1822.] 
military tenure. These are regularly 
officered, and both men and officers 
are liable to be called upon to serve 
six months without pay; if serving 
for a longer period, rations and a 
small pay are allowed. They are a 
highly useful body of men, and quite 
peculiar to Russia: that they are ca- 
pable of being moulded into a more 
regular and efficient military body, 
admits of little doubt. 
At Mosdok, after travelling a dis- 
tance of 2300 miles, I was obliged to 
quit my carriage, and proceed on 
horseback. Through Circassia I had 
the good fortune to travel in company 
with Prince Bubatoff, a Georgian offi- 
cer, with the rank of colonel in the 
Russian service; his experience was 
of great advantage, and enabled me to 
cross the Caucasus, and- to reach 
Teflis, notwithstanding the difficulties 
of the road, in seven days. At the 
latter place I halted six days, to hire 
fresh servants, cattle, &c. 
Georgia was taken possession of by 
the Russians about twenty-two years 
ago, in virtue of a cession on the part 
of the vali or prince of the country, 
who, being a man of weak intellect, 
could not defend his patrimony against 
so many turbulent neighbours, as the 
Turks, Persians, the Ossetian and 
other warlike mountaineers. 
The 5th of Oct. I passed the last 
military post of the Russians, and the 
Persian boundary. A desert hilly 
tract of country marks the limits of 
these empires. The 7th, I reached 
Erivan, at the foot (comparatively 
speaking) of Mount Ararat. It con- 
sists of two mounts, the greater and 
the smaller Ararat; the largest and 
loftiest is covered with perpetual 
snow, and quite inaccessible to human 
steps. The ark is still believed by 
pious Armenians to rest on the sum- 
mit. If Noah, with his sons and 
daughters, after their long confinement 
in the ark, did, as related in Genesis, 
descend from the top of Ararat to the 
plains below, their means and physical 
powers must have been incomparably 
greater than those possessed by man- 
kind in modern times. 
Tabris, in Aderbijan, is the head- 
quarters of the Prince Royal of Persia, 
Abbas Mirza, who has twelve batta- 
lions of infantry, disciplined after the 
English mode of drill: he was absent 
on an excursion against the Turks at 
Erzeroum, with a body of~40,000 
troops. The winter, however, which 
Recent Overland Journey to India. 3 
is very severe in this country, had al- 
ready set in, and would soon drive him 
homeward. 
Tehran, the present capital of Per- 
sia, | reached the 1st of November ; 
and, about the same time, the King 
Fateh Ali Shah set out on an hunting 
excursion, into the mountains near - 
Demarand, and by this means I was 
precluded from paying my respects to 
his. Majesty. After a stay of nine 
days, I set off for Ispahan, the ancient 
capital under Shah Abbas the Great. 
The magnificence of the palaces, gar- 
dens, bridges, bazaars, and mosques of 
this place are extremely well detailed in 
Sir J. Chardin’s Travels; since he had 
an advantage few travellers enjoy, of 
having a correct knowledge of the 
language of the country he describes, 
and an intimate acquaintance with the 
people among whom he resided. 
Travelling from Ispahan to Shiraz, 
I was excessively pinched by the cold, 
since the country is high and moun- 
tainous, and covered with snow and 
ice. My clothes were hardly warm 
enough, and at night, instead of a snug 
room and fireside, I had nothing but 
an open shed or caravansera, without 
door or window, and often without a 
fire-place. Shiraz is the pleasantest 
town Ihave seen in Persia; its bazaar 
is excellent, the climate good, and 
every thing not only plentiful, -but 
moderate. Scott Waring, in his Tra- 
vels, gives a good account of the town 
and its curiosities: I went in pil- 
grimage to the tombs of Sadi and 
Hafiz, the two greatest poets of Per- 
sia. 1 of course visited Persepolis ; 
but it has been described so often and 
so well by Chardin, Le Brun, Taver- 
nier, and of late by Franklin, Porter, 
and Johnson, that you would not wish 
me to repeat the same story. 
I could narrate to you the modern 
history of a Persian Lucretia, who, to 
escape violation, precipitated herself 
down a fathomless abyss; but have 
not room for such detail, and must 
conclude my letter, by noticing a cu- 
rious circumstance in regard to the 
spread of the cholera morbus, a dis- 
ease most fatal in its effects, and 
which seems already to have spread 
over a fourth of the habitable globe. 
After afflicting Hindostan and the 
Deccan for the last five years, witha 
mortality beyond all calculation, it 
extended itself to the distant countries 
of Siam, Java, the Manilla Isles, and 
to China, on one hand; and in October 
last 
