1834.] Journal of a Tour, be. 271 



II. — Journal of a Tour through Georgia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. By 

 Capt. Mignan, Bombay European Regiment, Fellow of the Linncean 

 Society of London, and M. R. A. S. 



At the commencement of the year 1830, after travelling over a large 

 portion of the Russian dominions, I reached the capital of Georgia ; 

 with an intention of prosecuting my journey through those provinces of 

 Persia, which have not been visited by Europeans for many years. 

 With this view I took advantage of the departure of the Persian Prince 

 Khosrou Mirza, with whom I had been for some time associated, and 

 who was now with a numerous suite on his return to his native coun- 

 try, from the court of St. Petersburgh, where he had been deputed by 

 his own Government, to explain the causes which led to the massacre 

 of M. Gribojedoff, the Russian ambassador, and his whole retinue. 

 This melancholy occurrence took place at Tehran, the capital of the 

 Persian kingdom, in February, 1829. 



Khosrou Mirza is the fifth son of His Royal Highness Abbas Mirza, 

 the heir-apparent to the Persian throne, by a Khoi woman of inferior 

 rank and family. He is about three and twenty years of age, of mid- 

 dle stature, and like the majority of Persians, possesses great politesse, 

 and much naivete in conversation. 



On the 31st of January, we left the sublime chain of" Frosty Cauca- 

 sus" in the rear, covered with perpetual snows, and following the 

 course of the river Koor (the Cyrus of the ancients), in a south-easterly 

 direction, entered at once upon the plains of the ancient Iberia, which 

 lays stretching before us, till lost in the blue haze of distance, and pre- 

 senting to the eye a most uninteresting and even depressing effect. 

 At this season it was peculiarly so, every passing cloud sprinkled flakes 

 of snow on our track, and threatened a heavy fall. Our road passed 

 through a succession of low hills of a gravelly soil, lightly mixed with 

 earth, though sufficiently fertile when water for the purposes of irriga- 

 tion can be procured. On the bank of the river, at a short distance 

 from the village of Saganlook, our proposed quarters, we observed some 

 time-worn memorials of the extinct dynasty of the last Georgian kings. 

 Of these, the remains of an old fortress, on the nearest heights, and 

 near it two as ancient towers, with the remains of a bridge, were not the 

 least conspicuous objects. This village, which is about ten miles from 

 Tiflis, was the place marked out for the termination of our firs f day's 

 march, and the houses were so small and wretched, as to be scarcely 

 discernible from the inequalities of the ground. Their description 

 corresponds precisely with those mentioned by Xenophon in the Anaba- 

 sis, or expedition of Cyrus into Persia. In book IV. chap. v. he says, 



