over to serve him loyally and well in his conquering campaigns against Afghanistan and India.  The Grand Vizier mentioned the circumstance of the Bakhtiari contingent, after one of the many repulses met in the repeated attempts to carry Kandahar by storm, having in the evening, when all was quiet on both sides, assaulted without orders and captured a commanding, position in the defences, which they had failed to take during the day.  The shouts of the victors roused the resting besiegers, and Nadir at once took advantage of the success to carry the citadel and gain possession of the town.  As a closing remark concerning these nomad tribes, I may mention that they regard themselves as in every way superior to the settled inhabitants, and express this conceit in their saying, ‘One man of the tents is equal to two of the town.’

I have mentioned the prerogative of the Shah to raise whomsoever he chooses from the lowest to the highest position, except under restrictions in the military tribes.  This quite falls in with the democratic spirit which lies dormant among the people, ready to be displayed in willingness to accept a Sovereign of signal power who springs from the lower ranks of life.  The social equality which Islam grants to all men was nothing new to Persia in forming ideas regarding a popular leader and elected King.  The descent of such a man is deemed of little consequence in the minds of a people who look to personification of power as the right to rule.  In fact, with them it is said that the fame of such a man is in proportion to the lowness of his origin.  They know of notable instances of the nation being delivered from terrible tyranny and degrading foreign subjection, and being made gloriously great, by men of the people.  They point to Kawah, the blacksmith, who headed a revolt against the monstrously cruel usurper King Zohak, using his apron as a banner, and finally overthrew and slew him, and placed Faridun, a Prince of the Peshdadian dynasty, on the throne which he might have occupied himself.  This blacksmith’s apron continued for ages to be the royal standard of Persia.  In the ninth century, Yacub-bin-Leis, called the Pewterer, as he had worked when young at that (his father’s) trade, made his way to the throne by sheer force of strong character and stout courage.  He remained the people’s hero to the last, was noted for his simple habits, for keeping with his name his trade appellation (Suffari, the Pewterer), and for never having been wantonly cruel or oppressive.  In the tenth century, when the great Sabuktagin rose from soldier to Sovereign, we see the principle of selection in preference to hereditary succession practised and accepted by the nation.  And the choice was justified by the glory he gave to the Persian arms in extending the empire to India, and in the further conquests of his soldier-son, Mahmud, who succeeded to his father’s throne, and added still more to the greatness of the kingdom, till it reached from Baghdad to Kashgar, from Georgia to Bengal, from the Oxus to the Ganges.