588 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



honor of their country, had enabled them to organize Persia in ac- 

 cord with the spirit of its people, to enrich it and make it powerful 

 in the eyes of foreigners. 



But the Turlcoman dynasty, on coming to the throne, broke Avith 

 the old institutions, not through politics but through cupidity. In- 

 stead of trusting to feudalism it combated it because of its wealth, 

 forcibly destroyed it wherever possible to enforce its power, replac- 

 ing that system in the government of its new subjects by a hier- 

 archy of tyrants preoccupied altogether with enriching themselves 

 and with responding to the demands of its masters at Teheran. 



All the wealth of the countiy was little by little absorbed by the 

 King and his followers, by his harem, by his ruinous fancies. They 

 lost in Persia the idea of administration, and little by little the 

 thirst of robbers gained the entire country. There was no longer 

 justice, because from top to bottom of the social scale the aim pur- 

 sued was unjust. No longer were there works of public utility, 

 which had been the glorj?" of the reign of Shah x^^bbas. No longer 

 was there an army, or police, for the palace of the King absorbed 

 all the resources, and extortions, as well as the sale of valuable 

 privileges for ready money, caused a general impoverishment of 

 the country. The royal treasury, called the reserve of the Khadjars, 

 was emptied, and nothing was left but the name — the jewels and 

 the silver plate were sold, debts were incurred to pay dancers and 

 astrologers, to maintain the 8,000 people of the harem, and to treat 

 themselves royallj'^ in Europe as well as at home. In this way, in 

 about a hundred years, there passed away an Empire which had 

 merited respect for centuries. 



But though the Khadjars* succeeded in reversing the old order of 

 things in all those parts of their empire which they could directly 

 control, they made hardly any encroachment among the mountain- 

 eers and in regions far from their capital. Feudalism there sur- 

 vives in its full force. In Turkomnnia the tribes still live as in 

 the time of Djenghis Khan and of Timour Leng, and their Beys^ 

 are absolute masters in their tribes. It is the same among the Aghas 

 in certain parts of Kurdistan, among the Khans in Luristan, among 

 the Vahlis in Pusht-i-Kuh, in the country of the Bakhtiyari, and 

 farther still toward the east. 



These are the same Bakhtiyari, seigniors of the old Iranian stock, 

 who seek to overthroAV the absolute power of the Shahan-Shah, 

 renewing after an interval of 17 centuries, under a new form which 

 probably, alas, will be less fortunate, the revolution which Artax- 

 erxes I, son of Papek, the Sassanian, carried on in Persia. 



A third of the Empire, if not the half of the habitable country, 

 has always submitted to feudal rule, and entire Persia is still imbued 



'In Turkestan, Bai ; in Azerbljan and Transcaucasia, Beg; amoug the Osmanlis. Bey. 



