'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎154] (323/524)

«f it.
REMARKS ON A RECENT JOURNEY
154
the Gulf line, embracing Lingah and Bushire and the Beihbahoon
and Shuster lines, on the West. A patriotic Persian of the conser-
¥a ti V e school understands by Persia the four great provinces of—
Khorassan (or the rising of the sun), extending from the South
east of the Caspian to the Indus A alley.
2 ^.—Azerbaijan (for Assur-baijan the setting of the sun) containing
Media, Atrapatene, and the country bordering on Armenia and
the Caucasus.
3 n / t track, or the great central province lying between the two above
named provinces and extending Southwards to Pars.
Pars, the province already defined.
48. Each of the provinces is considered to contain six subordinate
sections, so that Persia is neatly described as being composed of lour
provinces and twenty-four sections.
* It were an interesting, but for me too delicate an inquiry, to analyse
the causes of the present social and political condition of Persia. How comes it
that this empire continues in her present poverty-stricken, corrupt, and helpless
state ? She lacks not antiquity of origin ! The Greek was here with all that he
had to say as the most highly civilised person of that epoch ; the Roman was here
with his laws, and it is to Rome that we owe ours. When the Arabs, under the
Abbassides were the preservers of the masterpieces of Western genius, their centre of
culture was Baghdad on the Persian frontier. There are remains even now
throughout Persia, showing that so late as the reign of Shah Abbass some progress
was made, some care was taken of the public good. Persia has still the benefit of
Prince Gortschakoff’s monitions, the Emperor Napoleon’s ideas, and Earl Russell’s
diplomacy. The Persian himself is quick-witted enough, especially in rascality.
If beauty of language, melody of syllables,f harmony of sense with sound, are
sought, Saadi and Hafiz have them to the full, with the poets of any modern
tongue, and perhaps not far behind Lucretius or Euripides. I have heard Sir
Henry Rawlinson say that he has witnessed the arguments of the schools of
ancient and modern metaphysics set forth with as much elegance and dialectic skill
by philosophers in Persia, as they are by Plato, Zeno, or Epicurus; by Spinoza,
Berkeley, or Kant. If you talk with a Persian statesman, he deplores the condition
of his country, and sketches the requirements of its renovation with a pathos and
acumen that would do credit to a vizier of Turkey. The Persian peasant is a man
of powerful frame, docile, industrious^ frugal, and temperate. Next to vanity, avarice
is the most glaring national characteristic. How comes it then that Persia remains
what she is ?
Sir, there are causes, and these causes are discernible. If the age were only ripe
for removing them, some broken outline of these causes is perhaps open y meantime,
t See note * on next page.