iving one day in the environs of Teheran, saw a horseman
leading a man whose neck was tied to a substantial rope. Much to my
surprise, when near enough, the prisoner jumped into my carriage, and it
was only after some persuasion on my side and a few pulls at the rope
from the rider at the other end that the unwelcome companion was made to
dismount again.

[Illustration: The Murderer of Nasr-ed-din Shah.]

When in the company of high Mullahs evil characters are also inviolable.

The largest square in Teheran is the Top Meidan or "Cannon plain," where
several small and antiquated pieces of artillery are enclosed in a fence.
Two parallel avenues with trees cross the rectangular square at its
longest side from north to south. In the centre is a large covered
reservoir. The offices of both the Persian and Indo-European Telegraphs
are in this square, and also the very handsome building of the Bank of
Persia.

The square is quite imposing at first sight, having on two sides uniform
buildings with long balconies. The _lunettes_ of the archways underneath
have each a picture of a gun, and on approaching the southern gates of
the parallelogram a smile is provoked by the gigantic but crude, almost
childish representations of modern soldiers on glazed tiles. To the west
is the extensive drill ground for the Persian troops. Another
important artery of Teheran runs from east to west across the same
square.

One cannot but be interested on perceiving along the main thoroughfares
of Teheran a service of horse tramways working quite steadily. But the
rolling stock is not particularly inviting outwardly--much less inwardly.
It is mostly for the use of natives and Armenians, and the carriages are
very dirty. The horses, however, are good. The Tramway Company in the
hands of Russian Jews, I believe, but managed by an Englishman and
various foreigners--subalterns--was doing pretty fair business, and
jointly with the tramways had established a capital service of "Voitures
de remise," which avoided all the trouble and unpleasantness of employing
street cabs. The carriages, mostly victorias, were quite good and clean.

Among other foreign things, Teheran can also boast of a railway--a mere
steam tramway, in reality--of very narrow gauge and extending for some
six miles south of the city to the shrine of Shah Abdul Hazim.

The construction of even so short and unimportant a line met with a great
deal of opposition, especially from the pr