352 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. men were entirely engaged in this religious question, and the blood of those who were martyrs for the faith con- tributed greatly to the spread of the tenets of Babism ; since the fact that men were found willing to lay down life for the cause, convinced waver ers that it must rest on the everlasting foundation of truth. The reader of this volume will probably before reach- ing this page have made to himself the observation that the history of modern Persia is for the most part a mere record of deeds of violence and blood. Such deeds, it may be observed, occupy a large space in the annals of every nation, but it is painful for a writer to find so little else worthy of being recorded in the history of the modern occupants of a country which so early and for so long a period filled a conspicuous place in the world. But though fully aware of the monotonous nature of the task I have undertaken, I can find little or nothing in the pages of the Persian chronicler, or in the volumes and documents upon which I have drawn, that would either interest or instruct the European reader. I have there- fore confined myself to the relation of such facts as seemed to me to show the spirit of the times of which I have written, and to have had more or less influence in shaping the destinies of the nation ruled over by the princes of the Kajar dynasty. I am now drawing near to the end of the reign of the third Kajar king, and having recounted the wars and massacres of that reign, it remains to me to describe the more peaceful events which marked it. The greatest of these would be considered by philanthropists to be a decree of the Shah strictly forbidding the application of torture to any of his subjects. It is not to be supposed, how-
