'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎411] (466/714)

THE SHAH ROYAL FAMILY—MINISTERS
411
also names the 5,000 descendants, but as existing at an epoch
ftfr'J years later (which has an air of greater probability); she
reduces the wives to 700, but increases the children to 600.
Rawlinson represents 3,000 direct descendants as existing at the
time of his death. The two historians of modern Persia likewise
fail to agree; for while Watson mentions 159 children, Markham
allows for 300 wives, 150 sons, and 20 daughters. The estimate
which appears in the Nasekh-et-Tavarikh, a great modern Persian
historical work, fixes the number of Fath Ali's wives as over
1,000, and of his offspring as 260, 110 of whom survived their
father. 1 Hence the familiar Persian proverb ' Camels, fleas, and
princes exist everywhere.' The talent ot paternity was by no means
exhausted in the next generation, for several of Fath Ali's sons
could boast ot 40 or 50 male offspring ; and one of their number -
Sheikh Ali Mirza—used to ride abroad with a bodyguard of 60 of
his own sons. No royal family has ever afforded a more exemplary
illustration of the Scriptural assurance, ' Instead of thy fathers thou
shalt have (A. A . shall be thy) children, whom thou mayest make
princes in all lands; 2 for there was scarcely a governorship or a
post of emolument in Persia that was not filled by one of this
beehive of princelings; and to this day the myriad brood of
Shahzadehs, or descendants of a king, is a perfect curse to the
country, although many of these luckless scions of royalty, who
consume a large portion of the revenue in annual allowances and
pensions, now occupy very inferior positions as telegraph clerks,
secretaries, &c. Fraser drew a vivid picture of the misery entailed
upon the country fifty years ago by this ' race of royal drones,' who
filled the governing posts not merely of every province, but of
every hehJc or district, city, and town; each of whom kept up a
court, and a huge harem, and who preyed upon the country like a
swarm of locusts. 3
In contrast to these surprising totals, it is with an air of relief
that we learn that the reigning Shah has only had a family of
about 10 children, of whom half are still living, viz., 9 sons, and
1 Ivone of these figures can be compared with those of Augustus the Strong,
Mector of Saxony and King of Poland, who left a child for every day in the
year. Either of these monarchs might well have spoken in the language of our
own Charles XL, who, when addressed by an effusive courtier as the Father of his
eop e, leplied, ' Well, say of a considerable proportion of them !'
- Psalm xlv. 16. Compare what is said of Rehoboam in 2 Chron. xi. 23.
3 A Winter's Journey, vol. i. p. 400,