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CHAPTER XII.

Flight of Haji Meerza Aghassi—Rival Parties at Tehran—The Queen-mother President of the Council—Serious Risings in the Provinces—The Salar—The Ameer-i-Nizam Measures of Reform adopted by him—Combination against him—Mutiny of the Garrison of Tehran—Seizure of Kotoor by the Turks—Ascendancy of the Belooches in Seistan—Persian Claims to that Province—Protracted Siege of Meshed—Bahman Meerza—Prince Sultan Murad presses the Siege of Meshed—Foreign interference offered for the Pacification of Khorassan—Ravages of the Turkomans—Surrender of Meshed—Death of the Salar.

Something of that feeling of satisfaction with which one listens in a warm room to the roar of thunder and the pelting of rain without, ought to be experienced by the reader dwelling in a settled country while perusing an account of the condition of affairs in an unsettled country after the death of its ruler.

Mahomed Shah had scarcely breathed his last when a large body of his most influential courtiers hastened at night through the lanes and gardens of Tajreesh to the encampment of the British Legation. To them it was as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, under which they sought refuge till the calamities which they dreaded should be past. These courtiers had formed themselves into a council, with the purpose of carrying on the administration until the arrival of the Shah. Whilst they made the strongest professions of allegiance to their new sovereign, they one and all declared that