of Azerbaijan and Tabriz. The capital of the province forms to-day, as has been the custom formerly, the residence of the Vali-Aht, or heir-apparent to the throne of Persia. In no way can one see that any advantage can accrue from this customary banishment of the successor to the Shah's throne from Tehran, to a spot where he is unable to obtain reliable information as to political events, and when called upon to fill his father's place, he must necessarily be in great ignorance as to what has been passing, and in what state the affairs of his country are. But no doubt the astute Shah has reason for keeping the successor he has nominated to fill his throne after him absent from his neighbourhood. The present Vali-Aht is a man of delicate health and weak temperament, taking little or no interest in the affairs of the province of which he is nominally governor, living in a manner too slovenly for even a low-class European, and incapable of making up his mind when one of the constantly occurring crises occur. Europeans who know him well compare his character most unfavourably with that of the Shah, who at all events is a man of energy and pride. The very state of repair, or rather disrepair, in which his Highness's palaces of cheap wood and inferior stucco are, shows that he must lack even the capability of looking after his private affairs, let alone the affairs of State. In fact, during my visit

to Tabriz there can be said to have existed practically no government of any sort, and were it not that the population is largely engaged in commerce, the success of which necessitates peace, the mob might have gone to any excess without the lifting of a hand to keep order and protect life. The ill-paved roads, even those on which the heir apparent has to drive to reach his own tumble-down house in the suburbs, are a disgrace to the place, but require only a few workmen turned out for a few days to put everything in order; but what between the meanness of the authorities and their utter nonchalance, no attempt is made. It is evidently the aim of some writers, by making much of the few good points-and they are few indeed-to be found in the Government and people of Persia, to aid our political aims in that country; but it scarcely strikes one that all the awful corruption, cruelty, immorality, and oppression need be glossed over in the manner in which it sometimes is. Personally my experiences and what I saw in Persia were sufficient for the following statement, that it surpasses, for a low standard of government, officialdom, and cruelty of every sort, any country into which it has been my lot to travel. Philanthropists and politicians are apt to revert, whenever it suits their purpose to do so, to Morocco, Turkey, and China; but the fact that it is considered expedient

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that Persia should remain our ally, allows all its rottenness and horrors to be overlooked and disregarded. Point out another country in the world where like poverty, poverty due to the unutterably rotten state of the Government, exists. In all my travels I have yet to see its equal. The ill-used and often squeezed Galla lives under the cruel yoke of Abyssinia in a state of freedom and happiness far surpassing that of the peasant of the "rich province of Azerbaijan." If these facts are neglected or suppressed for fear that their revelation should render more speedy than it will otherwise be the conquest of North-west Persia by Russia, then all that can be said is, the sooner Russia takes it the better. If it is on political grounds that we wish to preserve in a part of Persia in which we have no interest a state of government that is a disgrace to humanity, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. It is true the Turki peasant is a wild, unsociable, and fanatical subject, hard to govern, given to robbery and crime, and as inhospitable and unsociable a creature, as far as Europeans are concerned, as can be met with anywhere; but at the same time we cannot find in this fact any excuse for the state of oppression and abject slavery in which he is held. Villages with all their inhabitants are given away as sources of revenue to private individuals, who, if they are in present need of

money, do not hesitate to carry off every removable piece of property, unless sufficient compensation in coin is paid by the poor people; and even if they stave over this first act of barbarism, they do so merely to be squeezed year by year, to see all their earnings and the results of their labour and toil taken from them. What What may be the system of government in vogue in other portions of Persia I cannot say, but this I do assert, that for absolute cruelty, corruption, and oppression, the province of Azerbaijan stands unparalleled in my experience. But enough of an unpleasant subject, nor are we likely to see redress until the firm but just hand of Russia has seized the reins of power..

With regard to the sights to be seen in Tabriz, there are only three worthy of mention the bazaars, the Blue Mosque, and the "Ark," or fortress; for the dilapidated stucco villas, in the worst of possible combinations of bad styles of architecture, which the Vali-Aht calls his palaces, are beneath contempt.

The Blue Mosque, or Kabud Musjid, is so called by the exquisite faïence with which its walls and roofing were once decorated, and beautiful examples of which can still be seen, although the building is now a ruin. It was erected in the fifteenth century by Shah Jehan, an emperor of the Kara Koyunlu dynasty of Kurds. That it must in its day have been a building of the