'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎370] (423/714)

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370 PERSIA
spasms of excessive gluttony and stupefied repose. The periods of
feasting, however, last from seven to ten days, the intervals of
torpor not more than two. After the first ten days the worms are
transferred to a tilambar, or platform, covered with a thatched
shanty and reared at a height of about five feet from the ground,
where, in the intervals of voracity, they are stuffed to repletion
with mulberry leaves. After about forty days they become fat,
full, and nearly transparent, in which uncomfortable condition
they exhibit a desire to climb up a number of branches placed
vertically in the shed, and to spin their cocoons. This goes on
for ten days, during which time the tilambar is hermetically closed.
At the end of that time it is again opened, the boughs are
removed, the roof is found to be entirely covered with beautiful
cocoons; and while some of these are spared to develop into
moths for breeding purposes, the bulk are taken down, the
chrysalis is killed by exposure to the sun, or immersion in boiling
water, and the silk is unravelled and wound off on reels. The
survivors come out as full-blown moths in a fortnight, when the
female, having done her duty by laying from 100 to 300 eggs,
pines, and incontinently expires.
In addition to the valuable products of their cultivated area,
Mazanderan and Gilan are endowed with gratuitous sources of
other re- wealth, of which but little, and that unsystematic, ad
vantage is taken by the Persians. There are considerable
mineral resources in the two provinces, of which I shall speak in
a future chapter on the resources of the whole country. Much of
the timber that is grown on the mountain slopes is well adapted
for ship building. It was utilised for that purpose by John Elton,
the ingenious English shipwright of Nadir Shah, who was com
missioned by that monarch to construct for him a flotilla on the
Caspian. Timber from Mazanderan was even hewn and ordered to
be transported across the whole of Persia to the Gulf, in order to
repeat the experiment there. Boxwood has been exported from
the Caspian provinces in some quantity to Russia and England.
But no system or science of forestry exists ; and the timber which
might produce a large annual revenue is either apathetically
neglected or mischievously destroyed. 1 Nor is the sea much less
rich in money-making properties than the land. The mouths of
1 In 1886 the monopoly of wood-cutting in Gilan was purchased by a Russian
for two years for 50,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. (16,000Z.). In 1890 it stood at 17,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. .