It was early in July, 1862, that Vambéry, leaving Tabriz, began his long and perilous journey. Persia, at this period of the year, does not offer the enchanting spectacle which the enthusiastic descriptions of poets lead us to imagine. This boasted country displays only to the eye a heaven of fire, burning and desert plains, through the midst of which sometimes advances slowly a caravan covered with dust, exhausted by fatigue and heat. After a monotonous and painful march of fifteen days, our traveller sees at last rising from the horizon the outlines of a number of domes, half lost in a bluish fog. This is Teheran, the celestial city, the seat of sovereignty, as the natives pompously call it. It was not easy to penetrate into this noble city; a compact crowd filled the streets, asses, camels, mules laden with straw, barley, and other marketable articles jostled each other in the strangest confusion. "Take care! Take care!" vociferated the passers-by; each one pressed, pushed, and blows of sticks and even of sabres were distributed with surprising liberality. Vambéry succeeded in getting safe and sound out of this tumult; he repaired to the summer residence of the Turkish ambassador, where all the effendis were assembled under a magnificent silken tent. Haydar Effendi, who represented the sultan at the court of the Shah, had known the Hungarian traveller in Constantinople; he received him most cordially, and very soon the guests, gathered round a splendid banquet, began to call up souvenirs of Stamboul, of the Bosphorus, and their delightful landscapes, so different from the arid plains of Persia. The contrast of character is not less noticeable between the two nations who divide the supremacy of the Mohammedan world. The Ottoman, in consequence of his close relations with the West, is more and more penetrated by European manners and civilization, and gains by this contact an incontestable superiority. The Persian preserves more the primitive type of the Orientals, his mind is more poetic, his intelligence more prompt, his courtesy more refined; but proud of an antiquity which loses itself in the night of time, he is deeply hostile to our sciences and arts, of which he does not comprehend the importance. Some choice spirits, indeed, have endeavored to rejuvenate the worm-eaten institutions of Persia, and to lead their country in the way of progress. The pressing solicitations of the minister Ferrukh Khan engaged, some years ago, several nations of Europe, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, to send ambassadors in the hope of forming political and commercial relations with Iran; but their efforts were checked, Persia not being ripe for this regeneration.