"When you are restored to your poor patient husband, I shall send for my niece Nelly to join me."

"But perhaps Mr. Weston won't let her come, as the country is so disturbed."

"He will if he knows she is needed here."

"After all, he has seven of them," said Janie in her old maladroit way. "If you asked him, he would tell you that our family gives its women as well as its men to the Empire," said Eleanor.

"Of course I'll meet her at Bombay," said Janie, anxious to atone; "and Jock and I will bring her up here, and be paying guests at St. Martin's for the hot weather. They will have made the road practicable for tongas by that time."

When it was once settled that Eleanor should remain at St. Martin's, the details proved unexpectedly easy of arrangement. Pending Nelly's arrival, she was to have the company of Sister Lawson, who had been discovered by the eagle eye of Sister M'Kay to be contemplating that most heinous crime in the nurse's calendar, a breakdown. A travelling companion for Janie appeared at the time in the person of Miss D'Costa, who was merely leaving temporarily on a visit to her relatives. As she rode down the track, she impressed upon Janie that she would never have left dear Miss Weston even for an hour, had it not been for the strong representations of her family. They were such a united family, and never before had one of them been absent for two whole years from the family home. Janie answered mechanically, and wished that

Miss D'Costa would not say "familee." She herself was going down again into the rush and bustle attending the rise of the new Granthistan on the ruins of the old, and home life and love and duties awaited her there, but quiet little St. Martin's could never cease to be dear to her. Her heart turned joyfully to the approaching meeting with her husband, but not even in the thought of him could she forget the solitary figure of Eleanor on her watch-tower, with the flag drooping above her, and behind her the mountain peaks that guarded the forbidden country.

The war was over-as usual entered upon without preparation and marked by "unfortunate incidents." The only gainer from it so far appeared to be Hercynia, who remained as strong in herself as before, and infinitely more powerful for mischief, owing to the exhaustion of both Britain and Scythia. But there was the possibility of a moral gain for which even the widows and orphans at home, and in India the destruction of the work of generations and the raising of passions which it would take years to allay, were not too high a price. The fleet could not defend the line of the Himalayas and Hindu Kush; it could not even steam up to Payab. Would the enthusiasm for military reform and for national military training survive the crisis that had called it forth, or prove-as on all previous occasions-as evanescent as the devil's religious aspirations? Would the average Briton realize that holding the keys of Empire was not a summer day's pastime, nor a charge to be delegated to a few men at a distance, but a trust the burden of which must be borne by every man and woman in the country? On the answer to these questions it depended whether the island in the North Seas could maintain her claim to be the mother of an imperial

race.

Sydney C. Grier.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XL.

2127

cross the narrow Persian bridge which gives ingress to the city from the north your æsthetic expectations are shattered. The broad open road is lost in a narrow valley. Bleak mud-walls enclose you on every side. Your only landscape is baked-brick and blue sky, with an occasional poplar rearing its tapering head above the lofty partitions. If it were not for this occasional patch of green one might have been back in old Omdurman, as it was at the time of our occupation. Nor does acquaintance immediately bring relief; as the carriage lumbers on over the vicious cobbles you only seem to become more hopelessly entangled in a maze of meaningless alleys. Then you plunge into what appears to be a long tunnel. As the sight becomes more used to the darkness you realize that you have reached the far-famed Tabriz bazaars-the most noted in all Persia. The first view, however, is not encouraging. The bazaars are all enclosed with the domed roofing which is a feature of Persian architecture. Indifferently lighted and redolent of the waste of perishable merchandise, they are dingy and offensive thoroughfares. The shops are the merest cupboards in the walls, and upon first acquaintance are as unattractive as the streets themselves. But the crowd

Tabriz, 1st Aug. 1908. that throngs this unsavory thoroughfare is interesting. It is only in Central Asia that such a cosmopolitan medley can be gathered. Long-coated Persians wander listlessly from shop to shop; untamed Kurds and Kharadaghis with greasy curls and baggy trousers insolently bar your way; industrious Chaldeans glance nervously up at you from their labors-to them, in the midst of militant Moslemism. their faith is a cross the like of which no Christian in the West is called to bear; unwashed Armenians, who ape European habits and vestments as if in protest against the iron heel of race superiority which Mohammedan Persia drives into their backs; shock-bearded peasants, who block the thoroughfare with their endless droves of donkeys; veiled women, all dressed alike in inscrutable visor and striped cloak, shuffled past with loose iron-shod heels clattering against the cobbles; here a Caucasian Cossack from the Russian Consular guard; there a Pathan sowar from the British Consul's escort, his lance-like figure and well-groomed uniform at once a wonder and a lesson to the degenerate Persians round him; hawkers of all descriptions, selling fruits and small-wares, even to typhoidimpregnated ice-cream; beggars and mendicants innumerable.

What is this? The crowd parts, and five or six stalwart ruffians, tight-laced in cartridge-belts and armed to the teeth, take the middle of the way. At the sight of them three disreputable Persians, with badges upon their high hats, immediately dive into a convenient alley. Why is this? It is simple: the ruffians in arms are revolutionists; the squirming Persians in high hats are the Shah's regulars sent to the town to restore order!

But Tabriz is not all mud walls with

cheap stucco doorways. Once you can penetrate beyond the iron-barred gates in the walls you find that they enclose beautiful gardens. Social seclusion is a fetish with the Persian. It was grafted into his life's system in the Middle Ages. How many times has Tabriz, the "sanitarium for fever," been swept by the ravages of war? How many times has the blood of its young men run red above the cobbles, while its walls re-echoed to the despairing cries of its ravished maidens? It is not once or twice. The pillage of Tabriz is a tradition which every mother amongst the wild tribesmen of Central Asia, from Tashkend in the north to Baghdad in the south, croons over her man-child. To the written knowledge of historians it has been royally sacked nine times. In turn Shah Suja, Tamerlane, Selim, the Sultan Suleiman, Osman Pasha, Shah Abbas, Murad, the Turks of Van, and the Russians themselves, have turned it over to their licentious soldiery, while of minor raids and oppressions there is no count. Why, at this very moment, as I sit writing, the wild horsemen of the Karadagh, in the name of Mahamed Ali, the Shah, are looting the suburbs and carrying away to the hills fair Tabrizi damsels to be their handmaidens. Small wonder, therefore, that the inhabitants surround their gardens with unscalable walls, imprison their homes within low iron-studded gates, and so dress their women that the fame of their beauty may not penetrate beyond the confines of their own domain.

But within these walls there may be found some of that half-mythical, halfpoetic oriental splendor which in our dreams we associate with Persia. The town has been made the water-catch of a wonderful artificial supply from the hills that surround it. There the sinking of wells and traverse-tunnels furnishes an unlimited flow of pure

crystal water. The town is honeycombed with a distributing drainage, so that every household of importance has its own supply passing through its grounds. This is responsible for the beautiful vegetation. The green of poplar, elm, acacia, walnut, peach, and willow rises above the walls, while the most beautiful flowers flourish with but the smallest assistance. The aim, too, of the Persian architect is ornamental. To us his art is crude, and perhaps his façades and brightlyilluminated frescoes do not rise above the common level of fantastic finish. But his efforts harmonize with the open straggling garden, the splashes of midsummer bloom, the stagnant pond, filigree veranda, and irregular mosaics, which form the basework for his conceptions.

But the visitor's disappointment in Tabriz is but momentary. Once the monotony of the everlasting mud walls and inconsequent alleys has ceased to weary, there is so much in this wonderful town that is beautiful, quaint, and instructive, that the sympathetic will find pleasure at every corner of the narrow streets he was at first inclined to despise. The antiquity of it all appals you. To think that the first of these dirt-colored walls was built to the order of the ailing Zubaidah, the wife of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, and that in the Middle Ages the renown of Tabriz was such that Edward the First of England found it expedient to send envoys to its then ruler, Ghazan Khan. All this brings food for serious thought. Here it was that men were found who penetrated in conquest to the plains of India and the shores of the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas. A town whose sons were giants when our own were semibarbarians, poorly cultured in war, and almost ignorant of the arts and blessings of civilization. Yet to-day? It is hard to suppress a smile as one lives

in their midst. These sons that were very giants have proved the hares in the race of development between nations. They have slept on the track while the tortoise from the West has seized the prize!

"To-morrow, by the grace of God!" In that one sentence you have Tabriz, -nay, you have the whole of Persia.

THE ARK.

If not the most interesting, the most prominent building in Tabriz is the Citadel. Tabriz city, with its two hundred and fifty mosques and eight gates, is oblong in the shape of its area. The Citadel stands on a mound somewhere near the centre of the oblong. It consists of a keep-a square heavy brick tower, about 100 feet high, with a gallery on the top, and walls 25 feet thick at the base-and a bastioned-banquetted wall enclosing about an acre of courtyard, through which passes one of the many watercourses. It is loopholed throughout, and has all the appearance of medieval strength. Its history, even if mainly traditional, is interesting. It was originally a mosque, and is said to have been raised by Ali Shah Jehan, the successor of the Ghazan Khan Mongol whom Edward I. favored with his communications. At that time this mosque as a building was the largest in all Persia. later times its uses as a mosque died out, and it was fashioned into the Citadel of the town. It is known as "The Ark." Many traditions cling to its mouldering walls and commanding keep. The first is that the bricks from which the keep was constructed were each tossed up to the masons by a powerful Ethiopian slave, who, for this great feat of strength, was immediately liberated. Nothing, however, has been handed down to commemorate the skill of the masons who must have caught these baked missiles, and whose prowess seems, if anything, to have been

But in

greater even than that of the Ethiopian. Another legend is that a youth of the city wagered that he would be able to scale the keep. The whole population assembled to see him make the attempt. Placing his back to the wall, the youth painfully worked himself up to the top by placing his fingers in the interstices between the narrow bricks. As soon as the youth reached the summit his wonderful feat of daring was rewarded by instant execution, the consensus of opinion amongst his judges being that it would be against the public safety to let such an expert climber live. It would be placing a premium upon burglary! Yet one more legend concerning the keep of the Ark.

As is natural in a country where sensation in public executions is much prized, the keep could not escape from service as a scaffold. It was customary to cast the unfortunate victims from its summit. On one occasion, however, a woman was pushed over the parapet, and it is credibly stated her clothes so took the wind, that she sailed slowly to the ground and alighted gracefully upon her small feet.

Of recent years the Ark has been used as an arsenal and military store. But when, two years ago, the present Shal confirmed his father's order and conferred a form of representative gorernment upon Persia, the local exponents of constitutional procedure immediately took armed possession of the Citadel. It has remained in their hands ever since, and for the last week any European on the south side of the edifice, if he cared to take the trouble, could from his roof have seen these Constitutionals endeavoring to make practice against the Royalists with a 15-pounder Skoda field-gun. To any one familiar with artillery practice the spectacle was entertaining. They usually succeeded in "getting off" three I The base of the keep is greater than the summit, so that the walls gently incline inwards.

rounds in two hours. For five days fuze-setting defeated them entirely, After that "an expert" was somewhere dug out of the town, and as a consequence the business portion suffered amazingly from "premature bursts." The only persons who seemed unhurt from this shell-fire were the Royalists. It should also be placed on record that the first round discharged by this field-piece was disastrous to the original layer, as in running back the trail pinned him desperately to a wall.

HASSAN ALI KHAN.

I first men Hassan Ali Khan by accident. I have now to allow that this chance meeting with Hassan Ali was one of the many fortunate circumstances of my life. The Mullas had been preaching in the chief of the two hundred and fifty mosques in the city. As the mosques and the Mullas of the reactionary faction were closely invested by the revolutionary influence, it was obvious that the preaching in the chief mosque was anti-Royalist. That it was vehement I myself had been witness, though I could not do more than catch here and there a word that I could recognize. The congregation were wildly enthusiastic. They smote their breasts and called in unison upon the name of their favorite Imam, and then, as if seized with a single purpose, welled from under the domed roof of their house of worship. Out they came into the narrow street. The rush pushed me, the Feringhi, into the place designed for the weakest, and in order to save my bones from being crushed I sought the hospitality of a grimy coffee-shop. Here it was that I met Hassan Ali. I had nearly fallen into the lap of a well-dressed young Persian.

"These Persians are d-d fools, yes?" My first impression was surprise that I should be addressed in English,

a language rare in Tabriz; my next feeling was one of annoyance that this young fellow should seek my acquaintance by abuse of his fellow-countrymen. But when I looked into his face and saw the humor in the sparkle of his eyes, I forgave him his apparent want of race loyalty.

"Surely you have sympathy with them?"

"Me, no! I disgust them very much, yes?" And the twinkle in the young man's eye communicated itself to his whole face. He had a most pleasant smile.

"By which I take it that you are a Royalist, and do not believe what the Mullas have been preaching?" I said.

"Me, I am a Royalist, yes. I am a Persian, I must believe what the Mullas tell me. If I do not believe, I am an infidel. I must believe what that small boy-preacher there was saying. He is not yet twelve years old, and he has never yet read a book, and preaches to them that they must have Constitution, must be free, must own no master but their own desires, and must go to Paradise and drink camel's milk and eat dates and honey forever. Of course I must believe. For what other reason have I studied your language, customs, and manners, read your books, but to believe the words of that stripling who does not know that a constitution is not a thing of bricks and mortar. Yes!"

"Then if you are satisfied that these preachers are right, why do you call your fellow-countrymen fools?"

The twinkle again appeared in Hassan Ali's eye as he answered, "Because I too am a Persian. These Persians are d-d fools! Yes?"

I will have more to tell you about Hassan Ali later on. I have learned more about poor priest-clogged Persia in his society than from any other

source.