'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎71v] (147/610)

112
Supplies.
pay octroi duties. In April 1920 the moat served a novel pur
pose as a receptacle for flood water due to a cloud burst which
would otherwise have flooded the city. In some places it was
filled to overflowing and the gates had to be closed and banked
up to stop the water. A large area of waste land was originally
included within the ramparts, but this is being rapidly built
over and quite a considerable “ new town ” now exists on the
West outside the Kazvin gate, and large tracts of land have
been, and are being, cultivated into gardens to the North and
North-East.
The climate is described in Chapter III.
In summer there is a considerable exodus of the inhabi*
tants from the city to the Shimran villages, situated at a dis'
tance of 5 to 10 miles, and 500' to 900' above it. The heat
and dust of the town are trying, and the relief afforded by the
purer and cooler air of these villages is greater than the com
paratively slight difference in elevation would suggest.
A census taken by the police in 1919 gave 250,000 as the
population, which is supposed to be a decrease of 100,000 from
the population of 1917-18 due to the famine, influenza and
typhus.
The birth rate is computed at 780 per month and the death
rate at 580. Within the enceinte there are 23,428 houses.
The great proportion of the population are fFarsi speaking
Persians and Shi’ah Muhammadans. Baha’is also are numerous.
There are a fair number of Armenians, (5,000 is a mininum
estimate) mostly shopkeepers, also some Jews and Chaldaeans.
The Tehranis compared with the population of other towns
of Persia are comparatively ‘ advanced.’ Clerical influence has
much diminished during the present century, and many schools
have been opened.
The growth of Tehran since 1870 has increased its demand
for food beyond the productive capacity of its dependencies,
and rendered its supplies precarious and expensive, owing to the
heavy cost of transport from distant centres. In 1917-18 the
failure of the crops due to drought and to mortality of ploughing
oxen from rinderpest, caused a famine, with frightful sickness
and mortality. In 1918 the cabinet of Vusuq-ud-Dauleh estab
lished a 1 1 Supply service and grain control for the accumulation
of adequate stores of grain in the Government 2 granaries for
t Turk! is spoken in villages very close to Tehran.
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