'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎311] (356/714)

TEHERAN 311
runnels of water. Tins delightful grove, which, as the result of
only twenty years' growth, shows of what the Persian soil under
irrigation is capable, conceals the main building of the Legation
as well as four other substantial detached houses, accommodating the
various secretaries. The principal structure is a low building-
occupying three sides of a court, and terminating at one end in a
campanile, or clock-tower, of Byzantine design, in which a lame
clock tells the time after the English fashion and according to the
hours of the English day. On one side is the Chancellery; in the
centre are the reception-rooms and Minister's quarters;'on the
other side are the spare rooms. The building opens by a verandah
at the back on to a lovely garden, where swans float on brimming
tanks of water and peacocks flash amid the flower-beds The
design was the work of Major Pierson, K.E., of the Indo-European
Telegraph Department, who may be credited with a very successful
result. The coolness and seclusion of the entire enclosure is one
of the most agreeable and uncommon features in Teheran. The
Turkish Embassy and the Legations of several others of the
Great Powers are in the same street, or near at hand. Russia,
however, is elsewhere accommodated ; the residence of her Minister
being, as I have pointed out, in the older portion of the town, near
the bazaars. In the same quarter as the British Legation are
situated the establishment and chapel of the American missionaries.
Ihe Armenian church, where British subjects used to be interred,
and which contains the tomb of a son of Sir Walter Scott, was near
the former British Mission in the old citv.
Io a stranger, possibly also to a native, the most interesting
portion of Teheran is the great quadrilateral, containing the Ark
The Ark 0r Citadel, and occupying a space of probably nearly a
r ^ quarter of a mile square on the southern side of the
I up Meidan. Since the demolition of the old town there is
nothing in the appearance of this enclosure to identify it with
a citadel in the ordinary acceptation of the term ; for, although it
is surrounded by mud walls, it is in no sense fortified, and is now
merely a vast collection of courts, gardens, and buildings, the
greater part of which appertain to the Royal Palace. Let me,
therefore, attempt to give some description of the latter, so far as
its somewhat haphazard and unmethodical interior arrangements
will admit. Parts of the building remain in exactly the same
state as they were, when viewed in the opening years of the century