Ispahan, p. 159.]—Ispahan had been for ages one of the greatest cities of the East, and was possibly the Aspa and Aspadana of the ancients. In 1472 it contained one hundred and fifty thousand souls; a number which, according to Barbaro, was but the sixth of its former population. It had declined in political importance till Shah Abbas transferred thither the seat of Empire from Casvin. It rose rapidly to a second greatness: in extent it almost covered the plain. It was itself twenty-four miles in circumference, and according to Chardin, “a dix lieues à la ronde, on comptait quinze cents villages.” Tom. iii. 83. Chardin thought its population equal to that of London, and fixed it at six hundred thousand souls. Tavernier, almost at the same time, comparing it with Paris, says, it has but one-tenth of the population. (See on the relative population of Paris, London, and Rhages, Sir Wm. Petty’s Essay.) Tavernier is clearly wrong, and certainly much more inaccurate than the other extreme of one million and one hundred thousand, stated by the European merchants in Ispahan. Yet there is an error probably in both the larger estimates. The number of houses in Chardin’s estimate is a fixed standard, thirty-eight thousand: at fifteen in a house, the amount would not equal the population which he assigns as the lowest number; and it would require more than twenty-eight in a house, to justify the larger calculation. Olivier indeed remarks on another occasion, tom. v. 163, that “on doint compter en Perse au moins 7 ou 8 Persans par maisons;” but though this is much higher than the average of Europe, and much higher than Mr. Morier has calculated throughout his travels, (with the single exception of Bushire), it will not give much above half the estimate of Chardin. It may perhaps be observed that the numbers in Ispahan during the Affghan siege, and which are variously stated from seven hundred thousand to a million, will confirm the general accuracy of the former statement; but it should be recollected, that the amount on that occasion was swelled by the fugitives from the whole country. Olivier reckoned the inhabitants of Ispahan in his days at fifty thousand; its habitable circumference was reduced to a diameter of two miles; and he was riding for half an hour through the ruins which surrounded it. Tom. v. 175, 179. Gardanne hears that the ruins extend for a march of more than four hours, p. 70. A later statement indeed gives the present population at two hundred and fifty thousand. But even in the decay in which Olivier found it, it retained sufficient evidences of original greatness to excite the liveliest sensations: “Tout ce que nous vimes, tout ce qu’on nous dit, tout ce que nous supposâmes nous en donna la plus grande ideé: tout nous persuada qu’elle fut sous les Sophis une des plus belles, des plus riches, des plus peuplées de l’Asie.” P. 180.
Shah Abbas drinking wine, p. 165.]—Gibbon says, that “in every age the wines of Shiraz have triumphed over the laws of Mahomed.” In fact however, the use of spirituous liquors in general has depended, in Persia as in Turkey and other Mahomedan countries, less on the precepts of the Koran, than on the will and character of the reigning Prince. Pietro della Valle gives a curious account of the alternations in the use of inebriating liquors, which the difference in the individual habits of the Sovereign produced in his day in the court of Persia: and Tournefort remarks the same effect in Georgia; “of all nations the greatest wine drinkers.” Tom. ii. lettre vi. Eastern monarchs indeed, in this as in other points, have considered themselves unfettered by the prohibitions of the Koran: “Kings are subject to no law;”—“Whatever they do, they commit no sin,” were the maxims by which Shah Hussein, the last of the Seffis, was seduced into drunkenness. (Mod. Univ. Hist. vi. p. 22.) The exclusive prerogatives of an absolute Prince were, however, best exemplified in Hindostan. Jehangeer, as we learn from his own commentaries, was accustomed to drink of the strongest spirits, a quantity equal in weight to ten seers a day; while (as Peter the Great, and the rising Peter of the South Seas, Tamahama, in Turnbull’s Voyage, have done since) he issued as a standing regulation of his government, an order for the prohibition of spirituous liquors, and every thing else of an intoxicating nature, throughout the whole kingdom, “notwithstanding that I had myself,” he adds, “from the age of eighteen to thirty-eight, been constantly addicted to them.” Extracts by James Anderson, from the Toozuké Jehangeer, Asiat. Miscell. vol. ii. p. 77. To evade the prohibition of wine, the Orientals have had recourse to compositions infinitely more inebriating: these are “the mixed wine,” “the strong drink mingled of the Scriptures;” see Lowth’s Isaiah, p. 12-13, p. 231, &c. See a Chapter of Kæmpfer, fasc. iii. obs. 15. The liquor thus substituted in Persia is the Cocnos of Della Valle. Abbas the First, when he drank wine, drank it as in the text, publicly: for a purpose, as a contemporary traveller observes, like that of Agathocles in Diodorus of discovering the real character of his guests. Della Valle, tom. ii. 341. See the entertainment in Herbert, p. 171: “Most friendly Abbas puld our Ambassador downe, seated him close to his side, smiling to see he could not sett (after the Asiatique sort) crosse-legd, and calling for a bowl of wine, dronke his Master’s health, at which the Ambassador uncoverd his head; and to complement beyond all expectation the Potshaugh,” (the Padishah) “puld of his turbant; by discovering his bald head, symbolising his affection; and after an houres merriment departed.” This object of Abbas was again similarly attempted by Shah Suleyman. Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. vi. 16. Shah Seffi in a caprice chose to prohibit tobacco, and executed two foreign merchants for disobeying the order, as Sultan Murad did in Turkey for the same offence. Rycaut, p. 59; see p. 43, against wine. Shah Seffi himself drank to excess; but having in a fit of intoxication killed one of his wives, he published a mandate through all his dominions, that no one should drink wine; and that the Governors should stave all the casks and spill the liquor wherever it was found. Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. v. p. 471-2, p. 475. Shah Hussein, vol. vi. 21, prohibited wine by his first act, though he afterwards was tempted to indulge in it; but when Bell was in Persia, the King was still sober and devout, and drank no wine, which in consequence was not used by his court. Bell, i. 107, see p. 116. Nadir Shah and Kerim Khan permitted the use of wine: but Aga Mahomed, “cruel, feroce au dela de toute expression, faisait ouvrir le ventre à ceux de ces sujets Musulmans qui etaient accusés de boire du vin.” Olivier, tom. v. p. 136.
Mourtchekourd, p. 176.]—The difficulty of ascertaining a fact in the ancient history of Persia, may be estimated by the contradictions in a very modern period, in an event of extreme importance, and in the relations of contemporary authors. The battle of Mourtchekourd, which decided the fate of Persia, was fought, according to Jones’s Life of Nadir, on the 13th November, 1728. Otter, who accompanied an Embassy to Nadir, says November, 1730. Gardanne, the French Consul, who was at Ispahan at the time, says November, 1729. See Olivier, vol. v. p. 375.
P. 186.]—Of the King of Persia’s own poems, see a specimen in Scott Waring. See also Gardanne, p. 76.
Lion and Bear, p. 187.]—In Bell’s time, there were two lions at the court of Persia, who couched to the Embassador as he passed, p. 100-1. When the Greek Embassador was presented to the Caliph Moctader, A. D. 917, “one hundred lions were brought out, with a keeper to each lion.” Gibbon, 4to. v. p. 420.
Introduction, p. 128.]—Bell’s description is striking, “at our entry into the hall, we were stopped about three minutes at the first fountain, in order to raise the greater respect; the pipes were contrived to play so high, that the water fell into the basin like thick rain. Nothing could be distinguished for some time; and the Schach himself appeared as in a fog. While we moved forward, every thing was as still as death.” vol. i. p. 103.
Zein Labadeen, p. 176.]—The Zain Labadeen, called in the text the brother of Hossein, is probably Ali, his youngest son, called afterwards Zein Alab’beddin, “the ornament of the religious.” Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. p. 101. Franklin, p. 180.
Punishment of Theft, p. 204.]—This was a punishment inflicted by the Emperor Aurelian. Gibbon, i. p. 355.
P. 217.]—Gardanne complains in the same manner of the publicity of Persian diplomacy. “Les Gardes, les Secretaires, les curieux sont presens. Nous avons souvent demande de les faire eloigner, mais les Ministres gardent toujours du monde. On ne peut pas rester seul avec eux.” Journal, p. 54.
Teheran, p. 224.]—It is interesting to trace the progress of a capital. At about the same distance from Rhages, (at which the present city of Teheran may be placed from the remains of Rey) appears the town of Tahora, in the Theodosian tables: a sufficient presumption that Teheran itself had an original and independant existence, and did not rise only from the ruins of the greater metropolis. Its continuance as a contemporary city cannot now be traced distinctly; it may indeed have borne a different name in Eastern geography, as it is the Teheran or Cherijar of Tavernier. It re-appears however under its present name in the journey of the Castilian Embassadors to Timur, at a period when the greatness of Rey was still very considerable. At the end of two centuries, Pietro della Valle re-visited it. He calls it the city of planes; tom. ii. 390: the soil is probably particularly adopted to the tree; for Olivier mentions one in the neighbourhood that measured round an excrescence at the root, seventy feet; tom. v. p. 102. About the same time with Della Valle, Herbert described it fully. It is the Tyroan of his travels. Tavernier notices it more perhaps from the materials of others than from his own observation, tom. i. 313: and Chardin speaks of it only as “petite ville.” Tom. ii. p. 120. Its name occurs with scarcely a line of comment, in a route given by Hanway, vol. i.; and though it was a place of some interest in the reign of Nadir, its actual state cannot be collected with any certainty till the accession of the present dynasty. It had long indeed been the capital of a province; and its name had been frequently connected with objects of importance in the history of the last two centuries; yet it owes its more immediate pre-eminence to the events of the last few years. It had been so much destroyed by the Affghans, (when after the battle of Salmanabad they invested it, in the hope of seizing Shah Thamas, who had retired thither) that Aga Mahomed, the late King, may be considered as almost its second founder. Its nearness to his own tribe and province; the facilities of raising instantaneously from the wandering tribes around it a large force of cavalry; and its central situation between the general resources of his empire and the more exposed frontiers, combined to justify his choice of Teheran as the capital of Persia. It has risen rapidly. In 1797 Olivier describes it as little more than two miles in circumference, and of the whole area the palace occupied more than one-fourth. Tom. v. p. 89. In 1809, it is stated to be between four and a half and five miles round the walls. The population, according to Olivier, even with all the encouragement which Aga Mahomed afforded to settlers, and including his own household of three thousand persons, amounted in 1797 to only fifteen thousand persons. Gardanne describes it, ten years afterwards, as having more than fifty thousand inhabitants during the winter; though he notices the almost total desertion of the city during the heats of summer. Journal, &c. p. 55. In one of Mr. Morier’s routes in the Appendix, Teheran is represented as containing twelve thousand houses, a better estimate of its size than the number of inhabitants.