'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎404] (459/714)

404
PERSIA
Notwithstanding these cases of cruelty and injustice, for which
some palliation may in each case be found, the Shah is admittedly
a man of humane disposition. . Since his visits to Europe the
instances of such unlicensed exercise of power have been rare, if
they have not altogether ceased to exist. We have only to con
trast his reign with that of his predecessors, to say that on the
whole it has embraced the most bloodless forty years in modern
Persian history. Only a century ago the abominable system prevailed
of blinding possible aspirants to the throne, of savage mutilations
and life-long captivities, of wanton slaughter and systematic blood
shed. Disgrace was not less sudden than promotion, and death
was a frequent concomitant of disgrace. The old fashion which
made the kings of Persia the executioners of their subjects, the
deed of blood being enacted before their very eyes, has been
abandoned. The bastinado has lost somewhat of its consecrated
ubiquity of infliction. Provincial governors are no longer allowed
the immunity of savage punishments which made the rule of some
of the king's uncles and great-uncles so dreaded although so super
ficially successful. Under the Sefavi kings, when the ladies of the
royal harem desired an outing in the country, a huruk was ordered,
which meant that every man was to absent himself from the neigh
bourhood of the prescribed route; and we read of poor wretches,
straying by accident on to the road, or caught sleeping in its
vicinity, being hewn to death by the guards or eunuchs. In the
present .reign males are expected to turn to the wall when the
royal cortege passes, but the old horrors of the leuruk have dis
appeared. Similarly, a labourer, who, pursuing an underground
hinat found himself in the anderun of the royal palace, was spared
by the Shah, although his life, would certainly have been forfeited
in any previous reign. We may attribute this fortunate ameliora
tion of manners both to the character of the sovereign and to the
immense, though perhaps grudgingly acknowledged, influence of
foreign opinion, and of the representatives of foreign Powers at the
Persian Court.
It is no mean criterion of the strength and also of the general
popularity of the Shah, that he is the first Persian monarch who
has ventured to leave his dominions and to journey in
European foreign and infidel lands, not as a conqueror at the head
journeys ^ an arm y ; but as a friendly visitor, if not as a volunteer
tourist. During the last three centuries for certain no Persian