en. From this blow
the once magnificent capital of Persia has never recovered. Tamasp
became shah in 1727.

How the brief rule of the conquering Afghans was terminated by Nadir
Shah, and how he pursued his own bloody path of conquest, Sir John
Malcolm, the historian of Persia, relates in a most graphic and
comprehensive manner.

Nadir Shah was born in the province of Khorasan. Persian historians pass
over the early occurrences of his life, and the first event that these
notice is the birth of his eldest son, Reza Kuli, which occurred when he
was thirty-one years of age. He had before that experienced great
vicissitudes of fortune, and had given proofs both of valor and talent.
When only seventeen he was taken prisoner by the Usbegs, who made annual
incursions into Khorasan; but he effected his escape after a captivity
of four years. His occupation from that period till he entered into the
service of Shah Tamasp can only merit notice as it is calculated to show
that the character of this extraordinary man was always the same. He was
at one time in the service of a petty chief of his native province, whom
he murdered, and whose daughter he carried off and married. After this,
he obtained a precarious subsistence by heading a band of robbers; from
which occupation he passed, by an easy transition in such troubled
times, into the employment of the Afghan Governor of Khorasan, by whom
he was at first raised to rank and command, as a reward for his valor in
actions with the Usbegs, and afterward degraded and punished with the
bastinado on account of his insolent and turbulent conduct.

Irritated at the disgrace he had suffered, Nadir left the city of
Mushed, and went to the fort of Khelat in the same province, which was
in the possession of his uncle, who appears at this period to have been
at the head of a small branch of the Affshars. He resided there but a
short time, before his relation, alarmed at his violence and ambition,
compelled him to retire. He appears next to have resumed his occupation
of a robber; but his depredations were now on a more extended scale. The
Afghans had become masters of Ispahan; and the rule of the Suffavean
monarchs over the distant provinces of the kingdom was subverted,
without that of their conquerors being firmly established. At such a
moment a plunderer of known valor and experience could not want
followers; and in the course of a short time we find Nadir, a chi