6^0 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1812. 



Rev) appears the town Tahora, io 

 the Theodosian tables : a sufficient 

 presumption that Teheran itself 

 had an original and independent 

 existence, and did not rise only 

 from the ruins of ^ the greater me- 

 tropolis. Its continuance as a 

 contemporary city cannot now be 

 traced distinctly ; it may indeed 

 have borne a difterent name in 

 Eastern geography, as it is the 

 Teheran or Clierijar of lavernier, 

 It re-appears iiovvcAer under its 

 ]iresent namein the journey of the 

 Castilian embassadors toTimur, at 

 a period when the greatness of 

 Key was still very considerable. 

 At the end of two centuries, 

 Pietro delta Valle re-visited it. He 

 calls it the city of planes ; torn. ii. 

 390 : the soil is probably particu- 

 larly adapted to the tree ; for Oli- 

 vier mentions one in the neigh- 

 bourhood that measured round an 

 excrescence at the root, seventy 

 feet; torn. v. p. 102. About the 

 ^ame time with Delia Valle, Her- 

 bert described it fully. It is the 

 Tyroan of his travels. Tavernier 

 notices it more perhaps from the 

 materials of others than from his 

 own observations, tom. i. 313 : 

 and Chardln speaks of it only as 

 " petite ville." Tom. ii. p. 120. 

 Its name occurs with scarcely a 

 line of comment, in a route given 

 by Hanway, vol. 1. ; and though 

 it was a place of some interest in 

 the reign of Nadir, its actual staCte 

 cannot be collected with any cer- 

 tainty till the accession of the 

 present dynasty. It had long in- 

 deed been the capital of a province ; 

 and its name had been frequently 

 connected with objects of im- 

 portance in the history of the last 

 two centuries ; yet it oweu its more 

 immediate pre - enoinence to the 



events of the last few years. H 

 had been so much destroyed by 

 the Aftghans, (when after the bat- 

 tle of Salmanabad they invested it, 

 in the hope of seizing Shah Thamas, 

 wiio had retired thither) that Aga 

 Mahomed, the late king, may be 

 considered as almost its secoud 

 founder, lis nearness to its own 

 tribe and province ; the facilities 

 of raising instantaneously from the 

 wandering tribes around it a large 

 force of cavalry; and its central 

 situation between the general re- 

 sources of his empire and the more 

 exposed frontiers, combined to 

 justify his choice of Teheran as the 

 capital of Persia. It has risen ra- 

 pidly. In 1797 Olivier describes 

 it as little more than two miles in 

 circumference, and of the whole 

 area the palace occupied more 

 than one-fourth. Tom. v. p. 89. 

 In 1809, it is stated to be between 

 four and a half and five miles 

 round the walls. The population, 

 according to Olivier, even with all 

 the encouragement which Aga 

 Mahomed afforded to settlers, and 

 including his own household of 

 three thousand persons, amounted 

 in 1797, to only fifteen thousand 

 persons. Gardanne describes it, 

 ten years afterwards, as having 

 more than fifty thousand inhabit- 

 ants during the winter ; though 

 he notices the almost total deser- 

 tion of the city during the heats of 

 summer. 



f Description of Arz-Roum,from 

 the same. J 

 Arz-roum is built on a rising 

 ground : on the highest part is the 

 castle, surrounded by a double wall 

 of stone, which is chequered at the 

 top by embrazures, and strength- 

 ened here and there by projections 



in 



