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One more significant fact: At the same time that the fighting broke out at Tabriz, the Russian troops at Resht and Enzeli, hundreds of miles away, shot down the Persian police and many inhabitants without warning or provocation of any kind.

This chapar, or post-service, is established along the great highways of travel between Teheran and Tabreez, Teheran and Meshed, and Teheran and Bushire, with a branch route from the Tabreez trail to the Caspian port of Enzeli; the stations vary from four to eight farsakhs apart.

Of the many changing scenes during the eight months of my recent experiences in Persia, two pictures stand out in such sharp contrast as to deserve special mention. The first is a small party of Americans, of which the writer was one, seated with their families in ancient post-chaises rumbling along the tiresome road from Enzeli, the Persian port on the Caspian Sea, toward Teheran.

Meanwhile, thousands of Russian troops, with cossacks and artillery, were pouring into northern Persia, from Tiflis and Julfa by land and from Baku across the Caspian, to the Persian port of Enzeli, whence they took up their 220-mile march over the Elburz mountains toward Kasvin and Teheran. In the government at Teheran, conference followed conference.

Yesterday I cleaned out my room for something to do, and in the evening a smoky lamp laid it an inch thick in blacks. The pass here is quite blocked, and no one can come or go. The snow falls steadily in fine small flakes. My car has disappeared, with the chauffeur, at Kasvin. I hear of it being sent to Enzeli; but the whole thing is a mystery, and is making me very anxious.

Also, I found I could be of use to Mr. Scott of the Tehran Legation, who was going there. We travelled on the boat together, and had an excellent crossing to Enzeli, a lovely little port, and then we took my car and drove to Resht, where Mr. and Mrs. McLaren, the Consul and his wife, kindly put us up. Their garden is quiet and damp; the house is damp too, and very ugly.

For that same reason, doubtless, she has recently massacred some hundreds of Persians in Tabriz, Enzeli, and Resht, and has hanged numbers of Islamic priests, provincial officials, and constitutionalists whom she classifies as the "dregs of revolution."

On January 11, 1912, I stood in a circle of gloomy American and Persian friends in front of the Atabak palace where we had been living, about to step into the automobile that was to bear us back over the same road to Enzeli.