was respected and feared throughout the hills. He completed the good work commenced by Mahammad Tákí, sternly repressed brigandage, and rendered the passage of caravans possible through the hills, a clemency much regretted by his subjects, who would readily have returned to their old predatory habits. His power also excited the jealousy of the Persians, and being suspected of holding ambitious views, he was called to Isfahán by the Zil-ul-Sultán, and there murdered. His eldest son was in 1884 a captive in Isfahán. It was commonly supposed that he was kept in prison there, bound in chains. His younger sons were, I was told, under charge of the present ilkháni, Imám Kúlí Khán, brother of the late Húsain Kulí Khán. Reza Kúlí Khán, another brother, was ilbégí. Mahammad Husan Kúlí Khán, a third brother, was a sartip in the Persian army. Both the ilkháni and ilbégí have several sons. It will be remembered that I made friends at Ahwáz and Ardal with Hájji Ibrahim Kúlí Khán, sarhang of the Bakhtíarí Horse, who is the son of the ilbégí, and has considerable influence with the tribes.

dar Khán, the third son, to inherit the he ruled with a strong hand, and his name title of his father were upheld by the Persian governor of Luristán, whereupon the elder brothers, Ali Khán and Ahmad Khán, took refuge with the Assyrian Arabs on the Turkish frontier, as related by M. de Bode. * Eventually, two or three years previous to my visit, (1881 or 1882), such is the instability of all things Lur, Sartip Haidar Khán, of the Bairánwand, was put to death by the governor of the district, after having been invited to Khoramábád to receive favors of the shah; his sons follow in the wake of Ali Khán, but are in no way attached to him, and consider that their misfortunes have been his opportunity. Of these young men the elder was by no means a prepossessing youth; but the younger, quite a boy then, had a face which attracted by reason of its look of quiet melancholy and resignation. These young fellows frequently visited me and related to me their misfortunes, under the prevailing idea that I was a sartip in the service of the shah, whose good offices at Tihrán might have served to bring them again into favor. At the time when I was treated with such bad faith and consideration by Hajji Ali, they offered me tentroom and hospitality. The agent of the Zil-ul-Sultán with the tribe, not much liked by Hájji Ali, advocated their rights, so it is quite possible that a turn of the wheel of fortune may yet bring these lads into prominence. Ahmad Khán, the second son, has a considerable following, and is at emnity with his brother for like reasons, and in rebellion against the government. The chief of the Lurs about Karmánsháh is Húsain Kúlí Khán, a lawless brigand, so that, in fact, anarchy reigned supreme in 1884 throughout Luri-Kúchak.

Sir H. Layard has made the world acquainted with the misfortunes of the greatest of the Bakhtíárí rulers, the noble Mahammad Tákí Khán, and the treacherous and harsh conduct of the Persian government towards him and his estimable family. The anarchy that followed his fall led to the rise of Húsain Kúlí Khán, the son of Jáfer Kúlí Khán, who began to make his power felt about 1848, during the reign of the present sháh. His chief opponents, the sons and son-in-law of Kalb Ali Khán, he contrived to remove from the scene, and obtained almost universal supremacy over the tribes, whom

Travels in Luristán and Arabistán, by Baron de 2 vols. 1845.

Bode.

Unlike the Feili Lurs, the Kúhgehlú and the Mamasani, they are united, the majority acknowledging the authority of the ilkhání. The section living in the vicinity of Búrújírd does not owe him allegiance. The ilkhání is subject to the prince-gov. ernor of Isfahán, and receives one thousand tománs per annum as salary; the ilbégí receiving a salary of five hundred tománs.

The ilkháni Imám Kúlí Khán seemed to be beloved by his subjects, and to govern them justly. He sat in darbár daily, and was accessible to all. His countenance and genial manner indicate a man of kindly disposition; his manners are simple yet courteous, and the members of his suite, although rough-looking, are not without a certain polish and refinement of manners, whilst his family are held in respect by the tribe. The chiefs of the great Lur families are, no doubt, from more frequent intercourse with Persians at the courts of Tihrán and Isfahán, assimilating their manners to those of Persians, and imitating their modes of life.

Tea is now held in great estimation throughout Luristán, and no chief of any note will fail to serve it, after the Persian manner, when visited, with imported loafsugar and lemons. Many travellers now carry a charcoal brasier and brass kettle,

suspended from the crupper of the saddle, | hitherto led, in Persia, to ruin. Under a

as well as the universal kalyan, so greatly is tea appreciated.

firm, just, and humane government, there is every reason to believe that they would Assuming that the Chahár Lang num- become tractable and loyal subjects. ber twelve thousand families, the Haft Their treatment by self-seeking rulers Lang eleven thousand families, and the must cause the general character of the dependencies fifteen thousand families, Lurs to incline towards treachery in dealthere are in all thirty-eight thousand fami- ing with the Persian provincial governor, lies of Bakhtíárís. Reckoning each fam- who is too often notorious for his total ily at five members, a moderate estimate, disregard of truth, the fraud with which the population of the Bakhtíárí hills he conducts ordinary business, his thornumbers one hundred and ninety thou-ough hypocrisy and his avarice, at the sand souls, or eleven per square mile, shrine of which detestable vice, uncurbed taking the area over which they are by the Muslim religion, all feelings of scattered to be seventeen thousand square miles. Assuming that in every two families one man is capable of bearing arms, the number of men that can be raised is nineteen thousand. The sháh can call upon every Iliyat tribe to furnish him with one horseman and two foot-soldiers per ten families-i.e., he can raise among the Bakhtíárís about three thousand eight hundred horse and seven thousand six hundred foot soldiers.

honor and friendship are sacrificed. Although the enemies of many a Lur chief are to be found amongst those of his own household, yet the majority of the tribesmen have generally been remarkably loyal to their tribal representative.

I fear that I may have wearied my readers ad nauseam with topographical details of country, distances, and tribal descriptions; but they may be assured The most recent news that I have re- that I have only done so to draw their ceived from Messrs. Gray, Paul, & Co. attention to the best route whereby the from Bakhtíárí-land, is that the ilkhání increasing productions of Persia may be has been deposed, and that now Reza made accessible to British enterprise, Kúlí Khan reigns in his stead. Such dep- and that I might interest my fellow-counositions are, in Persia, the results of trymen in a most deserving section of our intrigue, at the bottom of whose unfath-Eastern imperial neighbors, whom we omable well lie all the evil influences. have not hitherto recognized as such, but I range myself amongst those who whom we cannot neglect with impunity to think favorably of the Lurs; and I judge ourselves even if we would. Such writ from the ready alacrity with which they ing is too often a thankless task. Writers render obedience to their chiefs, the def- and thinkers who work for our Eastern erence with which they approach such, interests are apt to be dubbed excessive their quiet and respectful demeanour in bores, and little encouragement is given darbár and in putting forward a state- to those who endeavor to learn to control ment or complaint, the general decorum the Eastern channels of commerce, and and seemliness observed in their encamp- to turn them into advantageous beds; and ments, and their general modest behavior so little, apparently, is the significant imand simplicity, when not incited to con-portance of such currents appreciated by duct themselves otherwise by those in us as a commercial nation, that the unauthority over them. In short, I maintain that, at heart, they are not a bloodthirsty, thieving, or rebellious race; but, on the contrary, that their cruelty and blood-shedding are due to ambition unrestrained by fear of retributive punishment; their thievish propensities to a like want of fear and to petty exactions; and their rebellions to oppressive govern ment exactions and misrule, or rather to a total want of all rule and of all justice, -in fact, it is to Oriental despotism that their past lawlessness is attributable. It is the cause capable of producing but one effect; it gives no protection to private Nor can we neglect our Eastern neighproperty, and offers no encouragement bors with inpunity. Britain is now sufferto industry. Integrity and thrift haveing, and will suffer still more keenly, for

happy thought sometimes arises in my
mind, that perhaps, after all, the contin-
gency of the loss of her Eastern markets
has been fully considered and delib-
erately set aside by Great Britain as a
small evil, under the impression that, in
the distant future, her wealth will be so
enormous that she will be able to do
without it, and with folded arms to con-
tent herself with being the money-lender
to the world, the earth's great usurer,
an occupation considered by all people to
be the most damnable and degrading since
the world's creation.

having neglected since 1840, and for still | East, but that she has also very materially neglecting, to civilize her Afghán neigh-strengthened herself, and has there tapped bor, to whom she has ever posed as a sure source of future wealth. Under Mentor, but whom she hesitates to re- Russia's fostering care her central-Asian buke. She will understand the value of possessions are becoming renumerative her Persian, Lur, and Arab neighbors fields for the production of raw material, of south-west Persia later on. Disagree. able neighbors though they all may be to her eyes, they are bound to her by geographical links impossible to unrivet, except by the break-up of the empire of India.

trade-routes of the Old World into the rail- | route, if only the Persians will open up ways of the new. The influence of the the feeding-lines necessary to its developCaucasian railway is already felt in the ment. Commerce and the wants of Balumarkets of northern and eastern Persia, chistán and Sistán call for an early extenwhere Russian goods are gradually sup- sion of the Peshin line to the latter fertile planting our own. Even caravans from oasis, and it cannot without danger be long Peshin are being drawn to Askábád. The delayed. It is a link in the railway route question, then, naturally arises, how En- of the future, which must eventually gland is to contest this growing spirit of traverse Persia from east to west, from commercial enterprise and activity on Sistán to Isfahan and Karmánsháh. Russia's part, so that the development of her resources may not operate to our dis. advantage. Professor Huxley maintains that England's struggle for existence turns on her ability to manufacture and supply the nations of the world with manufactures cheaper and better than any other nation. To look far ahead is essential to her existence, and she cannot afford to lose even the smallest of her Eastern markets, lest its loss lead to the loss of others, until they all slip away from her; and her national supremacy · which so largely depends, as our merchants and manufacturers know, on our position as chief carrier and supplier to the East is irretrievably injured.

From The Nineteenth Century. GIORDANO BRUNO AND NEW ITALY.

No greater contrast could be imagined, no stronger proof could have been given of the trumphant march of progress in the face of a power which prides itself on remaining ever the same," than by the grand celebration held at Rome on that Field of Flowers where one of the deepest thinkers of all ages was burnt in 1600, in consequence of a sentence of the Inquisi tion. Of late years Italy has raised statues to several illustrious religious and Our policy must be a bold one. We political reformers who perished at the should not deceive ourselves with the idea stake, such as Arnold of Brescia and that land-carriage by railway can, under Savonarola. To Giordano Bruno himself no conditions of development of the coun- a monument was erected at Naples as tries through which the rails run, compete long as twenty-four years ago that is, with sea-carriage. Both for civilizing and soon after Garibaldi had freed the two commercial purposes, the railway must Sicilies from Bourbon tyranny and thus eventually be carried along certain old virtually founded Italian unity. Twenty trade-routes leading from India to Persia years ago it would still have been impossiand Asia Minor. Some of these routes ble thus to vindicate Bruno's memory in it devolves on Russia to develop, and she the natural capital of the country, where is not backward in accepting the duty; the the martyr of free thought, clad in the exploitation of others is manifestly En-yellow robe of heretics, painted with gland's duty, and she must not shrink pincer-bearing devils and flames, nobly from the risk attending the enterprise, died on the faggots without uttering even which is absolutely essential as a counter- a cry of the fierce pain his burning flesh check to Russia's activity. felt.

The line of demarcation dividing the Twenty years ago the papacy still held regions traversed by the ancient trade- political sway at Rome. In the present routes, which must be reopened as rail-instance one might have thought the occuways by the two empires, is, geograph- pant of the Vatican would refrain from ically, clearly defined, and neither party showing too plainly what the restoration can overstep it, politically, with impunity, of States of the Church would mean in or without peril to existing relations. The regard to religious toleration and the exploitation of the routes falling to our rights of human intellect. But no; inshare will not only enable us to hold our stead of preserving a judicious silence on own in the markets of Afghánistán, Balu- the barbarous immolation of Giordano chistán, and Persia, but will permit our Bruno, Leo the Thirteenth actually broke carrying the commercial war eventually out, before his Consistory, into a long into central Asia. speech containing a protest both against the conversion of Rome into a capital of Italy, and against "the impiety, the enormous outrage and insolent ostentation " of those who "honor a man that has abjured the Catholic name." Leo the Thir

The Kárún route is a link in the chain of communication between East and West, for it will pave the way for a railroad to Isfahan, Tihrán, and Karmánsháh vid Búrújírd. There is a future before this

as we

teenth declares his own freedom of action | the last few weeks uttered sentiments of to be taken away from him as supreme which but a faint echo has penetrated to pontiff by such a commemoration. In England. Yet here in England it was order to recover the liberty necessary for that Bruno, the greatest philosopher of the the exercise of his apostolic office, he Renaissance, became acquainted with men claims the re-establishment of his political eminent in the republic of letters as well principality. "From the pursuance of as with persons of the highest social and this aim," he says, "neither the iniquity political rank, including England's famed of the times nor any difficulty, however queen. Here, in London, it was great, shall deter us.' now know from the protocols of the Inqui It was Louis Veuillot, the French ultra-sition, which have been made accessible montane spokesman, who in our days, under the rule of Napoleon the Third, wrote in regard to Huss and Luther, that the only thing to be regretted was that "Huss met with his deserts so late, and that Luther was not burned at all." Within our memory, a German Catholic writer had said before Veuillot that "the secular and spiritual authorities in Italy would have trodden all human and divine rights under foot, had they not applied the extreme severity of the law to Bruno." During the recent celebration at Rome, it was stated in the Riforma that "the P. Balan who to-day occupies a high office in the Vatican Library, has declared that, after all, it was not worth while to bewail Bruno so much, considering that he was a heretic."

In presence of the pope's strange mani. festo, the organ of the Italian premier says:

but in recent years that even most of those of his books which bear the name of Venice, Paris, and other towns on the title-page were printed; the English publisher, as Bruno averred, having insisted on the change for the sake of effecting a larger sale. Again, as we now also know from a protocol in the Venetian State archives, it was most especially on account of the arch-heresy of his "having lauded Queen Elizabeth and other heretic princes in his books," that Bruno was dragged before the Holy Office. This charge was put in the forefront of his alleged crimes by the P. Inquisitor.* Other serious charges against him were, that he believed in the existence of countless worlds, and that he had also taught that this globe of ours had somehow existed from eternity.

Leo the Thirteenth, in the spirit of the old Rome of the popes, still takes it as an offence that the remembrance of the suf

fering seeker after truth should be glorified. Italian Liberals, who are often twitted by Roman clericalists with having diminished the importance of the Eternal City by making it the capital of a special country, proudly answer that after the Rome of the republic, after the Rome of the Cæsars, after the Rome of the popes, the great city still speaks out with a grand voice; this time as the mouthpiece of freedom of thought.

On the ruins of the

In truth, this punishment of Bruno-which, to judge things mildly, we might have set down as the result of the cruel practices of a past age-thus falls back upon the Vatican as an immutable principle of its religion and government: a principle which would still be enforced if the Vatican had the power. The Church, then, has not changed in any way. Now, none of her most decided adversaries would have gone so far in his charges against her. All would rather have preferred figuring to themselves that she had given up errors which once were common to a back-past-they say a new Catholicity, a ward civilization, and which the progress of third or fourth Rome, has risen, which time has left behind forever. Instead of this, now possesses an international importance the Church has passed a worse judgment upon as symbolizing the cause of human right, herself than her bitterest antagonists could the triumph of intellect. Hence it was but to be expected that men of many lands, who stand in the vanguard of the struggle against obscurantism, should join, as they have done, in honoring the valiant victim of a revengeful priestcraft. Nor is it held to be without significance that Sig. Crispi, the present premier, once a fellow-worker of Mazzini and Garibaldi,

have done.

It is certainly a sorry spectacle to find that at the end of this nineteenth century there should still be a group of men who believe their freedom of action to be interfered with by the honor done to the name of a martyr, whose living body was consumed in the flames because he advocated the Copernican system of astronomy and held speculative views not consistent with papal dogmas. On this subject, Italian Liberals, the most moderate as well as well as the most advanced, have within

"Giordano Bruno da Nola, imputato non solo di heretico, ma anco di heresiarca, havendo composto diversi libri, nei quali, laudando assai la Regina di Inghilterra et altri principi heretici, scriveva alcune cose concernenti il particolar della religione, che non convenivano, seben egli parlava filosoficamente."