ingle building in all Europe to compare with this!" Probably
not--from one point of view.

The Caspian may indeed be called a Russian lake, for although the
whole of its southern coast is Persian, the only Persian vessel
tolerated upon it by Russia is the yacht of the Shah, a small steamer,
the gift of the Caucase-Mercure Company, which lies off Enzelli. Even
this vessel is only permitted to navigate in and about the waters of
the Mourdab ("dead water"), a large lake, a kind of encroachment of
the sea, eighteen to twenty miles broad, which separates Enzelli from
Peri-Bazar, the landing-place for Resht, four miles distant. The
imperial yacht did once get as far as Astara (presumably by mistake),
but was immediately escorted back to Enzelli by a Russian cruiser.
There is, however, a so-called Persian fleet--the steamship
_Persepolis_, anchored off Bushire, in the Persian Gulf, and the
_Susa_, which lies off Mohammerah. The former is about six hundred
tons, and carries four Krupp guns; but the latter is little better
than a steam-launch. Both have been at anchor for about four years,
and are practically unseaworthy and useless.

We embarked at nine o'clock, in a boat pulled by eight men. The
crossing of the Mourdab is at times impossible, owing to the heavy
sea; but this time luck was with us, and midday saw us at Peri-Bazar,
where there is no difficulty in procuring riding-horses to take one
into Resht. The country between the two places was formerly morass and
jungle, but on the occasion of the Shah's visit to Europe about twenty
years ago, a carriage-road was made--not a good one, for such a
thing does not exist in Persia--but a very fair riding-track (in dry
weather). We reached Resht wet to the skin, the snow having ceased and
given way to a steady downpour of rain.

Resht bears the unpleasant reputation of being the most unhealthy city
in Persia. Its very name, say the natives, is derived from the word
_rishta_, "death." "If you wish to die," says a proverb of Irak, "go
to Resht!" The city, which had, at the beginning of the century, a
population of over sixty thousand inhabitants, now has barely thirty
thousand. This certainly looks as if there were some truth in the
foregoing remarks; and there is no doubt that, on the visitation of
the plague about ten years ago, the mortality was something frightful.
A great percentage of deaths are ascribed to Resht fever--a terrible
disease, due to the water and the exhalati