نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٥‎٠‎٠] (١٨١٤/١٠١٢)

FROM TEHERAN TO ISFAHAN
39
7 other
bailee,
^fehan.
set out
1 lovely
fe to be
01 many
-ed atop,,
Persia.
men-
bance of
n. Its
derived
that the
i Abbas
idid ap-
s in its
decay of
At the
corridor
s of the
)ked out
hannels r
nance to
ctagonal
e of the
way for
, usually
chen^Sy
eway for
Is corre-
loorways
Hr these
tched on
>, Nig ht '
pavili° llS
where,
■ghers of
Isfahan assembled to sip that beverage and to inhale their kalians,
the while, as Fryer puts it,
Night drawing on, all the Pride of Spahaun was met in the
Chaurbaug, and the Grandees were Airing themselves, prancing about
with their numerous Trains, striving to outvie each other in Pomp and
Generosity.
At the bottom, quays lined the banks of the river, and were
bordered with the mansions of the nobility.
Such was the Chehar Bagh in the plenitude of its fame. But
now what a tragical contrast ! The channels are empty, their
stone borders crumbled and shattered, the terraces are broken
down, the partenes are unsightly bare patches, the trees, all lopped
and pollarded, have been chipped and hollowed out 1 or cut down
for fuel by the soldiery of the Zil, the side pavilions are abandoned
and tumbling to pieces, and the gardens are wildernesses. Two
centuries of decay could never make the Champs Elysees in Paris,
the Enter der Linden in Berlin, or Rotten Row in London, look
one half as miserable as does the ruined avenue of Shah Abbas.
It is in itself an epitome of modern Iran.
Towards the upper end of the Chehar Bagh on the eastern side,
is a once splendid covered bazaar, through which one can turn
Madresseli as ^ e en ^ er Ateidan. It is now empty and forlorn ;
i-Shah but a short time ago was turned into stables for his
I III Sell I ^
gholams, by the Zil-es-Sultan. 2 On the same side is the
entrance to the Hasht Behesht. A little further down stands a
building that is still one of the spectacles of Isfahan. This is the
Madresseh-i-Shah Husein, called also Madresseh-i-Mader-i-Shah,
which was built, according to Krusinski, about the year 1710, by
that monarch as c a monastery for the Dervishes.’ The Polish
Jesnit further says that the chief gate was of solid silver; but he
probably alludes to the chased silver plates with which the wooden
doors are adorned. Beneath a deeply recessed archway, vaulted
with honeycomb decoration, we pass into a dome-covered portico
or vestibule, on either side of which petty hucksters sell fruit on
1 Fraser (A Winter's Journey, vol. ii. p. 70) mentions a native superstition
that when the chenar attains three hundred years, it perishes of self-combnstion,
and appears to have been taken in by it. I prefer the Isfahan rationalisation.
In the early part of the century, a riot having broken out in this bazaar, the
governor planted a cannon at its entrance, and fired straight down the central
avenue into the crowd, killing or maiming everyone there—a slight contrast to the
methods of Trafalgar Square.