364 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. possessed to a certain extent the confidence of the fol- lowers of the Asef-ed-Dowleh, it was thought hy many that he was the person best fitted to fill the post of premier, or Sedr-Azem. But the Shah had already made choice of a Grand Vizeer. On the 20th of October, 1848, his Majesty made his public entry into his capital, and at midnight of the same day he was crowned King of Persia. Nasser-ed-deen, the eldest son of the late Mahomed Shah, and of Mahd-Aulia, the daughter of Cassim Khan, Kajar, was at this time sixteen years of age. He was not remarkable for any premature development of mental gifts, but he was possessed of sagacity sufficient to enable him to discern in a man who accompanied him from Tabreez, the qualities that were wanted in a Persian Minister. Meerza Teki Khan, who was at this time appointed to be the Ameer-i-Nizam, or commander-in-chief of the Persian army, owed his elevation entirely to his talents and his services. He was a man altogether of a different nature from that of his countrymen in general. Belisarius did not tower over the degenerate Romans of his day more than did the Ameer-i-Nizam over his contemporaries, the successors of the adversaries of " the last of the Roman generals." The race of modern Persians cannot be said to be altogether effete, since so recently it has been able to produce a man such as was the Ameer-i-Nizam. Feraghan, near Sultanatabad in Irak, had the honour to give birth to him who perhaps alone of all the Oriental statesmen and governors whose names appear in the history of modern Persia, would have satisfied the scrutiny of a Diogenes, and was fully entitled to be considered that " noblest work of God," an honest man. The father of Meerza Teki occupied a humble
