'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎333] (380/714)

TEHERAN
333
Estimates of the population of Teheran vary between poles as
remote as is the case with every statistical calculation in Persia.
Population ^ WaS informed ' however, that the most reliable computa
tion, determined upon a joint reckoning of the births and
deaths in the city and of the amount of food brought for con
sumption into its bazaars, fixed the present total at from 200,000
to 220,000 ; though, on the other hand, some old residents would
not admit a larger figure than 175,000. Twenty years ago, before
the structural changes of which I have spoken were commenced,
the most generous estimate of the total was 120,000—a fact which
is in itself the best justification of the policy of the royal ^Edile.
The capital is said to contain about 4,000 Jews, possessing ten
synagogues and several schools, and engaged for the most part
in trade, as dealers, vintners, and physicians. Here, as else
where in Persia, the Jews are obliged to walk circumspectly; but
they are not subject to the outbreaks of religious fanaticism which
sometimes occur farther south, in the more bigoted atmosphere of
Isfahan and Shiraz, and of which I shall require to speak when
writing about those cities. There is also a large colony of Arme
nians (1,000) in Teheran, with two churches of their own, to which
I have before alluded ; but the Persian Armenian will also more
appropriately come up for discussion when I treat of the settlements
in Azerbaijan and at Julfa. There are further said to be several
hundred Parsis, or Guebres, in the capital, mostly engaged in corre
spondence with their mercantile head-quarters at Yezd and Kerman.
without a test that would startle even a, modem University sprinter. The as
pirant to the honour was required to run on foot and fetch twelve arrows, one
by one, from a pillar at the distance of one league and a half from the palace
gate of Isfahan, the entire distance to be covered between sunrise and sunset
being, therefore, 36 leagues, or 108 miles. The day fixed for the ceremony
was a great public holiday. Everyone, from the sovereign downwards, was
interested in the success of the candidate. Ministers and grandees galloped at
his side to encourage him ; every variety of fruit and provision was eagerly offered
to him by the sympathetic crowd. Chardin witnessed and described one such
ceremony on May 26, 1667, when the successful shatir took nearly fourteen hours
to cover the distance. But he mentions another runner who, in the reign of Shah
Sefi, did it in twelve hours.— Travels (edit. Langles, vol. iv. p. 35 ; edit. Lloyd,
vol. ii. p. 153). Vide also Tavernier, book iv. cap. v. The shatirs, as a class, were
an institution of much earlier origin. They are mentioned by the Venetian Josafa
Barbaro at Tabriz, 200 years before Chardin, in 1474; and are undoubtedly a
legacy from far older times. In 1st Kings i. 5, we read: 'Then Adonijah the
son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared himself
chariots and horsemen, and ffty men to run before Mm.'