MODERN PERSIA AND ITS CAPITAL 



365 



Photograph by John B. Jackson 



THE NEWER, OR NORTHERN, PORTION OF TEHERAN BOASTS A TRAMWAY 



Wide, well-graded streets, electric lights, motion-picture theaters, European shops, and 

 semi-Western architecture distinguish this section of the Persian capital from the southern 

 section, with its great bazaars, narrow, twisting alleys, and blind-fronted adobe house walls 

 (see text, page 371). 



The first appearance of Persia is dis- 

 concerting, because it does not look like 

 Persia. It agrees very well with what 

 one might expect of Mindoro or Sumatra, 

 but the standard requirements for the 

 "Land of the Lion and the Sun" are 

 conspicuous by their absence. 



Soon after the uncertain haze to the 

 south has resolved itself into shore-lines, 

 comes one's first impressionistic glimpse — 

 the thatched or red-tiled roofs of the 

 low-lying town ; then a wealth of wide- 

 branching trees, the outposts of a dark, 

 enveloping mass of jungle ; and behind 

 this, and rising swiftly to unbelievable 

 height, the dusky, cloud-mantled moun- 

 tain range which bars entrance to the 

 desert hinterland, the real Persia. 



If the exotic luxuriance of vegetation 

 and the careless primitiveness of the 

 thatched huts and rustic booths of the 

 inhabitants disturb your preconceived 

 visions of the country, you will find them 

 fading with shocking suddenness at your 

 first introduction to its population, when 

 the boat ties up at the pier and an ill- 

 smelling rabble of ragged, half -naked 

 villains swarms on board to wrangle 

 about getting your luggage ashore. 



A courteous, frock-coated Persian offi- 

 cial, conventionally crowned with what 

 appears to be a cross-section of an opera 



hat, passes you through the ceremonies 

 of the custom-house, and in a brief space 

 of time you are rolling inland in a Per- 

 sianized Russian drosky, near fragrant 

 orange groves, past lily-padded lagoons, 

 and through flower-carpeted jungles alive 

 with an endless variety of semi-tropical 

 song-birds and waterfowl. 



Arrival at the city of Resht after a 

 twenty-mile ride of the rarest kaleido- 

 scopic loveliness is certainly a transition 

 from where every prospect pleases to 

 where only man is vile. 



The sixty inches of annual rainfall, 

 which have made the surrounding coun- 

 try a Garden of Eden, have conspired 

 with man's inventive genius to turn this 

 town of 60,000 inhabitants, with its sod- 

 den roofs, narrow, slimy alleys, and 

 crumbling walls, into an odorous, un- 

 drained mudhole, a veritable Slough of 

 Despond to any one with such lofty 

 illusions of Persia as those of a certain 

 disgusted American traveler who had 

 gone all the way to Arnold's ''majestic 

 Oxus stream'' only to find it muddy. 



A 24O-MILE MOUNTAIN TRIP TO ADVANCE 

 70 MILES 



The trip over the mountains, with its 

 ever-changing variety of unusual sensa- 



