Although she has of late exercised but little influence in the world’s political councils, she retains a fair position among the Asiatics, and the fact that a portion of her territory is under Russian influence, while the rest is controlled to a greater or less extent by England, would indicate that in the near future her political position may become one of great importance. She still occupies a territory which is more than twice the area of France, and her climate varies according to the contrasting features of her formation, being rough and cold in the mountain ranges, and often severe on the great table-lands where the sandstorms rage across the desert, while other portions of the empire are luxuriant with tropical foliage. Down by the shores of the gulf the rice fields lift their dainty plumes, farther away the acres of barley lie like golden billows in the sunlight, and the cots of the peasantry are nestled under groups of flowering trees. Beyond them rises the forest of almost primeval grandeur where the great trunks of the trees are clothed with velvet mosses and encircled with floral vines. Here the green shades of the wood are relieved by the vivid scarlet of the pomegranate blossoms, and streams that leap from snowy hills come dashing through the woodlands, laden with life and rippling with music. Far away in the distance, the barren table-lands arise, and beyond these the mountain ridges press upward, dim and silent against the fields of blue, and the white clouds drop their feathery snows upon peaks which are unsoiled by the foot of man. PERSIAN ART. The primitive cradle of art has been found on the banks of the Tigris, and in the valley of the Euphrates. It has been shown that Greece was largely indebted to the sculptured slabs and columns of Nineveh for her first models, and perhaps also to the pictured walls of Babylon for the inspiration that glowed upon her canvas. But Asiatic art, like Oriental literature, is tropical in its luxuriance and gorgeous in its decorations. The classic taste of Greece subdued its more extravagant features, and presented the simplicity of chaste designs. The Persians, with their spirit of monopoly, appropriated the sculptured forms of fallen Nineveh, and absorbed also the love of painting, and the passion for gorgeous draperies, which were characteristic of Babylon.