e a larger area than Teheran
to-day. The remains of this magnitude are certainly still there. The
destruction of the city, they say, has been due to many and varied
misfortunes. Earthquakes and famines in particular have played an
important part in the history of Kasvin, and they account for the many
streets and large buildings in ruins which one finds, such as the remains
of the Sufi Palace and the domed mosque. The city dates back to the
fourth century, but it was not till the sixteenth century that it became
the _Dar-el-Sultanat_--the seat of royalty--under Shah Tamasp. It
prospered as the royal city until the time of Shah Abbas, whose wisdom
made him foresee the dangers of maintaining a capital too near the
Caspian Sea. Isfahan was selected as the future capital, from which time
Kasvin, semi-abandoned, began its decline.

In 1870 a famine devastated the town to a considerable extent, but even
previous to that a great portion of the place had been left to decay, so
that to-day one sees large stretches of ruined houses all round the
neighbourhood and in Kasvin itself. The buildings are mostly one-storied,
very few indeed boasting of an upper floor. The pleasant impression one
receives on entering the city is mostly caused by the quantity of verdure
and vegetation all round.

One of the principal things which strike the traveller in Persia,
especially on nearing a big city, is the literal myriads of curious
conical heaps, with a pit in the centre, that one notices running across
the plains in long, interminable rows, generally towards the mountains.
These are the _kanats_, the astounding aqueducts with which dried-up
Persia is bored in all directions underground, the canals that lead fresh
water from the distant springs to the cities, to the villages, and to
irrigate the fields. The ancient process of making these _kanats_ has
descended unchanged to the modern Persian, who is really a marvellous
expert--when he chooses to use his skill--at conveying water where Nature
has not provided it. I watched some men making one of these _kanats_.
They had bored a vertical hole about three feet in diameter, over which a
wooden windlass had been erected. One man was working at the bottom of
the shaft. By means of buckets the superfluous earth was gradually raised
up to the surface, and the hole bored further. The earth removed in the
excavation is then embanked all round the aperture of the shaft. When
the required depth is attai