نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [ظ‎‎٣‎٣‎٤] (١٨١٤/٦٧١)

440
PERSIA
is due. All these supplements being regulated at best only by use
wont, there is ample scope for extortion : and terrible a™ c ^
the cases, complaints whereof are seldom of any avail, the co 1 '
having probably to reckon with the bastinado. * ain ant
The tax list (tumar) is often drawn out years beforehand accordin
to the number of taxable objects in each district : acres fruit tree^
water-springs, beasts of labour, herds, Ac. Not only is this sum S>
acted thenceforward year after year, though the taxed objects Ire
meanwhile dwindling, but it is gradually raised. In these lists viU
figure villages which, from dearth of water or other causes, have been
abandoned by their inhabitants. Although, in consequence of the
silk-worm disease, and the dreadful famine of 1869-73, the economic
condition of Persia became greatly reduced during the twenty years
1864-84, whence it is but recently, through the culture of opium, that
it is beginning to revive, the taxes were yet continually going up, i n
many cases to an almost insupportable figure. Only the extreme
frugality of the Persian peasant and of the lower classes in general on
whom presses almost exclusively the burden of the taxes, explains how
they are got in at all.
I have quoted the above passage at length, because it is the
evidence of eye-witnesses, who lived for years in the country and
Mudahhil whose autll0I % is n ot to be impugned. From a perusal
of its contents, a glimpse will have been caught of that
which, along with, and perhaps even more than, the bribe or gift
i equired to secure or to retain office of any description, is a
cheiished national institution in Persia, viz. the OYbudcLlciiil, i.e.
consideration, lecompense, or profit which is required to balance
the personal account, and the exaction of which, in a myriad different
forms, whose ingenuity is only equalled by their multiplicity, is
the crowning interest and delight of a Persian’s existence. This
i emarkable word, for which Mr. Watson says there is no precise
English equivalent, 1 may be variously translated as commission,
perquisite, douceur, consideration, pickings and stealings, profit,
The word mvdahil, for which there is no exact English term, has for Persian
ears a charm which few Europeans can comprehend. Mudahil signifies all that
one can acquire by receiving bribes, by swindling and extortion, and by all other
ii regular means. It is mudahil and not salary which every Persian official is
anxious to secure. A salary regularly paid affords no scope for the display of the
talents in which Persians most excel—for dissimulating and over-reaching, oppress
ing and Clinging and therefore a post which has only a good salary attached to
it, and which affords no good opportunities of making mudahil, is looked upon by
Persians as being but a poor possession .’—of Persia, p. 372.