conferred on his son, a youth long supposed to be an idiot, but who now showed a capacity for Persian political life which astonished even his own people. The hungry sons of the Motummad, despatched into the richest governorships of the province, proceeded to fleece the dependants of the Muschir. And to be a dependant, friend, or adherent of the old man became a crime. Mirza Mahomoud, the secretary of the Muschir, was arrested, his house and property arbitrarily confiscated, and his accumulations wrung from him as the price of his life. And at last the Governor seized the Muschir himself, and actually administered a severe bastinado to his enemy, _now an old man of seventy-five_: the Muschir’s life was also attempted by poison. All that could be confiscated was taken, the ready cash and jewels to an enormous amount became the property of the Motummad-ul-Molk (the king’s uncle) and his sons, while claims were made against the Muschir for great amounts. But though Khosro Mirza hungered for the old man’s life, he had yet influence sufficient at the capital to preserve it, and an order came that the Muschir should retire to Kerbela (in Turkey), the shrine of the prophets Houssein and Hassan, there to end his life in prayer and repentance. But the Muschir may yet prove a thorn in the side of his enemies; he is now back in Shiraz and apparently inactive. The Kawam (grandson of the celebrated Hadji Kawam of Shiraz, executed by boiling to death), after being for some years in the shade, through the successful intrigues of the Muschir, is now in the full blaze of power. His son has his foot in the stirrup of success, and he is the only local man in real power in the province of Fars. Rather boorish in manner, the Kawam is kind and honest, liberal and true to his adherents in adversity; it remains to be seen whether he will show the politic moderation of the Muschir, who never made an enemy unless he was able to remove him. The system of the Kawam has been to strengthen his local influence by marriages of the various members of his family, and his open and honest, if at times obstinate, policy has made him many personal friends, more valuable than those of the Muschir, whose adherents were either mercenary or those who for their safety assumed the name. The policy of the Governors of Fars has invariably been to play off the Kawam against the Muschir, so taking bribes from both, but never destroying either. However, one thing is quite certain, the Kawam is an old and honoured citizen of Shiraz without a personal enemy save the Muschir, while the latter does not possess a real friend, and being heirless may fall a victim to some unscrupulous Governor, who may take his life on some pretext, secretly or openly, for the sake of the pickings from his still gigantic estates.