The Smyrna Aidin railway has lately had a considerable improvement in its traffic, from the barley of Asia Minor being in increased demand in addition to its wheat.  This means that the material for the beer as well as the bread of the masses elsewhere is found to be abundant and cheap there, and the extension of railway communication in those regions will most probably increase the supply and demand.  The same trade in barley has lately sprung up in Southern Persia and Turkish Arabia, and for some time past, while the low price of wheat discouraged the existing wheat trade there, it has been found profitable to export barley from the Gulf ports.  Barley is the cheapest grain in Persia, where it is grown for home consumption only, being the universal food for horses.  Owing to want of care with the seed, and the close vicinity of crops, the wheat was often so mixed with barley as to reduce the price considerably, and the question of mixture and reduction was always a very stormy one.  When I was at Ahwaz, on the Karun, in 1890, I saw a machine at work separating the grains, and the Arab owners waiting to take away the unsaleable barley, the wheat being bought for export by a European firm there which owned the machine.  The Arab sellers probably now move to the other side of the machine to carry away the unsaleable wheat, the barley being bought for export owing to the turn of trade.

The German group that has obtained the Persian road concession has also taken up the old project of an extension of the Tehran tramways to the villages on the slopes of the Shimran range, all within a distance of ten miles from the town.  The Court, the city notables, and the foreign legations, with everyone who desires to be fashionable, and can afford the change, reside there during the warm months—­June, July, August and September.  The whole place may be described as the summer suburb of the capital, and there is great going to and fro.

I have already mentioned the Russian road now under construction from the Caspian Sea base to Kasvin, with the object of enabling Russian trade to command more thoroughly the Tehran market.  The total distance from the coast to the capital is two hundred miles.  There is an old-established caravan track over easy country, from Kasvin to Hamadan in the south—­west, distant about one hundred and fifty miles.  It has lately been announced that the Russian Road Company has obtained a concession to convert this track into a cart-road in continuation of that from Resht.  It is seen that with improved communication Russian trade may be made to compete successfully at Hamadan, which is only about fifty miles further from the Caspian Sea base than Tehran, and there will also be the advantage of a return trade in cotton from Central Persia, as Armenian merchants now export it to Russia from as far South as Isfahan and Yezd.  The German road from Baghdad to Tehran will be met at Hamadan.

Kermanshah and Hamadan, through which the German road will pass, are both busy centres of trade in districts rich in corn, wool, and wine.  They are also meeting-points of the great and ever-flowing streams of pilgrims to Kerbela via Baghdad, said to number annually about one hundred thousand.  This has been a popular pilgrim route, as well as trade route, for centuries, and with greater facilities on an improved road the traffic is certain to increase.