"دليل بلاد فارس، المجلد I ويشمل محافظات أستراباد، شاهرود-بوستان، خراسان، وسيستان" [ظ‎‎٢‎٧‎٦] (٧٢٢/٥٥٩)

506
the officers to draw his pay, the soldier simply leaves in their possession
his seal with his name, which the substitute attaches to the rolls.
The substitutes only receive the instruction necessary to personate the
soldiers who are absent; and so ignorant are they of arms and their use,
that only those that are worthless are placed in their hands.
The cost and extravagance of raw soldiers are well illustrated by the
fact that, on issuing tabatieres to regiments for trial, they were returned
nearly ruined at the end of the month.
At the manceuvres before the Shah, the only movements executed were
to advance and retire.
One movement consisted of a line of battle in double rank, from which
skirmishers appeared to advance, as in our deployment, by numbers.
Behind the line-of-battle, in imitation of the German system, companies
were posted at intervals in double rank. On a signal, the skirmishers fell
back, the companies advanced, and, joining at the line-of-battle, all opened
fire, the line-of-battle kneeling. On the left, irregular cavalry made irre
gular charges, scattering over the ground, raising a great dust, and firing
and flourishing their pieces in the air. On the right, the artillery joined
its deep tones in the combat.
At the review the infantry walked rather than marched past. The
cavalry, marching in squads of five or six, ducked their heads as a salaam
to the Shah.
There is no staff at all in Persia.
Each infantry soldier provides his own food; and each cavalry soldier, his
rations and forage. As each soldier knows he must eat, he forages at every
opportunity; and transports his supplies on a horse or donkey. The number
of animals used in transport often exceeds the number of men.
"When the Shah proposes a journey to a distant province, the people of
villages and towns along the route often present him with money, to induce
him to relinquish his object, dreading the plundering of troops accompany
ing him. With the arms, organisation, and discipline described, and with
no commissariat, the infiuence of the army of Persia in Eastern affairs can
easily be computed.
Parade of garrison of Tihrdn .—Four regiments of infantry, each about
600 men strong, were assembled on the plain about a quarter-of-a-mile
from the town,—hardy, wiry-looking men, but bearing evident marks of ill-
treatment and scanty rations. Their uniform was semi-European, i.e.,
they had all of them European cut coats (the rank and file dark blue; the
pioneers, red) and cross-belts. The rest of their costume was decidedly
Persian, consisting of black lambs wool caps, wide white trousers, and shoes
of untanned hide. They were armed with muskets, a good many of them
flint-locks, which about the time of the battle of Waterloo were probably
in the hands of the French or the Allies, and have since then been slowly
driven eastward by the flood of new inventions. The Italian officers, who
commanded, were in plain clothes, and, instead of swords, carried stout
sticks, which they used both frequently and mercilessly on the heads and
shoulders of their men, as they put them through some of the simplest
manoeuvres, such as marching in line and column, forming squares,
& e> * ^ * ■*. When parade was over, a band of music, the
only one in the kingdom furnished with European instruments, struck up
a terrible discord, and the army returned to barracks.