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bornly refused to build a railroad uniting the Anatolian towns on the Black Sea coast with Constantinople. The belief of the Turk is that to yield to the long demand for this road, though it would confessedly give new impetus to places without number, in the interior of Asia Minor, as well as along the littoral, would in the end be to furnish a means for Russian troops some day to approach Stamboul. It was this same dread of Russian intrusion that for so long a time kept the Persians from restoring the road between Resht and Teheran. The approach to the capital from the north was, until a few years ago, the most insufferably bad road in northern Persia, but here again the Russian has cleared his own pathway. There has been built by a Russian company a first-class high road in place of the rude and sometimes absolutely impracticable track with which the Persians had long been satisfied.

This road, which is of inestimable importance in view of the fact that Russia's mastery of the Caspian, so far as ships are

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such brilliant prospects, will survive the tension to the end of its charter term, which is ninety-nine years. Its prerogatives, like everything else that is English, have been materially curtailed since the Russians obtained the whip hand. Its chief support was derived from lending money to the Persian government at interest of fifteen per cent., and the importation of silver bullion to be struck into krans (the commercial unit of value, about ten cents) in Teheran. That part of its business has been withdrawn since the Russian loan, and the bank is not allowed to take mortgages on property. It conducts a foreign exchange, and has, under the provisions of its charter, a monopoly of the issuance of paper money. This currency was made the means of an attack on the institution about two years ago, which only chance prevented from resulting disastrously. The paper issue was industriously collected throughout the kingdom, and a vast quantity of it presented for redemption at the Bank's branch in Tabriz. It so happened that an unusually large amount of silver was stored in the vaults at the time, preparatory to shipment, and the demand for specie was met. Before returning the paper to circulation, the Bank officials improved the opportunity to stamp it "Payable only in Tabriz,"—or Shiraz, or Teheran— a certain amount for each branch throughout the kingdom. But the end is not yet. The Russians have established a banque de prets at Teheran, to which a great part of the Persian business is being diverted, and branches of which are to be started in other cities in competition with the English concerns. It is in such and divers ways that the Russian power is sinking its roots deeper and deeper into Persian soil. It is never demonstrative, but it is never idle. A single memorandum concerning the kingdom's financial condition is sufficient to show that Russia's present plan of acquisition can be pursued until the swallowing of Persia is complete, and, given adequate resources, it should not take so long, either. The temporary relief which is afforded by the loans cannot turn back the tide which has so rapidly, of late years, been cutting away the financial underpinning of Persia. Under the stimulus of the principal loan before referred to, the kran advanced in value to forty-six, to the pound sterling; but it shortly fell again to fifty-one, and the Shah, attended by his

doctors and ministers and wives, and 5,000 other of his subjects as far as the border, started for St. Petersburg.

In the military arm of the Persian establishment, as in nearly all else, Russian influence has become paramount. The Hungarian drill officers, who for years have been employed to control the organization, equipment and training of Persian troops, have gradually been displaced to make room for Russians, thus ensuring perfect cognizance, at least, of what war force the Shah has at his disposal. The effect of the exchange is plain. The Hungarians organized infantry; the new regiments now forming are cavalry, and cavalry that might be transmuted into Russian in a day, so far as dress or tactics are concerned. The commanding officers, in many of them, hold rank in the Russian army; the uniform is the uniform of the Cossack; the weapons and I have examined several of them in the possession of pickets and patrol riders along the roads of Persiaare chiefly the product of Russian armories.

Again, observe the Kurds. The hardest problem with which Persia has had to deal, since Russia's suppression of the man-stealing Turkomans, has been the restraint of these Western border men, who are a continual menace to Persian peace. No enterprise of any moment can be begun by the Persian government without assurance in advance that during the time required for it the Kurds will be quiet. Nobody has ever subdued these reckless warriors yet, though many have tried it. It is a task no Persian general would undertake gladly. The Russian is beginning to go another way about it. He will use them. Indeed it is not unlikely that in some ways he has used them already. When the Shah, after repeated visitations to St. Petersburg, and corresponding periods of royal extravagance in Paris, was perilously near having worn out his welcome in Europe and still declared that he had no appetite for going home, there came out of Persia, where Russian agencies are in plenty, a most timely and effective report that the Kurds, though they had promised to abide peaceably in their mountains until the Shah's junket should be over, were making ready for an uprising. The Shah promptly packed up and started home, for this was about the most disconcerting news he could receive. Nothing has been heard of the Kurdish uprising since. It was

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tion several years ago, before British influence in the Shah's country had become a memory. Among the concessions which Sir Drummond Wolfe obtained for Englishmen was that of the Persian Road Company. This was organized, with charter rights, for the building of a toll road from Teheran to the head of the Persian Gulf. The enterprise was financed by the Imperial Bank of Persia, another of Wolfe's creations. Surveys were made of the entire route, and the road actually built from Teheran to Kum, a distance of about seventy miles. At the end of three years £200,000 had been expended, but the Persians rebelled at the payment of tolls, and refused to use the road. The expensive bridges were useless, for in the Shah's realm time is the cheapest of all commodities, and the natives, when the streams were flooded, waited for them to subside, usually a matter of only two or three days, rather than use the bridges. The Bank still keeps the road in repair in hope of selling it. The customer is at hand, and waiting for the price to decline, and it is safe to predict that the English trade route will in the end become a continuation of the Russian highway from Resht to Teheran, and then be completed to the Gulf, in accordance with the original plans of the English engineers.

Indeed, it seems reasonable enough to doubt if the Imperial Bank itself, which started with

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such brilliant prospects, will survive the tension to the end of its charter term, which is ninety-nine years. Its prerogatives, like everything else that is English, have been materially curtailed since the Russians obtained the whip hand. Its chief support was derived from lending money to the Persian government at interest of fifteen per cent., and the importation of silver bullion to be struck into krans (the commercial unit of value, about ten cents) in Teheran. That part of its business has been withdrawn since the Russian loan, and the bank is not allowed to take mortgages on property. It conducts a foreign exchange, and has, under the provisions of its charter, a monopoly of the issuance of paper money. This currency was made the means of an attack on the institution about two years ago, which only chance prevented from resulting disastrously. The paper issue was industriously collected throughout the kingdom, and a vast quantity of it presented for redemption at the Bank's branch in Tabriz. It so happened that an unusually large amount of silver was stored in the vaults at the time, preparatory to shipment, and the demand for specie was met. Before returning the paper to circulation, the Bank officials improved the opportunity to stamp it "Payable only in Tabriz,"—or Shiraz, or Teherana certain amount for each branch throughout the kingdom. But the end is not yet. The The Russians have established a banque de prets at Teheran, to which a great part of the Persian business is being diverted, and branches of which are to be started in other cities in competition with the English concerns.

It is in such and divers ways that the Russian power is sinking its roots deeper and deeper into Persian soil. It is never demonstrative, but it is never idle. A single memorandum concerning the kingdom's financial condition is sufficient to show that Russia's present plan of acquisition can be pursued until the swallowing of Persia is complete, and, given adequate resources, it should. not take so long, either. The temporary relief which is afforded by the loans cannot turn back the tide which has so rapidly, of late years, been cutting away the financial underpinning of Persia. Under the stimulus of the principal loan before referred to, the kran advanced in value to forty-six, to the pound sterling; but it shortly fell again to fifty-one, and the Shah, attended by his

doctors and ministers and wives, and 5,000 other of his subjects as far as the border, started for St. Petersburg.

In the military arm of the Persian establishment, as in nearly all else, Russian influence has become paramount. The Hungarian drill officers, who for years have been employed to control the organization, equipment and training of Persian troops, have gradually been displaced to make room for Russians, thus ensuring perfect cognizance, at least, of what war force the Shah has at his disposal. The effect of the exchange is plain. The Hungarians organized infantry; the new regiments now forming are cavalry, and cavalry that might be transmuted into Russian in a day, so far as dress or tactics are concerned. The commanding officers, in many of them, hold rank in the Russian army; the uniform is the uniform of the Cossack; the weapons—and I have examined several of them in the possession of pickets and patrol riders along the roads of Persiaare chiefly the product of Russian armories.

Again, observe the Kurds. The hardest problem with which Persia has had to deal, since Russia's suppression of the man-stealing Turkomans, has been the restraint of these Western border men, who are a continual menace to Persian peace. No enterprise of any moment can be begun by the Persian government without assurance in advance that during the time required for it the Kurds will be quiet. Nobody has ever subdued these reckless warriors yet, though many have tried it. It is a task no Persian general would undertake gladly. The Russian is beginning to go another way about it. He will use them. Indeed it is not unlikely that in some ways he has used them already. When the Shah, after repeated visitations to St. Petersburg, and corresponding periods of royal extravagance in Paris, was perilously near having worn out his welcome in Europe and still declared that he had no appetite for going home, there came out of Persia, where Russian agencies are in plenty, a most timely and effective report that the Kurds, though they had promised to abide peaceably in their mountains until the Shah's junket should be over, were making ready for an uprising. The Shah promptly packed up and started home, for this was about the most disconcerting news he could receive. Nothing has been heard of the Kurdish uprising since. It was

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