318 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. expressly for the purpose of endeavouring to induce Colonel Stoddart to persuade the mother and the son of Kamran to come and make their obeisance to the Shah, after which they might return to the city. A conversa- tion which lasted for two hours, failed to persuade Colonel Stoddart to accede to the proposal of the prime minister of Persia. So that Vizeer and his master had at length after a siege which had lasted for upwards of nine months to make up their minds to turn towards Tehran, with the bitter reflection that all the Shah's power had been unable to carry into effect a single one of the objects to secure which that siege had been undertaken. The fortress of Herat was much stronger than it had ever been before, and its inhabitants had now a character for bravery and endurance to support, which might be expected to make the reduction of their city at any future time by a Persian army a still more difficult undertaking than it had hitherto been. Prince Kamran had not furnished a single shahi of tribute ; neither had he returned any captive subjects of the Kajar king ; nor had he engaged to restrain in any way the Turkomans, who were thus at liberty to carry on their marauding expeditions into Khorassan, and for the sale of whose Sheeah slaves the marts of Herat were open. The Shah, with further mortification, had to reflect that the peoples of Central Asia had witnessed how little good he had derived from the friendship he had sought to establish with the Autocrat of the North. They had seen the fortress of Prince Kamran baffle all the efforts of a Russian engineer (so called) to take it, and they had been the witnesses of the utter failure of an assault which had been planned by a Russian major-general.
