386 
FAMINE AT KASHAN. 
they shuddered in relating the horrible scenes of the summer 
of 1817. The sterility had extended all over this part of the 
empire, and spread even to the borders of Azerbijan. Two 
successive years without the usual rains, had produced this 
universal barrenness; and on the third, the famine was so at its 
height, that cats, dogs, asses, mules, and horses, were devoured 
by the starving natives. At Kashan, an unhappy pair were so 
reduced from poverty and famine, as to kill two of their female 
infants for food. And a woman was found expiring on the high 
road near the same town, with a small bag lying near her; 
which, on examining, disclosed the remains of her only child, 
whom she also had murdered to support her own miserable life. 
The maun of barley (seven pounds and a half), at that time was 
sold for one real, but at last not a grain was to be had. Its 
usual price, at this part of Persia, was three shyes the maun; and 
twenty-five shyes make one real; eight reals amount to one 
tomaun; six tomauns to one ducat: the real, at present, is 
equivalent to one shilling and three-pence British money. But 
to return to the melancholy subject of the famine. Abbas 
Mirza, at that terrible season, most conspicuously manifested his 
truly princely qualities ; and gathering together all that might 
be spared from the wants of his own province, he sent a large 
quantity of corn to the royal camp at Sultania ; and, from the 
same bounteous source, enabled the governor of Teheran to 
supply the famishing inhabitants of Kashan with a hundred 
culverts. Amidst the general distress, thousands attempted to 
fly to other places, where they thought the famine might be less 
severe; but their strength failing them, the roads were covered 
with the dead and dying. Is it in imagination to conceive such 
scenes as these? War and pestilence are terrible evils, but 
