Baghdad, but, on hearing of the death, of Aga Mahomed, he returned to the south of Persia, and, in the district of Nermansheer, he contrived to raise a force sufficient to enable him to possess himself of Ispahan. His army was soon afterwards defeated by the troops sent against him by the Shah, and he himself narrowly avoided being made prisoner in a garden, from whence he contrived to make his escape to the Bakhtiari mountains. An officer of rank was sent by the Shah to reprove the people of Ispahan for having yielded to the usurper, and with orders to put to death all those in the place who had taken an active part in the insurrection; a fate from which the Imam-i-Jumah had influence sufficient to save his fellow-citizens.
The celebrated city of Ispahan was no longer what it had been in the days when it contained the court of the Sefaveeans, and its decline was the more marked from the enormous space to which, in the time of its splendour, its streets and buildings had extended. It stands near the southern extremity of a vast plain, covered with a fine, light soil, and which is terminated in this direction by low mountains and rocks. It now occupies a space of about six miles from east to west, whilst its breadth is about one-third of its length. It is, however, difficult to determine where its limits lie, as its gardens, groves, and buildings, blend with the neighbouring villages. It is no longer a walled city, but open on all sides; its ancient defences, mentioned by an European traveller[1] as being twenty thousand paces in circumference, having been destroyed by the Affghan invaders more than a century ago. The fort, however,
- ↑ Chardin.
