Perfia. It is fituate' (fituated) in a plain, and experiences equal feverity of heat and cold; it is about twelve marches to the Cafpian, and little more to Ifpahan.' Our readers will find the modern capital of Perfia, in the maps of the accurate D'Anville, nearly equidiftant from the city of Cazvin, and the ruins of the farfamed Raï. Its pofition, according to the geographer, is much nearer to the Cafpian than to the city of Hipahan. As a fpecimen of our author's flyle, we infert his account of the present king of Perfia.

• The prefent king of Perfra afcended the throne under a variety of advantages, which rarely occur in a country where the only claim to fovereignty depends upon the fword. At the time of his uncle's decease he was at Shiraz; upon this event he advanced towards Tahiran, and was fortunate enough to gain poffeffion of this important place. It was at this place where all the treasure of the empire was depofited, and the families of all the principal officers of the realm. He, by this means, fecured the affections of the foldiery, and the fidelity of all the principal officers of late. Haji Ibrahim, the most confiderable and respectable perfon in the empire, declared himself in his favour; and it was chiefly owing to his exertion and influence, that the king met with fo little refiftance in the accomplishment of his wifhes.

Fatah Ali Shah, the prefent king, is about seven-and-twenty years of age; he is a Kejer, an inconfiderable tribe in the neighbourhood of Tabiran, and of no repute before the acceffion of Aga Mohamed Khan to the throne of Perfia. Indeed, during the reign of Kerim Khan, they were in general difrepute, nothing being more common than the people of the bazar refufing to fell them any article, on the plea that they had nothing fit for a Kejer fufficiently bad and vile. + But now, owing to the very great partiality the king evinces for his tribe, they have become the most confiderable people in the kingdom; and the hame of Kejer is detefted and feared in every part of the empire of Perfia. All the refponfible trufts are conferred upon them: and the prefent governer of Ifpahan, and of the district of Irac, was elevated from. his former fituation of a feller of greens, to his prefent ftation, merely because he was a Kejer.

• The manners of the king are faid to be very dignified, though at the fame time very affable and prepoffeffing; and he is allowed to poffefs all the exterior accomplishments of a Perfian. In his perfon he is fuperior

to

All great men have an illuftrious pedigree. It is faid the prime minifter, whom Nadir Shah feduced the unfortunate Tahmafp Shah to murder, was an ancestor of the prefent royal family. He was a namefakt, and a Kejer.

Aga Mohamed Khan was a flate prifoner during the reign of the Vakil Kerim Khan. Upon his acceffion to the throne, he dug up his body, and deftroyed the grave of his illuftrious and lamented redeceffor. I faw the tablet in one of the gardens.

to most men; and the immenfe length of his beard (a gift highly valued by the Perfians) is a perpetual theme of difcourfe and admiration. He has been engaged in no military enterprife, and, in confequence of this, the public opinion denies him the only Perfian virtue, courage. His annual expeditions towards Khorafan are made with the view of engaging the attention of his fubjects, and accuftoming his troops to the fatigues of actual fervice, but without the fmalleft defign of attempting the reduction of that province. The greatest blemish in his character, is the murder of Haji Ibrahim, who had regarded him as a fon, and who had evinced for him the affection of a father. It is faid that the minifter used to take greater liberties than the extent of his fervices allowed; but I know of no excufe which can palliate fuch barbarous inhumanity.

The court of Tahiran is faid (by thofe who have had many opportunities of judging) to be very magnificent and fplendid, and in every refpect becoming the fovereign of an extenfive and flourishing empire. When the king receives any one in ftate, his fons, who are very numerous, stand in a line from the throne; his minifters and officers of state behind them; and in the avenues are perhaps more than two thoufand golami fhahis fumptuously clothed. The matter of the ceremonies introduces the ftranger; and every thing is conducted with the greatest decency and folemnity. Permiffion of being feated in the prefence of the king is only granted to embaffadors, and envoys of foreign ftates, and to, I believe, the Shaikh al Islam, as the chief priett of the Moflem religion. The king fometimes wears his regalia; and by allowing the rays of the fun to fall upon him, I have heard it was impoffible to behold him with any degree of fteadiness. His jewels are supposed to be fuperior to any potentate's in the world; indeed it would be surprising were it otherwife, as he has poffeffed himfelf of all the valuable jewels in his empire.

The king has now reigned above feven years; and were it poffible to form an opinion on the duration of a defpotic government, he has every profpect of reigning for a much longer period. His brother, Huffun Culi Khan, who twice threw off his allegiance, is now in a place of fanctuary, which, I believe, the king refpects more on account of the entreaties of his mother, than from any reverence he entertains for the place itself. † He is, however, guarded with the ftricteft vigi lance, and it is almoft impoffible for him to effect his escape.

E 2

• The

I have frequently heard the Perfians fay, that the king did not deserve the throne, because he had not won it by the fword.

* His family amounts to above fifty, feveral of whom were born on the fame day.

I learnt, on my laft vifit to Bufhir, that his mother was dead. She was mother to both the brothers, and was exceffively fond of her youngest fon. By all accounts fhe was a woman of confiderable ability, and was highly refpected by all claffes of people.

;

The king's eldeft fon, Mihr Ali Khan, is an enterprising young man, much esteemed by the foldiers and military officers; and as his illegitimacy deprives him of all hope of peaceably fucceeding his father, it is difficult to fay what the intrigues of discontented noblemen might not excite him to attempt. He has frequently declared to the king his fa ther, that the fword thould either fecure or deprive him of the throne and that it was his determination to overcome the obftacles which were placed in his way. Such is the fituation of princes in a defpotifm, that it is the only means they have of preferving their lives; and in the event of the king's death, Perfia will again be deluged with blood: for as the princes are the governors of various diftricts in the empire, they have each the means of afferting their claims to the throne.

The king of Perfia has revived a tafte for literature, fo fcandaloufly neglected by his predeceffors. He is himfelf a man of confiderable tafte and erudition, and is alfo a tolerable poet. As it is an unusual circumstance for fovereigns to be pcets, I venture to produce a specimen of his compofition.

"If thou wert to display thy beauties, my beloved, to Vamec, he would facrifice the life of Azra at the fhrine of thy perfections.

"If Yufuf beheld thy charms, he would think no more of Zulekha.

"Come to me, and comply with my wishes; give me no further promifes of to-morrow.

"When the miftrefs of Khacan approached him with a hundred graces, one glance captivated his heart.

The most surprising part of this account, we think, is the extent of Fatah Ali's small family. A prince of twenty-seven years of age with fifty children! Proh deum atque hominum fidem! We can scarcely help suspecting a typographical error, and that our author means to assign thirty-seven or forty-seven years for the age of Fatah Ali. Even in countries where polygamy is prac-. tised, this circumstance is calculated to excite astonishment. The Persian historians frequently mention the number of sons left by a deceased monarch; and allowing an equal number of daughters, we must still acknowledge Fatah Ali to be by far the most prolific monarch of whom history makes mention. Should he attain the age of sixty, and his posterity increase in a similar proportion, his subjects will have occasion for all their arithmetic to ascertain the number of their princes.

We find the following account of the present state of the military force.

The military force of Perfia confifts chiefly of cavalry; and it is only when they are going against a fort that they make use of infantry.. The troops are clothed, furnished with horfes, arms, &c. at the expenfe of the king; and the pay which they receive is from ten to fifteen tuman a year; in addition to this, they are supplied with an allowance

of

of barley and ftraw for their horfes, and wheat, rice, and butter for themselves. They receive alfo fomething under the head of inam, a prefent, but this I believe to be very uncertain. This pay, however, is very great; for when we confider the value of money in Perfia, (which I look upon to be four or five times greater than in England), and the fupplies which they receive, it will appear that their yearly pay amounts to fifty or fixty guineas.

When the king puts himself at the head of his army, the different ferkardas (chieftains) are ordered to affemble their troops; and the king, having pledges in his hands for the fidelity of his foldiers, is certain of having an army of fifty or fixty thousand men in a few days. Befides thefe troops, there is another body called Yholam Shahis (flaves of the king), and who are confidered to be the choiceft troops in the empire. They have charge of the king's perfon, receive greater pay, and are clothed in a more expenfive manner than the regular cavalry.

Thefe may be about twenty thoufand; but the flower of this corps is formed into a body of about four thoufand, who are diftinguished by the exceffive richness of their drefs, and the infolence of their behaviour. '

We have already hinted our suspicions, that some inaccuracy might be discovered in that part of Mr Waring's work which claims more particularly the charm of novelty. Can it be wondered at, if, during so short a residence, he was unable to procure accurate information on so great a variety of topics as his work embraces? The revenue of the sovereign is stated to consist in the rents derived from an eighth part of the lands; the remaining seven eighths belong to the subject.

One eighth of the lands in Fars and Irac is probably poffeffed by the king; the remainder by his subjects. The produce of thefe lands are fubject to two divifions, the one called Nukd, and the other Jinfi; or, in other words, the former yielding produce for manufacture, as cotton, filk, &c.; and the latter crops of grain. Thofe who cultivate land belonging to the king, either Nukd or Jinfi, pay a rent of half the produce, befides the deduction which is made on account of the feed: the king, however, fupplies cattle for drawing water, and digs wells at his own expenfe.

On this statement, we beg leave to remark, that the lands of Hindustan, by the institutions of Acber, were in like manner divided into Nukd and Jinsi; but that those terms had an acceptation conformable to their real meaning, and altogether different from that stated by Mr Waring, which is contrary to their signification. The Nukdi lands were those of which the rents were paid in money; the rents of the Jinsi were paid in kind. Now, the word Nukd signifies ready money; whilst Jinsi signifies the article, the commodity. It is therefore manifest, that the same regulations prevailed in both countries, in the same sense; and

that no terms could be more injudiciously selected to express the meaning which Mr Waring assigns them.

We wish Mr Waring had enabled us to furnish a connected account of the celebrated sect, who, under the name of Wahebis, threaten the extirpation of the faith of Mohamed, in the countries where it first struck root, and whom we have, on a former occasion, introduced to the acquaintance of our readers. * He supplies us, however, with only a few insulated facts, and

these without date.

Abdul Waheb was a native of Ajen, a town in the province of Al Ared. This district skirts the desert, and lies east of the tract which extends between Mecca and Medina. He is represented as a man of erudition, having pursued his studies successively at Basora, Baghdad, and Damascus. His first converts were made in his native city; and, before his death, Abdul Waheb saw the whole of the district converted to his tenets, and subjected to his authority. The tenets which Mr Waring assigns to the Wahebis are the following.

That there is one juft and wife God; that all thofe perfons called prophets, are only to be confidered as juft and virtuous men; and that there never exifted an infpired work, nor an infpired writer. The ufe of tobacco, opium, and coffee was interdicted. Among a number of the civil ordinances of the Wahebis are the following. Illegal to levy duties on goods the property of a Mollem; on fpecie, two and a half per cent.; land watered naturally, to pay ten per cent,; artificially, five per cent. The revenues of conquered countries to belong to the community: the revenues to be divided into five parts; one to be given to the general treafury, the reft to be kept where collected, to be allotted for the good of the community, for travellers, and charitable purposes: a Moflem, who deviates from the precepts of the Coran, to be treated as an infidel: the deftruction of magnificent tombs, a neceffary act of devotion.'

It may be presumed, that, at the commencement, the new sectary did not venture to reject entirely the doctrine of Mohamed; or perhaps the term Moslem' does not here apply to the followers of Mohamed, but to those oriental illuminati. The word in its original sense, signifies saved, one who obtains salvation, and may be transferred by these sectaries to themselves. The injunction respecting the Coran may possibly be limited to the observances it enjoins; for the faith it inculcates is incompatible with the doctrines we have detailed,

Abdul Aziz succeeded to the spiritual authority, and to the temporal power of Abdul Waheb, and carried both to a much greater extent. Two armies, sent against him by the Pacha of Baghdad, were weakened by his address, and discomfited by his

* See Vol. VIII. p. 41-43.

valour,