"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٢‎٦] (٧١٤/٥٧)

26
PERSIA
CHAPTER II
WAYS AND MEANS
{Dedicated to the Traveller only)
Hive per Syrtes iter festuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum, vel quae loca fabulosus
Lambit Hydaspes.
Horace, Carm. lib. I. xxii.
T he questions that were put to me before I left England, as to the
direction which I was about to take, and after I had returned as
to the direction which I had taken, lead me to think that,
oHntoSa- even in these days of universal primers and travellers'
tion o-uides, geographical information is not so widely diffused
as to render superfluous a chapter explanatory of the different ways
by which Persia can be approached or left, and of the preparatory
steps which require to be taken by a traveller. There is so wide
a choice open to the latter in regard both to route and means,
that some guidance in either respect is desirable. The tables of
routes and distances which I shall give are all derived from first
hand sources, and are brought up to the latest date. There is no
existing publication in which they can be found similarly col
lected.
Persia, though remote, is the reverse of inaccessible. The
physical situation of the country between two seas, on the north and
situation south, at once suggests the easiest avenues of approach;
of Persia whilst her land frontiers on the east and west, abutting
as they do upon wide extents of territory, in the hands of alien if
not hostile powers, indicate other but le SS facile modes of entry.
It results accordingly that the majority of arrivals first land upon
Persian soil on the shores either of the Caspian Sea or of the
Persian Gulf. The situation of the modern capital, Teheran, at a
distance of about 200 miles by road from the Caspian, renders
this the more frequented line of approach; just as in the seven-