enemy from the field, and the temporary success was to be attributed to the disciplined courage of two regiments from Karadagh, and to the fire of the prince's artillery. These battalions, as well as the artillerymen, had been trained by competent and zealous foreign instructors, and had the whole army been equally well drilled, there can be no doubt that the fate which befell the Persians would that day have befallen their enemies. Could the Shah have convinced himself of the fact that in his hardy and obedient subjects he possessed the material for an army capable at any time of defending his dominions against invaders, provided that his troops should be properly drilled, the lesson would have been cheaply paid for by the disaster of Genja; but the rulers of Persia have not grown wiser by the experience of the past, and to this day the Shah's army is only half-drilled, and is in reality less effective, either for the purposes of defence or of offence, than if it were not drilled after the fashion of European armies at all.
At Genja the command of the Persian troops was shared by the crown-prince with the Asef-ed-Dowleh a proud nobleman who occupied the post of prime minister to the Shah. The Asef-ed-Dowleh quitted the field at the first alarm of danger, and, accompanied by a slender retinue of well-mounted horsemen, pressed his flight with such unwearied diligence that he reached the Araxes, a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from Genja, on the night of the day after the action. On the following evening the crown-prince rejoined him, when mutual recriminations took place between them. Each accused the other of being the author of the catastrophe which had occurred, and they parted in hostility, each
