OF OUROOMIA. 
579 
Ouroomia. I paid it due respect, by looking up to their ve¬ 
nerable towers with reverence; but did not then stop to enter, 
wishing to push on for my friend’s camp, where we arrived in 
half an hour afterwards. This day we travelled about thirteen 
miles ; the city being three farsangs distant from our last menzil. 
September 9th. — This morning Captain Hart rode with me 
into the city, in order to breakfast with the Beglerbeg; whose 
chief officers had previously come out to pay their compliments 
to me on the part of their master, and all accompanied with 
persons bearing loaded trays of different sorts of fruits. The 
government of the province of Ouroomia has been possessed by 
the family of his present excellency, for these last two hundred 
years, and he lives in a state little inferior to that of a prince 
royal. His father far exceeded even him in magnificence, and 
the palace bears every mark of such past splendour. The 
territory, within these sixty years, has rather suffered com¬ 
pression, which, of course curtails the revenue; yet, notwith¬ 
standing such dilapidation, it produced about five-and-twenty 
years ago 7000 tomauns annually. Since then, the rivalry of 
certain noblemen in outbidding each other for lordship over the 
minor districts, has increased the receipts to the enormous sum 
of 100,000; and the consequence is, cruel extortion from the 
rayat or peasant, to make the speculation answer. 
On entering this long-famous city, not a vestige appeared to 
remind the visitor that it once bore the name of Thebarma, 
mentioned with such comparative consequence by Strabo. Here 
too, we are to believe, that Zoroaster was born, or at least 
passed the early part of his life. Its walls and towers are at 
present in a very ruinous state, which, together with a shallow 
ditch, are all its means of defence. So much for its war appear- 
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