'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎306] (349/714)

306 PERSIA
That the city has yet much to do before it realises the full
aspirations of its royal Haussmann is evident as soon as we enter
The th® gates. These consist of lofty archways, adorned with
interior pinnacles and towers, and presenting from a distance a
showy appearance, which has caused to some incoming travellers
paroxysms of delight. A closer inspection shows that they are
faced with modern glazed tiles, in glittering and frequently vulgar
patterns, depicting the phenomenal combats of Rustam, or the less
heroic features and uniform of the modern Persian soldier. After
entering the gates, where a guard is stationed, we are again in the
open country, for on most sides the city ^as not yet grown up
to its new borders, which embrace a large extent of bare, unoccu
pied desert. This passed, a ride through squalid suburbs brings
us to the more central and pretentious quarters of the town. At
every turn we meet in juxtaposition, sometimes in audacious
harmony, at others in comical contrast, the influence and features
of the East and West. A sign-board with Usine d Gaz inscribed
upon it will suddenly obtrude itself in a row of mud hovels, osten
tatiously Asiatic. Tram-lines are observed running down some of
the principal thoroughfares. Mingled with the turbans and Icolaks
of the Oriental crowd are the wide-awakes and helmets of Euro
peans. Through the jostling throng of cavaliers and pedestrians,
camels, donkeys, and mules, comes rolling the two-horsed brougham
of some Minister or grandee. Shops are seen with glass windows
and European titles. Street lamp-posts built for gas, but accom
modating dubious oil-lamps, reflect an air of questioning civilisa
tion. Avenues, bordered with footpaths and planted with trees,
recall faint memories of Europe. A metalled and watered roadway
comes almost as a shock after weeks of mule track and rutty lane.
Strange to say, it does not appear to be mistaken by the in
habitants for the town sewer. We ride along broad, straight streets
that conduct into immense squares and are fringed by the porticoes
of considerable mansions. In a word, we are in a city which was
born and nurtured in the East, but is beginning to clothe itself at
a West-End tailor's. European Teheran has certainly become, or
is becoming ; but yet, if the distinction can be made intelligible, it
is being Europeanised upon Asiatic lines. No one could possibly
mistake it for anything but an Eastern capital. Not even in the
European quarter has it taken on the insufferable and debauched dis
guise with which we are familiar in the hideous streets of Galata and