one village of the province of Astrabad to another; and even an escort is no sure protection, as the robbers come, for the most part, in numbers sufficient to enable them to combat any force which they are likely to encounter.
Ak-kaleh, near Astrabad, was the seat of government of Mahomed Hassan Khan, and from thence he gradually established his power over the whole region which lies between the Elburz mountains and the Caspian Sea. When the fortune of his son, Aga Mahomed Khan, had made him master not only of these provinces, but also of all central Persia from the frontier of Khorassan to the uttermost limits of Azerbaeejan, that chief was mindful of the events which had transpired in Persia in his own time. He had seen his father again and again obliged to retreat to Astrabad and fall back upon the support of his own tribe, and, on the death of Kereem Khan, he had seen the seemingly well-established power of the Zend princes successfully disputed by himself. However firmly, therefore, the Kajar rule seemed under him to be planted, experience did not warrant him in assuming that there would be no further changes in the line of the rulers of Persia. He or his successors might, like his father, have to retreat behind the Elburz, and trust to the assured fidelity of their clansmen. He did not, therefore, venture to establish his seat of government at a spot so far removed from the pasture-grounds of the Kajars, as was the ancient capital of Persia. Two hundred and fifty miles to the north of Ispahan, there was a town which, though before the time of Aga Mahomed it was comparatively a place of small account, yet possessed the advantage of lying at the foot of the Elburz mountains. The plain of which it was the chief city had in
