392 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Roland Gorbolcl 



A PERSIAN WOMAN APPARELKD FOR A PILGRIMAGE 



The elaborately embroidered saddle-bag is a khorjon, in which 

 both clothes and food are carried for the journey. The white veil 

 over her face is the yashmak. 



The railroad and the motor car have 

 not yet won the competition with the 

 camel and the donkey ; and while modern 

 schools are increasing in number and 

 quality, the old Makhtab Khaneh, with 

 the Arabic Koran as the text-book in the 

 primer class, is still a national institution. 



While Teheran is the seat of an ex- 

 periment in representative government, 

 most of the surrounding villages are a 

 part of an oriental feudal system, as th^ 

 property of the crown or the wealthy 

 land-owning nobles. In these dreary, in- 

 sanitary, adobe villages, still centers the 

 Persian peasant life, an existence entirely 



aloof from the mod- 

 ern world, dominated 

 by bigotry and con- 

 servatism, and not yet 

 ameliorated by med- 

 ical science or enlight- 

 ened education. 



From their central- 

 ized abodes the peas- 

 ants go each day to 

 till the surrounding 

 fields with tools and 

 methods similar to 

 those employed by 

 their forebears. And 

 within this same lim- 

 ited area rove rough, 

 untutored nomads, 

 self-dependent, pros- 

 perous in terms of 

 flocks and herds, de- 

 siring no better shel- 

 ter than the black 

 wool tenting woven by 

 their virile, unsecluded 

 wives and daughters, 

 but unconcerned with 

 the affairs of state. 



From the more pro- 

 gressive centers of 

 Teheran and other im- 

 portant Persian cities 

 waves of reflected en- 

 lightenment are mov- 

 ing in slowly widening 

 concentric circles to 

 reduce the divergence 

 in present-day Persian 

 life. 



The rise of the pres- 

 ent Kajar Dynasty 

 was a final attempt to restore a con- 

 servative oriental despotism in the midst 

 of a swiftly progressing modern world, 

 and under the long, benevolent rule of 

 Naser-ed-din Shah, who maintained order 

 and obedience throughout the length and 

 breadth of his kingdom, this anachronism 

 gave strange promise of success ; but the 

 failure of his successors disclosed the 

 futility of competing with antiquated 

 equipment in the modern economic and 

 political struggle. 



The progressive element among the 

 Persians realized their weakness, and in 

 1906 demanded and secured a constitu- 



