sian and English consulates our
health was now in jeopardy from excess of kindness. Among other social
attentions, we received an invitation from Sahib Devan, the governor of
Khorassan, who next to the Shah is the richest man in Persia. Although
seventy-six years of age, on the day of our visit to his palace he was
literally covered with diamonds and precious stones. With the photographer
to the Shah as German interpreter, we spent half an hour in an interesting
conversation. Among other topics he mentioned the receipt, a few days
before, of a peculiar telegram from the Shah: "Cut off the head of any one
who attempts opposition to the Tobacco Regie"; and this was followed a few
days after by the inquiry, "How many heads have you taken?" A retinue of
about three hundred courtiers followed the governor as he walked out with
feeble steps to the parade-ground. Here a company of Persian cavalry was
detailed to clear the field for the "wonderful steel horses," which, as
was said, had come from the capital in two days, a distance of six hundred
miles. The governors extreme pleasure was afterward expressed in a special
letter for our journey to the frontier.

[Illustration: WATCH-TOWER ON THE TRANSCASPIAN RAILWAY.]

[Illustration: GIVING A "SILENT PILGRIM" A ROLL TOWARD MESHED.]

The military road now completed between Askabad and Meshed reveals the
extreme weakness of Persia's defense against Russian aggression. Elated by
her recent successes in the matter of a Russian consul at Meshed, Russia
has very forcibly invited Persia to construct more than half of a road
which, in connection with the Transcaspian railway, makes Khorassan almost
an exclusive Russian market, and opens Persia's richest province to
Russia's troops and cannon on the prospective march to Herat. At this very
writing, if the telegraph speaks the truth, the Persian border-province of
Dereguez is another cession by what the Russians are pleased to call their
Persian vassal. In addition to its increasing commercial traffic, this
road is patronized by many Shiah devotees from the north, among whom are
what the natives term the "silent pilgrims." These are large stones, or
boulders, rolled along a few feet at a time by the passers-by toward the
Holy City. We ourselves were employed in this pious work at the close of
our first day's journey from Meshed when we were suddenly aroused by a
bantering voice behind us. Looking up, we were hailed by Stagno Navarro,
t