um, have brought about this change.
Arrangements have been made for transit to Baku of Russian-owned tea
consigned to Persia on special terms of Customs drawback, and it is now
sold cheaper in Resht than in Baku, where it has a heavy duty added to
the price. The thin muslin-like manufactures of India, in demand in
Central Asia for wear in the hot dry summer, and which found their way
there from the Persian Gulf, are now following the same route as the
tea. Thus, steam and waterway are competing still more with the camel,
to make the longest way round the shortest one in point of time, and the
cheapest to the customers' homes.

As with tea, so Russian beet-sugar is cheaper at Enzelli-Resht than at
Baku, owing to the State bounty on export. The consumption of tea and
sugar, already large in Persia, is certain to increase in the North
through this development of Russian trade. French beet-sugar continues
to compete by way of Trebizond to Tabriz, but if the experiment now
being tried of manufacturing sugar in the vicinity of Tehran from beet
succeeds, the Persians will benefit further by competition.

The Russian trade in Persia is mostly in the hands of Armenians, some of
whom have amassed considerable wealth. It is only in the West that the
Jew is regarded as the sample of superior sharpness in the walks of life
that call for the exercise of the qualities most necessary in the
operation of getting the better of one's neighbour. In the East both the
Greek and the Armenian are ahead of him in this respect, and the popular
saying is, 'One Greek equals two Jews, and one Armenian equals two
Greeks.' But, to the credit of the Armenian traders, it should be said
that they are bold and enterprising in a newly-opened country, as well
as clever in an old one. It may be here mentioned that there is no
opening in Persia for the native Jew; he is there refused the facilities
which lead to wealth, and is strictly confined to the poorest
occupations. It is not unlikely that the severe treatment of the Jews in
Persia has its origin in the hatred inspired by the conduct of
Saad-u-Dowleh, a Jewish physician, who rose to the position of Supreme
Vazir under the King Arghoun Khan, in 1284. This Minister owed his
advancement to his pleasing manners and agreeable conversation, and he
gained such an ascendancy over his weak royal master as to be allowed to
remove all Mohammedans from places of trust and profit, and even to
carry his persecution