This, The Most Costly And Beautiful Piece Of Workmanship In The Place, Is About Eighteen Inches In Diameter, And Is Said To Have Cost Eight Millions Of Francs.

The different countries are marked out with surprising accuracy and detail, - Persia being represented by turquoises, England by diamonds, Africa by rubies, and so on, the sea being of emeralds.

The museum itself is about sixty feet in length by twenty-five feet broad, its ceiling composed entirely of looking-glasses, its parquet flooring strewn with priceless Persian rugs and carpets. Large oil-paintings of Queen Victoria, the Czar of Russia, and other sovereigns, surround the walls, including two portraits of her Majesty the Ex-Empress Eugenie. It would weary the reader to wade through a description of the Jade work and _cloisonne_, the porcelain of all countries, the Japanese works of art in bronze and gold, and last, but not least, the cut and uncut diamonds and precious stones, temptingly laid out in open saucers, like _bonbons_ in a confectioner's shop. The diamonds are perhaps the finest as regards quality, but there is a roughly cut ruby surmounting the imperial crown, said to be the largest in the world.

Though it was very cold, and the snow lay deep upon the ground, my stay at Teheran was not unpleasant. The keen bracing air, brilliant sunshine, and cloudless blue sky somewhat made amends for the sorry lodging and execrable fare provided by mine host at the Hotel Prevot. I have seldom, in my travels, come across a French inn where, be the materials ever so poor, the landlord is not able to turn out a decent meal. I have fared well and sumptuously at New Caledonia, Saigon, and even Pekin, under the auspices of a French innkeeper; but at Teheran (nearest of any to civilized Europe) was compelled to swallow food that would have disgraced a fifth-rate _gargotte_ in the slums of Paris. Perhaps Monsieur Prevot had become "Persianized"; perhaps the dulcet tones of Madame P., whose voice, incessantly rating her servants, reminded one of unoiled machinery, and commenced at sunrise only to be silenced (by exhaustion) at sunset, disturbed him at his culinary labours. The fact remains that the _cuisine_ was, to any but a starving man, uneatable, the bedroom which madame was kind enough to assign to me, pitch dark and stuffy as a dog-kennel.

A long conference with General S - , an Austrian in the Persian service, decided my future movements. The general, one of the highest geographical authorities on Persia, strongly dissuaded my attempting to reach India _via_ Meshed and Afghanistan. "You will only be stopped and sent back," said he; "what is the use of losing time?" I resolved, therefore, after mature deliberation, to proceed direct to Ispahan, Shiraz, and Bushire, and from thence by steamer to Sonmiani, on the coast of Baluchistan. From the latter port I was to strike due north to Kelat and Quetta, and "that," added the general, "will bring you across eighty or a hundred miles of totally unexplored country.

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