n so mixed with barley as to reduce the price considerably, and
the question of mixture and reduction was always a very stormy one. When
I was at Ahwaz, on the Karun, in 1890, I saw a machine at work
separating the grains, and the Arab owners waiting to take away the
unsaleable barley, the wheat being bought for export by a European firm
there which owned the machine. The Arab sellers probably now move to the
other side of the machine to carry away the unsaleable wheat, the barley
being bought for export owing to the turn of trade.

The German group that has obtained the Persian road concession has also
taken up the old project of an extension of the Tehran tramways to the
villages on the slopes of the Shimran range, all within a distance of
ten miles from the town. The Court, the city notables, and the foreign
legations, with everyone who desires to be fashionable, and can afford
the change, reside there during the warm months--June, July, August and
September. The whole place may be described as the summer suburb of the
capital, and there is great going to and fro.

I have already mentioned the Russian road now under construction from
the Caspian Sea base to Kasvin, with the object of enabling Russian
trade to command more thoroughly the Tehran market. The total distance
from the coast to the capital is two hundred miles. There is an
old-established caravan track over easy country, from Kasvin to Hamadan
in the south--west, distant about one hundred and fifty miles. It has
lately been announced that the Russian Road Company has obtained a
concession to convert this track into a cart-road in continuation of
that from Resht. It is seen that with improved communication Russian
trade may be made to compete successfully at Hamadan, which is only
about fifty miles further from the Caspian Sea base than Tehran, and
there will also be the advantage of a return trade in cotton from
Central Persia, as Armenian merchants now export it to Russia from as
far South as Isfahan and Yezd. The German road from Baghdad to Tehran
will be met at Hamadan.

Kermanshah and Hamadan, through which the German road will pass, are
both busy centres of trade in districts rich in corn, wool, and wine.
They are also meeting-points of the great and ever-flowing streams of
pilgrims to Kerbela _via_ Baghdad, said to number annually about one
hundred thousand. This has been a popular pilgrim route, as well as
trade route, for centuries, and with great