MOUNSEY'S CAUCASUS AND PERSIA.* WE are not frequently favoured with
the impressions formed by her Majesty's Secretaries of Legations abroad of the countries in which they reside. Useful, though dry, contributions to Blue- 4books, in the shape of Commercial Reports, are the general staple 'of their literary work. Nevertheless, the varied information they -can gain, coupled with the excellent opportunities open to them of acquiring authentic knowledge by glimpses ' behind the scenes,' which do not fall to the lot of ordinary travellers, is an invaluable aid in giving a life-like tone to sketches of foreign travel.
The book lately published by Mr. Mounsey is an excellent one. Though modestly professing to be merely a series of notes jotted down during a few months' travels in the East, it really contains a careful study of the places, customs, sports, traditions, and anti- .quities of a land with which the general run of Englishmen are most imperfectly acquainted.
In the usual routine of official life, Mr. Mounsey was appointed Secretary to Her Majesty's Legation at Teheran, and in the winter of 1865, he set out for his post,—no easy matter either, for arrived at the Golden Horn, he had still the stormy waters of the Black Sea to traverse, and many hundred miles to aide in the snow before he finally reached the mud huts of Teheran.
Mr. Mounsey's journey to Persia's capital is graphically told. Ile carries his reader with him, and the interests, discomforts, nay, the dangers of the route, are easily realised :—
" Far as the eye could reach," he writes, "o'er mountain, plain, and -valley, spread one vast sheet of snow, bewildering from its vastness, painfully blinding in the sunshine from its intolerable glare, sickening -without it from its lifeless monotony."
Thus following drearily along he tract of the silent telegraph tine, which in many places alone mapped out his path, how devoutly our traveller must have longed for the presence of the familiar locomotive !
Of Teheran we are enabled to take a bird's-eye view. Here -squalor elbows luxury, as it does, for the matter of that, in more favoured localities nearer home. Miserable houses of sun-dried bricks form the dwellings of the poor, whilst a description of the 'Sovereign's palace reads like a page out of the Arabian Nights, and recounts the splendour of his Majesty's throne of sandal- wood studded with emeralds, and of his carpet sewn with pearls. Tortunately but little rain falls in Teheran. Indeed, a few bows of Each down-pours as have lately favoured the British metropolis would suffice to " melt " that city. Of high life in the capital we have some excellent descriptions, including -quaint court ceremonials in town and camp ; a Persian mar- aiage, and more curious still, a graphic account of one of those mysterious religious performances of a Persian passion-play, at which Mr. Mounsey must have enacted the part of Peeping Tom,
sight of which is as absolutely prohibited to Christians as ds a visit by them to mosques and baths used by Mussulmaus. These representations appear to resemble those held in Bavaria, though they evidently excite a far greater amount of emotional feeling. The tragic story of Persia's hero, Hossein, transports the apathetic Asiatic into a state of utter phrenzy. " At the close of the scene," writes Mr. Mounsey, "the women tore their veils and &air, the men rent their garments and beat their bare breasts until the very blood flowed."
The innate love of practical joking found in every clime, be it in the barrack of a British garrison town or in the dignified atmosphere of Eastern palace life, is amusingly illustrated by Mr. Mounsey
:- "His Majesty the Shah," he writes, "having taken a fancy to a -portable indiarubber boat that its owner, one of our officers, had got tout from England with the view of exploring some of the rivers, begged, and of course obtained, permission to present it to him. It was at once transported to the palace, and, when inflated, my friend had then the honour of paddling royalty about on one of the tanks. 'The amusement pleased His Majesty, and he took to paddling him- self ; the courtiers followed suit, and eventually the King caused a :throne to be erected near the tank, in order that he might at his .ease watch their progress in this new accomplishment. It was probably too slow to afford him satisfaction, for one day he announced that he should like to see how many persons his boat was capable of carrying. Three could sit comfortably in it, but there was room for a dozen, and accordingly a dozen A. D. C.'s and 'chamberlains, in their handsome shawl dresses and gold brocade, stepped in. Meanwhile, some one in the royal confidence had secretly opened the valves ; the boat was shoved off towards the middle of the tank, and, as the air escaped, gradually sank lower and lower, and finally disappeared with its gorgeous and unsuspecting freight in the water. For a moment there was nothing visible on the surface of the tank but lambswool hats and linen skull-caps ; for a moment, too, there was silence. Then a dozen shaven heads were seen wagging their tufts • A Journey through the Caucasus and the Interior of Persia. By Augustus A. Mounsey, F.R.G.S., Second Secretary to Her Majesty's Embassy at Vienna. London; Smith, Elder, and Co. 1872. and side locks, and a dozen months and noses were heard puffing, blowing, and snorting as their owners struggled slowly to the side. The Shah laughed long and loudly, and was so much pleased with the success of his stratagem that when his victims emerged, all dripping and draggled, from their bath, and stood shivering and crestfallen before him, he deigned to inquire, 'What news of the fish?' Persians can take a joke as it is meant; and though the courtiers no doubt wished the boat and its donor a speedy descent to a warmer climate, I dare say they all ultimately joined in their Sovereign's laughter."
Mr. Mounsey's pages afford agreeable gleanings for all classes of readers, and he touches lightly on many points that a less skilful hand might have overwrought.
In au excursion to the most celebrated cities of the land he introduces us to pictures of Persian life and landscape, which he describes most vividly. What weird scenery in that inhospitable country ! What wonderful formations of nature as by gigantic steps a descent is effected to the low- lands bordering on the Persian Gulf ! and what a striking trans- formation-scene awaits the traveller there! No longer dreary deserts, and the dull monotony of sterile, burnt-up Upper Persia, but now grassy prairies, rich with variegated-coloured plants, interspersed amongst fields of waving corn,—sunny scenes inten- sified in colour and beauty like the richest of Persian carpets.
We must refer our readers to Mr. Mounsey's pages for a detailed account of Persia's holy places, and an excellent epitome of the history of her religious sects ; of Ispahan, grand in its fallen glory ; of Shiraz, the capital of Persia proper, and the kernel of the empire founded by Cyrus, of that hero's tomb ; of the stupendous monuments cut out in the living rocks, and of the ruins and tombs and the curious legends attaching to them.
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