"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٢‎٥] (٧١٤/٥٦)

INTRODUCTORY 25
and he cannot invariably be relied upon ; but lie is always pains
taking, frequently ingenious, and not seldom' profound. The
second class I have already filled with a goodly array of names.
There are others who might well have been, and should perhaps
still be, included under the same heading, were it not that the
romantic atmosphere of the East has proved too much for their
critical equilibrium and has swept them away on gusts of senti
ment, now lifting them to giddy heights of rhetoric, now plunging"
them into woeful depths of bathos. Of the early travellers John
Struys, a Dutchman, made the widest excursions into these fairy
fields. In the present century he has been ably seconded by Sir
R. Ker Porter, who, though a most diligent enquirer, has diminished
the appreciation arising from careful plans and excellent drawings
by a turgid pomposity of style that is alternately exasperating and
ludicrous. It is when they contemplate the majesty of Nature, or
the pathos of rain, that these rhapsodists are impelled to their
greatest efforts ; and on such occasions a Howling Dervish might
learn something from their transports. Of the class of wi iters,
daily receiving fresh and enthusiastic recruits, who rush through a
country, either not having read what has been written by better
men before, or reading it only in order to plagiarise and reproduce
it as their own, and who misunderstand, misspell, and misinterpret
everywhere as they go, I will say nothing. They too have fastened
upon Persia. But the aids to such compilation as theirs are heie
less readily forthcoming than elsewhere ; some considerable exei
tion must be endured; there are no railroads to ease the body,
while great folios must be read to supply the place of mind ; and
altogether the kingdom of the Shah does not promise the best of
spoils. Neither would I waste one drop of ink in rescuing am
such from a salutary oblivion.