not by a royal mother, and the Vali Ahd, Prince Mozaffer-ed-din, the present shah. Time was when such a struggle was indeed likely. The Zil-esSultan, governor of Fars and Ispahan, ruled over the whole of southern Persia, he accumulated a vast treasure, he commenced to raise and drill troops; what more congenial amusement for the impetuous and hot-blooded son of the tranquil Nussir-ed-din? But the shah grew suspicious, there could be but one reason for his son's military enthusiasm; he became alarmed, and ordered the Zil-es-Sultan to Teheran, where he remained for some time in the cold shade of the king's displeasure, in a sort of honorable captivity. From being the most powerful man in Persia, H.R.H. Zil-es-Sultan became a quantité négligeable in the scheme of Persian politics, for the king had taken much of his son's vast wealth, while stripping him of his governorships; and in Persia, without money the bravest and most astute of pretenders is powerless, for political adherents have to be bought with gold tomans, promises being of little worth in the game in which failure means death.

The Zil-es-Sultan now saw that there was small likelihood of his ever attaining the throne, for the Vali Ahd, Prince Mozaffer-ed-din, had long been recognized as the shah's heir by the ministers of both England and Russia. His strong common sense caused aim at once to change his tactics, and he proceeded to openly express his loyalty to his brother; for the Shah Nussir-ed-din was now an old man, and in the Persia of the present day, as in the Turkey of the time of Shakespeare, when "Amurath an Amurath succeeds," possible rivals are shown little mercy. As a rule they are slain, generally privately strangled or poisoned, or after mutilation or deprivation of sight they linger out a miserable and forgotten existence in the fortress-prison of Ardebil. State prisoners for life, they are practically dead. It was a fortunate thing for the Zil-es-Sultan that he wisely and honestly accepted the changed situation.

more as governor to Ispahan, but the rich province of Fars was given to another. In Ispahan the shah's eldest son remained politically quiet, a severe but clever governor, his province continued tranquil, and comparative plenty reigned there; but as for popularity, the prince's fall had been too apparent, and few Persian politicians of late years looked upon him as a serious candidate for the crown. On the late king's death, the Zil-es-Sultan hastened to express his loyalty to the new shah, and was duly rewarded by a message of confidence, in which Mozaffer-ed-din Shah graciously spoke of him as "my elder brother." Had the king's death occurred after a long illness a few years ago, it is quite possible that there would have been a desperate struggle for the crown; the very suddenness of the shah's death rendered an attempt to seize the throne impossible, and the peaceful succession of Mozaffer-ed-din a certainty. Nowadays the prime minister is able to warn the governors of provinces to take the needful steps to prevent the lawlessness and mob rule that used to be a matter of course at the death of a shah of Persia, for he has the telegraphs at his disposal, and within a few hours he was able to assure the new shah that all was quiet, save in the neighborhood of unruly Shiraz, in which place the bazaars had to be closed for several days, while the Jews were besieged in their Ghetto, but had successfully defended themselves with stones. In Ispahan business was resumed three days after the news reached the town, and, save for the uprising of a few brigands from the wandering tribes, who have made the roads in southern Persia temporarily unsafe, and as a warning to whom four criminals were at once executed in Shiraz, Persia was tranquil.

The body of the late shah was at once rudely embalmed and placed “amânati” in a coffin covered with Cashmir shawls; it will be conveyed to holy Kûm, the burial-place and shrine of Fátima, the daughter of Iman Riza, the 1 "Stored," as a pledge is stored.

eighth imam; and beneath the great golden dome which glitters in the centre of the plain of Kûm, and can be seen for miles in every direction, and which is a favorite place of pilgrimage, the bones of Nussir-ed-din Shah, who in a way was a father to his people, will lie. The late shah was a good king, an amiable despot, a firm, wise, and merciful ruler, who had the welfare of Persia at heart, and was neither a tyrant nor a voluptuary. His pleasures were simple in the extreme; he was a sportsman par excellence, a man who delighted in the hunting of big game, a fine shot with gun or rifle, one who, like the late king of Italy, rejoiced in violent exercise as a relief from town life and the cares of state. The late shah was no idle or vicious despot; he did not smoke, and his diet was of the simplest, and he was a merciful king. He it was who did away with the hateful custom of the shah presiding in person at executions. It was said outside the country that the late shah was a monster of avarice; this was hardly so, for the vast sums exacted as fines and bribes from the grandees of the kingdom were not spent in show and riotous living, but placed in the royal treasure-house as a nest-egg for the evil days that may come to his successors. The long struggle that took place between the late king and an arrogant priesthood lasted for many years, and the shah succeeded in shaking himself free of the mollahs, and in reducing their enormous claims upon the public purse. Persia is no longer a priest-ridden country. The vast wealth in jewels and specie left by the late shah will be inherited by the new one, and fifteen millions are not too high an estimate of its worth, the great globe of gold incrusted with huge gems being valued at one million sterling, while the historical diamond, the Deryah-iNûr or Sea of Light, and a vast treasure of gems, cut and uncut, among which are strings of perfect pearls as big as sparrows' eggs, form part of the largest and most valuable collection of precious stones in the world; these and the cellars full of coined gold, mostly English

sovereigns and Russian imperials, and bars and ingots of pure gold, all pass with the bejewelled peacock throne, the spoil of the conqueror Nadir, to the fortunate Mozaffer-ed-din, who commences his reign as the wealthiest monarch in the world.

Nor was the great treasure left by the late shah wrung by tyranny from his ryots; he was able to accumulate vast sums in what is considered in Persia a perfectly legitimate manner. Just prior to the Persian new year the annual changes in the provincial governorships were made, and then the magnates of the kingdom would proceed to bid against each other for place and power. The actual cash value of the revenue of each province or district in a normal year was pretty well known; this sum had to be paid or guaranteed to the king; in addition a present, we should call it a bribe, had to be laid at uis Majesty's feet. Now came in the element of speculation. If the harvest was likely to be good, if the province should remain tranquil, the profit from surplus revenue would probably be large, and the king's governor would have a good chance of reaping a rich harvest, of being retained in office, of receiving a dress of honor, and a sort of social promotion by means of a highsounding title, as "Sword of the State," "Pillar of the Kingdom," "Shadow of the King" (which latter phrase is the translation of "Zil-es-Sultan"). These are among the high-sounding ones in present use; the recipient ceases to bear his ordinary name and is universally known for life by his title. Some of these Oriental life peerages carry a title which, in Western eyes, is almost comic. One Mirza Riza, an officer in the service of the Zil-es-Sultan was made Banân-ul-Mûlk, i.e., "The Little Finger of the Province." In Persia, however, a title means a great deal, and confers nobility as well as precedence. If, on the contrary, trade was languishing, or a drought threatened, and once during the writer's stay in Persia no rain fell for two years, the amount of the present offered for his Majesty's acceptance would be consid

erably lessened, and at times, when a province was much disturbed, no one would be daring enough to make an offer for a post the possession of which might result in a severe pecuniary loss to the purchaser, and possibly punishment in the shape of a fine of many thousand tomans, degradation, or the bastinado; for in Persia even the king's sons are liable to be beaten with sticks on the soles of their feet at the will of the shah. The punishment is painful; a man may even die under it or be lamed for life; but, like a birching at a public school, it conveys no loss of personal reputation. At such times the king of Persia was compelled to fall back upon a strong governor. Some great nobleman or royal personage, to whom fear or mercy was alike unknown, some terror to evil-doers. Such a man was the late Hissam-es-Sultaneh (the Sharp Sword of the State), the late king's uncle. At first the strong governor would coquet: he was ill, he was building a new house, he was growing old, he wished to retire from public affairs. Then the shah would offer to forego the customary present; this would be respectfully declined; and at length a greater or less proportion of the revenue would be actually remitted, and the strong governor, with full powers and a regiment or two, would start for the disaffected or starving province. On his arrival he orders a gaol delivery and a wholesale execution of malefactors, the bastinado is kept going continually on the feet of minor offenders, criminals are blown from guns, or executed, and their quarters hung at the gates of the city, highway robbers are walled up alive in brick pillars; and in a few weeks tranquillity reigns, the villagers can till their fields, crimes of violence cease, caravans can travel without a guard, and the merchant and shopkeeper feel safe in the bazaars. "They call me cruel," said the Hissam-es-Sultaneh to the writer: "I am the really merciful man; look at my last visit to Shiraz, as governor; twenty executions in the first week, and then only two more in a two years' tenure of office, and the gaol well-nigh

empty. There was my predecessor, a merciful man," here his Excellency spat disparagingly; "why, he had an execution or two every week, and the people died in the gaol from overcrowding. Bah, what does an Ecliaut' robber care about being executed in the ordinary manner? I blow him from a gun, or wall him up alive in a pillar; his friends can actually see his whitening bones in the latter case, and they keep quiet, of course they do, for they know that I will stand no nonsense." The old prince is dead; he was a strong governor; evil-doers trembled at his name. In Persia such men are a cruel necessity.

In the present day the Persians can be hardly said to be fanatical, they have learned not only to tolerate, but to like the handful of Englishmen scattered through the country, employed in the English Government Telegraph Department, in Persian eyes a strange class of people, who pay their debts, do not lie, and never go to church. The Armenians, of whom there are forty-five thousand in Persia, tillers of the land and small traders principally, are free from military service, and merely pay a small poll tax, and the usual dues on the produce of husbandry; they sell wine and spirits almost openly, though Persia is a Mahommedan country, as do the Jews, whose position is not an enviable one. The Jews, of whom there are twenty thousand, are taxed, but considerably more is exacted from them than is legally due, and they are treated as without the pale; the smallest village boy makes a point of insulting and stoning these unfortunates, who in each large town have a special ghetto allotted to them, a place where the insanitary arrangements common in Eastern cities reach their climax. Some idea of the feeling towards the Jews in Persia may be gathered from their treatment at the annual royal Salaam; thin gold coins are thrown to the multitude, wrestlers exhibit their prowess and are rewarded; skilled

1 "Ecliaut," the wandering tribes, of whom there are very many thousands in southern Persia.

athletes wield the Indian clubs and perform feats of strength, and gold coins are tossed to them; the royal elephant from Hamadan, his face painted, makes his bow to the shah; and jugglers, mountebanks, and tumblers, perform for the amusement of the multitude. Then the end of the fête being reached, a crowd of ragged Jews, whose attendance has been ordered, are flung into the tank for the amusement of the king's subjects; the shah retires, and the ceremony ends-but no gold coins are flung to the unfortunate Jews; their actual persecution, however, save in time of famine, is little more than habitual hard words and mockery. The Guebres (fire-worshippers), who live principally at Yezd, are not molested; they, too, are not subject to enlistment; they number some nine thousand, and are loyal and lawabiding subjects of the shah. The toleration shown to Christians is in a great measure due to the late shah. He has weakened the power of the priesthood year by year as a matter of policy, and the mollahs, as has been said, have little influence at the present day; when Nussir-ed-din came to the throne they were all-powerful. present shah is said to be inclined to restore the old state of things, but this is very doubtful; as yet he has been entirely in the hands of his vizier, wisely pursuing a policy of masterly inactivity, which was certain not to arouse the jealousy of his late father.

The

Persia being a Mohammedan country, polygamy is practised, but women have far more liberty than in Turkey; the women of the towns veil their faces, it is true, but go whither they will alone and unattended. They are almost invariably treated with great consideration, cruelty to women being a thing unheard of. Usually among the lower and middle classes, a man has but one wife; save in the case of those with childless spouses, monogamy is the rule. Two or more wives are the luxury of the very rich; and causeless divorce is exceedingly infrequent, on account of the heavy marriage settlements made upon the wife, which in the event of

divorce have to be paid to her in cash. | The mother of a family is treated with the utmost respect by her husband and children, and is invariably an autocrat in her own home; and there are many strong-minded and ambitious women who take an active part in politics. In no case is the Persian woman the mere toy of the voluptuary. She has her rights, her duties, and her pleasures, and at times indulges in amusing vagaries. One of the great ladies of Shiraz was requested by an aged and ill-favored mollah, to give him one of her waiting maids as a wife. The old man was already married to a termagant, who happened to be a friend of the great lady in question, who now saw the opportunity for a joke. “I will give you my maid as wife, oh mollah," she said; "and more than that, I will pay all the expenses of the wedding, and I will see that there is a suitable entertainment." A few days afterwards the old priest was actually married to a veiled bride at the house of the great lady, all the élite of the women of Shiraz were invited to the wedding; but when after the banquet the priest attempted to unveil his inamorata, the hideous face of a male professional buffoon, or jester, was disclosed to his astonished gaze, and the Lothario was chased out of the house, amid the laughter of the great lady's guests, among whom was the old man's own wife.

Shiraz, the capital of the southern province of Fars, is inhabited by a light-hearted, free-handed, joyous race, brave, turbulent, and handsome, very different from the bulk of the Persians. A Shirazi dearly loves a joke, and will go great lengths, as is seen by the above anecdote, for the sake of one.

The Ispahani is the trader par excel lence in Persia; it is impossible to outwit him, and he is quite ready to starve on a crust in the hope of acquiring a competence. The Ispahani has the credit of being a coward, and it is said that when the shah once raised a regiment in Ispahan, and ordered it to Teheran, the corps declined to move without an escort.

In Azerbijan, where the heir-apparent, or Vali Ahd, habitually dwells at its chief city, Tabriz, the Persian language is seldom heard, for every one speaks Turkish. The inhabitants of this province are a sturdy and serious race, rather resembling Turks than Persians; they are much more fanatical, but honester, than the rest of the nation.

It must not be supposed that the late Shah Nussir-ed-din was in any way unpopular with the bulk of his subjects; he was reverenced as God's vicegerent upon earth by the Shiites of Persia, just as in Turkey the sultan is looked upon as the Commander of the Faithful, but the socialistic creed of Sayud Mahommed Ali of Shiraz has innumerable proselytes throughout Iran, and his followers, who forty-six years ago unsuccessfully attempted the late king's life, have at length, it is generally supposed, succeeded in avenging the many martyrs of their sect. As to the real tenets of the Baabis, opinions differ. They are socialists, and undoubtedly adopt the system of community of property, while the orthodox Persians persistently assert that they practise polyandry, and the strange ceremonies of the Cheragh Karmûsh observed among the Yezeedis or Devilworshippers of Karrind, a district near Kermanshah; be this as it may, it is quite certain that each Baabi looks upon himself as an incarnation of God, and reverences the Baab, i.e., Sayud Mahommed Ali, as the Prophet of God and the veritable incarnation of the deity himself. Unfortunately for the sectaries of the Baab, there is a very simple means of recognizing them. A man being suspected of Baabism is requested to curse the Baab; if he be a Baabi, he invariably refuses to do this, though he knows full well that the refusal will assuredly cost him his life. Imprisonment, torture, death itself fail to shake the steadfast believers in the mission of the Baab. The writer saw a Baabi led to prison in 1880, the man was a priest (mollah) who had been denounced by his wife. He was an old man, and though he was imprisoned

and severely bastinadoed, and offered life if he would curse the Baab, yet he refused. When led to execution and entreated to curse the Baab, he replied, "Curses on you, your prince (the Zil-esSultan, then governor of Ispahan), your king, and all oppressors. I welcome death and long for it, for I shall instantly reappear on this earth, and enjoy the delights of Paradise." When he ceased speaking, the executioner advanced and slew him. The Baabis seen by the writer were, he is bound to say, invariably charitable and seemingly inoffensive persons; they were naturally very reticent as to their religious views, and the statements of Mohammedans as to the peculiar tenets of these people must be distrusted, they will probably never be exactly ascertained. As for the founder of Baabism, he narrowly escaped becoming generally accepted as a prophet. When he was led out to execution he was fired upon by a whole company of soldiers; strange to say, the bullets failed to strike him, while one happened to divide the rope that had secured his hands; when the thick smoke caused by so large a discharge of native gunpowder had cleared away Sayud Mahommed Ali had disappeared; but a search was made, the prophet was discovered hidden in a neighboring guardhouse, he was led out a second time and shot, the body was flung into the dry moat that surrounds the walls of Tabriz, that all men might see it, and was ultimately disposed of by the pariah dogs. In 1850 the flourishing town of Zinjan, celebrated throughout Persia for its silver work, was besieged for months by the shah's forces under Mirza Naim; this place was the chief stronghold of the Baabi movement. At length the walls were stormed, and the Baabis died sword in hand; even the women fought. A three days' general massacre was ordered, and not a man was left alive. Two years after the fall of Zinjan, an attempt on the life of Nussired-din Shah was made by the Baabis; the shah was very slightly wounded. Ten of the conspirators, one being a young and handsome woman, were