feel on receiving his dismissal from the Kajar court.[1] The whole people of Persia seemed to be united in the determination to enter upon a religious war, and the king's last scruples were removed on his receiving intimation of the threat that if he should still decline to lead his people to battle, his subjects would find another leader for themselves. The nation was indeed roused to action as it never had been roused since the period when its energies had been directed by Nadir. From the Bakhtiari mountains and from the hills of Looristan; from the vales of Khorassan and the plains of Irak; troops in thousands came to join the standard of the crown-prince, to whom was assigned the task of conducting the war, which was now begun without recourse being had to the preliminary ceremony of a formal declaration.
The first blow struck in this war was given by the hereditary chief of Taleesh, who, with the object of rescuing his wife from the hands of the Russian authorities,
attacked a detachment on its march to Lankoran.
- ↑ It is interesting to compare the manner in which European ambassadors in modern times are received at the Persian court with the treatment they met with in the time of the Sefaveean Shahs. The following extract from Chardin's Travels describes the reception of a Russian envoy at Ispahan (vol. iii. p. 177).
"Celui de Moscovie parut un quart-d'heure après. Il entra du même côté, amené fur les chevaux du Roi par l'Introdućteur des Ambassadeurs;...L'introducteur mit pied à terre à cent cinquante pas du palais, et dit à l'ambassadeur de descendre aussi de cheval. Je ne sais si le Moscovite avait été informé que l'ambassadeur Lesqui n'avait descendu de cheval que beaucoup plus proche de l'entrée, ou que, par grandeur et pour l'honneur de son maître, il voulût passer et aller plus avant, tant y a qu'il fit résistance, et donnant ses talons à son cheval il le fit avancer trois ou quatre pas malgré l'opposition des valets de pied de l'introducteur, qui avait mit la main à la bride de son cheval pour le retenir. On l'arrêta alors tout à fait... Le roi ne leur dit [aux ambassadeurs] point une parole, et ne les regarda pas seulement."
