers, the saddlers, the cloth and chintz sellers, in their own quarter; but confectioners’, cooks’, apothecaries’, bakers’, and fruiterers’ shops are dispersed in various quarters. Few houses in a Persian town exceed one story; and the general coup d’oeil presents a succession of flat roofs and long walls of mud, diversified however by gardens, with which the towns and villages are often surrounded and intermingled, and in which are seen the poplar, the cypress, and the oriental plane. Almost all the towns of Persia have some defence, consisting generally of a high mud wall, which is flanked by turrets, and sometimes protected by a deep dry ditch or a rude glacis. Caravanserais are built in every town, for the accommodation of travellers, and are also found at every stage on the principal roads of the kingdom. These edifices are generally constructed of stone or brick, of a square form, and divided in the interior into separate apartments. They are surrounded with high walls and towers, as a defence against the attacks of robbers. The houses are generally built of mud, with terraced roofs; and their inner apartments are usually better than might be expected from their outward appearance. The villages are in general very rudely constructed. The common huts have often, instead of a terrace, a dome roof, in order to avoid the necessity of using wood, which is a very scarce article all over Persia, there being few trees on the arid plains.

Persia, though it has made no great or general progress in the mechanical arts, has nevertheless been distinguished for those finer manufactures which minister to the luxury of an eastern court. Raw silk is one of the most important staples of Persia, and it is produced more or less all over the country, but chiefly in the provinces of Gheelan and Mazanderan. In the former alone the annual produce amounts to about 900,000 lbs. Silk goods of a very fine quality are manufactured at Yezd; and those of Ispahan, Cashan, and Tabriz are held in great estimation. Silk stuffs are also manufactured in Resht, Lahajan, Fomen, Enzellee, cities of Gheelan, and marts of commerce; and velvets of very great beauty are made at Mushed, and in various other places, namely, Ispahan, Cashan, and Tabriz. Satins also are manufactured, but, as Frazer thinks, not of so'fine a quality, and those which are imported from China are preferred. The silk is manufactured into handkerchiefs and other pieces of different lengths and breadths, called alcejahs, de-reis, cussabs, peerahums, and taffetas. The city of Shiraz is celebrated for its gold embroideries, though these are now surpassed in other places. Its damasked steel knives and daggers are still esteemed; and it manufactures a good deal of coarse glass ware. All its manufactures have, however, declined since it ceased to be the capital of the country. It has likewise manufactures of arms, cutlery, coarse glass ware, tobacco-pipes, cotton cloths, cotton and woollen stockings, and wine. The cotton goods chiefly manufactured are chintzes or printed cottons, culumcars, peerahur shakees, resembling English long cloths, which have entirely superseded them; kudduks, narrow cloths of a fabric resembling nankeen, and of all colours, manufactured of a fine quality at Ispahan; kherboz, a coarse white cloth of a loose fabric, varying in quality, used chiefly by the poorer classes; and Ispahan stripes, another coarse cloth striped blue, purple, or gray, with other intermediate varieties. The chintzes and prints which are manufactured in many places are coarse both in texture and pattern, and are only used for inferior purposes. They are nearly superseded by the printed cottons of India and Europe, particularly the latter; and it was even said that the home manufacturer had petitioned for protecting duties. But it is not likely that any such measure will be resorted to; and even in this case it would, under the relaxed police of Persia, be easily eluded. Culumcons are distinguished by a pattern of wreathed flowers in gay colours, sparsely strewn upon a white, blue, red, or fawn-colour [7:17:246]ground; they are used for inner waistcoats, linings of robes, &c., and are often of very high price. Wool is produced in great abundance all over Persia and the neighbouring countries in which pastoral habits prevail. The best wool is that of the province of Kerman, the mountains of which, hot and arid in summer, and intensely cold in winter, sustain large flocks of sheep and goats, which yield the finest wool. The wool of the sheep is of an excellent quality; and the goats produce a down which grows in winter at the roots of the hair, in the same manner as that of the Thibet or shawl goats, and nearly of as good a quality. This is spun into various fabrics, which almost vie with the celebrated shawls of Cashmere in warmth and softness, as well as in fineness and beauty of manufacture. This fine wool is found not only in Kerman, but more or less over all Khorassan and the countries to the eastward, the mountains of which are favourable to the animals which produce it. The other woollen goods of Persia consist chiefly of carpets, numuds, felted goods, and a variety of fabrics of smaller importance used by the inhabitants as clothing. Many of the chief towns are celebrated for the manufacture of carpets. Those of Kerman, of Yezd, of Boorojird, of the Turcomans, of Khorassan, of Ispahan, and of Azθrbijan, are all beautiful, though of different fabrics and patterns. Numuds or fine felt carpets are sometimes of great beauty; but they are dear, and apt to be √noth-eaten. Other felted and woollen articles of a coarser quality are manufactured for internal consumption. Swords, fire-arms, and cutlery are manufactured in many of the principal towns. Black handkerchiefs, rather less than 1½ yard square, coarse, and tweelled like Barcelona handkerchiefs, are manufactured everywhere, and serve for the head-dresses of the women.

Persia carries on a trade with Turkey, Bagdad, Arabia, and the countries situated on the Persian Gulf. Of the raw silk of Gheelan, amounting, as already stated, to 900,000 lbs., about one fifth part is exported to Constantinople, Aleppo, and the other cities of Asia Minor; about one fifth is manufactured in the cities of Ispahan, Yezd, Cashan, and other towns of Persia celebrated for their silk manufactures; and the remainder is partly purchased by the Russians and carried to Astracan, and partly sent to Bagdad and its vicinity. Persia exports to India specie, dried fruits, dates, tobacco, wine, drugs, assafoetida, sulphur, raw silk, carpets, Kerman shawls, swords, combs, copper, saffron, &c. Horses form a considerable article of export to India. They are sent by sea from Bushire, where they are collected from the breeding districts in the southern provinces of Persia, and from Khorassan and the north-eastern districts by land through Afghanistan and the Punjab; and they serve for mounting the Indian cavalry, and supplying the great private demand for riding horses by the British in India. The imports from India are cotton goods, chintzes, and muslins, from Masulipatam, Moultan, Lucknow, Futtighur, Delhi, and other places; though these have now been in a great measure superseded by the English, French, and German stuffs, introduced from the ports of the’Levant, from India, and by way of Russia. Persia receives from India indigo, which comes chiefly by sea, by the way of Bushire, on the Persian Gulf, or by land through the country of Afghanistan, or Balkh, to Bukharia, and thence by Herat to Persia. Spices are also amongst the Indian imports, as well as sugar and sugar-candy, the import of which forms one of the most important branches of trade between the two countries. The province of Mazanderan yields a coarse sugar; and there are many parts of Persia fitted for the growth of this article, yet the country depends chiefly on India for its supply. Gold and silver stuffs from Benares, precious stones, Cashmere shawls, iron, lead, and copper, make up the remaining list of imports. Persia exports to Turkey grain, raw silk, tobacco, paper, cotton, lamb and foxes’ skins, carpets, silk and cotton manufactures, Kerman shawls, and salt; and receives in return specie, and European manufactures, brought from the ports on the Levant. From Europe, woollen, cotton, and silk goods are imported, imitation shawls, gold-lace, metal buttons, cutlery, watches, spectacles, spying-glasses, leather, earthen-ware, iron, copper, tin, quicksilver, and other articles. Iron is made in several parts of Persia; but the foreign iron is preferred, and it is imported from Russia, though it is but little used in these countries. Copper in sheets is much used, and is partly imported from Europe through Russia, and partly from India. There is a considerable demand for European silk goods, which are chiefly supplied by the French. Brocades and embroidery are also supplied from France, and Frazer mentions that of these he saw some magnificent samples at Teflis. In chintzes and printed cottons the French and German manufacturers have been ,more successfnl than the English in suiting the Persian taste; and every bazaar had, according to the well-informed traveller so often mentioned, a full display of their rich and glaring chintzes, whilst the more sober English goods lay neglected and unseen on the inner shelves. The European trade with Persia, as it is conducted at present, lies under the great disadvantage of an expensive land-carriage. There are various channels through which goods may reach the Persian market. First, they may be sent through Russia,, and thence be transported down the river Volga to Astracan, and across the Caspian to the Persian towns of Resht or Astrabad. Accordingly, the countries around Astracan are supplied with the produce and manufactures of Europe by means of this great stream, which affords such facilities for the transport of heavy articles; and it is because Russia cannot herself furnish the necessary supply of goods which are imported from Europe, that the trade is not more considerable. The Russian trade across the Caspian Sea is carried on by twelve vessels, not exceeding a hundred tons, which bring to Astracan the sturgeon cured on the coasts of Gheelan and Mazanderan, besides returns of other Persian produce, and convey Russian or European goods to Resht, Lahajan, Balfroosh, and Astrabad. Secondly, goods may be sent by the Mediterranean to the ports of Trebizond and Redoubt Kaleh, situated at the western extremity of the Black Sea, or to Constantinople; and a considerable quantity of European goods reach Persia by this channel; but in the course of a long route of 1200 miles to Erivan, 200 more to Tabriz, and other 360 to Teheran, in all 1760 miles, they are subjected to an expensive land-carriage, to heavy and arbitrary imposts in their transit through the territories of rapacious chiefs, and to occasional attacks from the predatory banditti of those wild regions, and are consequently brought to Teheran at an expense of sixty-five per cent. The distance,from Trebizond to Erivan is only about 140 miles, the road lying across very rugged mountains, though not worse than the roads over which much of the Persian traffic is carried on. The route from Redoubt Kaleh to Teflis, the capital of Georgia, is but 230 miles, and is through a safe country, free from imposts. Teflis, under the protecting government of Russia, has already, like Odessa, risen to be a mart of trade; and caravans regularly travel to Tabriz in eighteen or twenty days. European goods are now sent to this place in considerable quantities, namely, woollen cloths, cotton, printed and plain goods, some hardware articles, some refined sugar from Great Britain, silk and cotton manufactures from Lyons, and embroideries, cloths, &c. from other parts of France. There is another more direct channel through which a supply of European goods may be sent into Persia, namely, byway of Bushire; and, in point of fact, British manufactures to a considerable amount, especially cottons, are imported into this place, and thence conveyed to all the southern cities of Persia, namely, Shiraz, Yezd, Kerman, and Ispahan, whence they find their way still [7:17:247]farther inland to Irak, Khorassan, and even to the farther regions of Tartary. These goods are, however, previously sent from Europe to Bombay, and thence to Bushire, being thus burdened with the useless expenses of this double voyage, which would be saved if they were sent directly to the Persian markets. After being loaded at Bushire, the goods must be carried over lofty mountains, by dangerous and wretched roads, before they can reach the market; and they are liable to heavy transit duties at all the towns through which they pass. Goods which are brought to India, and carried into the interior up its navigable rivers, are brought by the overland route through Caubul, Candahar, and Herat, or by Balkh or Bukharia. Certain it is that British goods carried on the backs of mules over dreary mountains find their way to these distant markets; the disadvantage of an expensive land-carriage, and other hazards, being counterbalanced by the great progress which Europe has made in manufacturing industry, and by the extended use of all sorts of ingenious machinery for saving labour, by means of which goods are manufactured and sold cheaper in the most distant markets than they can be furnished by the native workman.

The government of Persia is a pure despotism, which is subject to no control from the influence of laws or manners, and under which every man’s life and liberty are at the mercy of the sovereign. He may exalt the lowest subject to the highest rank, or he may degrade, fine, imprison, maim, or put him to death, according to his will or caprice. Nor is this power allowed to remain dormant. The great Shah Abbas put to death an innocent traveller whilst asleep, because his horse startled at him; Aga Mahommed Khan put out the eyes of those who happened to look on his hideous countenance; and the modern history of Persia abounds with examples of horrid tyranny, of nobles and great men about the court being degraded from their rank, cruelly tortured and put to death, and their whole families, slaves and all, involved in their ruin. “The greatest noble in Persia,” says Frazer, “is never for a moment secure either in his person or property; if a fit of rage, jealousy, or avarice, of which he is the object, happens to seize his sovereign, a word, a look from the despot subjects him to the most cruel insults; he may be beat, maimed, disgraced like the lowest groom; his person violated in a way degrading to humanity; his wives and daughters delivered to the lust of muleteers (the lowest class in Persia); and the little family honour a Persian can possess may be scattered to the winds, without the unhappy sufferer having the least hope of remedy, without even the event creating the least sensation; it is the shah’s pleasure; and if he be firm in his seat, the lives and properties of his subjects are less than the dust beneath his feet.” The evils of despotism in Persia are generally aggravated rather than abated by the personal character of the sovereign, which is for the most part cruel and despotic; his early training fostering in him every evil propensity. He is taught from his infancy to consider his subjects as created for his pleasure; he is initiated in the grossest sensuality; and, as if to train him to habits of cruelty, his preceptors are in the practice of taking him to witness executions, which in Persia are conducted with extreme cruelty, as if to steel his mind against humane feelings, and to habituate him to scenes at which other men would shudder. In general the kings of Persia profit by these early lessons; few of them are considerate or merciful; whilst with many, according to Sir J. Malcolm, “the habit of shedding blood becomes a passion, by a brutal indulgence in which, human beings appear to lose that rank and character which belong to their species.”^[10. History of Persia, vol. ii chap. xxvi. ] It is remarked by Frazer, that all the servants of the king take their tone from him; and that when he is “cruel or merciful, peaceful or warlike, liberal or grasping, his disposition is reflected and multiplied throughout the whole land, down to the lowest ranks of society.” Accordingly, throughout the different provinces of the Persian empire, chiefs and governors are everywhere seen improving upon the example of the sovereign; beating, maiming, and rending their property from the unfortunate cultivators who are placed at their mercy. There is no such thing as any protection for life and property in any part of this country; and the officers of government everywhere rob the people, and farther insult and maltreat them if they dare to complain. When the English embassy were travelling through Persia, they were compelled to witness numerous examples of tyranny and cruelty revolting to their feelings. The poor people were compelled to entertain the embassy; and, accordingly, the horses were turned without scruple into the barley fields of the impoverished peasantry. At one place, where one man complained that the produce of the field they were consuming was his sole subsistence, he was taken and severely beaten, and compelled, as Morier observes, to hold their horses as they were eating up his own property before his face. At another village, where the embassy was ordered not to stop, as it had been previously laid under contribution, and could not afford to entertain the embassy for a single day, the officer in charge (the mehmandar) insisted on a contribution in cash; and when they could not raise the money, he forcibly carried away the little furniture that was left in the houses, amidst the lamentations of the women, who were beating their heads, and lifting up their hands to the skies, but who were beaten with sticks and dispersed, by wretches who heeded not their cries.^[11. Morier, Second Journey through Persia, p. 266, 267∙ ] Frazer relates the most shameful instances of the present king’s extortion and cruelty. Whilst he was at Teheran, the traveller mentions that one of the courtiers fell under the displeasure of the Shah, who, knowing him to be rich, ordered him to be dragged before him, on a charge of embezzling the publiomoney. During his examination he used some expressions which offended the king, upon which he ordered his officers to bind and to beat him; and in the mean time he began to revile him, and in his rage ordered him to be strangled. When the cord was round his neck, and he was on the ground, the king asked if he would give 100,000 tómauns for his life, to which he replied that he would give all he had; but the answer was considered as equivocal, the cord was tightened, and the blows rained thick upon him, until he acceded to the demand, and, being released, was allowed to return home. His prime minister, also, Hadjee Ibrahim, to whom he owed his elevation to the throne, was on some pretence, for the sake of his wealth it was supposed, degraded, and condemned to lose his eyes. Some expressions escaping him about ingratitude, the tyrant immediately ordered his tongue to be cut out; and under these tortures and persecutions this old and faithful servant of an ungrateful master at length expired. A monarch of Persia acknowledges no obligations but the ritual observances of his religion; and a blind superstition is thus substituted for the moral qualities of mercy, generosity, and justice. Every look being watched by parasites and flatterers, he becomes as impatient of the least opposition as he is insensible to the most devoted service. Distrust and terror reign amongst his courtiers, amongst whom falsehood, dissimulation, and specious show, supply the place of truth and loyalty. They have no means of preserving the royal favour but by flattery and fawning; and hence their whole object is to deceive and pillage, and, if they can with safety and advantage to themselves, to betray their tyrant. The effects of this system may be traced through all ranks about the court, [7:17:248]even to the lowest menial. They are, with few exceptions, arrogant,‘overbearing, unprincipled, treacherous, and abandoned, in the greatest degree. “They stand continually,” says Frazer, “on the brink of a dangerous precipice, and would be to be pitied, were it not that the bare-faced and hardened character of their vice” excites a feeling of contempt and detestation. Such is the character given of those who are attached to the various courts, and live in service with great men, including the military and other functionaries. The other two classes into which the population of Persia is divided are, those who live in towns, namely, merchants, shopkeepers, mechanics, and others; those who are engaged in agriculture; and, lastly, the wandering tribes of Eels. The inhabitants of towns are less exposed than others to the tyranny of their superiors, and they are more industrious; and, though far from strict in their morals, they are not so actively vicious. They are, however, cunning, deceitful, false, eager after gain, and cautious and penurious. Being constantly exposed to the most cruel extortion, and to torture, in order to force a disclosure of their wealth, they are forced to resort to the most disingenuous practices in self-defence. The Eels are a wandering race, rude and wild, and subjected only to patriarchal authority. They are, accordingly, impatient of restraint; and being at constant variance with all the neighbouring tribes, they are always engaged in depredations, and consider plunder and robbery as no crimes.

There is no class in Persia subjected to such tyranny and oppression as the farmers and cultivators of the soil. They are exposed to almost continual extortion and injustice; there is no definite limit to the amount of the demands made upon them. When the king demands money from his ministers, they have recourse to the heads of districts, who in their turn apply to the heads of villages, and these last wring it from the cultivators and farmers. Every tax, present, fine, or bribe, from whomsoever demanded in the first instance, ultimately falls upon them; so that the only measure of these demands is the ability to pay on the one hand, and the power to extort on the other. Yet there are exceptions to this uniform system of oppression; and when travellers have been admitted to view the Persian farmers in their houses and with their families, a degree of comfort and comparative plenty have been discovered, not quite compatible with the general tale of misery that was told. The explanation of this, however, is, that the peasantry and farmers sometimes contrive to baffle the vigilance of their oppressors, and to place beyond their reach a portion of their produce sufficient to insure to them a comfortable subsistence. They are described, however, as a race degraded by tyranny; as being devoid of truth, frankness, or honesty; treacherous, deceitful, deficient in gratitude and every other amiable disposition. The cruel acts of their rulers have familiarized them to deeds of blood; they set little value upon human life, and are apt to draw the knife in all their quarrels. They are easily inflamed into passion, and when under its influence they are careless of the result, the meanest inhabitant often venting imprecations against his superiors, and even against the king himself, which pass without any further notice than a few blows. They are active and intelligent, and these seem to be the only valuable qualities which they possess. They are also light-hearted, better humoured, and less grave and austere, than most of the other Asiatics; but their falsehood is proverbial; indeed habits of lying are so inveterate, that untruths flow as it were spontaneously from their tongue, even when no apparent motive exists. All travellers agree in this as one general characteristic of the Asiatics; the sure mark of the low state of civilization in that great continent. The politeness of the Persians, for which they have been so much famed, seems to consist more in the observance of a troublesome routine of ceremonies, and the use of complimentary language in all the forms of eastern hyperbole, than in any real courtesy. A Persian will say to a stranger that he is his slave, that his house and all that it contains, his horses, equipage, &c. all are at his service; but no one understands this in any other sense than an unmeaning form, which encumbers the intercourse of society, without refining it. In their persons the Persians are described as being handsome, active, and robust; lively in their imaginations, and of quick apprehension, but without any moral quality to attract esteem. The effects of the cruel despotism under which Persia groans, in thus degrading the character of the people, and also in checking the progress of science and of every useful art, are truly melancholy. The insecurity of life and property is the dead-weight which oppresses the country. It represses the efforts of industry; it paralyses the powers of invention, and every ingenious improvement; for no man will sow where he is not sure of reaping, or will task his ingenuity to produce what he may be deprived of the next hour. Frazer mentions the case of an ingenious manufacturer of porcelain, whose fame quickly spread till it reached the court, whence a message was despatched for him, that he might make china for the Shah. He well knew that he would receive nothing for his labour, and that he would, moreover, be forced to make china for all the nobles belonging to the court. He accordingly went to court, and mustering all the money he was worth, offered it as a bribe to the minister if he would report to the king that he was not the person that made the china, and that he had run away, nobody knew whither. The ruse succeeded. The minister sent his discharge to the man, who vowed that he would never make a bit of china, or attempt any other improvement, as long as he lived. It is a common practice to kidnap the best workmen in all trades for the use of the court and great men of the provinces, who never pay the workmen they employ. Hence every one avoids the reputation of excellence, except in the commonest trades; and thus, under the benumbing influence of this frightful despotism, improvement is nipt in the bud, and every useful invention is discouraged. There is no outlay of labour or of capital in expectation of any profitable return. No speculation is hazarded which promises any future advantage. No provision is made of any article, not even food, beyond the immediate demand. The people are reckless and indifferent to all but the passing hour, living from day to day uncertain whether they may have life or property on the morrow. No trees are planted; no extensive improvement takes place on the face of the ground; no public buildings of any solid materials are erected; no one thinks of posterity, but only how he can accommodate himself. All classes, however, are eager to accumulate money, as the means of support, or of purchasing safety in any emergency; and this desire is matured at last into an insatiable avarice, which is nowise scrupulous about the means of its gratification.

The king of Persia has a great variety of personal duties to perform. He gives audience at an early hour of the morning to his principal ministers and secretaries, who make reports of all state transactions, and receive his commands. He holds a public levee, which is attended by the princes, ministers, and officers of his court, at which rewards are distributed and punishments awarded. He then gives one or two hours to his personal favourites, or to his ministers. After the morning is past he retires to his inner apartments, where he is shrouded from observation. In the evening he holds a levee, and transacts business with his ministers and principal officers of state. This, however, is rather a sketch of what his employments ought to be, than of what they are. They may be interrupted by indolence or the love of pleasure; and the labour of business may be devolved, if such be his will, upon his favourites.
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The business of the prime minister depends greatly on the personal favour of the king, which if he enjoys, he exercises great influence over all the branches of the government. Besides the chief ministers, the secretaries of state preside over the different offices or chambers of accounts; and regular accounts are kept of the receipts and disbursements of the whole kingdom.

The law of Persia, as in all other Mahommedan countries, is founded upon religion as contained in the Koran, and also upon tradition. Its rules are accordingly extremely vague and imperfect, and are administered by the priesthood, who often pronounce the most corrupt decisions, although the law, deriving its sanctions from religion, forms the only defence, feeble as it is, which the people possess against the violence and rapacity of power. Many cases are also decided by the law of custom or tradition, which, having reference to local as well as to common usages, varies in different parts of the empire, and is if possible a still more vague and imperfect code than the written law of the Koran. The ecclesiastical order in Persia, as in all other countries, eagerly grasping after power, insist that the law which they administer, being divine, should take cognizance of all cases. But the ordinary courts of common law, supported by the state, have succeeded in limiting their jurisdiction to cases of religious ceremonies, cases of inheritance, marriage, divorce, contracts, sales, and all civil matters; reserving to the ordinary courts the decision of criminal cases, such as murder, theft, fraud, breaches of the peace, and other offences. The order of priests have great influence in Persia. Before the reign of Nadir Shah, the whole power centred in the chief pontiff, who was deemed the vicar of Imaum, and engrossed vast wealth and influence. At the death of this high priest, no successor was appointed by Nadir Shah, who, besides, seized the treasures of the priesthood, in order to pay his troops. His grandson and successor appointed two persons to this high dignity, with a view of diminishing, by dividing, their power and influence. These priests are called Mooshtaheds; and there are now seldom more than three or four of this high dignity in Persia. They fill no office, receive no appointment, and have no specific duties, but are called by the voice of the public, from their superior learning, piety, and virtue, to be their guides in religion, and their protectors against oppression; and Sir John Malcolm observes, that they receive from the people a degree of respect and reverence to which the proudest kings would in vain lay claim. Their conduct generally agrees with the sacred character to which they owe all their importance; as they know, that in deviating from the strictest purity, they would lose all their influence, and could no longer expect to see the monarch courting popularity by walking to their humble dwellings, and placing them in the seat of honour when they pay a visit to his court. This order of priests exercise an important influence on the administration of the written law. Cases are constantly submitted to their superior knowledge; and there is no appeal from their sentence, except to a priest acknowledged to be superior in sanctity and in learning. The sacred character of these priests gives an authority to the decrees of the tribunals over which they preside, which the monarch is forced to respect. They are often effectual intercessors for mercy to the guilty; their habitations are considered as the sanctuaries of the oppressed; and “the hand of despotic power,” says Sir John Malcolm, “is sometimes taken off a city, because the monarch will not offend a mooshtahed, who has chosen it for his residence, but who refuses to dwell amidst violence and injustice.” Next in rank to these high priests, there is the Sbaik-ul-Islam, literally the “elder or chief of the faith,” who acts as a supreme judge in the court of written law. One of this class resides in all the principal cities; and under him is the cauzee, who has a council of moolahs or learned men as his assessors. In the lesser towns there is only a cauzee, from whom there lies an appeal, in cases of intricacy, to the cauzee of the larger towns, and finally to the supreme judge of the provincial capital. But, as in all countries, such as Persia, where there is no enlightened morality, and no control of public opinion, justice is venal and corrupt; the administration of the written law by the priests is extremely imperfect, and inadequate to its ends, insomuch that the suitor is deprived of every hope of justice; and it is only the administration of the customary law that offers any security, however imperfect, for justice between man and man. Even here, however, the administration of justice varies with the character of the reigning despot; and the judges in all their various gradations, from the king’s lieutenants, the rulers of provinces, governors of cities, lay managers of towns, managers and collectors of districts, and heads of villages, aided by the officers under their authority, are active and just, or corrupt and cruel, as the monarch happens to be vigilant or virtuous, avaricious or tyrannical. Moral principle and the power of public opinion afford the only security for the pure administration of justice; and among public men trained in this school, the corruption of a judge is never so much as heard of. But such wholesome restraints do not exist in Persia. The European ideas of honour are scarcely known amongst any class. They are all venal and corrupt; and the iniquities which they themselves practise they but feebly condemn in others. Justice is often interrupted by the clashing authorities of the different courts; an evil which neither the sovereign nor his ministers are anxious to remedy, seeing that it adds both to their power and profit. A suit is very soon brought to a termination, and not at great cost; but considerable sums are often paid for a favourable decision. The most barbarous rules are still followed in the administration of the criminal law. In cases of murder the heir at law demands vengeance for blood; and when the guilt of the criminal is established, he is delivered into the hands of the injured person or his relations, to deal with him as they think fit. The revolting spectacle of private vengeance was witnessed by the English resident at Abushehr, as inflicted on the murderers by the relations of the deceased, who led; their victims bound to the burial-ground, and there put them to death; the infant children of the person murdered being made to stab the murderers with knives, and thus to avenge their father’s blood. The assassins of Aga Mahommed Khan, when they were executed, were stabbed by such of the younger children as could hold a dagger; and the successor of Nadir Shah sent one of his murderers to the females of his harem, who were delighted to welcome his executioners. The punishment of crimes in Persia is fixed by the written law, or, when the king interferes, by his arbitrary will. Fines, flogging, and the bastinado, are the common punishments of lesser offences. The disclosure of hidden treasures is enforced by tortures; and the inhuman punishment of putting out the eyes has long been practised in Persia, as in other countries of the East, on the relations of the reigning family who may aspire to the throne, or on the chiefs of tribes whom it is desirable to deprive of power, though not of life, and sometimes on the male inhabitants of a rebellious town. Criminals are put to death by strangling, decapitation, or stabbing; but in aggravated cases the most inventive cruelty is practised in devising modes of torture. In some cases, life is for a time preserved in protracted pain; in others persons are empaled, or their limbs torn asunder by the elastic bound of trees which have been bent for the purpose, or they are cast headlong from a high tower; and the history of Persia abounds with examples of tyrants glutting their vengeance on their victims by the most shameless insults and horrid injuries. In Persia women are seldom publicly executed, but they suffer dreadful violence in the [7:17:250]recesses of domestic tyranny. When they are of high rank, the comprehensive injustice of the East often includes them in the punishment of their husbands or fathers; and they are given away as slaves to the lowest and most infamous classes of the community, such as muledrivers. They are also sometimes tortured, in order to force from them a disclosure of wealth which they know to be concealed.

The collection of the revenue is intimately connected with the administration of justice, the same officer presiding over both; and this union is unfavourable to the inhabitants, as it enables the collector to prostitute the judicial power for the gratification of his avarice. Sir John Malcolm estimates, though not on any sure data, the revenue of Persia at three millions. According to Frazer, the amount varies with each successive sovereign, with the extent of his dominions, and with the fluctuations which have taken place from rebellions in the different provinces. The public income of Persia arises from the-produce of crown or government lands, from a tax on land, varying, as is stated by Sir John Malcolm, from twenty to five per cent, according to the fertility of the land, and according to its vicinity to water, which is the great source of fertility in Persia. Frazer states that the land-tax amounts to from ten to five per cent, on the gross produce. Landed property in Persia may be comprised under the following heads: 1st, the crown-lands; 2<7, those that are the property of individuals; 3d , those belonging to charitable or religious foundations; and, ⅛th, those granted by the king for military service. The uncultivated tracts, which form so large a portion of Persia, are not claimed as property; but every individual who constructs one of the subterraneous canals called cannants, or who contrives to bring water to the surface, obtains a title to the land which he cultivates. The other titles are, inheritance, purchase, or a gift from the crown; and these rights are held sacred under all circumstances. There is, however, this peculiarity in the state of landed property in Persia, as in other eastern countries, that the ryot or cultivator shares with the proprietor in a common right to a certain portion of the soil, of which he cannot be deprived as long as he pays the customary rent. The proprietor has a title to one tenth of the produce, ascertained by measurement, either of the surface before sowing, or of the standing crop. When the proprietor obtains an artificial supply of water, he has, besides, a right to all that he can procure by its sale. In cases where the proprietor furnishes seed, labour, or cattle to the cultivator, he receives, in addition to his tenth share, a portion of the farmer’s profits. The government-tax amounted at one time to one tenth of the produce, but'with the increasing expenses of the state other irregular taxes were imposed, till they were at last converted into an additional tenth; the less fertile lands being, however, subjected to a smaller impost. But other irregular imposts still continued to be heaped upon the additional tenth, by the bad faith of the government, which imposts wereal together capricious and arbitrary, and now form one of the ryot’s heaviest grievances. The other taxes are those on cattle, capitation taxes, transit and town duties on merchandize, and various other impositions which are quite uncertain and irregular. Lands held in fief, or in lieu of military or other service, pay no tax to government; the assignce being entitled to three tenths, which includes both the proprietor’s rightsand the government dues. when the assignment is given on the estate of another, it is merely the government-dues which are granted. Gardens near villages pay one fifth of their produce in kind, whilst melon-grounds, tobacco, cotton, and such like fields, pay in money according to a valuation of their produce. Horses, asses, cows, sheep, and goats, are all taxed, at the rate of one real, or Is. 4d. for each horse, four fifths for asses and cows, one third for sheep and goats, and one sixth on the hire of bees. There is a capitation-tax, which sometimes presses heavily upon Armenians, Jews, and Guebres, the ancient fire-worshippers. The rate was in some cases four reals, or 5s. 4d., for a family, and sometimes eight reals. Shops and bazaars pay a duty of from two to twenty reals a year; and the tenant also pays in the proportion of from ten to fifty tomauns a year, the value of the to-maun being 1 Is. All merchandise is subject to a duty of five per cent, on entering the first Persian town, whether by land or sea, and to a variety of inland duties, which are levied at the different custom-houses without any rule or system, every governor endeavouring to extort all that he can. Smuggling is very commonly practised. No estimate can be formed of the saaduraut, or the irregular duties, which include every extraordinary expense of the government, the expenses of all travellers and strangers, those of all members of the royal family, or messengers on government business, the expense of transporting baggage, royal equipage, or presents, of repairing the roads and bridges, of furnishing troops for service, and the like; for all which it is understood, though the practice is often different, that the village or province shall obtain credit on the annual settlement of their accounts; so that these heavy exactions, resembling those of the king’s purveyors in ancient Europe for the maintenance of his court and retinue when they were travelling, fall without redress on the poor ryots. The Persian king’s order is, in like manner, grievously abused to the oppression and vexation of his subjects. Presents, fines, and confiscations, form a considerable item of Persian revenue. At stated times, such as the new year, the courtiers are expected to accompany their respects to the king with a large present of money, which amounts in some cases to 50,000, 60,000, and even 100,000 tomauns. Every one in any degree dependent upon the court endeavours to make up a purse on this occasion; and in lieu of money, goods, such as shawls, horses, jewels, and merchandise, are brought. The produce of this new-year impost is estimated at 1,200,000 tomauns. But there are various other lesser occasions for making presents, no suitor for favour or pardon being expected to approach the throne empty-handed; so that about 500,000 tomauns may be received in addition to the presents of the new year. The produce of the crown-lands Frazer estimates, though, he admits, on uncertain data, at 989,000 tomauns. Every mode of tyranny and extortion is practised on the one hand by the collectors of the revenue, which is met by shifts and pretexts without number on the part of the tax-payer; “so that,” says Frazer, “there is a continual struggle between the governor of a province and his myrmidons on the one side, and the villagers with their zabuts and ketkhodas (head officers) on the other; the former endeavouring to squeeze as much more as possible than their right from the latter, who strive, by every trick and invention, to avoid paying even that acknowledged right.”^[12. Narrative of a Journey into Khorassan, chap. x. ]

The expenditure for which this revenue has to provide cannot be estimated from any authentic document. The chief expenses are the maintenance of the royal family, and the royal harem, which contains 300 wives, with a proportional number of slaves and servants, amounting to not less than about 1500 persons. The expense of the royal stud, including the baggage, camels, and mules, the retinue attending the royal march, the value of presents, namely, the khilauts or robes of honour, which are regularly given away, and which are seldom worth less than from 500 to 600 tomauns; the Cashmere shawls, swords, daggers highly ornamented, and horses with gold or silver harness; form a serious drain on the royal treasury; and to this maybe added [7:17:251]the maintenance of the household troops. All these expenses are heavy, and in general swallow up a large portion of the revenues, however ample. The superior officers of government are paid with the utmost parsimony, which proves in the end far more expensive than the most liberal salary, their scanty allowances being made up by peculation and extortion. The salary of a prime minister does not exceed a few hundred tomauns in the year, but it is made up to an indefinite amount by bribes, presents, fees, and speculations of various kinds. Sometimes an assignment on the revenue of a village is given in lieu of salary; the inhabitants being thus placed at the mercy of the assignce, who fleeces them without mercy, often to more than three times the regulated amount. All these unjust practices are well known to the king and his court, who wink at what they would find it impossible to prevent, and who also know that all the hoards of individuals are carefully watched by the spies and underlings of the court, so that these ill-gotten treasures may be made forthcoming at any time for the behoof of the monarch. The nobles, and especially the officers of government, are wretchedly poor, as well, indeed, as all the rest of the people; they are mostly all ruinously in debt. The mehmandar or officer of government, who escorted Frazer from Bushire to Shiraz, in describing his own situation, spoke openly of the “miserable system of extortion and parsimony practised by the king and rulers of the land ;” and he was far from being the only one who uttered such sentiments, which, according to the traveller above mentioned, were in every mouth, and a common topic of conversation.

There is no regular body of trained soldiers in Persia, but merely irregular levies, fitted for the species of warfare in which they are generally engaged. Every province ought to maintain a certain number of men, armed and mounted, and ready to take the field. This is the national force of Persia; the militia collected from the wandering tribes, and from the inhabitants of cities and villages, who are liable to be called out on any emergency, and, when on service with the army, or in distant garrisons, receive pay from government. They provide their own clothing, which is the common dress of the country, and their arms, consisting of a matchlock, sabre, and dagger. The number of this registered militia is estimated at 150,000 men. But recently all military duties have been neglected, and it would now be scarcely possible to muster the smallest appearance of an army. The inhabitants of Fars obtained an abatement of revenue, on the ground of their obligation to maintain a force to watch the movements of the British in the gulf; but not a single soldier could ever be seen by the British embassy in passing through that province; and any military display that was made was evidently by men suddenly called together from their regular occupations. No attempt was ever made to maintain a regular army, excepting by Abbas Mirza, governor of Azerbijan, and heir apparent to the throne; and whilst these troops were commanded and disciplined by English officers, they had every appearance of an efficient force, amounting to 20,000 men. But after the conclusion of peace with Russia, they were, from parsimony or improvidence, disbanded; it being considered as useless to give regular pay where no service was required. On the commencement of the Turkish war, the English officers, who could no longer be permitted to serve, were almost all dismissed; and a few sergeants only remain, who command and maintain the horse-artillery in a tolerably efficient state; but this corps, with seven or eight hundred Russian deserters, is the only serviceable part of the èstablishment. The prince has, besides these corps, wall-pieces, mounted on camels, which could only be efficient against Asiatic troops. His arsenal is, however, miserably furnished; and, unlike the arsenals of Europe, which contain such vast stores of ammunition, it is on a scale more suited to the shooting-closet of a private gentleman, than a magazine of state. When the army took the field against the Russians, only twenty-five rounds of ammunition were provided for each gun, and scarcely any supply was left behind, whilst the manufacture was proceeding on a scale the most pitiful. The levies furnished by the chiefs of tribes at the call of their sovereign form the most efficient portion of the militia, consisting entirely of cavalry, which, though somewhat degenerated, are still hardy and active, having preserved the habits and mode of fighting of their fathers. Their horses are active and strong, and in all respects suited to predatory warfare, to which indeed they are inclined by the prospect of plunder, the chief motive of their services; for if they are not engaged in active hostilities, they always return home during the winter.^[13. Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, vol. ii. chap, xxiii. ] The Persians assert that the king can command the services of 80,000 of these irregular troops; an assertion which is scarcely borne out by facts. Some provinces famed for their irregular troops serve as nurseries of the army. The land-tax of Mazanderan is chiefly paid in military service, and this province, including Astrabad, maintains nominally 12,000 foot and 4000 horsemen, ready at a call. But the fact is, that these troops are greatly dispersed amongst their own villages, and many of them have not a horse to show. The only permanently-embodied corps is the body-guard of the king, or the gholauns ; but they have no regular organization, any more than the others, nor do they assemble and parade together. Their number amounts to from three to four thousand men; and they are chiefly distributed near the residence of his majesty in town, and attend him in camp, a certain number being always on duty. They are all mounted, their horses being found by government, and they are armed, as usual, with a matchlock or sword. Their pay varies from twenty to thirty tomauns in the year; though those of long standing, and of tried valour in the service, receive much more. These are frequently employed in affairs of great importance; often in the collection of the revenue, when they neglect no opportunity of extorting large sums. They consider themselves as gentlemen, though in the rank of soldiers. They are, some of them, the younger sons of nobility; and are for the most part bold and insolent debauchees, great swaggerers, with but little courage, tyrannizing over the weak, but respectful and fawning to those in power. Their name is a terror to the country, and their arrival in any quarter is deprecated as a serious misfortune, the people in some instances flying from the village at their approach. Frazer considered the unwarlike character of the Persian monarch as a great discouragement to the military service. He was cowardly, and remarkably avaricious; parsimonious in rewarding service, and jealous of any of his subjects acquiring military renown; so that a chief, when they were proposing an expedition against the Turcomans, declared his own feelings in very plain terms: “Towhat end,” said he, “should 1 destroy these people? What thanks should I receive from Futtch Allee Shah? Perhaps to have my eyes put out.”

Persia, from this view of her internal sources, must rank very low in the scale of nations, and would be quite unable to withstand any European power. During the war which so long raged between Great Britain and France, her alliance was eagerly courted by both these powers; by the former, in order to baffle the supposed schemes of Napoleon for the invasion of India, although it is extremely doubtful if any such were seriously entertained. France was equally eager for the friendship of this weak state. Great Britain lavished her gold on the Persian king, for which he gave his empty promises of friendship; and [7:17:252] when France entered the lists with Britain for his coveted alliance, the king made the most of both; nor, as Frazer justly observes, was it his part to tell how valueless was the prize for which they each offered so high. The British statesmen, perpetually haunted with the terror of Bonaparte, were in dread lest a French and Russian army should make its way through Persia to India. But neither the cajolery of Great Britain, nor her bribes, would have enabled Persia to oppose so powerful an invasion of her territories, if it had been attempted. Her whole power would have been exerted in the defence of her dominions, even if Britain had not interfered; more she could not do though the whole wealth of the country had been poured forth before her king and his nobles. Most uselessly, therefore, on this, as on numberless other occasions, were the treasures of Britain squandered away to bribe this barbarous power to pursue a course prescribed to her, and which she would of herself inevitably have followed in her own defence; whilst the character of the country was lowered, by the humble, and even fawning, tone of the British in their official communications. Persian arrogance has been thus fostered; and the Shah has been encouraged to despise and deprecate the power and alliance of Britain, notwithstanding her profuse liberality.

The ancient idolatrous religion of Persia was supplanted by that of Mahommed, which at an early period was propagated in Persia by the victorious Moslemins; and it has ever since continued the popular superstition of the country. But the Persians are of the Sheah sect, who consider Ali, the uncle and father-in-law of Mahommed, as his lawful successor in the caliphate, to which he was appointed by the Prophet; and Abubekr, Omar, and Othman, his actual successors, and reverenced as the caliphs by the Soonies, as nothing better than usurpers. It was this disputed succession which gave rise to these two hostile sects of Mahommedans. The doctrines of the former, namely, the Sheahs, have been for more than three centuries warmly espoused by the Persians, who vowed eternal hatred and war against all who profess the Soonie creed. The religion of Mahommed, amongst its other evils, is hostile to all improvement. It enjoins the destruction of infidels as an act of piety; intolerance thus becomes a duty; and hence the blind zeal and persecuting spirit which prevails in all Mahommedan states, and which breaks out into reproach, outrage, and often into extreme violence, against their Christian visitors. All knowledge is, according to this system, rejected, beyond what is found in the Koran; and the debasing influence of polygamy on the morals and manners of both sexes is calculated completely to poison all the remaining sources of social happiness. The baneful consequences of this superstition have been as deeply felt in Persia as in any of the surrounding states. The Persians have been thought by travellers to be less bigoted than their Turkish or Arabian neighbours. But though, from their lighter dispositions, they may not be so austerely rigorous in their religious observances, and may even converse with more freedom on religious subjects, from their intercourse with European Christians, who cannot be used with the same outrage as their own countrymen, yet, according to the testimony of Frazer, they •are even more deeply prejudiced than either the Arabs or the Turks, who will not scruple, if they invite a Christian to their house, to eat with him from the same dish; whilst a Persian will provide a separate tray for him, and avoid, as much as he can, all contact. Europeans attached to the suites of ambassadors are admitted into the public baths; but a European travelling without a mehmandar or a government functionary would not be allowed any such privilege; and though European gentlemen, for a large bribe, are admitted in disguise, or m secret, into the mosques or holy places of pilgrimage, a poor Armenian or a Jew would as surely be put to death if found within the sepulchre of Imaun Reza or Fatima, or the great mosque at Shiraz, as within the mosques of Constantinople or Damascus. The fanatical influence of the Mahommedan religion has of late years, however, been modified in Persia, by the progress of a free-thinking and irreligious spirit, chiefly amongst the nobility, the merchants, and those who have resided much in foreign countries, and even· amongst the priesthood, who frequently and openly, before their particular friends, deride the superstitious observances of the Mahommedan creed. The zeal of the early Mahommedans has also been cooled by many causes. The work of conquest, and the extinction or conversion of infidel nations by the sword, is at an end. The enthusiasm of the modern followers of the Prophet is no longer influenced by the practice of persecution; and the whole system has declined into a set of useless forms and ceremonies, which, mingling with all the common affairs of life, have degenerated into a customary routine, without any appearance of reverence, and being in reality a mere mockery of religion. “The name of God,” says Frazer, “in various forms, is called upon on the most trivial as well as the most important occasions. However men may be occupied when the set hour of prayer arrives, those who choose to observe it merely turn aside from the rest, still laughing, perhaps, at the last ribald jest, and commence their invocation of God. During the intervals they continue their conversation, scold or give orders to their servants, comb their beards, and adjust their persons, frequently interrupting their expressions of praise or of devotion, to give vent to the most trifling, or perhaps the most obscene remarks.”^[14. Narrative of a Journey into Khorassan, chap. ix. ] The observance of these empty forms is nowise connected with morality, except to degrade it; the most zealous Mahommedans, even those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca, being frequently noted for the impurity of their lives. From this and other causes, the Mahommedan religion, which once kindled so vast a commotion in the world, is now on the decline; and the followers of the Christian faith have made such progress in all useful knowledge, that Mahommedans are fain to become the imitators of their fashions, as, by a gradual transition, they may also yet be of their purer faith.

In a state of society such as that which prevails in Persia, we can scarcely look for any great progress in literature, science, or the arts. With the Mahommedan religion was introduced all the Arabian learning of the seventh century. But the Persians have not improved this original stock; on the contrary, it has gone to waste in their hands; the light of science is nearly extinct, and their literature consists chiefly in their poetry and tales. They delight in tales, fables, and apophthegms, which Sir John Malcolm considers as the consequence of their despotic government, where knowledge must be veiled in order to be useful, as the direct truth would wound a despot’s ear. It is in poetry that they are said chiefly to delight and to excel; though the hyperbolical style and the wild tales of the East would scarcely suit the fastidious taste of European critics. The merits of Persian poetry have been very differently estimated. Sir John Malcolm, admitting its extravagance and hyperbole, still praises its tenderness and beauty; and many passages are said to breathe all the sweetness of pastoral poetry. Ferdousi is one of their greatest epic poets, whose poem (the Shah-namch') is historical, in which, according to Sir John Malcolm, “the most fastidious reader will meet with numerous passages of exquisite beauty. The narrative,” he adds, “of this great work is generally very perspicuous; and some of the finest scenes in it are described with simplicity and elegance of diction.” In the opinion[7:17:253] of Persians, this poet excels in his descriptions of the combats and battles of his heroes; but to those whose taste is offended with hyperbole, the tender parts of his work will have most beauty, as they are freest from this characteristic defect of eastern writers. Nizamee, who celebrates the exploits of Alexander the Great, is considered as ranking next to Ferdousi; and the subject affords ample scope to his genius and his powerful imagination. Amongst the didactic poets Sir John Malcolm assigns the next rank to Sadi, who is a moralist as well as a poet, his works abounding in the most useful lessons of prudence and morality, and exhibiting a rare union of fancy, learning, urbanity, and virtue. The Musnavel of Jellal-u-Deen, the poems of Jami, and the odes of Hafiz, are amongst the most popular effusions of the Persian muse; but the names of Rudiki, Anveri, and several others, are nearly of equal rank; and some modern writers also have attained to great eminence. “Many of these poems,” says Sir John Malcolm, in his excellent History of Persia, “are remarkable for harmony of numbers and luxuriance of imagination, but they all abound with the most extravagant and hyperbolical passages; and the enraptured dreams of their visionary authors can only be esteemed beauties by men whose imaginations keep pace with that of the poet, whom they deem inspired, and whose most obscene lay is often considered by their enthusiastic admirers as the gleaming of a sublime knowledge, which is far beyond the comprehension of the profane and unenlightened. Many discussions have arisen regarding the real and mystical meaning of the writers of this class, and particularly of Hafiz, whose odes are chanted as songs, to excite the young and dissipated to pleasure, and recited as hymns, to remind the old and devout of the rapture of divine love.” The Persian poets excel in songs and odes, which are chiefly composed on local subjects, and are tender and passionate. Satirical effusions are not so common; though the verses of Ferdousi on Mahmood of Ghizni are remarkable for the bitter feelings which they express. There is a satirical poem, by an unknown author, on the passion of avarice, which is extremely humorous and satirical. The Persians are enthusiastic in their taste for poetry; and the meanest artisans can read or repeat the finest passages of their most admired writers. Sir John Malcolm mentions that his servants were familiar with Persian poetry; and when at Ispahan, he was surprised to hear a common tailor, who was repairing one of his tents, entertaining his companions with some of the finest mystical odes of the poet Hafiz. Even the rude and unlettered soldier will leave his tent to listen to songs of love or to a tale of war. The art of printing is unknown in Persia; and beautiful writing, which is carefully taught in the schools, is considered as a high accomplishment; those who excel in it ranking with the literary class. They are employed in copying the works of authors; and a few lines written by a celebrated penman are often sold for a considerable sum. By the invention of printing a great moral revolution has been brought about in the state of society; and a want of inclination to profit by this great improvement indicates extreme apathy and ignorance on the part of any nation. Yet almost all the tradesmen and many of the mechanics in Persia have received some education. Schools are established in every town and city, at which the poorest children are instructed, at fees sufficiently reasonable, in the rudiments of the Persian and Arabic languages. The pupil, after he has learned the alphabet, reads, as a religious duty, the Koran in Arabic, next some fables in the Persian language, and, lastly, he is taught to write a legible hand, which completes his education. Unless amongst those who follow a studious life, and thus put in practice what they have learned, these lessons are in many cases forgotten. Yet this course of study, superficial as it appears, improves the habits, and introduces a refinement of manners amongst the scholars, which is unknown to their ruder countrymen. No proper encouragement, however, is given to schools; nor can it be expected that a grasping, despotic, and rapacious government, like that of Persia, should be any way anxious for the education of its subjects. The literary men are numerous. They pursue their studies till they are entitled to the name of Moollah, and to all the honours of a Persian college, though they are not classed with the priesthood. They follow various occupations. To the studious and literary classes a very high rank is assigned. An eminent historian, astronomer, or poet, is highly honoured, and has a place of distinction assigned him in every company which he honours with his presence; and this as much for his social qualities as for his supposed talents as an author. The conversation of these persons, replete with anecdotes and information, amuses and instructs; and even the pretenders of this class, who are numerous, possess agreeable manners and a ready wit. Living by their wits, they are generally noted flatterers, dwelling especially on the wonderful deeds and character of the king or his principal nobles, for which they are well paid. Others write panegyrics on all who pay them for it, either in money or in hospitality. They also make epigrams to amuse their patrons, or recite the finest passages of the national poetry. But the great majority are poor, seeing that their numbers have outgrown their employment. Every person with a moderate education may assume the name of a poet, and the merest rhymer receives some additional respect upon this account. A swarm of students is thus produced, who pass their useless lives in indolence and poverty. Ispahan in particular abounds with these literary mendicants; and from its colleges, and those of Shiraz, issueacrowdof vagrant poets, who lie in wait for men of rank and wealth, or for any stranger from whom they expect a reward. Sir John Malcolm, in his first visit to Persia in 1800, was addressed by one of these poets; and though he was repeatedly told that the stranger could neither comprehend his lines nor relish such compositions, he persevered in his purpose, telling some appropriate story, until he extorted his due meed, not of praise, but of money.

In music and painting the Persians have made no progress. They consider music as a science, but they have nevertheless made no further advances in it than the Indians, to whom they are supposed to owe all the knowledge which they possess. They have a gamut and notes, and a melody that is adapted to various strains; and they sing to the accompaniment of warlike instruments, of which they have a number. Their strains are often pleasing, but they are always monotonous. They are equally backward in the art of painting, in which they have advanced but little within the last three centuries. They use the most brilliant colours, and in portrait-painting they usually succeed in taking likenesses; and in some of their lesser drawings, which are highly glazed, and painted on wood, they also display industry and taste. But they are entirely unacquainted with the rules of perspective or ofjust proportions. The despotic and unsettled government arrests all improvement; and in the fine arts the existing race have not advanced one step beyond their forefathers, as appears from the figures in the palaces at Ispahan, executed in the reign of Shah Abbas, and equal to any of their modern productions.

In science the Persians have advanced no farther than in the arts. Their knowledge of mathematics or astronomy is very limited; and the latter science is chiefly studied for the sake of judicial astrology, in which the whole nation, from the king to the peasant, evince the greatest faith. Their notions of the forms and motions of the heavenly bodies, and the shape and surface of the earth, are borrowed from Ptolemy; and though some efforts have been made [7:17:254] to instruct them in the Copernican system and Newton’s demonstrations, prejudices are too firmly rooted to be dispelled, except by time. Of geography they do not understand the first principles; for, independently of their error regarding the figure of the earth, they know little of its surface, even of that which lies within their view; nor could their knowledge of surveying enable them to lay down any portion of it with exactness. There cannot be a stronger proof of the ignorance which prevails than the eagerness with which all classes seek the aid of astrology. Any one who can take an altitude with an astrolabe, or knows the names of the planets, with a few technical phrases, and understands the astrological almanacs, considers himself as quite adequate to offer his services to all who consult him; and nothing of consequence is transacted, especially by the great, without consulting the stars. A new dress must be put on, or a journey must be commenced, at the lucky or unlucky moment. The prime minister of Persia seeing Sir John Malcolm smile at the idea of his seeking the propitious moment for putting on a new dress, observed, “Do not think, Captain Malcolm, I am such a fool as to put faith in all this nonsense; but I must not make my family unhappy by refusing to comply with forms which some of them deem of consequence.” Some years ago a Persian ambassador was about to proceed to India, when he was informed by his astrologer of a most fortunate conjunction of stars, not likely to occur again for some months. He accordingly set out, though the ship was not ready to sail; and because it was discovered by the astrologer that he could not go out of his door, on account of an unfavourable constellation exactly opposite, he broke through the wall of his house, and four or five other walls, before he and his men could reach the street. Many of the astrologers who practise this art are with reason thought to be more knaves than fools, and flatterers of those who consult them, in order to fleece them of their money.

As the science of astronomy is thus rendered subservient to astrology, so chemistry is followed for the sake of alchemy, a favourite pursuit of the learned, whose avarice is stimulated by the hope of discovering the philosopher’s stone; that absurd chimera of a barbarous age, long ago exploded amongst the sciences of Europe. The alchemists make their experiments in the profoundest secrecy, that they may themselves engross the whole benefits of the wonderful discovery which they expect to make; and whether they may be themselves deceived, certain it is they deceive others, and practise the most serious frauds on the credulous and the wealthy. Of medicine and surgery the Persians are thoroughly ignorant, and, when they are ill, become the prey of quacks, who rob them of their money, and often of their health. They are entirely ignorant of anatomy and the circulation of the blood. They have an arbitrary theory, by which they classify all diseases under four heads, viz. hot, cold, moist, or dry; and the great principle on which they proceed is, that the remedy must be of an opposite quality to the disease; dry remedies being applied to an illness occasioned by moisture, and cooling medicines to hot diseases. To this practice they are so bigoted, that, with all their respect for European physicians, they dislike any prescriptions that contradict this paradox. Inoculation for the small-pox, though it is known, is seldom practised, though whole towns are often threatened with depopulation by the ravages of that dreadful disease. Mr Jukes, who accompanied Mr Frazer into Persia, was remarkably anxious to introduce the practice of vaccination: for several years his efforts were unremitted; but they were defeated, fully as much from the cruel indifference of the government to the good of their subjects, as from their prejudices. This great and important discovery appeared to give the most lively satisfaction to the great men of the country; but that interest in the happiness of the people, and those feelings of humanity, which are seen in Europe, are entirely wanting in Persia; and hence all attempts to introduce vaccination amongst the people were finally abandoned. The practice of physic in Persia is mere quackery, for which all the knowledge necessary is that of the qualities and effects of a few simples; and hence a grave air, and a few lucky cures, often brought about by the temperate habits of the patient, complete the fame of a physician. The gains of the physician are, however, trifling. The priests and astrologers succeed better; their art is more suited to the taste of the inhabitants; and it is only in cities and towns that there are regular physicians. Those who dwell in tents are generally attended by an old man or woman, and rely more on superstitious charms than on medical remedies. One of these charms consists in laying a few pieces of bread covered with oil upon a rock, as an offering to a saint. There are many quacks in Persia, as in other countries, who pretend to cure all diseases, and who boast a hereditary right to certain nostrums. The chiefs of a mountain tribe pretend to cure the ague by tying the patient up by the heels, and scolding and beating him severely, to prevent the access of the cold fit.

The Persians are remarkably ceremonious in their intercourse. They receive the visit of a superior by rising hastily and meeting him at the door of the apartment; of an equal, by rising and standing erect; of an inferior, by only making the motion of rising. The apartments are not so luxuriously furnished as in Turkey. The sofas and easy pillows of the latter country are not known in Persia, where the seat is on a carpet or mat, without any soft support on either side, or any thing except the hands, or the accidental support of a wall, to relieve the galling posture of the legs. The fashion in presence of a superior is to sit upon your heels, as they are tucked up under your hams, after the manner of a camel. The misery of this posture in its politest form can scarcely be described, according to Morier, who thought he had attained to great perfection in the Persian fashions when he could sit cross-legged like a tailor; and Sir R. K. Porter mentions, that after a Persian entertainment at which he was present, he was so tired with the awkwardness of the posture, that he could scarcely rise when the meal was finished. The length of time during which a Persian sits untired upon his heels is to an Englishman quite extraordinary. He will remain half a day, and sometimes he will even sleep, in this posture. They never think of changing their positions; and are as much surprised by the locomotive dispositions of the Europeans as we are by their habits of rest. They impute their walking to and fro, their sitting down, getting up, and moving in every direction, to the influence of some evil spirit; and sometimes they think it is the European mode of saying prayers. Morier gives a curious account of a visit of ceremony to the governor of Bushire, and also of a dinner at which he was entertained. They made their visit on horseback, according to the custom of the country, though his tent was not a stone’s throw from theirs. They were met by one of the officers, with an escort of ten men, who made their obeisance; and when they arrived at the door of the khan, where they were most graciously received, having pulled off their boots and shoes, a necessary part of the ceremonial, they were finally accommodated with chairs prepared for them. The tent was extremely neat; and in the interior there was a clean little recess, closely covered with carpets, and lined with the finest chintz, adorned with a broad fringe. They were then entertained with kaleoons οt water-pipes, and with coffee and sherbets; and the whole entertainment concluded with a course of sweetmeats, consisting of almonds, pistachio-nuts, with a paste of sugar, and other sweetmeats, of which the Persians are immoderately fond. The fastidiousness of the English visitors was, however, sorely tried by the ill-timed complaisance of [7:17:255]two lusty attendants, who broke the sweetmeats with their fingers, and blew off the dust of the fragments with their mouths. At dinner they sat on the ground in the position already mentioned, which was rendered more difficult than can be conceived, by the inflexibility of their knees, contracted from long habit; and the khan, in pity to their evident distress, begged them to extend their legs at full length, which they, however, declined, in compliance with the Persian fashion. After being treated to pipes and coffee, dinner was called for. On the ground was spread a fine chintz cloth, which completely covered their legs, and had been so long unchanged, that it was dirty from the fragments of former meals, and emitted no very savory smell. But the Persians never change it, from an idea that it brings ill luck. Sherbets were first served up upon fine china bowls to each guest, two made of sweet liquors, and another of an exquisite species of lemonade. There were, besides fruits ready cut, plates with sweetmeats and confectionery, and smaller cups of sweet sherbet. The pillaus succeeded, one of plane rice, another made of mutton with raisins and almonds, and a third of fowl with rich spices and plums; also various dishes with rich sauces, and over each a tincture of sweet sauce, which is a great article in Persian cookery. The Persians eat comfortably in their fashion, advancing their chins close to the dishes, and comrnodiously scooping the riceor other victuals into their mouths with three fingers and the thumb of their right hand. But when the English guests attempted to approach the dish, they were impeded by their tight-kneed breeches, and all the ligaments and buttons of their dress; and in the course of their eating, fragments of meat and rice fell through their fingers all around. The dinner was carried off in the same state in which it was brought; the servant who officiated dropping gracefully on one knee as he carried away the trays, and passed them over his head with both his hands to another lacquey, who was ready behind him to carry them off.

It is a singular trait of Asiatic manners that so great a proportion of the people still retain the vagrant habits of the pastoral life. For this purpose the wide wastes of Khorassan, varied with spots of fertility, are well adapted; and the pastoral tribes are accordingly found chiefly to border on this district, which has long been the debateable ground between several great monarchies, where their rival chiefs contended for victory in fierce and bloody wars; and on these occasions the wandering tribes are enlisted on one side or the other. Thus they are inured to blood and to pillage, and contract habits which have been strengthened by time, and have at last become interwoven with their whole pursuits and character. They often attack surrounding states, carry off the people, and sell them for slaves; and most of the wandering tribes of Turcomans being Soonies, who have sworn eternal hatred to the Persians, who are Sheahs, thus add religious hatred to all their other incentives to murder and pillage; so that their character is described as ferocious and blood-thirsty in the extreme. To the north of Khorassan there are various tribes of Turcomans, who, occupying the country behind the Elburz and the steppe of Kaurezm, pour from their deserts upon the surrounding and cultivated districts, plundering villages and caravans, with every circumstance of atrocious outrage. The old, the feeble, and the helpless, are murdered on the spot; those who are fit for labour are carried into slavery; and whole districts of country are left desolate. From the east other tribes equally barbarous make inroads into Persia, and carry away their captives to the slave-markets of Khyvah and Buckharia; and on the south and east are found the wild Ballooches, who formerly plundered and murdered, but now, preferring their avarice to their cruelty, carry their prisoners to the slave-merchants who frequent the great northern markets. The Afghan, also, though not naturally cruel, “assumes,” says Frazer, “in this ominous neighbourhood a fierce character, and adds to robbery and plunder the crime of murder.” By these dreadful inroads a considerable portion of the country to the north and east is laid waste; the terror of these tribes is spread far and wide; and their depredations have become more formidable in proportion to the corruption and increasing weakness of the Persian monarchy. These tribes vary considerably in their physiognomy. The Tuckehs, who occupy the country behind the Elburz Mountains, bordering on the Caspian Sea, are tall, stout, and well made, and have all the Tartar features, namely, the scanty beard, the small eye drawn up at the corners, the high cheek-bones, and the small flat nose. Some, on the other hand, have handsome features, rather resembling those of the Asiatics than of the Europeans. The arms used by these tribes are chiefly the sword and the spear. They are dexterous in the use of the sword, which is curved in the Persian fashion, and very sharp. Several of the tribes use bows and arrows. They have very few fire-arms; only such as they have taken from travellers whom they have plundered.

Persia, the seatof learning, of wealth, and of improvement, whilst the greater part of the world had scarcely emerged from barbarism, might naturally be expected to abound in the precious relics of ancient art; and although many such memorials have perished amidst the ruthless devastations of war, to which this and other Asiatic countries have been exposed, yet numerous monuments of taste still remain. Of these, the ruins of Persepolis belong to the earliest era of Persian history. It was in this city, which they took a delight in improving and embellishing, as the great metropolis of the East, that Cyrus and his immediate successors resided. It has for centuries presented only a scene of decay and ruin. The most remarkable remains in Persepolis, or, as it is called by the natives, Tackt-i-Jemsheed (the throne of Jemsheed), are the Chehelminar or the forty columns, which are situated at a small distance to the north of Shiraz. Sir R. K. Porter recognised in these ruins, en masse as well as in detail, a strong resemblance to the architectural taste of Egypt; and he conjectures that some of the architectural ornaments may have been partly brought from that country by the Persian monarchs, as trophies of their victories. These magnificent remainsappear to be part of the great castellated palace of Darius, which was set on fire by Alexander whilst he was under the influence of intemperance. They are placed as if in an amphitheatre, on a fine plain, enclosed by semicircular mountains. The terrace on which the ruins of this immense royal citadel or palace is placed, is of a very irregular shape, and it faces the four cardinal points. The extent of the southern face, according to the measurement of Sir R. K. Porter, is 802 feet; of the northern 926, and of the western 1425. “The strength and beauty of its construction,” says the same traveller, “cannot be exceeded. The steep faces of the rocky terrace are,” he continues, “formed of dark-gray marble, cut into gigantic square blocks exquisitely polished, and, without the aid of mortar, fitted to each other with such closeness and precision, that when first completed the perfected platform must have appeared as part of the solid mountain itself.”^[15. Travels in Persia, Georgia, &c. vol. i. p. 583. ] The level on which the buildings had been erected has become exceedingly uneven, from the accumulation of fallen ruins; and the height of the wall appears to have varied from twenty-five to fifty feet, according to the inequalities of the ground. The exterior wall is built of black stones much harderthan marble, finely polished, and of such a prodigious size, that it is difficult to conceive how the workmen, without the aid of machinery, were able to move them. The only access to the summit of the platform is [7:17:256]by a double flight of stairs of a very gentle ascent, on its western side. There are fifty-five steps, each step being three and a half inches in height, formed of blocks of marble so large that each of them is cut into ten or fourteen steps. The first flight of steps leads to an irregular landing-place of thirty-seven feet by forty-four, from which springs a second double flight of forty-eight steps, which terminate on the ground level of the platform in a second landing-place, occupying sixty-four feet. “The beauty and ease of the ascent,” says Sir R. K. Porter, “will be readily understood when I mention, that I invariably rode my horse up and down them, during my visits to their interesting summit.” On reaching the platform, the first objects that arrest the attention of the traveller are the lofty walls of an enormous portal, the interior faces of which are sculptured into the colossal forms of two immense quadrupeds, resembling bulls, which are elevated on a pedestal five feet in height. The heads of the animals are entirely mutilated, so that Frazer says it is impossible to determine what species they were intended to represent. Round their necks collars of roses are executed with critical nicety; and over the chest, back, and ribs, short curling hair, cut with that peculiar correctness and delicacy of chiselling which Sir R. K. Porter states to be a distinguishing characteristic of the ancient Persian sculpture. The wall that forms one side of this magnificent portal is five feet in breadth, twenty-one feet in length, and thirty feet in height. The one wall is distant from the other about twelve feet, and the space between is flagged with beautifully-polished slabs from the neighbouring rock.

Eastward, at the distance of twenty-four feet in a direct line from the portal, once stood four magnificent columns, of which only two now remain. Their capitals are singularly beautiful. At the distance of twenty-four feet is a second portal, exactly resembling the former, only that it is eighteen feet instead of twenty-one in length. Its inner sides are adorned with similar sculptures. But the animals here represented are of a gigantic size, and of a monstrous formation; the body and legs of a bull, with similar trappings to those already described, and enormous wings, the feathers of which are exquisitely cut. The heads of the animals, though greatly defaced, show the faces of men; the countenance has a cast of deep gravity; and a long and carefully curled beard adds to the general majesty. The head is adorned with a diadem, on both sides of which horns are represented winding from the brow upwards towards the front of the crown; the whole being surmounted by a sort of coronet, formed of a range of leaves like the lotus, and bound with a fillet beautifully carved in roses. This symbolical representation has long been a subject of speculation amongst antiquaries, and its meaning still remains a mystery, notwithstanding the many ingenious conjectures to which it has given rise.

Between the right of this portal and the magnificent terrace that supports the range of columns from which it takes its name, there is an area of 162 feet, in which is a cistern hewn out of the solid rock, in dimensions eighteen feet by sixteen. The approach to the terrace is superb, consisting of a double staircase, covered with the most beautiful decorations, and projecting considerably before the northern face of the terrace, which is 212 feet in length. At each extremity, east and west, rises another range of steps; and about the middle, projecting from it eighteen feet, appear two smaller flights, rising from the same points. The extent of the whole range, including a landing-place of twenty feet, amounts to eighty-six feet. The ascent is extremely gradual, each flight consisting of some thirty low steps, four inches in height, fourteen in breadth, and sixteen in length. The whole front is covered with sculptures so thickly that the eye is bewildered amid the various groups. They consist chiefly of figures and emblemati cal devices. ’ The figures seem generally to be habited like royal guards or other attendants, clothed in long robes, with fluted flat-topped caps, carrying shields on their left arms, and wearing a sort of buskins, between the sole of which and the foot a small substance is introduced, to raise the height of the wearer. Others appear as if they were taking their part in solemn processions, bearing votive offerings, and leading animals of different sorts. Chariots are also seen drawn by different animals. These sculptures are executed with a nicety of detail which gives them a historical interest, as they mark with accuracy the costume of the time and the people, and the form and variety of the armour used at different periods. On these sculptures is also represented a fight between a lion and a bull or unicon; Sir R. K. Porter greatly commends the fire, beauty, and truth, as well as the natural proportions, with which these figures are drawn. A particular account of the other sculptures will be found in the work of the above-mentioned traveller; and his descriptions are accompanied by drawings, which are extremely curious and interesting.

But the most splendid division of the ruins is the magnificent colonnade, which occupies the terrace, and which, having survived the devastations of war and the wreck of empires, remains on the desolate plain a most impressive image of departed grandeur. The terrace upon which these pillars stand stretches north and south 350 feet, and from east to west 380 feet; the greater part of the intervening space being covered with broken capitals, shafts of pillars, and numerous fragments exquisitely sculptured. There were formerly four divisions of columns, namely, a central group of thirty-six pillars, with two rows of six each on either side, as well as in front, in all seventy-two columns. Of the division in advance only one is now standing. About thirty-eight feet from the western edge of the terrace appears the second double range of columns, of which only five rows remain. The distance is 268 feet to the corresponding eastern rows, of which only four now remain. At a distance of sixty feet from the eastern and western colonnades stood the central range of columns, to the number of thirty-six; but of these no more than five remain entire. The three exterior double rows of columns are of uniform architecture, and described by Sir R. K. Porteras being perfectly beautiful. “I gazed on'them,” says he, “with wonder and delight. Besides the admiration which the general elegance of their form and the exquisite workmanship of their parts excited, I never was made so sensible of the impression of perfect symmetry, comprising that of perfect beauty also. The total height of each column is sixty feet, the circumference of the shaft sixteen feet, and its length from the capital to the top forty-four feet. The shaft is finely fluted in fifty-two divisions: at its lower extremity begins a cincture and a torus; the former two inches, the latter one foot, in depth. From thence devolves a pedestal, in form of the cup and leaves of a pendant lotus. It rests upon a plinth of eight inches, and measures in circumference twenty-four feet six inches; the whole, from the cincture to the plinth, comprising a height of five feet ten inches. The capitals which remain, though much injured, suffice to show that they were also surmounted with a double demi-bull. The heads of the bull forming the capitals take the directions of the faces of the respective fronts of the terrace; and I think there can be no doubt that the wide hollow between the necks received a beam, meant to support and connect an entablature, over which has been placed the roof.” The dimensionsof the central pillars are the same as those of the others, only that they are fifty-five feet in height, whilst the others are sixty feet. “Their shafts,” says Sir R. K. Porter, “which are fluted like the others, are about thirty-five feet in length; but the capitals which surmount them are of quite a different [7:17:257]character, being of the same description with that I noticed in the great portal where the crowned and winged bull is so conspicuous an object. The two lower divisions of the capital (it being of a triad form) are evidently constructed of the hollowed lotus. The upper compartment has only two volutes. The middle compartment, which is one division of lotus, appears to have had some extraneous body introduced into the opening between it and the lower compartment of the flower; and the angular and unfinished state of that side of the capital seems to testify the same. Here then the connecting line must have been whence the roof could spring.”

The nearest building to the palace of the forty pillars occupies a space of a hundred and seventy feet by ninety-five, and it is approached by a double flight of stairs, which are almost in complete ruin; but from the fragments it appears to have been adorned with sculptures, resembling the royal guards and other figures. The side to the east is so choked up with ruins that no corresponding trace of stairs can be found. To the south the whole face of the terrace which supports this building is occupied with another superb flight of steps, which terminates in a landingplace forty-eight feet by ten. Its front is divided by a tablet bearing an arrow-headed inscription, on each side of which are seen spearmen of a gigantic stature. There appear to have been also other apartments with lofty entrances, composed of four solid upright blocks of marble of a colour nearly black, within the portals of which are bas-relief figures of two guards sculptured on the sides of the walls, besides various other figures, one of a monarch clad in royal robes; whilst in other parts there are representations of single combats between a man and a lion, a griffin, or some other imaginary creature. In another division of the same building may be seen a variety of inscriptions, cuneiform, Cuphic, Arabic, and Persian. Still farther to the southward appear other elevations or terraces, covered with vast masses of ruin, under which scarcely any traces of the original structure can be discovered; but here may be seen the remains of colonnades of elaborate sculpture. From the extremity of the eastern colonnade on the terrace of Chehel Minar is an expanse of 315 feet, the plain of which is interrupted by an immense pile of ruins, which has the appearance of having been heaped up for centuries, and which Sir R. K. Porter conjectures to cover a division of the palace answerable to that immediately to the south, and containing, as he supposes, the banqueting chambers and other apartments; and this conjecture he supports by many special reasons and learned authorities. South of this is another terrace, on which he supposes that there stood those portions of the palace in which the monarch resided. Here are the bases and plinths of pillars, and fragments of beautiful sculpture, scattered about. The ponderousdoor-ways and huge marble frames are yet in their places; they are of the finest workmanship, and are adorned with sculptures and figures such as those which have been already noticed, and of which our limits do not admit of a more detailed description. A considerable way north from the columns stands a structure which is next in extent to the Chehel Minar, or the palace of the forty pillars. It is a perfect square of 210 feet on each side, and is entered by two door-ways on each side, and by a grand portal thirteen feet in width, whilst the others are only seven. These are all richly adorned with sculptures, representing scenes of state or of royal parade, or emblematical figures of lions and imaginary animals.

Among other remarkable antiquities of Persia, the tombs, supposed to be those of her ancient kings, namely, Cyrus and his posterity, have attracted the particular attention of travellers. These excavations or tombs are generally cut out of the solid rock. About 500 yards eastward from the Hall of Columns, in the face of the mountain, is found a niche seventy-two feet in breadth by a hundred and thirty feet in height, divided into two compartments, and covered, as usual, with sculptures of non-descript animals, royal personages, and symbolical figures. Three quarters of a mile southward from Tackt-e-Jumsheed, a tomb was discovered by Niebuhr, and visited by Morier, which seemed to have no entrance, from which he supposes that those receptacles for the dead were entered by subterranean passages. The sepulchres of Naksh-c-Roostum, which have been visited by various European travellers, are also very curious. There are four excavations cut out of the perpendicular cliff, at the height, according to Sir R. K. Porter, of sixty feet from the ground. The one he examined, and to which he was drawn up by ropes, consists of an excavation in the solid rock of about fourteen feet, in the form of something like a Greek cross. The length of the cave, which forms the whole tomb, is thirty-four feet, and the height nine. It is adorned, like all the other ancient monuments, with a variety of richly-sculptured figures of men and animals, and emblematical devices. There are likewise numerous remains of antiquity in the plains of Mourghab, forty-nine miles north-north-east of the ruins of Persepolis, and probably belonging to the same era, which are fully described by Morier and Porter. The most remarkable of these is the supposed tomb of Cyrus; an interesting monument, of which the latter writer gives an account with his usual accuracy. It is surrounded by other ruins, which bear traces of the same antiquity, as they contain numerous inscriptions in the ancient arrow-headed character.

The sculptures on the mountain called Be-Sitoon are very curious, and have attracted the particular attention of travellers. This mountain, or rather abrupt precipice, is the termination of the rugged ridge that bounds the plain of Kermanshah on the north. It is 1500 feet in height, and the lower part has been smoothed to the height of 100 feet, and to the breadth of 150, leaving a projection both above and below, the latter sloping gradually in a rocky terrace to the level of the ground. No relics of any column have ever been found here; and hence the name Be-Sitoon, “without pillars,” Just over the fountainhead of a beautifully clear stream, which bursts from the mountain about fifty yards from this rocky platform, are seen the remains of an immense piece of sculpture, so greatly defaced that no continued outline can now be made out; but by close examination the rude forms of several colossal figures may be traced. The principal cause of the mutilation seems to be that additions have been made to the original. In one place a Greek inscription has been introduced, and has, in its turn, been erased to make way for one in Arabic. Those rude sculptures are generally supposed to be of high antiquity, some referring them to the age of Semiramis. Above these appears an interesting piece of sculpture, containing fourteen figures, one of a king trampling on a prostrate body, probably of some of his captives. He has a diadem and all the other badges of sovereignty; and a row of nine persons having their hands bound behind them, and being themselves bound together by a cord round their necks, are seen approaching him in a suppliant posture, and with a dejected expression. Sir R. K. Porter supposes, apparently not without reason, that these ten persons, including the one under the feet of the monarch, represent the ten tribes which were carried into captivity; and that the design of the sculpture, which is executed in a style not inferior to any at Persepolis, is to commemorate the final conquest of Israel by Salmanaser, king of Assyria and the Medes. Above the head of each individual is a compartment with an inscription in the arrow-headed writing, probably descriptive of the design of this sculpture, and the personages contained in it. Hitherto, however, the learned in Europe have not been able to decipher this ancient writing; and hence the meaning of these and [7:17:258]many other ancient monuments must still remain concealed under the mysterious veil of these unknown characters.

There are other antiquities in Persia that belong to the later period of the Sassanian dynasty, of which it may be proper to give here a brief notice. The most remarkable of these monuments are the sculptures at Tackt-i-Bostan, or the throne or arch of the garden. The mountain in which these are seen forms part of the chain of the Be-Sitoon; and, like it, is craggy, barren, and of the most rugged aspect. A remarkably clear stream bursts forth from the base of this mountain, and just over its source a bas-relief presents itself; and a little onward a flight of several hundred steps is found cut in the nearly precipitous cliff, finishing abruptly in an extensive ledge or platform. Beneath this platform are situated two arches, the largest of which is twenty-four feet in width, and twenty-one in depth. Above the sweep of the arch the face of the rock has been smoothed for a great distance, and also on each side; and on this surface there are two upright entablatures, containing an exquisitely-finished ornament of foliage, in the Grecian taste. Round the bow of the arch runs a double border, terminating in the Sassanian royal streamers. Over the key-stone of the arch is a crescent, supported on each side by the same regal insignia. Two gigantic female figures with wings appear hovering over the curves of the arch, and both extend their hands towards the crescent, each holding a diadem with a rich clasp, and waving ribbons, the usual emblems of the Sassanian dynasty. The inner face of the excavation is divided into two compartments, the upper containing three figures, on the left a female with a royal mantle and collar, and crowned with the peculiar diadem of the Sassanian princes. The gorgeous habit of the central figure, and the pointed diadem on his brow, with wings on each side that twist round the crescent surmounting the diadem, within which rises a globe, and the double waving streamers, proclaim him to be of royal dignity. He wears a short robe embroidered with pearls, a breast-plate of the same costly materials, and loose trousers over his ankles; and his left hand rests upon a sword, which, along with the belt that binds it, is covered with pearls. The figure to the right also wears a crown, but without the wings, the crescent, and the globe of the central figure. To this figure he is in the act of presenting a diadem, which the open hand of the monarch appears ready to grasp. These figures are all elevated upon rich pedestals. The lower compartment contains a colossal equestrian figure in alto-relievo, clad in a shirt of mail beautifully carved, and falling nearly as low as the knees. There are here traces of a Greek and of a Pehlavi inscription, both illegible. On the other sides are delineated a boar and a stag hunt, in the minutest detail.

The second arch is nine feet in width and twelve in depth. It contains, in the back of the recess, only two figures, similarly habited with the others, having the balloon-shaped cap, curled hair, and rich robes. On each side of the figures are found two inscriptions in the ancient Pehlavi character and language, which have been deciphered by the singular ingenuity and learning of the French academician De Sacy, and are as follow. The first inscription runs thus: “This is the figure of the adorer of Ormuzd, the excellent Shapoor, king of kings, of Iran and An-Iran, celestial germ of the race of gods, son of the servant of Ormuzd, the excellent Hoormuz, king of kings, of Iran and An-Iran, celestial germ of the race of gods, grandson of the excellent Narses, king of kings.” The second inscription is as follows: “He of whom this is the figure is the adorer of Ormuzd, the excellent Vaharam, king of kings, of Iran and An-Iran, celestial germ of the race of gods, son of the servant of Ormuzd, the excellent Shapoor, king of kings, of Iran and An-Iran, celestial germ of the race of gods, grandson of the excellent Hoormuz, king of kings,”

There are other monuments of antiquity both at Shapoor and at Persepolis, which belong to the era of the Sassanian kings, and which afford important and curious illustrations of these times. Fifteen miles north of Kauzeroon are the ruins of Shapoor, once the capital of Persia. At the entrance of the valley where it is situated stands an insulated hill, which exhibits portions of its ancient walls and towers; and the precipitous cliffs are carved with sculptures. On the southern side of the river which waters the plains, a much mutilated bas-relief is carved on the surface of the rock, consisting of two colossal equestrian figures. Their height appears to be about fifteen feet. A tablet, divided into three compartments, contains the second sculpture. In the central compartment is an equestrian figure, with the usual badges of Sassanian sovereignty. A suppliant is on his knees before the horse’s head, his hands extended, and his face expressive of entreaty; whilst another figure with Egyptian features stands, likewise in the attitude of a suppliant, to the right of this compartment. The righthand section contains three figures in attitudes of supplication. A greater number of tablets are still to be seen on the opposite side of the river. They contain various figures and designs, one of which is an elaborate representation of the triumph of a Persian over a Roman army. Colossal horsemen are pictured on others, with the royal emblems of Persia. In the Shapoor valley is a mountain, which is crowned by a perpendicular precipice of limestone 700 feet in height. Here is a cavern of enormous extent, its communication intricate and endless, with every form and variety of stalactites diversifying the different chambers, some of which are wonderfully lofty and spacious, and, when entered by torch-light, present the most brilliant reflection of all sorts of fantastic shapes. The entrance to the cave is about 140 feet above the base of the precipice; and here, in a spacious archway a hundred and fifty feet broad, and nearly forty feet in height, within which is a sort of natural anti-chamber, stands the pedestal of a statue, which lies mutilated and prostrate with the head downwards. Both have been cut out of the solid rock. The figure, which, when erect, must have been from fifteen to twenty feet in height, represents some one of the Sassanian kings, Shapoor as is supposed. There are various other Sassanian relics in the vicinity of Persepolis, namely, the tombs of the kings, where the sculptures, by the natives called Naksh-e-Roostum, are to be found; also the sculptures named Naksh-e-Rejib. The sculptures of Naksh-e-Roostum are contained in six tablets cut on the perpendicular rock, and containing many bas-reliefs of the triumphs or victories of the Persian arms under the Sassanian kings, with figures of the sovereign in various attitudes, and of horsemen engaged in hostile collision. The sculptures at Naksh-e-Rejib consist of three tablets, containing seven colossal and two diminutive figures. One of the sovereigns is on horseback in his greatest pomp, and underneath is a Greek inscription, which has been restored and translated by Μ. de Sacy. It runs thus: “This is the resemblance of the servant of Ormuzd, the divine Shapoor, king of kings, of Iran and An-Iran, of the race of the gods, son of the servant of Ormuzd, the divine Artaxares, king of kings, of Iran and An-Iran, of the race of gods, grandson of the divine Babec the king." The remaining tablet contains but a repetition of the two horsemen holding a ring.

There are other ancient monuments in different parts of Persia, consisting of sculptured rocks and other remains resembling druidical erections. For a particular account of these and the other relics of antiquity, which we have here briefly described, the reader is referred to Niebuhr, Chardin, Morier, Sir W. Ouseley, Sir R. K. Porter, and others. The sketch that we have given will suffice to illustrate generally the nature, as well as the beauty and art, which appear in these antiquarian remains.
[7:17:259]

The early history of Persia is lost in remote antiquity, and for authentic accounts the most extravagant fables have been substituted. These are chiefly the uncertain gleanings of oral tradition, or the fictions of poets. The workof Ferdousi, celebrated as the Homer of Persia, which, from the rudest materials, is amplified into a history of the Persian kings, comprises all the information possessed by the Asiatic writers prior to the Mahommedan conquest; nor are the prose chronicles of a later date one whit more authentic than the reveries of the poets. From these authorities Sir John Malcolm has compiled the early annals of Persia, to which we refer our readers for some account of that barbarous era. Arbaces is generally considered as having been the first sovereign of Media. He flourished in the year 747 before Christ, and conspired with Balesis, governor of Babylon, and other nobles, against Sardanapalus, with whose death terminated the Assyrian monarchy. Dejoces is by other writers held to have been the first sovereign of Persia. He was succeeded by his son Phraortes, who swayed the Persian sceptre twenty-two years. Learned writers have exercised their ingenuity to reconcile the names and dates of this obscure portion of Persian history. But amidst such manifold obscurities speculation seems to be useless, the truth being lost beyond the hope of recovery. The conquest of the country by Cyrus is the first era of Persian history which has the appearance of authenticity. Cyrus was the chief of a pastoral horde, who, quitting their own comparatively barren and unproductive country, subdued the territories of their weal thy and luxurious neighbours. He was the conqueror of Babylon; and on the ruins of that great kingdom he founded that of Persia, which was gradually extended by conquest from the Mediterranean to the Indus and the Oxus. Historians differ concerning the fate of this monarch. According to some, he was taken prisoner and put to death by the queen of the Massagetae; whilst Xenophon affirms that he died in Persia, and was buried at; Pasargada, in the year 529 before Christ. Cyrus was succeeded by Cambyses, the Ahasuerus of the Scriptures, who gave himself up to sensuality and cruelty. Still he extended his empire, having reduced Egypt to the state of a colony, and also conquered a great part of Northern Africa. Pseudo Smerdis, feigning himself to be the brother of Cambyses, who had been murdered, was by a faction of the Magi raised to the throne. Otanes, a Persian nobleman, finding out the deceit, conspired with six other chiefs, who agreed to assassinate him, which they effected, after he had reigned eight months. Along with him they put to death a number of the wise men; and, having decided on a monarchical form of government, they resolved to assemble next morning at sun-rise, without the city, on horseback; and it was agreed that he whose horse should neigh first should be chosen king. The well-known trick of Aebores, the groom of Darius Hystaspes, secured the throne to his master. He brought his master’s horse the evening before, with a mare, to the appointed spot; and the horse, as soon as he arrived next morning, recollecting the mare, neighed, and he was immediately saluted king. It was during the reign of this monarch, who, according to Sir John Malcolm, is the king named Gushtah by the Persian historians, that the worship of fire was introduced into Persia by Zoroaster. The founder of this new religion is generally supposed to have lived during the reign of this prince, who was converted by his arts to the new faith, and who not only built temples for the worship of fire in every part of his dominions, but compelled his subjects to worship in them. The new faith, accordingly, spread rapidly, and its precepts were ordered to be written on 12,000 cow-hides, tanned fine for the purpose, which were deposited in a vault under the guardianship of holy men. Darius Hystaspes reigned over Persia sixty years, and was distinguished as a legislator as well as a conqueror. He divided the country into nineteen satrapies or provinces, each liable for the payment of a fixed tribute. Over these provinces satraps were sent to preside, with the delegated authority of the king. Their duties were to collect the revenue, to improve agriculture, and to perform all the royal commands. They were afterwards invested with military commands; and securities were devised against their usurpation of independent authority. An establishment of couriers was at the same time instituted, for expediting orders through every part of the empire. A regular and efficient military force was also organized by this monarch, and maintained at the expense of the different provinces. In process of time, Grecian mercenaries were taken into pay; and, when the country was engaged in war, the army was recruited from the people.

The reign of Darius was distinguished by several important warlike expeditions. Crossing the Thracian Bosphorus, he invaded Europe with 70,000 troops. But the Scythian tribes between the Danube and the Don successfully resisted his attack, and forced him to retreat with loss. He then overran the territories of Thrace and Macedonia, and thus began those attempts on the independence of Greece which were fraught with such disgrace to the Persian arms. He invaded the countries to the east of Persia with a powerful army, and added several extensive and rich provinces to his already overgrown empire; and his vast armies were also sent to overwhelm the rising communities of Greece. But his troops, though they far outnumbered their enemies, were here opposed by a firm and disciplined band of devoted patriots; and they were completely overthrown on the plains of Marathon by the forces of the Greeks, as inferior in number as they were superior in valour, in patriotism, and in every heroic quality. Amidst these disasters the reign of this monarch terminated, and he was succeeded by his son Xerxes.

The latter carried on a successful war against the Egyptians, whom he gave over to the vengeance of his brother Achaemenes; and he resolved to avenge himself on the Greeks, who had hitherto bravely defended their country against the numerous armies of Persia. With this view he fitted out a mighty armament, in which he embarked an army amounting to three millions of troops, or, with all the camp followers, to above 5,000,000; and with this vast force he resolved to annihilate the independence and liberties of Greece at a single blow. But he was met by the devoted bands of Grecian patriots, and experienced a severe check at the celebrated pass of Thermopylae, which was defended by 300 Spartans against his whole army, and which he only carried by an immense sacrifice of men; and his fleet and army were finally overthrown at Salamis, Plataea, and Mycalc, he himself escaping from the scene of action in a miserable fishing-boat. He was assassinated, after a reign, as some say, of twenty-one, or, according to others, of sixty years. But Sir John Malcolm is of opinion that this period includes also the two former reigns.

He was succeeded by his grandson Artaxerxes Longimanus, the Ardisheer Dirazdust or Long-shanks of the Persian historians. He is celebrated for the internal regulation of his empire, and for the intelligence which he acquired relative to all the concerns of the kingdom, by means of the agents whom he employed. He is represented by some as the Ahasuerus of the Scriptures, because he is said to have treated the Jews with lenity and kindness, and to have married one of that nation. But this is doubted by many, and does not well agree with other historical facts. This period of the Persian history is peculiarly obscure; and Sir John Malcolm observes, that the authors whom he follows become more fabulous as the history advances. The two succeeding sovereigns were Xerxes II. and Darius II., whose reigns were short. The latter was succeeded by Artaxerxes Memnon, his eldest son, who had to contend for the crown with his younger bro [7:17:260]ther Cyrus. It was in his reign that the famous retreat of the ten thousand took place under Xenophon, who has given a narrative of the expedition. His reign, which continued twenty years, was a scene of intrigue, in which favourites bore the chief sway, and during which those symptoms of decay became visible which terminated at last in the overthrow of the kingdom. He was succeeded by Darius or Dorab I., who reigned only twelve years. In the year 336 b. c. , Darius Codomanus, or Dorab II. of the Persian historians, assumed the sceptre; but he was totally unlike his father, being deformed in body, and not less so in mind. It was in his reign that Alexander of Macedonia, having subdued the different principalities of Greece, and consolidated their power into one, invaded Persia. He crossed the Hellespont in the year 334 b. c. , with a well-disciplined and veteran force of 35,000 men, and encountered and defeated the Persian host on the banks of the Granicus. The hasty levies of Persia were again routed in the fatal battle of Issus, in which 100,000 were slain; and the family of Darius fell into the victor’s hands. The battle of Arbela, which succeeded, completed the triumph of Alexander. The Persian armies were routed and dispersed, and the unfortunate Darius, flying from the field of battle, was seized by his nobles, at the head of whom 5vas Bessus, who bound him in golden chains, and were carrying him to Bactriana in a car covered with skins; but being overtaken by the conqueror, they stabbed their victim to the heart, and left him in the chariot, weltering in his blood. He was found in the agonies of death by Polystrates, a Macedonian. The unhappy king asked for water, and with his last breath implored blessings on the head of Alexander, for his kindness to his wife, his mother, and his children. “Present,” said he to Polystrates, “your hand to Alexander, as I do mine to you, the only pledge I have to give of gratitude and affection.” The Greek and Persian accounts of the death of Darius do not materially differ, only that the latter are embellished by many circumstances, and also by fables, not related by the Greek or Roman historians. The body of the deceased king was embalmed with musk and amber, wrapt in a cloth of gold, and placed in a rich coffin adorned with jewels, and was in that state carried to the sepulchral vault, and interred with extraordinary honours. Exemplary justice was then executed on Bessus, the murderer of Darius, who, according to some, was hanged, but, according to others, torn in pieces by means of trees, which, being bent in a particular manner, were allowed to spring back to their natural position, and in this manner tore his body, which was fastened to them, in pieces. With Darius terminated the dynasty of Cyrus, which had subsisted 206 years under the following series of kings, as given by the Greek writers, with the periods of their several reigns. There is, however, no corresponding series given by the Persian historians, nor indeed any agreement between the narratives of the historians of the respective nations.

Greek Names of the Persian Kings.
[table]

After the death of Alexander, Asia continued for a long period a scene of war and commotion, owing to the contests which arose amongst his successors for the dominion of the country. But about the year 307 b. c. , Seleucus by his success had acquired the dominion of all the countries which lie between the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Oxus, and he had even carried his victorious arms to the Ganges, and established a friendly alliance with Sandrocottus, one of the sovereigns of these eastern countries. The Seleucidae continued to sway the sceptre of this kingdom till the year 250 before the Christian era, when they were expelled from the throne by a successful revolt of the Parthians, who succeeded in establishing a new dynasty of kings. This revolution was effected by Arsaces, a noble of that country, who had been enraged by an affront offered to his brother Tiridates. Having assembled his friends, he put the tyrant to death; and, encouraged by his success, and by his increasing popularity, he openly aspired to the throne. He was mortally wounded, however, in a successful battle, in the moment of victory. His crown was inherited by his brother Tiridates, who laid the foundation of the Parthian dynasty. The Arsacidae, as they are termed, from their founder, continued to rule in Persia for 430 years, namely, till the 230th year of the Christian era. The Persian annals during the whole of this period are very imperfect, and, according to Sir John Malcolm, that remarkable era of five centuries, from the death of Alexander till the reign of Artaxerxes, may be termed a blank in eastern history. The Parthian line of kings were illustrious, however, by their deeds, recorded in the authentic pages of the Greek and Roman historians. The Parthian empire extended, under its sixth monarch, Mithridates I., from the Euphrates to the Indus, and its monarchs were the only potentates who maintained a successful conflict with the Roman power. Pacorus, the ninth of the Arsacidae, was the first Parthian king who had any intercourse with Rome. In the ninetieth year before the Christian era, he despatched an embassy to Sylla, at that time the Roman commander in Cappadocia; and it was thirty-seven years afterwards that the Roman troops under Crassus were destroyed by the Parthians. The Romans were not aware, until they were instructed by fatal experience, of the advantages possessed by the Parthians for defensive war, first, in the nature of their frontier, which from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf presents a barrier of lofty mountains, rapid and broad streams, or wide-spreading deserts; and, secondly, in their peculiar tactics, by which the Parthian warrior took an unerring aim whilst he was retreating from his enemy. The Roman legions, surrounded, amidst those barren wastes, by clouds of cavalry, perished by the arrows of an enemy whom they could never reach. “The system,” says Sir John Malcolm, “was suited to the soil, to the man, and to the fleet and robust animal on which he was mounted; and its success was so certain, that the bravest veterans of Rome murmured when their leaders talked of a Parthian war.” The Parthians were so much elated with their victory, that they invaded and overran Syria and Asia Minor, and were at last overthrown by the Roman legions under Ventidius, the general of Antony. The latter, however, in an expedition undertaken against the Parthians in revenge for the defeat and death of Crassus, narrowly escaped the same fate; he succeeded, however, after a long and painful retreat, in placing the deep and rapid river of Aras or Araxes between him and the pursuing enemy, and thus effected his escape. Augustus, after he was seated on the imperial throne, threatened an invasion of Parthia. To avert this attack, Phraates, the fifteenth of the Arsacidae, restored the standards which had been taken from Crassus. During the whole remaining period of this dynasty, which amounted to 200 years, the Romans were often at war with the Parthians; but they made no serious impression on their territories. Macrinus was involved, by the perfidy of Caracalla, [7:17:261]whose successor he was, in a long and bloody war with the Parthian monarch Artabanes, who, after the war had terminated, as usual, by a treaty, was so weakened by his losses, that Artaxerxes, a Persian nobleman of great courage and influence with his countrymen, availed himself of the hereditary animosity of the Persians to stir up a rebellion against him. Arsaces took the field in defence of his crown, but was defeated in three battles, taken prisoner, and put to death, after which his rival ascended the throne, a. d. 226; and thus terminated the dynasty of the Arsacidae, of whose line of kings a list is subjoined.

Dynasty of the Arsacidae.

1. Arsaces I.

2. Tirides his brother.

3. Arsaces II.

4. Prcapatius.

5. Phraates I.

6. Mithridates I.

7. Phraates II.

8. Artabanes I.

9. Pacorus I. who sent ambassadors to Sylla.

10. Phraates III.

11. Orodes I.

12. Mithridates

II.

13. Phraates IV.

14. Phraatices.

15. Orodes H.

16. t Venones I.

17. ArtabanesII.

18. Tiridates.

19. Bardanes.

20. Gotarzes.

21. Miherdates.

22. Venones II.

23. Volgeses I.

24. ArtabanesII!.

25. Pacorus II.

26. Chosroes.

27. Parthanaspates.

28. Volgeses II.

29. Volgeses III.

30. ArtabanesIV.

The Sassanian dynasty of kings forms a new era in the history of Persia. These monarchs were engaged in long and bloody wars with the Roman emperors; and hence we are enabled to correct the imperfect records of the East by the authentic narrative of the Roman historians. The new monarch Artaxerxes, or Ardisheer as he is called by the Persian historians, having pacified the province of Fars, made himself master of Irak; and having defeated and slain Aravan or Artabanes, who ruled over the mountainous country about Hamadan and Kermanshah, he was hailed in the field with the high title of Shah an Shah, or king of kings; a name which has ever since been assumed by the sovereigns of Persia. In the course of his reign, which lasted fourteen years, he extended and consolidated his newly-acquired dominions, and waged, with various success, a war with the Roman emperor Alexander. He laboured to restore the religion of Zoroaster, and the authority of the Magi, which he enforced against all who opposed it, by the most sanguinary decrees. He was succeeded by his son Shapoor or Sapores, a. d. 242, who carried on a successful war against the Romans, whose emperor, Valerian, in an attempt to relieve Edessa, was defeated and taken prisoner. He gained many victories over the armies of that nation; but towards the latter part of his reign he suffered reverses; his army was attacked by Odenathus, prince of Palmyra, and his country was afterwards invaded by Aurelian, the warlike emperor of Rome. Hoormuz his son, the Hormisdas of Greek authors, reigned only one year, and was succeeded by Baharam or Varanes, who evinced his zeal for the ancient religion of Persia by the execution of Mani, the founder of the sect of Manicheans. He reigned three years and three months, and was succeeded by Baharam II., who was a weak prince. During his reign of seventeen years, he engaged in a war with the Roman emperor Carus, who conquered Mesopotamia, carried his arms across the Tigris, and made himself master of Ctesiphon. Baharam III. reigned only three months. His brother Narsi (the Narses of the Greeks) reigned nine years, and abdicated the throne in favour of his son Hoormuz. He subdued Armenia, and signally defeated the Emperor Galerius on the same fatal field on which Crassus had been slain. The Romans invaded Persia next year, and defeated, with great slaughter, Narses, who fled, leaving his tents and family in possession of the conquerors. An inglorious peace followed, by which Mesopotamia and five districts to the eastward of die Tigris were ceded to the Romans. No events of any consequence occurred during the succeeding reign of Hoor∙ muz II. the Misdates of the Greeks. He was succeeded by Shahpoor II. or Sapores, who was crowned king from his birth, and during a reign of seventy years maintained the integrity of his kingdom. His first operations were directed against the Arab tribes, on whom he took a severe vengeance for having invaded his territories. He was involved in bloody wars with the Romans, in the course of which he experienced serious reverses. Constantine advanced into Persia with a formidable army, and was joined by the Arab forces. A dreadful conflict took place, in which the 'Persian army was routed with great slaughter, and the king himself narrowly escaped, with a few followers, from the fatal field. But having recruited his army, he again took the field, and, in a night attack, he recovered some of the advantages which he had lost. He was also successful in repelling the invasion of Julian, who was killed by an arrow, and his successor Jovian was fain to purchase a peace by the loss of all the provinces east of the Tigris, which had been ceded in the former reign. Shahpoor reigned during his whole life, which was seventy-one years. Ardisheer II., or Artaxerxes, succeeded, and was deposed by Shahpoor, the son of the late monarch, after a reign of four years. He reigned only five years, when he was killed by the fall of a tent, which was blown down by one of those whirlwinds which sometimes occur in Persia. Baharam IV. or Varanes, who succeeded, reigned eleven years, and was at length killed by an arrow, in endeavouring to quell a tumult in his army. The throne of Persia was next filled by Yezdijird, the Greek Isdigertes. He is very differently represented by the Persians and Greeks; by the former as cruel and abandoned to luxury, and by the latter as wise and virtuous. He was killed by a kick of his horse, after a reign of sixteen years. Baharam Gour, or Varanes V. succeeded. He is celebrated for his munificence and generosity. His dominions were invaded, and partly overrun, by the Tartars, who, being flushed with their conquest, gave themselves over to a false security, and were one night surprised and defeated with great slaughter by Varanes. The only fruit which he sought from this victory was peace with all his neighbours, after which he returned to his capital. He was engaged in wars with the Romans under Theodosius, in which neither party had any cause to boast. His ruling passion was the chase, and he was fond of hunting the wild ass; and it was in pursuit of one of these animals that he lost his life, in a deep pool, where neither he nor his horse were ever again seen. He was succeeded by his son Yezdijird II., or Varanes VI., who followed his father’s footsteps, and, during his reign of eighteen years, was only once engaged in war with the Romans. The succession to the throne was now disputed between Hoormuz (Peroses) the younger son of Yezdijird, who was appointed heir by his father, and Ferose (Varens IV.) the elder, who, being supported by an army of Tartars, to whose king he fled for support, and by the chief nobles, succeeded in wresting the sceptre from his brother’s hand, and in putting him to death, after reigning a year. He lost his life in an expedition which he undertook against the Tartar prince, by whom he had been treated with so much generosity. Pallas, the son of Ferose (Cavades), now ascended the throne, and was succeeded by Kobad, who, though he was dethroned by his discontented subjects, reconquered his lost dignity. He carried on a successful war with Anastasius the Roman emperor, and died after a long and diversified reign of forty-three years.

His son and successor Khosroo Nooshirvan is celebrated by the Persian historians as a model of justice, generosity, and sound policy. He ascended the throne a. d. 531. He is said to have been the fruit of a casual amour of Kobad, who, flying from his brother Ferose, then established on the throne, halted for a night with a beautiful girl at Nishapore[7:17:262]. Four years afterwards, on his return to that city, his fair mistress presented him with a boy, who was one day to reign so gloriously on the Persian throne. His first care after his accession to the sovereignty was to extirpate the pernicious sect of Mazdak, encouraged by his father, one of whose leading tenets was a community of property and of women. He had recourse to severe measures. The founder of the sect and many of his followers were put to death; and the women and property which they had appropriated were restored to t those to whom they belonged. He was indefatigable in promoting the prosperity of his dominions, in building and repairing bridges, in restoring and repeopling decayed towns and villages, in founding schools and colleges, and in giving every degree of encouragement to learned men, and even to the Greek philosophers who resorted to his court. His empire was divided into four great governments, namely, Isí, Khorassan, Seistan, and Kerman; 2d , the lands dependent on the cities of Ispahan and Koom, the provinces of Gheelan, Azerbijan, and Armenia; 3d , the provinces of Fars and Ahwaz; and 4>th, Irak, which extended to the frontier of the Roman empire. A well-digested system of provincial government was introduced into those provinces, and every check adopted that could prevent the abuse of power. He imposed a fixed and moderate land-tax over all his dominions, and a capitation-tax on the Jews and Christians; and the strictest regulations were adopted for preserving the discipline of his army. The reign of Nooshirvan was illustrated as well by his conquests abroad as by his wise policy at home. He compelled Justinian to conclude a disgraceful peace at the price of 30,000 pieces of gold; and the reduction of Syria, the capture of Antioch, and the advance of the Persian armies to the shores of the Mediterranean, attest his triumphant reign. Though he was checked in his career of conquest towards the west, yet his sway was finally extended over the countries beyond the Oxus, over those to the south of the Indus, some provinces of India, and the finest districts of Arabia. He reached the advanced age of more than eighty years.

Hoormuz III. the Chosroes of the Greeks, was declared the successor of Nooshirvan his father. His administration was wise and prosperous for a time, whilst he acted under the advice of his preceptor; but on the death of the latter, he fell into every excess, and, after a short and disastrous reign, was dethroned and put to death by one of his generals, Baharam Choubeen, who usurped the supreme authority. But Khosroo Purveez (Hormisdas), the son of the late king, flying to the Roman emperor Maurice, his adopted father, was, by his assistance, reinstated in the throne, and Baharam was forced to seek refuge amongst the Tartars, whose armies he had formerly defeated, and amongst whom he died. The new monarch showed his gratitude to the Roman emperor by scrupulously fulfilling all the engagements he had contracted with him. He surrendered Dara and several other strong places on the frontier, and, besides, sent him costly presents. But no sooner did he hear of the death of Maurice, than he invaded the Roman territories with a large army; pillaged and destroyed Dara, Mardin, Edessa, and Amida; laid waste Syria; took the holy city of Jerusalem; and set on fire the magnificent churches of St Helena and Constantine. The true cross, which had been enclosed in a golden case, and buried deep in the earth, was discovered and borne in triumph to Persia; and a crowd of captive priests and bishops swelled the train of the conqueror. Egypt was added to his other conquests; his troops entered Alexandria in triumph; and, after carrying his victorious arms westward to Carthage and Tripoli, and finally extirpating the Greek colonies of Cyrene, he returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan desert. In the same campaign another army advanced from the Euphrates to the Thracian Bosphorus; and, after taking Chalcedon, his victorious troops remained encamped-for twelve years in the vicinity of Constantinople. But, whilst his general and his armies were thus gaining laurels in the field, Khosroo was indulging at home in the most unheard-of luxury. Every season a splendid palace was raised; and his thrones were made of the most exquisite materials, one being formed to represent the twelve signs of the zodiac and the hours of the day. His treasures; his wives, amounting to 12,000, besides the incomparable Shereen, of whom lie was passionately fond; his horses, amounting to 50,000; his Arabian charger of surpassing fleetness; and his musician Barbud; furnish inexhaustible topics for the pen of the historian, and for the hyperbolical praises of his countrymen. But his reign, hitherto glorious, was, towards its termination, closed with misfortunes. Herodius, the Roman emperor, alike remarkable for luxury and indulgence in the palace and for valour and military skill in the field, was roused to a sense of the public danger by the victories of Khosroo, and with a powerful army suddenly invaded Persia. In the course of six years, he succeeded in stripping the Persian king of all his foreign conquests; he defeated his armies in every encounter; marched without opposition into the heart of his country; destroyed his splendid palaces, and plundered his hoarded treasures. His subjects, headed by his own son, at last rebelled against him, and put him to death, after a reign of thirty-eight years. Persia, after the death of this prince until the accession of Yezdijird III. (the Isdigertes III. of western writers), was a scene of confusion and misery, from the combined evils of famine, the contentions of the nobles, a succession of weak sovereigns, or rather, as Sir John Malcolm terms them, pageants of power, and from the threatened attack of the Arabian tribes, who, under the standard of the Mahommedan faith, had now become very formidable to all surrounding states. In their first attacks on the Persians, the Moslemin armies were repulsed, and their leader Abu Obeid was slain. The Arabs, reinforced, were again defeated by Mehran the Persian general. But in another action the Persians were defeated, and their general slain. Yezdijird, who was now elevated to the throne, was the last hope of the sinking state. An ambassador was sent to him from the Arabian tribes, proffering peace on condition that he should accept of their religion, and pay the taxes which all believers are bound to pay. These terms were rejected with disdain. Great armies were now assembled on both sides; they met on the plains of Naha-vund, a. D. 641, where the Mahommedans gained a remarkable victory, that for ever decided the fate of Persia. Of the Persians 30,000 perished on the field, and 80,000 more were drowned in a deep trench which surrounded the camp. Persia, from this date, fell under the dominion of the Arabian caliphs. Yezdijird, the last monarch of the Sassanian line, fled from the field of battle to Seistan, to Kho∙ rassan, and lastly to Mery, from which being also forced to fly, he concealed himself in a mill eight miles distant. But the miller, tempted by his rich robes and armour, murdered him whilst he slept, and thus ended, a. d. 651, the dynasty of the Sassanides, and the idolatrous worship of the Magi, which had existed in Persia for 1200 years.

After the flight of Yezdijird, the armies of Persia, scattered and discouraged, were able to oppose only a feeble resistance to the hardy children of the desert, skilfully commanded, and, besides, inflamed by a fanatic enthusiasm; and in a short time, accordingly, they very soon overran and laid waste the whole country, with a bigoted fury that had no parallel, sparing neither sex nor age, and subverting in one common ruin the laws, mariners, and most sacred institutions of the country. Many were contented to purchase life by embracing the new faith; and others fled to the mountains and fastnesses of the country, or to a distant land. “The progress of the conquerors,” says Sir John [7:17:263] Malcolm, “was rapid and wonderful; colonies from the burning deserts of Arabia were extended over the cold countries of Khorassan and Balkh; and they flourished on the soil to which they were transplanted.^[16. History of Persia, vol. i. chap, viii. ]” The conquest of the country being completed, it was divided into different provinces, over which lieutenants were appointed; and it was thus held for more than two centuries under the dominion of the caliphs. But this system of provincial authority terminated, as usual, with the declining energy of the supreme power, in destruction and anarchy in its subordinateparts. The caliph at Bagdad, from the head of a powerful and warlike tribe, had degenerated into a mere pageant; and as the bonds of authority were relaxed, the different fulers and chiefs of provinces began to throw off their allegiance, and to aspire to independent power. The caliph was merely reverenced as the supreme pontiff; his governors used his name in their public prayers; they were nominally his vassals; but they held the substance, and he had only the shadow, of political power. The sceptre, which was feebly held by the successors of Omar and Ali, presented a tempting prize to aspiring ambition; nor, in the distracted state of the country, was it long before it was claimed and won by an adventurer from the lowest ranks of life. Yacoob-ben-Leis was the son of a pewterer of the name of Leis, in Seistan. He worked, when young, at his father’s trade; but he was prodigal of his money; and, tempted by his necessities, he became the leader of a bold and desperate band, which gradually increased with the success of his enterprises. He soon attained power and consideration; and his aid was solicited by Salah-ebn-Naser, the ruler of Seistan, against his fellow-ruler of Khorassan. He was afterwards raised to be commander of Salah’s army; and the first use he made of his power was to seize on the chief who had conferred it on him, and to send him to Bagdad; a service for which he claimed and received the government of his native province, as the servant and lieutenant of the faithful. He afterwards took the important fortress of Herat, reduced the province of Kerman, marched thence to Shiraz, and finally made himself master of the greater part of Persia. The caliph, secretly dreading his power, sent him a formal investiture of certain territories as governor, which he rejected with disdain. “Tell your master,” said he to the envoy, “I am already indebted to my sword for what he so generously bestows upon me. Let him keep the investiture for some person who will own the obligation, and who is disposed to question my title.” He was afterwards engaged in open war with the caliph, when he was overtaken by disease, and died, in 877, leaving almost the whole kingdom of Persia to his brother Amer, who reigned twenty-three years, but was defeated and taken prisoner by Ismail, a Tartar chief with whom he was at war, and, being sent to Bagdad, was there executed. With Amer fell the fortunes of his family; and though two more princes maintained a precarious authority, the empire of Persia was divided between two families, the Samance and Dilemee. The power of the first extended over Khorassan, Seistan, Balkh, and the countries of Transoxiana, including the cities of Bukharia and Samarcand. The Dilemee princes exercised sovereign power over the greater part of Irak, Fars, Kerman, Kusistan, and Laristan. Of the first-named dynasty Osmael was the most celebrated. His grandfather was a Tartar chief of the name of Saman, who claimed descent from Baharam Choubeen, the Sassanian. He extended his conquests both eastward and westward, and died in 907, at the age of sixty. Asia was at this time the scene of great political revolutions, in the course of which adventurers arose from the lowest ranks; and, having gradually increased their followers, at last acquired sovereign power. It was one of these fortunate chiefs, Abustakeen, that laid the foundation of the great empire of Mahmood of Ghizni. He was one of the chiefs of Bukharia, who having renounced his allegiance to that court, retired to Ghizni with such followers, amounting originally to seven or eight hundred, as he could collect, and there laid the foundation of a petty principality. His son Isaak succeeded him; but he reigning only a short time, the supreme power by unanimous consent was given to Sabactageen, a man of Turkish descent, who, according to some, had been purchased as a slave by Abustakeen, whilst others state, and with more probability, that he was one of the royal guards. He extended his empire by conquest; and when he died, his kingdom extended from Khorassan to the Punjab. Ismail, his younger son, succeeded; but his ambitious brother soon wrested the sceptre from his feeble hand. Ameer Noah, the fifth monarch from Ismail, being hard pressed by his nobles, applied for aid to Sabactageen, who sent his son Mahmoud with an army that overthrew the rebels, and the young prince obtained as a reward the government of Khorassan. Such was the commencement of that great empire of Mahmoud of Ghizni in Persia, which in a few years stretched from Bagdad to Kashgar, and from Georgia to Bengal, and which rose on the ruins of many other subverted empires. He was an enterprising and active prince; and was distinguished by his fanatical zeal, which impelled him to the invasion of India, from which he brought back an immense spoil, valued at twenty millions of dirhems (L.458,333 sterling), 53,000 captives, and 350 elephants, besides jewels to a vast amount. This conquest of India was marked by the wildest rapine and devastation; and his zeal was especially signalized by breaking down and destroying all the idols and splendid temples which were dedicated to idolatry. He died in the year 1208, in a magnificent edifice, to which he had vainly given the title of the “palace of felicity.” He was succeeded by Musaood, who was defeated by the Seljuk Turcomans inKhorassan; and in the succeeding reign of Madood, the house of Ghizni lost the whole of their Persian dominions. These Tartar tribes were numerous and powerful; they were a nation of shepherds, inured to fatigue, to long marches, and to every kind of hardy exercise, and trained from their infancy to the use of arms. Their numbers and discipline enabled them easily to overpower the civilized inhabitants of more fertile countries. Accordingly, in the year 1042, the Tartar tribes subdued Khorassan; and their sovereign Togrul Beg, chief of the tribe of Seljuk, assumed in 1389 the state of a sovereign at Nishapoor. In the succeeding twenty years he overran all Persia, made himself master of Bagdad, and took prisoner the sovereign pontiff, the commander of the faithful. He approached him, however, with every outward mark of reverence, and was constituted the temporal lieutenant of the eastern and western divisions of the empire. This alliance was farther cemented by a marriage with the daughter of the caliph. But Togrul Beg, who had by this time attained to his seventieth year, died a few months after the marriage. He was succeeded by his nephew Alp Arselan, the Valiant Lion, who has been praised by all historians for his justice, valour, and generosity. He successfully defended his dominions against an invasion by the Romans; defeated their armies; and having made their emperor prisoner, generously set him at liberty for a fair ransom. He was killed by a rebellious chieftain whom he had ordered to be put to death, but who, having shaken off his guards, assailed him on the throne with all the fury of despair. Alp Arselan, an unerring archer, seized his bow, and commanded his guards to stand aloof; but for the first time his arrow missed its mark, and he fell under the assassin’s stroke.

The celebrated Malik Shah, his son, succeeded to the [7:17:264]throne; and his reign rivalled, and even surpassed, in glory that of his father. Syria and Egypt were subdued by his victorious generals; Bukharia, Samarcand, and Khauresm yielded to his sway; and he received homage and tribute from the tribes beyond the Jaxartes, and from the distant country of Kashgar. Including the territories of all those princes whom he had conquered, and obliged to do him homage and to pay tribute, his dominion extended from the Mediterranean to the wall of China, and prayers for his prosperity were offered up at the same time in the cities of Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, Bagdad, Ispahan, Rhe, Bukharia, Samarcand, Ourganjee, and Kashgar. Malik Shah was celebrated as a great and a good prince; the only exception to which is his treatment of Nizam-ul-Mulk, the old and veteran minister of his father and himself. Giving ear to the calumnies of his enemies, he disgraced this faithful councillor, who was soon afterwards stabbed by an assassin hired for this purpose by his successor in office, from a fear of any favourable change taking place in his master’s sentiments. Malik Shah survived his minister only a few months, being seized with a violent illness, which terminated his life, in his thirty-eighth year. “The country of Persia,” says Sir John Malcolm, “was greatly improved during his reign; many colleges and mosques were built; and agriculture was promoted by the construction of canals and water-courses. Learning was also encouraged; and an assembly of astronomers from every part of Malik Shah’s wide dominions were employed for several years in reforming the calendar; and their labours, which established the Jcllalean or glorious era, is a proof of the attention which was given at this period to the noblest of all sciences.” For thirty years after the death of Malik Shah, Persia was distracted by the wars of his four sons, who contended for the supreme power; but Sanjar, having at length triumphed over his competitors, was elevated to the throne. His reign was for a time successful and prosperous. He resided in Khorassan; and from this spot, as from a centre, his dominion extended in one direction beyond the Indus, and in another to the Jaxartes. Towards the latter end of his reign he experienced the most signal reverses of fortune. Advancing into Tartary, he was completely defeated by the monarch of Kara Khatug, his family were made prisoners, and all his baggage was plundered. He afterwards marched against the Turcoman tribe of Ghuz, who had refused their royal tribute, and in a decisive action which ensued he was defeated and taken prisoner. After being long detained, and cruelly treated, he made his escape, and returned to his own country, where the spectacle of his wasted dominions, ravaged and destroyed by barbarous invaders, so preyed upon his spirits, that he died of melancholy in 1175, at the age of seventy-three. After his death Persia continued during forty years distracted by the wars between different branches of the Seljookian dynasty. The last who exercised sovereign power was Togrul III., who was slain by the monarch of Khauresm, as he went into battle flushed with wine.

With this prince terminated the race of the Seljookian monarchs in Persia, who from the commencement of the reign of Togrul I. had ruled 158 years. From the decline of this dynasty to the conquest of Persia by Hulakoo Khan, the son of the great conqueror Genghis, the country was distracted by the contests of these rival chiefs, who are known under the name of Atta-begs. They were petty princes, who taking advantage of the weakness and anarchy which prevailed, extended their authority over some of the finest provinces of the country. A detailed account of the progress and decay of these various dynastics would exceed our limits; nor would it contain either amusement or instruction. But there is one chief who requires to be noticed, who may be said to have been the head of a band of assassins devoted to his purposes, and by means of whom he caused the most powerful sovereigns to tremble, and spread far and wide the terror of his mysterious power. His followers were reckoned at 50,000; they were called mysterious and devoted; and each was bound, under the most dreadful sanctions, to sacrifice, at the command of their chief, either his own life or that of another. Hussun Subah was the first of these chiefs. He had been macebearer of Alp Arselan; but being displeased with his minister Nizam-ul-Mulk, he retired to Rhe, and afterwards to Syria, where he entered into the service of a chief of the family of Ismail, and adopted their views concerning the right of the descendants of Ismail to the holy dignity of Imaum, instead of the younger brother of Ismail; He afterwards returned to Rhe, his native place, where, leaguing himself with other mal-contents, he succeeded in gaining possession of the mountain fort of Allahamaut, whence he commenced a series of depredations on the surrounding country. Malik Shah Seljookee sent a force against him, which was repulsed. He was soon afterwards exposed to a more serious attack from the Sultan Sanjar, who resolved to extirpate a race whose murders and depredations spread terror over his kingdom. But he was warned to desist from his fatal project, by secret threats of assassination. He had made some marches in the direction of Allahamaut, when one morning as he awoke he discovered a poniard stuck in the ground close to his bed-side, and read with surprise, written on the handle, “Sultan Sanjar, beware. Had not thy character been respected, the hand that stuck this dagger into the hard ground could with more ease have plunged it into thy soft bosom.” The warrior who had often faced death in the field of battle trembled at this mysterious threat; and it is certain that he desisted from his meditated attack. Hussun Subah brought several other hill-forts under his sway; and was styled “chief of the mountains,” or, as his Arabic title has been erroneously translated, “the old man of the mountain,” the name by which he and his descendants are distinguished in the European histories. Caliphs, princes, and nobles, fell under the blows of these assassins; and the power and dominions of Hussun Subah were handed down through a series of sovereigns who ruled for 170 years, the terror and disgrace of Asia, and who in 1256 were finally extirpated by the overwhelming and victorious armies of Hulakoo Khan, who rivalled his sire in the rapidity of his conquests. His first design was to turn his arms against the declining empire of the Greeks; but he was diverted from this object by an astrologer, who directed his hostility against Bagdad, the seat of the caliph’s authority. This place was speedily stormed by the Tartar armies, and its inhabitants were put to the sword; the Caliph Mustasim, with his only surviving son, were slain; and thus was for ever extinguished the celebrated empire of the Arabian caliphs. The conquest of Persia, Mesopotamia, and all Syria, was achieved by Hulakoo in the same year, who meditated other ambitious schemes of conquest in the East. But the defeat of his army in Syria by the prince of the Mamelukes in Egypt compelled him to abandon his design; and having restored his affairs in Syria, he fixed his residence at Maragha, a beautiful town of Azerbijan, where he spent his declining years in the cultivation of letters and philosophy. He built an observatory on the summit of a mountain, the foundation of which still remains, “and where,” says Sir John Malcolm, “his favourite, Nasser-u-Deen, formed those astronomical tables which have become so celebrated under the name of the tables of Eel-Khannce,” and are still referred to for the latitude and longitude of such places as are not fixed by European observations. He was succeeded by Abaku-Khan in the year 1264, who was anxious, by cultivating the arts of peace, to repair the ravages of war, and to heal the still bleeding wounds of his wasted empire. He was assailed from the east by the [7:17:265]powerful armies of Tartar chiefs; but he succeeded in repelling all their attacks, and in maintaining the integrity of his empire. He died, it is supposed, by poison, in the year 1281. The Mogul lords having held a council, raised to the throne his brother Neckandar, who, though he was baptized in his youth, afterwards renounced the Christian faith, which he persecuted with all the violence of a renegade, and assumed the name of Ahmed Khan. But his persecution of the Christians was so obnoxious to his own subjects, that they conspired against him, and deprived him both of his crown and of his life. Arghoun, his nephew, whom he had thrown into prison, was raised to the throne by the Mogul nobles, but did not assume the name until he received the investiture from the emperor of Tartary, by whom he was hailed as sovereign of Persia, Arabia, and Syria. His reign was marked by no event of any consequence; and on his death, which occurred in 1291, his brother Key Khaton was raised to the throne by the majority of the Ameers. The latter was indolent, sensual, and extravagant; and his short and inglorious reign would hardly merit notice, were it not for an attempt by an officer of the revenue department, of known talent, to introduce a paper-currency, in order to supply the means of royal extravagance. But credit, the foundation of paper-currency, cannot exist under a despotism which affords no security either for life or for property. The scheme was therefore altogether vain, and appears to have been the device of a tyrant for cheating or plundering his defenceless subjects. From this period until the conquest of the country by Timour or Tamerlane, the history of Persia presents one continued scene of intestine commotion; subordinate chieftains contending for dominion, distraction and violence everywhere prevailing, and the country sinking under the ruthless devastations of war. It is in scenes of trouble and revolution such as these that ambition finds scope for its daring schemes, and that genius, emerging from obscurity, rises, in spite of every obstacle, to its high destiny. Timour the Tartar, or Tamerlane, a corruption of Timour-lung, or Timour the Lame, an appellation derived from an obvious bodily defect, was descended from Korachar Nevian, who had been vizier to Chaghtai the son of Genghis, and also claimed kindred with that great conqueror. The early years of Timour were passed amidst danger and difficulty; and it was in that school that he acquired those qualities which raised him to the sovereignty of the world. He was counsellor and general to the Tartar prince, Ouleaus Khajah, who ruled over the territories between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. But having soon thrown off his allegiance to this prince, he led a wandering life, with only a few faithful followers, enduring hardships and peril, yet never yielding to despair. He had formed a close alliance with Ameer Hussein, one of the most powerful nobles of Transoxiana. Their joint object was to expel the enemies of their country; and Ouleaus, though he had conquered in the field, having been forced to retire with disgrace from the siege of Samarcand, the countries between the Jaxartes and the Oxus were freed from the foreign enemy. A war for the possession of Transoxiana now ensued between Timour and Hussein, and was only interrupted by a short and hollow peace, which terminated in the overthrow of Hussein, who was taken prisoner, and, as is generally believed, put to death, with the secret sanction or by the orders of his rival. Eleven years elapsed before Timour had fully reduced to tranquillity his newly-acquired dominions, and had extended his power over Kashgar and Khaurezm; after which his whole reign was one unvaried course of the most triumphant success. Victopr everywhere attended his arms; he subdued cities and kingdoms; strongholds hitherto deemed impregnable yielded to his power; and the devoted countries through which he passed were given up to slaughter and devastation, their towns being sacked, the defenceless people savagely massacred, and vast pyramids of heads raised up as the trophies of his victories. He subdued Khorassan, Candahar, and Caubul, and laid the two latter cities under heavy contributions. He invaded Persia, which, being now ruled by the degenerate descendants of Hulakoo, was entirely barren and wasted. He extended the limits of his empire to the farthest bounds of Tartary; and whilst one body of his troops spread dismay to the wall of China, another army penetrated to the banks of the Irtysch, and a third to the Volga. Timour next marched against Bagdad, which he stormed, and also took the remarkably strong fortress of Takreet; after which his vast armies were dispersed over Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Georgia. He afterwards invaded Russia, and advancing to Moscow, took and plundered that city. Returning to his own country, he prepared for the invasion of India, a particular account of which would be a mere detail of burning and massacre. His war with Bajazet, and his defeat and capture of that warlike chief, were amongst the latest exploits of his active reign; and he had embarked on the arduous enterprise of the conquest of China, when he was arrested by an enemy which he could not conquer. He was seized with a violent illness at the city of Otrar, where he expired in 1405, declaring Peer Mahommed Jehangheer his successor. The latter, however, had a competitor for the crown in Khuleel Sultan, his cousin, by whom he was deposed and murdered; and, in his turn, Khuleel, infatuated by his attachment to the beautiful Shad-ul-Mulk, on whom he squandered the vast treasures of Timour, was deposed by the nobles.

He was attached to the arts of peace, a philosopher, a man of science, and a poet; and his whole care was to heal the wounds inflicted on his country by the wars of the former reign. He rebuilt Herat and Mery, and drew around him from all quarters men of literature and science. Sultan Shah Rokh, uncle of Khuleel Sultan, hearing of the misfortunes of his nephew, marched from Khorassan, and his authority was acknowledged over all Transoxiana. Khuleel Sultan was succeeded by Ulugh Beg, who also followed the arts of peace, and neglected those of war. He was deposed and put to death in the year 1449, by his son Abdul Lateef, who was slain by his own soldiers within the short period of six months. The Mogul dynasty in Persia was now fast verging to decay, and its final extinction was preceded, as usual, by scenes of confusion and civil war. The kingdom was at length divided amongst three sovereigns, viz. Sultan Hassein Mirza, a descendant of Timour, who kept a splendid court at Herat, and governed Khorassan; Kora Yussuf, the Turcoman chief of the Black Sheep (the tribes of the Black and White Sheep being so called from their carrying the figures of those animals on their respective standards), ruled over Azerbijan, Irak, Fars, and Kerman; and Uzun Hussoun, chief of the Turcomans of the White Sheep, who finally acquired possession of all western Persia, and attacked the Emperor Mohammed II., from whom he sustained a severe defeat. After his death the country was distracted by the contentions of his sons, grandsons, and nephews, for the supreme authority; and their dissensions, whilst they accelerated their own ruin, prepared the way for a native dynasty, which was gladly hailed by the people as the auspicious omen of domestic peace.

Shah Ismail was the first monarch of the Suffavean line. He traced his descent from Moosa Kauzim, the seventh imaum. The first of the family who attained to any celebrity was Sheik Suffee-ul-Deen, who resided in the town of Ardebil, and from whom the dynasty takes its name of Suffavean, or Suffyean. His son Sudder-ul-Deen inherited all the sanctity of his sire. The great conqueror Timour even condescended to visit him in his cell, that he might receive his blessing; and on his asking whether he, Timour, could do aught for his comfort, “Give up,” replied [7:17:266]the saint, “those Turks whom thou hast carried off as captives.” The disinterested request was granted, the saint was dismissed with presents, and the descendants of these captives ever afterwards acknowledged their gratitude by their ardent support of the Suffavean dynasty. The immediate descendants of Sudder-ul-Deen, Khaujah Ali, Juneyd, and Hyder, acquired also a great reputation for sanctity. The first, after making the pilgrimage to Mecca, visited Jerusalem, where he died. His grandson Juneyd assumed the sacred mantle or patched garment worn by the Suffee teachers, after his father’s death; and so numerous were his disciples, that Kara Koinlu, who at that time ruled in Azerbijan, took the alarm, and banished him from Ardebil. He returned to Shirwan, where he was killed by an arrow in a conflict with the troops of that province. He was married to a sister of Uzun Hussoun, chief of the Turcomans of the White Sheep; and this lady was the mother of Sultan Hyder, who succeeded him, and became a warrior as well as a saint. His uncle Uzun Hussoun gave him his daughter in marriage, by whom he had three sons, Sultan Ali, Ibrahim Meerza, and Sultan Shah Ismail. Hyder was defeated and slain in an attack which he made on the province of Shirwan in order to revenge his father’s death. Sultan Ali succeeded; but he and his brothers were seized at Ardebil, by Yakub, one of the descendants of their grandfather Uzun Hussoun, who had become jealous of their influence, and confined in a fort, where they remained prisoners for four years. They afterwards made their escape, and were soon joined by numerous adherents. But in the mean time they were attacked, Sultan Ali was slain, and his brothers fled in disgrace to Gheelan, where Ibrahim Meerza died. These events occurred during the infancy of Ismail, the third son of Hyder, of whom we know little till he attained the age of fourteen, when he collected his adherents, and marched against the great enemy of his family, the ruler of Shirwan, whom he defeated. Al-wund-Beg, a prince of the dynasty of the White Sheep, hastening with his troops to crush the young warrior, shared the same fate; and the triumphant prince having made himself master of the province of Azerbijan, fixed his residence at Tabriz. Next year he vanquished Sultan Mourad, one of the military competitors for supreme dominion in Persia; and in less than four years from his leaving Gheelan he was acknowledged the sovereign of Persia.

Shah Ismail, not being born the chief of a tribe, had no hereditary feuds to avenge; his family were objects of hostility to no one; and he united in his person the reverence and affection of all his subjects. He was a firm adherent of the Sheahs, and of the title of Ali to the caliphate after his uncle Mahommed’s death, pitying his misfortunes, and hating with pious zeal, as usurpers of the caliphate, Abubekr, Omar, and Osman, the three first successors of the Prophet, and all their Soonee followers. The Turkish tribes to whom he owed his elevation were highly honoured. They were distinguished by a red cap, from which they received the name of Kuzzilbash, or golden heads, which has descended to their posterity. Persia, Khorassan, Bagdad, and Balkh, submitted to his arms. His territories were afterwards invaded by Sultan Selim about the year 1514, with a numerous and well-disciplined army. In the action which took place, the Persian monarch, after performing prodigies of valour, was entirely defeated, which affected him so deeply that he was never afterwards seen to smile. After the death of Selim he crossed the Araxes, wrested Georgia from the possession of Turkey, and died at Ardebil in the year 1523. He was succeeded by his son Tamasp, who ascended the throne when he was only ten years of age. His reign, which continued fifty-three years, proved prosperous. He repelled the invasions of the Uzbecks on the east, and of the Ottomans on the west. It was from him that

Humaiun, emperor of India, when he fled from his rebellious subjects, received the aid which enabled him to regain his throne. It was to him also that Elizabeth sent her envoy, Anthony Jenkinson. But the intolerance of the Mahommedan monarch could not brook the presence of a Christian. His family was numerous; and after several years of disputed succession, and of brief and troubled reigns, Abbas his grandson was proclaimed king in 1582, when a minor. During the earlier years of this monarch’s reign, the country was alternately alarmed by internal disturbance and foreign aggression, each party in their turn using the name of the sovereign. But as he advanced to manhood he vindicated his rights, and in the course of three years he reigned the undisputed sovereign of the country. His reign, which lasted forty-three years, was highly successful and glorious. He was engaged in wars with the Turks and with the Uzbecks, whose armies he defeated in several actions; and it was during his time that an amicable intercourse commenced between Persia and Europe.

Sir Anthony Shirley, a gentleman of family, was persuaded by the Earl of Essex to repair to the court of Persia; and, with twenty-six followers, gallantly mounted and richly attired, he presented himself to the king, who received him with every mark of distinction. The military skill of these foreigners enabled him to discipline his army and to improve his artillery, so that with an army of 60,000 warriors he obtained a decisive victory over 100,000 Turks. In this battle, which was fought on the 24th of August 1605, Sir Anthony Shirley was thrice wounded. After the battle, as Shah Abbas was resting on the field, a man of uncommon stature and of a soldier-like appearance was led past by a youth, who had just made him prisoner. The king having asked who the captive was, the latter replied, “I belong to the Kourd family of Mookree.” An officer of the house of Mookree in the service of the king had a bloody feud with the family of the prisoner, and the king commanded the captive to be delivered to him. The officer, however, refused to receive him. “My honour,” he said, “calls for blood; but I have made a vow never to take advantage of an enemy who is bound and in distress.” The king, irritated by this noble speech, which was a reproof to himself, called to the captain of the guards to strike off the head of the prisoner. The gigantic Kourd immediately broke the cords by which he was bound, drew his dagger, and rushed upon the king. A fierce struggle ensued, in which all the lights were extinguished, and in the darkness no one dared to strike. At last the king exclaimed, “I have seized his hand; I have seized his hand.” Order was restored, and lights being brought, the unfortunate captive was pierced by a hundred swords. This victory gave a decided check to the Turks, who were driven from Azerbijan, Georgia, Koordistan, Bagdad, Mossul, and Diarbekir, all of which were re-annexed to the Persian empire. This monarch also entered into an alliance with the English for the destruction of the flourishing Portuguese settlement of Ormuz, which unhappily proved but too successful; and this place, long renowned as the seat of wealth and a great commercial emporium, was plundered and left to decay. Extravagant hopes were entertained in England of the great wealth which was to be derived from a commerce with Persia, and other embassies were fitted out and despatched to the Shah. But these hopes were not realized; nor did they rest on any better foundation than the fanciful descriptions given of these eastern countries by European travellers.

Abbas, considered as an eastern king, may be termed enlightened, and anxious for the good of his subjects. He expended his revenues in the improvement of his dominions, and erecting caravanserais, bridges, aqueducts, bazaars, mosques, and colleges; he embellished Ispahan his capital, and Amshed; and he built splendid palaces, the [7:17:267]ruins of which still attest his taste and magnificence. He was also distinguished by his toleration, especially to Christians; and he was liberal in his foreign policy, though his treatment of the inhabitants of Georgia, who were violently transplanted from one district to another, without any regard to their convenience or feelings, was tyrannical in the extreme. He indulged freely in the use of wine, yet he affected extreme piety, every year making a pilgrimage to some particular shrine. To his family he proved a sanguinary tyrant. He had four sons, whom he caressed, whilst in infancy, with parental fondness, but who, as they arrived at manhood, were viewed with jealousy and hatred. The oldest son was assassinated, and the eyes of his other children were put out, by his orders. One of these, Khodahbundah, shut out from the light of day, wandered about gloomy and desperate, brooding over schemes of vengeance against his most unnatural father. He had a daughter, Fatima, innocent and lovely, and the delight of her grandfather, who could not endure that she should be out of his sight. The prince, learning the fondness of his father for this his child, seized her one day with all the fury of a maniac, and deprived her of life. He next directed his frantic fury against his son, who was carried away by the distracted mother. The rage and despair into which Abbas was thrown by the death of his granddaughter gave a momentary joy to the son, who concluded this bloody tragedy by swallowing poison. Abbas died soon afterwards, in 1628, at the age of seventy, worn out with affliction of mind.

By the desire of the expiring prince, Sam Mirzam, one of the sons of Suffee, who had been murdered, was placed on the throne, which he occupied fourteen years. His son Abbas II. succeeded him at the age of ten, and reigned prosperously twenty-five years, though his habits were licentious and intemperate. He was succeeded by his eldest son Abbas in the year 1641, who, under the title of Shah Solyman, reigned twenty-nine years. He was, like his father, the slave of dissolute habits; and his drunken orgies were often stained with blood. He was succeeded by Hussein Mirza, a weak prince, who was ruled by eunuchs and priests, and whose measures tended to destroy the little spirit which yet lingered amongst the nobles and chiefs. The first twenty years of his reign passed over in tranquillity, but it was only the prelude to a political storm. The Afghan tribes who inhabit the mountainous tract between Khorassan and the Indus had long been subject to Persia, and having often suffered great oppression, at length broke out into rebellion, irritated by the tyranny of Gurgeen Khan. The insurgents were headed by Meer Vais, an Afghan chief. They invited the obnoxious governor Gurgeen Khan to a feast, where he was suddenly attacked and put to death; and Meer Vais, collecting his followers, surprised and stormed the fortress of Candahar. He then proceeded to strengthen himself in his newly usurped power. Whilst the weak monarch endeavoured by negotiation to pacify this formidable insurgent, Meer Vais imprisoned his ambassador, and set his power at defiance; and a second ambassador met with no better treatment. The court of Persia now assembled an army under the command of Khusru Khan, who advanced against Meer Vais, defeated his army, and laid siege to Candahar. The insurgent chief having assembled another army, compelled the Persian general to raise the siege of that place, and afterwards defeated him in a decisive action, in which he was slain. In the midst of his successes Meer Vais died, and was succeeded by his brother Meer Abdallah, who was assassinated by Mahmoud, son of Meer Vais. The troubles which now afflicted Persia on every side gave ample leisure to Mahmoud to mature his plans, and to consolidate his power. The Uzbecks were ravaging Khorassan; the tribes of Kurdistan were almost at the gates of Ispahan; the Abdallee Afghans had taken Herat, and afterwards Mushed; the islands in the Persian Gulf had been subdued by the Arabian governor of Mascat; and the rude tribes of Georgia had attacked Shirwan, and plundered Shamachie. A prediction by an astrologer, of the total destruction of the capital by an earthquake, completed the public dismay, when intelligence was received that Mahmoud Ghiljee had entered the country at the head of 25,000 Afghans. He was met by the royal army of 50,000 troops; and an action took place, which ended entirely in favour of the Afghans. The consequence was the siege or blockade of Ispahan, which, after enduring all the miseries of famine, surrendered on the 21st of October, after a siege of seven months. The following day the fallen monarch of Persia, Hussein, took a solemn leave of his subjects, and signed a capitulation, by which he resigned the crown to Mahmoud. He proceeded, attended •by a train of nobles, and by 300 troops, towards the Afghan camp; and being permitted, after some delay, to proceed to the palace of Ferrahabad, he was introduced into a great hall or saloon, where he found the conqueror seated. He addressed him in the following words. “Son, since the great sovereign of the universe does not will that I should reign any longer, and the moment has come which he has appointed for thy ascending the throne of Persia, I resign the empire to thee. May thy reign be prosperous.” He then presented the royal plume of feathers, which he took from his turban, to the vizier of Mahmoud; but that prince refusing to accept it from any other than the monarch to whom it belonged, the humbled prince now took it from the minister, and placed the emblem of royalty in the turban of his enemy, who all the while retained his seat, and exclaimed, “Reign in peace.” After the usual refreshments of tea and coffee, Mahmoud addressed his captive. “Such,” said he, “is the instability of human grandeur. God disposes of empires as he pleases; he takes them from one to give to another; but I promise ever to consider you as my father, and to undertake nothing without your advice.”^[17. Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, chap. χv. p. 343. ] Hussein, with his nobles, after doing homage to the Afghan sovereign, was confined for seven years in a small palace, when his enemies, threatened with a reverse of fortune, caused him to be assassinated; and in his person may be said to have terminated the Suffavean dynasty, as his son Tamasp, though he assumed the title of king, never possessed any real power, and only struggled a few years against his inevitable fate.

Mahmoud having thus succeeded in acquiring the sovereignty of Persia, now endeavoured to conciliate the people whom he had subdued. But the Persians hated the Afghan yoke; and, as they recovered from their first dismay, they began to attack and to cut off scattered parties of the invaders. At the same time Persia was invaded both by Russian and Turkish armies. The Russian army advanced into the country and took possession of Derbend, and the Turkish army was already on its march to Hamadan, when the inhabitants of Kazreen rose in insurrection, and expelled the Afghan garrison from the place. Mahmoud was now seriously alarmed. The probable revolt of the capital seemed to be the most immediate danger; and his gloomy mind, alarmed and enraged by these signs of vengeance, conceived the horrible design of exterminating the conquered people. He commenced with the massacre of three 4ιundred nobles and their children, who were treacherously invited to a feast. He afterwards put to death three thousand of the late king’s guards, whom he had taken into his pay; and at length every person who had [7:17:268] been in the service of Shah Hussein was included in one bloody proscription, and put to death without mercy. For fifteen days the city of Ispahan was one scene of blood, and the spirit of the people was so broken under this unheard of tyranny, that one Afghan might often be seen leading three or four Persians to execution.

After this, Mahmoud, being aided by the Kurdish tribes, succeeded in making himself master of some of the principal cities of Irak and Fars. But his affairs appeared to be on the decline; his kingdom was threatened from various points, and his mind proved at last unequal to the difficulties with which he was assailed. In this extremity he resorted for relief to the most abject and degrading superstitions; he shut himself up in a vault for fourteen days and nights, fasting and enduring the severest penances; and, under the influence of this gloomy fanaticism, he’lost his reason, and fell into the most furious paroxysms of madness. In this melancholy situation his mother, out of compassion to him, directed him to be smothered. But this event did not take place till, under his fatal orders, thirty-nine princes of the Suffavean blood had suffered an untimely death. He was succeeded by Ashruff, the son of Meer Abdallah, and nephew of Meer Vais. The first period of Ashruff’s reign was successful. He gained repeated victories over the Turkish armies, who were compelled to retire; and he concluded the war by compelling the Turkish court to acknowledge his title to the throne. But he was now assailed from another quarter by more serious dangers. Tamasp, the son of Shah Hussein, and the representative of the Suffavean princes, was in Mazanderan, where he was joined by a distinguished chief, Nadir Kouli, a well-known warrior, who now declared his resolution to expel every Afghan from the soil of Persia. Tamasp, from the day of his father’s abdication, had assumed royal state, and, now that he was supported by Nadir and the nobles of Khorassan and Mazanderan, he found himself in a condition to exercise the authority of a sovereign. Nadir being invested with the sole command, soon succeeded in reducing Mushed and Herat, and at length all Khorassan, under the authority of Tamasp. Ashruff now prepared for the defence of his sovereign authority; and having raised an army, he advanced into Khorassan against his enemy, whose followers, he knew, were daily increasing. The Afghans were defeated in a series of sanguinary actions, and pursued, first to Teheran, and finally to the gates of Ispahan. It was at first proclaimed in the city that the Afghans had obtained the victory; but the loud wailings of the women from the citadel soon disclosed the result of the battle. The night was passed in preparations for flight. The old men, women, and children, were mounted on mules and camels, and having packed up all the treasure and spoil which they could carry away, they took the route to Shiraz by break of day; the tyrant Ashruff having in the mean time cruelly murdered Shah Hussein, who was still detained a prisoner, and the pressure of circumstances only preventing a general massacre, which was fully intended. Nadir lost no time in pursuing the discouraged and flying Afghans. They were overtaken at Persepolis, and immediately fled towards Shiraz, where, though they were still 20,000 strong, they were deserted by their leader, who fled homewards with only two hundred followers. The army was dispersed in wandering bands, which were closely pursued and cut down by their exasperated foes; and Ashruff himself, whilst wandering in Seistan, was recognised and slain by Abdallah Khan, a soldier of Beloochistan, who sent his head, with a large diamond which he found on his person, to Shah Tamasp. The Afghan invasion was one of the most cruel calamities which ever befell the Persians. Within the short period of seven years they had massacred nearly a million of the inhabitants, laid waste the finest provinces of the country, and levelled the proudest edifices with the dust; yet they had neither the power nor the policy to maintain their conquest. From the first to the last day of their rule they appeared only a small body of foreigners in the midst of a great nation; and they accordingly fell before the first aspiring adventurer who could combine and direct the national resources against the ill-constructed fabric of their power.

Nadir Shah was born in the province of Khorassan, on the 11th of November 1688. His father was in a low condition, earning a livelihood by making coats and caps of sheep-skins. He was taken prisoner by the Uzbecks at the age of seventeen, but made his escape from them after a captivity of four years. He was for a considerable period the chief of a band of robbers, the high way in those countries to distinction and power. He experienced many vicissitudes of fortune; and being a plunderer of known valour and resolution, he had collected 3000 followers, by whose aid he laid under contribution the extensive province of Khorassan. His friendship was now courted by his uncle, who was in possession of the fort of Kelat. Nadir pretended to listen to his overtures; but deeming him an obstacle to his further rise, he treacherously slew him with his own hands, and proceeded to employ the power which he had thus acquired against the Afghans, the enemies of his country. And so well did he succeed in this popular and patriotic enterprise, that the Afghans were entirely expelled from the country; whilst, for his eminent services, he received a gift from his sovereign, Tamasp, of the four provinces of Khorassan, Mazanderan, Seistan, and Kerman. He then proceeded to attack the Turks, who still occupied the western provinces of Irak and Azerbijan, and having defeated them in various actions, took possession of Tabriz, Ardebil, and all the principal cities. He returned to quell an alarming insurrection of the Afghans, who were unable to withstand his victorious armies; and in the mean time the imbecile Tamasp commenced a war with the Turks, which ended in a disgraceful peace. He had for some time been a mere pageant in the hands of Nadir; and this unfortunate war, with other complaints against him, furnished a plausible pretence for his dethronement, which took place on the 16th of August 1732. He retired to Khorassan, where he was afterwards put to death by Reza Kouli, the son of Nadir, and with the knowledge, if not by the secret orders, of the father. His son, an infant eight months old, was seated on the throne; but Nadir was now in substance, as he was soon to be in form, the real sovereign. In 1736 the death of this infant removed the only obstacle to his ambition; and, in a vast assembly of his nobles and troops, he was, after much pretended reluctance, prevailed on to accept of the crown. This high dignity served only to give a fresh stimulus to his active and enterprising habits, la the course of a new war with the Turks, having regained the provinces which had been wrested from the imbecile Tamasp, and concluded a peace, he turned his arms eastward. Candahar and Balkh were besieged and taken by his son Reza Kouli, who passed the Oxus, and defeated the ruler of Bukharia and the Uzbecks. Afghanistan was afterwards subdued; and Nadir finally completed his military glory by the conquest of Delhi. A single battle was sufficient to disperse the Mogul host; and Nadir, with his triumphant legions, entered the capital, which made no resistance. Its treasures were plundered; and its inhabitants, who rose on the Persian soldiery, were, in revenge, given over to an indiscriminate massacre, in which neither age nor sex was spared. Nadir returned in triumph, loaded with the spoils of one of the richest capitals of the East. He continued to prosecute his conquests on every side, and restored the ancient glory of the Persian empire, when if extended from the chain of the Caucasus eastward to the Indus.

But the glory of foreign conquest was tarnished by domestic[7:17:269] tyranny. In an expedition against the Lesghees, a mountain tribe upon the western frontier, Nadir was wounded by an assassin, who fired on him from a wood. His suspicion fell on his son Reza Kouli, or had been instilled into his mind by artful intriguers. Under this impression he commanded his son into his presence, and immediately caused him to be deprived of his eyesight. But so struck was he with remorse after the deed had been done, that he vented his fury upon all around him; and fifty noblemen were, put to death by his orders, because they had not come forward to sacrifice their lives for the young prince, the hope of his country. “It is not my eyes,” says the prince, “that you have put out, but those of Persia.” The mind of Nadir was deeply affected; he became gloomy and ferocious; all his future actions were deeds of horror; and he exceeded in barbarity all that has ever been recorded of the most bloody tyrants. The country languished under his extortions; and when he at last raised the people to insurrection, his fury knew no bounds, and he not only murdered individuals, but gave up whole cities to the destroying sword. Several of the principal officers of his court, learning that their names were in a proscribed list, resolved to anticipate the vengeance of the tyrant. The execution of the plot was committed to four chiefs who were employed about the palace, and who, on the pretext of business, rushed past the guards in the inner tents, and found the tyrant asleep. He was awakened by the noise, and had slain two of the conspirators, when he was deprived of life by a blow from Salah Beg, the captain of the guards.

The sudden death of Nadir Shah involved the country in the greatest distraction. He was succeeded by his nephew Ali, who took the name of Adil Shah. But his reign was short and inglorious. He was taken prisoner by his brother Ibrahim Khan, and put to death at Mushed, as his captor himself also was, being slain by the officer who guarded him. Shah Rokh, the grandson of Nadir, succeeded; but the throne was ere long usurped by Meerza Syud Mahommed, by whom Shah Rokh was taken prisoner and deprived of sight. The usurper being defeated and taken prisoner by Yusuf Ali, the principal general of Shah Rokh’s army, was immediately put to death. The blind Shah Rokh was again raised to the throne; but the measures of his general, Yusuf Ali, were opposed by two chiefs, the respective heads of a Kurdish and an Arabian tribe, and by their joint efforts the faithful general of Shah Rokh was defeated and slain, and he himself again sent from a throne to a prison. The two chiefs, however, soon quarrelled; and Meer Aulum, the Arabian, triumphed, but only to fall before the rising power of the Afghans under Ahmed Khan Abdallee. This leader might at the time have easily accomplished the reduction of Persia. Butjudging more wisely, he assembled the principal chiefs, and proposed to them that the province which gave birth to Nadir should be given as a principality to his grandson. To this all the chiefs agreed, and Shah Rokh was again established in the undisturbed possession of Khorassan. At this period Persia was in a complete state of distraction, from the contentions of rival chiefs. Mahommed Hussein Khan, chief of the tribe of Kujurs, had established himself at Astrabad, and had brought under his authority the whole province of Mazanderan. The province of Azerbijan was under the rule of Azad Khan, an Afghan leader, who had been one of the generals of Nadir Shah. Gheelan was independent, under one of its own chiefs, Hi-dayet Khan. At this time Ali Murdan Khan, a chief of the tribe Bukteearee, took possession of Ispahan, and, revolving to elevate a prince of the house of Suffee to the throne, he invited the nobles to join his standard. The principal of those chiefs was Kurreen Khan, of the tribe of Zund, a man distinguished by his sagacity and courage, and between whom and Ali Murdan Khan a rivalship for power soon took place. Kurreen Khan, dreading the enmity of Ali Murdan, took the field against him. But his assassination soon afterwards left Kurreen undisputed master of the south of Persia. He was joined by most of the tribes from that country, and being at war with Azad Khan, he was entirely defeated by him in a general action, and so discouraged by the unpromising state of his affairs, that he meditated a retreat into India. But he was dissuaded from so unworthy a course by the remonstrances of his general Roostum Sultan, the chief of Khisht, who attacked the enemy in a narrow pass, and obtaining a complete victory, re-established the power of Kurreen Khan, who again occupied the city of Shiraz, where he employed his utmost efforts to recruit his army. Azad Khan, throwing himself on the clemency of his conqueror, was received into his service, and became one of his most attached followers. The most powerful enemy of Kurreen Khan was Mahommed Hussein Khan, the chief of the Kujurs, who ruled in Mazanderan. He advanced against Shiraz with a powerful force; but the city being bravely defended, he was compelled to raise the siege, and to retreat to Ispahan. He afterwards engaged Kurreen in a general action, in which, being deserted by part of his troops, he was defeated and slain. The whole province of Mazanderan then submitted to the conqueror, and this was followed by the submission of Gheelan and the greater part of Azerbijan. Khorassan was the only province which he did not subdue; and his forbearance is ascribed to compassion for the blind Shah Rokh, who still retained this remnant of his extensive dominions.

Kurreen Khan was distinguished by a love of justice and a moderation not usual amongst eastern princes. He died in the year 1779, in the eightieth year of his age, after a reign of twenty-six years. His administration was generally just and beneficent. He encouraged agriculture and commerce, which greatly revived during the latter years of his reign; and he protected, by his justice, Christians as well as Mahommedans. He never refused mercy to a fallen foe, though he sometimes punished severely, that he might strike terror into his enemies. Many stories are recorded of him, which display the kindness of his heart. He often repeated an anecdote of his early life. “When I was a poor soldier,” said Kurreen, “in Nadir Shah’s camp, my necessity led me to steal from a saddler a gold-embossed saddle, which had been sent by an Afghan chief to be repaired. I soon afterwards learned, that the man from whose shop it had been taken was lying in prison under sentence of death. My conscience smote me, and I replaced the saddle exactly on the place whence I took it. I watched till it was discovered by the saddler’s wife, who on seeing it gave a scream of joy, fell down upon her knees, and prayed aloud that the person who had brought it back might live to have a hundred gold-embossed saddles. I am quite certain,” he added, smiling, “that the honest prayer of the old woman has aided my fortune in the attainment of that splendour which she desired I should enjoy.”^[18. Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, chap, xviii. ] The humane disposition of this prince prompted him to acts of mercy; and the generous confidence with which he treated those whom he forgave, never failed to attach them to his person. It is the practice of the Persian kings to devote a portion of their time to hear the complaints of their subjects; and the following anecdote related of Kurreen Khan illustrates the temper and consideration with which he performed this important duty.
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He was one day oh the point of retiring from the judgment-seat, harassed and fatigued with a long attendance, when a suitor rushed forward in the greatest distraction, and, calling aloud for justice, complained that he had been robbed and plundered by thieves of all he possessed. “What was you about,” said the prince, “when you was robbed ?” “I was asleep,” answered the man. “And why did you sleep?” exclaimed Kurreen, in an impatient tone. “Because,” said the suitor, “I made a mistake, and thought you was awake.” The royal judge, pleased with this manly boldness, turned to his vizier, and desired him to pay the merchant’s losses from the treasury. “We must,” he added, “try to recover the property from the robbers.”

After the death of Kurreen Khan, the succession to the crown was, as usual, disputed, and in the course of these contests his four sons either perished under the daggers of assassins, or were sacrificed in the intrigues of ambitious chiefs contending for the crown. Zuckee Khan, the moment his father died, assumed the reins of government; whilst Saaduck Khan at the same time evacuated Bassorah, and advanced towards Shiraz. But he was unable to contend against Zuckee Khan, and was soon forced to retire. In the mean time, Aga Mahommed Khan Kujur, who had been detained prisoner at Shiraz, and who was duly apprized by his sister, an inmate of the royal harem, of the progress of Kurreen Khan’s illness, and at last of his death, contrived to escape to Mazanderan, where he proclaimed himself a competitor for the throne. The cruelties of Zuckee, who had treacherously murdered a number of his rebellious nobles, after pledging his faith for their safety, soon provoked revenge, and he was himself put to death at Yezdikhanst. Aboul Futtch Khan was proclaimed king of Persia the moment Zuckee Khan was put to death. Saaduck Khan hastened from Kerman to Shiraz when he heard of the assassination of Zuckee Khan, and proclaimed himself king, arresting the person of Aboul Futtch Khan, and causing his eyes to be put out. He was besieged in his capital by his nephew Ali Mourad Khan, his most formidable enemy, and, being obliged to surrender, he was put to death, with most of his sons. Ali Mourad was, in his turn, put down by another rival; and Jaffier Khan, nephew of Kurreen, and Aga Mahommed, were at length the only rivals left to contend for the crown. The former having disgusted one of his chief supporters, Hajee Ali Koulì, he engaged in a conspiracy against him; and having put poison in his victuals, he and others rushed into his chamber when he was writhing under its effects, and put a period to his existence. He was succeeded by Lootf Ali Khan, who was one of the most remarkable characters recorded in the Persian annals. His appearance was greatly in his favour; his fine countenance, full of animated expression; his form tall and graceful, and, though slender, active and strong. He was at Kerman when he heard of his father’s murder, which took place in the year 1789; and though Syud Mourad Khan was at first proclaimed king by the conspirators, yet, by the aid of Hajee Ibrahim, appointed by his father the first magistrate of the province of Fars, he was soon enabled to assert his claim to the crown. He was bold in counsel and fearless in action, and maintained a long and well-sustained struggle for the sovereignty, in the course of which he performed prodigies of valour. But he wanted prudence and temper, and had no control over his passions. Unbending in his pride, and harsh and unconciliating in his manners, he employed terror as the chief source of his influence. His great error was in quarrelling with and disgusting his faithful minister Hajee Ibrahim, a statesman of consummate prudence and talents, who abandoned his service for that of his rival and enemy, Aga Mahommed Khan, and was ever afterwards his most formidable enemy.^[19. See, in Sir John Malcolm’s excellent History of Persia, a full account of all the transactions of Lootf Ali’s reign. Sir John was personally acquainted with Hajee Ibrahim, who informed him that his principal reason for taking part with Mahommed Khan was, to save his country from the continual petty wars with which it had been long afflicted. (Vol. ii. chap. six. p. 183.) ] Lootf Ali maintained the contest for six years; the “slightest spark,” according to a Persian author, “always rekindling the flame of hope in the breast of the warrior.” But he was at length overwhelmed by the superior forces of his enemy; and, flying from Persia, he was treacherously seized, after a brave resistance, in which he was seriously wounded, and being delivered into the hands of Aga Mahommed Khan, was treated with a brutality of insult which is too shocking to be described, and which, Sir John Malcolm adds, disgraced human nature. His eyes were torn out, and he was sent to languish out a miserable existence in Teheran, where an order was soon afterwards sent for his execution. Lootf Ali terminated his extraordinary career in 1795, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. Nor was Aga Mahommed’s cruel treatment of the inhabitants of Kerman less shocking. This place was the last stronghold of Lootf Ali. It was defended by him with his usual bravery, and being at length taken by treachery, became the scene of the most dreadful atrocities. The place was almost depopulated. Many women and children, to the number of 20,000, were carried into slavery. Themen were murdered, and numbers were deprived of sight, many of whom were afterwards seen by Sir John Malcolm begging their bread. Lootf Ali was the last of the Zund family of princes, who had ruled over Persia for nearly half a century.

Aga Mahommed Khan having now firmly established himself upon the throne of Persia, his first care was to restore order throughout his dominions, and to repel foreign aggression. Having tranquillized the southern and central provinces, he invaded Armenia and Karabang, and marching straight to Teflis, he defeated Heraclius, prince of Georgia; and having taken the city, he sacked it, and made a dreadful slaughter of the inhabitants, carrying into slavery 20,000 women and children. He then turned his arms eastward, subdued Khorassan, and repressed the incursions of the pillaging Turcomans in the vicinity of Astrabad, as well as of the Uzbecks in Bukharia. But however rigorous his administration, and however active in the field, all his exploits were stained with cruelties. His avarice was unbounded; and he scrupled at no atrocity to gratify it. He had long thirsted after the jewels of which Nadir Shah had despoiled India, and these he wrested without remoese from their unfortunate possessors. From the aged and blind Shah Rokh he extorted, by the severest tortures, several of those which were the most precious, particularly a ruby, which had belonged to Aurungzebe, and which was of extraordinary size and value. This precious jewel was retained to the last, until boiling lead had been poured upon the head of the unhappy prince, when, in his intolerable agony, he declared where it was hidden. He was afterwards conveyed to Damghan in Khorassan, where he died in a few days, in the sixty-third year of his age, in consequence of the tortures to which he had been subjected.

Aga Mahommed Khan succeeded in tranquillizing the country, partly by policy, and still more by terror. He often spared his enemies, and conciliated them, not however from any feeling of humanity, but from a sense of his own interest; for his disposition was stern, cruel, and vindictive, and his reign presents a series of atrocities scarcely equalled in the bloody annals of the East. Sir John Malcolm palliates his atrocities, and observes, that though his [7:17:271] executions are murders, we must not assume that justice is always violated, because the form of administering it is repugnant to our feelings; and, further, he adds, that “the punishment of bodies of men to deter others of similar condition from equal guilt, is perhaps the only mode by which uncivilized nations can be preserved in peace.”^[20. History of Persia, vol. ii, p. 272. ] But according to Sir John Malcolm’s own account, not only the forms, but every principle of justice, were violated by the executions, or murders, as he justly calls them, of the Persian despot. Ali Khan, a chief of the Affshar tribe, had opposed Aga Mahommed Khan in the field. He was decoyed into his power by the deepest treachery, and being arrested amidst fawning and caresses, his eyes were put out. The brave and generous Jaffier Kouli, his own brother, was in like manner seduced, by the kindest assurances, to visit the court at Teheran, where he was welcomed with every appearance of cordiality, and the night passed in peace. Next day Aga Mahommed observed, “You have not, I believe, looked at the new palace; walk there with Baba Khan (his son), and after you have seen it, return to me.” But the moment he entered the portico some assassins who had been stationed there fell upon him and slew him. This act, unequalled in atrocity, stamps upon Aga Mahommed the character of a cold-blooded villain, whose portrait may be truly drawn in the words of the immortal poet, “I can smile, and smile, and murder when I smile.” And were not justice and humanity alike violated in the cruel torture of the blind Shah Rokh? The punishment of bodies of men, that is, the indiscriminate massacre of thousands, including infants and old men, and the carrying off of women by violence, Sir John Malcolm palliates on the tyrant’s plea, necessity; as if cruelty, and not justice and humanity, were the only mode of maintaining peace amongst uncivilized nations, or as if it were quite allowable in political morality to kill one half of a nation in order to compel the other to abandon their barbarous mode of living. The truth is, that Aga Mahommed appears to have been a prodigy of cruelty, swayed alternately by avarice and revenge, and his own absolute will, the only warrant of his evil deeds; so that it is idle to try his conduct by any moral test. Many stories are related of his implacable cruelty and revenge. He not only murdered or deprived of sight all the relations of Lootf Ali, but he dug up the bones of the virtuous Kurreen Khan and those of Nadir Shah, which he caused to be burned at the entrance of his palace, that he might indulge in the savage pleasure of trampling on their remains. The following is a trait of his vindictive disposition. “I could not,” he has been known to say, “express openly the hatred and revenge I harboured against the murderers of my father, and the despoilers of my inheritance; but whilst sitting with Kurreen Khan in his hall of audience, I often used to cut his fine carpets with a pen-knife concealed under my cloak, and felt some relief in doing him this secret injury. It was foolish, and betrayed a want of forecast; for these carpets are mine, and I might have even then calculated on their being so.”

Aga Mahommed Khan being apprised of the invasion of Persia by Russia, sent his army to defend the frontier. But the death of the Empress Catharine relieved Persia from the serious danger with which it was threatened. Aga Mahommed then determined to move towards Georgia; and having received a friendly deputation from the inhabitants of Sheshah, he proceeded with some light troops, and took possession of this important fortress. Three days afterwards, a dispute having occurred between a Georgian slave, a personal attendant on the monarch, and another servant, respecting some money that was missing, the king, enraged at the noise which they made, directed that they should both be put to death. Saaduck Khan She-kakee, a nobleman of the highest rank, solicited their pardon, which was refused; but as it was the night of Friday, sacred to prayer, their lives were spared till next morning, and, with a singular infatuation, the despot permitted them to perform their usual services about his person. Despair gave them courage; and whilst the monarch was asleep, they entered his tent, accompanied by an associate, and stabbed with their poniards one of the ablest monarchs (according to Sir John Malcolm) who ever sat on the throne of Persia. He was then in the sixty-third year of his age, and had ruled for upwards of twenty years, though he had enjoyed the undisputed sovereignty of the country for only a small portion of that time.

Aga Mahommed Khan was in person so slender, that he appeared like a youth of fourteen or fifteen. His face was beardless and shrivelled, resembling that of an aged and wrinkled woman; it was at no time pleasant or agreeable, and when clouded with indignation, as it often was, its expression was horrible. He was so sensible of this, that he could not bear any one to look at him. “The first passion of his mind,” says Sir John Malcolm, “was the love of power, the second avarice, and the third revenge. In all these he indulged to excess. He was harsh and abrupt, and often cruel to his ministers and to his domestics, who trembled at the sound of his shrill and dissonant voice, which was generally raised to utter some term of gross abuse, or issue an order for punishment. The minister Hajee Ibrahim was, however, an exception. He was uniformly treated with unbounded confidence.” “The penetration of the monarch,” says the historian of Persia so often quoted, “discovered at once the talents of that extraordinary man, whose plainness of manner, blunt speech, manly fortitude, and astonishing knowledge of public affairs, led Aga Mahommed to give him his entire confidence, and no confidence was ever better rewarded. The minister, though he contrived to gratify the avarice of his master, and to promote his ambition, often obtained favour for others through the kindness of his disposition, whenever he could interfere without danger to himself. He was generally dressed in the plainest manner, and he greatly disliked the hyperbolical complimentary style of the East, insomuch that, when the secretaries of the court, in reading papers to him, commenced their flowery introductions, he desired them to ‘ pass over the nonsense, and proceed to the subject of the letter at once.’”

By the influence and wise management of Hajee Ibrahim, the crown was secured to the nephew of the deceased monarch, who assumed the sovereignty under the title of Futtch Ali Khan. Saaduck Khan made a feeble effort to oppose him, but was attacked and defeated. Two other attempts to usurp the crown, the one made by the king’s brother Hussein Kooli Khan, and the other by Mahommed Khan, a prince of the Zund family, were subdued; and since this period the internal tranquillity of the country has not been disturbed. The most important events in the reign of Futtch Ali were connected with the wars which he entered into with Russia, and which generally proved unfavourable to Persia. In 1800 Georgia finally submitted to the dominion of Russia; and in 1803 Mingrelia was subdued. Gonjah was taken; and although the invaders were forced to raise the siege of Erivan, they overran Daghistan and Shirwan, and, in 1805, Karabang yielded to their victorious arms. The interference of Great Britain arrested the progress of Russian conquest; and Persia was saved from further inroads by the treaty of Goolistan, concluded in October 1813, which fixed the [7:17:272]relative boundaries so indefinitely, as, after much tedious negotiation, to give rise to a new war. In this war, which commenced in the month of July 1826, the prince royal of Persia took the field, with forty thousand men, twelve thousand of whom were regulars; and at the outset he gained several important advantages. But the superior discipline of the Russian armies, trained in the wars of Europe, triumphed in the end; and in 1828, seeing no prospect of maintaining the war with success, peace was again sought for through the mediation of Great Britain. It was concluded on the 21 st of February, at Turkomanshee. Besides large cessions of territory, namely, the Khanat of Erivan and that of Nakshivan, and the greater part of Talish, including all the islands which fall within its direction, Persia agreed to pay ten crores, of 500,000 each, of tomauns, as an indemnification for the expenses of the war. Since this treaty, the peace of the two countries has not been disturbed; and the prince royal, turning his attention to the internal concerns of his kingdom, has succeeded in reducing the rebellious chiefs of Khorassan. By the aid of a Polish refugee, equally skilful and brave, he acquired possession of Yeza, took Toorshish and Kha-booshan by storm, and reduced to obedience all the other chiefs in that quarter.

Still it is manifest, from the accounts of all travellers, that the present dynasty of the Kujurs stands upon a precarious foundation. The misrule which pervades every district of the country, the tyranny and extortions which oppress all classes, and the insecurity of life and property, have excited throughout the kingdom a thorough detestation of the present rulers. The people sigh for that security, that religious liberty, and that protection, which they know to be enjoyed under the British government in India; and it is well known that petitions have been addressed to influential quarters from a great proportion of the chiefs and nobles, and from other classes, craving permission to throw themselves on the protection of Britain, and declaring that if they are disappointed, they will solicit the aid of Russia. Any government, even that of foreigners, which would give them security for their lives and properties, they consider as preferable to the hated yoke of the Kujur tyrant. (f.)