310 
TEHERAN. 
miles distant. The principal materials in the construction of 
both places, are certainly sun-dri^d bricks ; but it seems to have 
been an unnecessary length of way, to have brought so many 
thousand ass-loads, as must have been wanted to complete the 
purpose. Cart-carriage is a convenience not known in this coun¬ 
try ; therefore, if the builders required the spoil of any other place 
to assist their labours, the remains of numerous ancient villages 
of the same fabric, lying much nigher at hand, would, most likely, 
have been made to yield their substance to the modern erection. 
Neither mosque, nor palace, break the equal line of the city ; the 
residence of the king being situated in the citadel or ark, a dis¬ 
tinct quarter of itself, occupying a square of twelve hundred yards, 
and surrounded by its own bulwarks, which close upon the north 
wall of the town. The streets of Teheran, like all other that I 
have seen in this country, are extremely narrow, and full of mud 
or dust, according to the season being wet or dry. When a 
khan or any great man goes out to take the air, or for any other 
object, he seldom condescends to be seen on foot; but, mounted 
on horseback, sets forth with a train of thirty or forty ill-ap¬ 
pointed followers on foot, and a servant preceding him, bearing 
a fine embroidered horse-cloth. One of the fellows in the rear 
generally carries his master’s kalioun ; but of what use the others 
are, except to fill the scanty way, and raise a dust to suffocation, 
I have never been able to learn. Successions of such groups, 
loaded camels, mules, asses, and not unfrequently one or two of 
the royal elephants, are continually passing to and fro ; some¬ 
times jamming up the streets, to the evident hazard of life and 
limbs, both of man and beast. Ancient and modern cities of the 
East, all show the same narrow line in the plan of their streets. 
To compress many inhabitants, in a similar small space, was 
