The splendours of Isfahan are described by Pietro Della Velle[290] and Chardin.[291] What they were would occupy too large a space; but we may judge of the extent and nature of the public works by the causeway[292] this prince formed across the whole of Mazenderen, so as to render that difficult country passable for armies and travellers at all seasons of the year. He threw bridges over almost all the rivers of Persia. He studied, we are told, beyond all former sovereigns, the general welfare and improvement of his kingdom. He fixed on the city of Ispahan as the capital of his dominions; and its population was more than doubled during his reign. Its principal mosque, the noble palace of Chehel-Setoon, the beautiful avenues and porticoes called Châr Bagh, and several of the finest palaces in the city and suburbs, were all built by this prince. In 1721 there was a great rebellion. A celebrated traveller, who was on the spot, assures us, that the inhabitants of one of the suburbs (Julfa, an Armenian colony), not many years before, amounted to thirty thousand souls. He says, that some of the streets were broad and handsome, and planted with trees, with canals, and fountains in the middle; others narrow and crooked, and arched at top; others again, though extremely narrow, as well as turning and winding many ways, were of an incredible length, and resembled so many labyrinths; that at a small distance from the town there were public walks adorned with plane-trees on either hand, and ways paved with stones, fountains and cisterns: that there were one hundred caravanserais for the use of merchants and travellers, many of which were built by the kings and prime nobility of Persia. He goes on to state, that there was a castle in the eastern part of the town, which the citizens looked upon as impregnable, in which the public money and most of the military stores were kept: but that, notwithstanding the number of baths and caravanserais were almost innumerable, there was not one public hospital. All this was in the suburb of Julfa only. In what condition is that suburb now? A.D. 1722, Mahmoud, chief of the Afghans, invaded Persia, and laid siege to Isfahan. He was at first repulsed and compelled to fall back; in consequence of which he made overtures. These the citizens unfortunately rejected. Mahmoud, in consequence, determined on laying waste the whole of the neighbouring country. Now the districts surrounding Ispahan were, perhaps, the most fruitful in the world, and art had done her utmost to assist nature in adorning this delightful country. This fairest of regions was doomed by Mahmoud to complete ruin! The task occupied his army more than a month; but the lapse of nearly a century has not repaired what their barbarity effected in that period; and the fragments of broken canals, sterile fields, and mounds of ruins, still mark the road with which they laboured in the work of destruction.