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plain of Tehran greatly exceeds that of former times, when the amount of cultivation was much less. In the district to the north of the Elburz chain, where the whole face of the earth is covered with forests and jungle and crops, the amount of rain which falls is excessive. If, therefore, the Persian Government were to plant trees along the edges of all the watercourses in the plain of Tehran, and were to sow fir-cones along the southern slopes of the Elburz, which are moistened all the summer through by melting snow, it might be reasonably anticipated that in a few years' time their labour would be rewarded by a greatly increased fall of rain each year. In the meantime the general aspect of the country in which the modern Persians live may be best described as a vast desert, in which many fertile oases are scattered here and there; but from this description must be excepted the district between the Elburz mountains and the Caspian Sea, as well as the fertile province of Azerbaeejan. The country, such as it is, and uninviting as it seems to the eye of a stranger, is the object of the admiration and the love of every true Persian. I do not mean to assert that love of country, as Europeans understand the term, is pre-eminently a Persian's quality. A Persian is perhaps prepared to do as little for his country as any man on earth, but while he holds his country's interests as of no moment whatsoever in comparison with his own, he yet thinks in his heart that there is no land in the world at all comparable to the land of Iran, I believe most Persians who should be sentenced to perpetual exile, and warned that they would be liable to be condemned to death if again found upon their native soil, would, like Shimei, be unable to resist the tempta-