"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٢‎٤] (٧١٤/٥٥)

24
PERSIA
volume is superbly illustrated ; and there IB eutertamment, as
well as instruction, in l.er pages. Another lady Mr^ Bishop,
has iust published a volume on her travels among the Bakhtmm
and Kurds, containing much novel and interestmg mformat.on
In the above long list of eminent writers and authorities, it
would be invidious and perhaps impertinent to attempt too minute
, , , a discrimination on the ground ot merit. 1 have already
mSr named the majority of those who either by faithful re
production of What they saw with their own eyes m interesting
or troublous times, or by patient research have added to the sum
total of our knowledge of Persia, A few of these, by virtue of
deeper insight or a wider range of observation, deserve promotion
to the highest rank. • i tj
These are, in my judgment, Ghardm, J avermer, an v. ay,
Malcolm Morier, Ouseley, Baillie Fraser, and Ravvlinson. Of the
trio whose works have for so long formed the basis of English ideas
about Persia, viz., Morier, Ouseley, and Fraser, the first named, by
his story of Haji Baba, even more than by his travels, has gamed
the firmest hold of the public ear. An equal rank is, in my
opinion, deserved by Fraser, for his broad acquaintance with and
faithful portraiture of every aspect of modern Persian life, and by
Ouseley, for the amazing erudition which renders his ponderous
tomes at once the delight and the despair of scholars, and which
did not admit of their publication till the lapse of a full decade
after the events which they describe. Of the older travellers the
palm will be conceded, nemine contradicente, to the P rench
Huguenot and English Knight, Chardin. He is apt to exaggerate,
cumference, and as ' a lake of some size ' the Hamun in Seistan, which is ire-
quently dry ; who speaks of the Elburz range as extending to Merv, and represents
the tribes with whom Kaufmann fought in Central Asia as Tekke Turkomans;
who makes Hasan, as well as Husein, slain at Kerbela, and, even at this date, con
founds Shushter with Susa; who descants upon ' inexhaustible coal mines in the
south-west, near the best ports of Persia,' when not a cubic foot of coal has ever
been extracted from those regions ; who antedates Nadir Shah by half a centuiy,
and post-dates the famous famine by three years; and who thinks there aie
twenty-five thousand grenadiers in the British Army ?
1 1 am aware that grave charges have been brought, with some truth, against
Tavernier. Chardin said he never understood a word of Persian. One critic de
clares that he could neither read nor write. His descriptions of some places are
manifestly incorrect. There is no doubt that his editors experienced much diffi
culty in arranging his papers, which were in a state of chaos (vide Ouseky s
Travels, vol. ii. Appendix, 10). Nevertheless his work retains its value, both for
its independence and general freedom from exaggeration.