FEUDALISM IN PERSIA DE MORGAN. 589 



with the principle of feudalism, with respect for a hierarchy which 

 has been in force for a thousand years. 



Among the seigniors whose power has been preserved safe and 

 sound there are those who never mention the name of the King, 

 who wait not for his approval to transmit the power from father to 

 son, who for centuries have not turned into the treasury any tribute 

 Avhatever. '\^^ien these and their rayats express themselves con- 

 cerning their Government there is heard nothing but maledictions. 



Since 1889, when I first set foot on the soil of Persia, I have lived 

 much among the nomads and in the military camps. Some reminders 

 of my sojourns among these primitive people will have, I think, 

 some interest. From an ethnographic and sociologic standpoint the 

 story you are about to read gives an accurate account of the situation 

 in which the latest great seigniors of Persia live. I will not at- 

 tempt to describe these old dependencies or enter into all the details 

 of the life of the inhabitants, but desire only briefly to show what 

 their system of life is — what are their ambitions and occupations. 



When, after long snd tedious halts on the dusty and stony roads 

 of the Persian plateau, you emerge from the defiles of Elburz to 

 approach Astrabad, you see in the distance an immense plain, end- 

 ing at the horizon in a blue line seeming to follow that of the 

 Caspian Sea, which bounds the view on the left. This plain begins 

 at the foot of some hills forming the final spurs of the gi-eat range. 

 It seems to reach to infinity. Smooth, without the least wrinkle, 

 of a uniform green color, it surprises by its immensity. Here and 

 there, however, isles rise in this ocean of verdure, some knolls scarcely 

 perceptible in the distance and lost in the hazy bluish color of the 

 horizon. Tlien, with field glasses, you distinguish some small gray 

 points, sometimes grouped, sometimes isolated, now and then joined 

 like the windings of a great serpent. Looking closely you see the 

 land disappear from view, always alike toward the north, and you 

 understand why the ancient geographers considered these imper- 

 ceptible limits as the end of the habitable world. 



This plain is the steppe; these mounds are the vast ruins calcined 

 by the burning of the great cities of antiquity ; these grayish points 

 show the unknown villages grouped by tribes or fixed on the borders 

 of some watercourses which, sprinkling this immense carpet of 

 verdure, flow out in a thousand recesses, slowly, in harmony with 

 the majesty of the region that they traverse. This blue line of the 

 horizon is the Empire of the Tsar, 



Still advancing, you descend some low hills covered with bushes; 

 then all at once the land becomes level and the steppe begins, covered 

 with short grass, without a pebble, without a hillock, to break the 

 monotony of this perfect level. 



