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To reach Djulfa, the Armenian and European quarter of Ispahán, the latter city must be crossed, also the great stone bridge spanning the "Zandarood," or "Living River," so called from the supposed excellence of its water for drinking purposes, and its powers of prolonging life.

Bruce, whose good deeds during the famine are not likely to be forgotten by the people of Ispahán and Djulfa, whatever their creed or religion. The trade of Djulfa is insignificant, although there is a large amount of wine and arak manufactured there, and sold "under the rose" to the Ispahánis. The production of the juice of the grape is somewhat primitive. In a few days fermentation commences.

We found the house of Mr. P , the Telegraph Superintendent of the Indo-European Company, with some difficulty, for the roads or rather lanes of Djulfa are tortuous and confusing. Mr. P was out, but had left ample directions for our entertainment.

Chardin the traveller, writing in A.D. 1667, gives the population of Ispahán at considerably over a million, but it does not now exceed fifty thousand, including the suburb of Djulfa. The Madrassa, or College, the governor's palace, and "Chil Situn," or "Palace of the Forty Pillars," are the only buildings that still retain some traces of their former glory.

But the town, or settlement, is as clean and well-kept as Ispahán itself is the reverse, which is saying a great deal. Djulfa is called after the Armenian town of that name in Georgia, the population of which, for commercial reasons, was removed to this place by Shah Abbas in A.D. 1603.

If the streets of Ispahán are narrow, those of Djulfa, the Armenian settlement, can only be described as almost impassable, for, although the widest are barely ten feet across, quite a third of this space is taken up by the deep ditch, or drain, lined with trees, by which all are divided.

In one of the side chambers are pictures representing ladies and gentlemen in the costume of Queen Elizabeth's time. How they got to Ispahán I was unable to discover. They are very old, and evidently by good masters. The way back to our comfortable quarters at Djulfa lay over the Zandarood river.

Djulfa, near Ispahán, was once a large and flourishing city, with as many as twenty district parishes, and a population of sixty thousand souls, now dwindled down to a little over two thousand, the greater part of whom live in great want and poverty. The city once possessed as many as twenty churches, but most of these are now in ruins.