Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/613

Rh Saadi; Yezd, the present stronghold of Zoroastrianism in Persia; and Teheran, the modern capital, with its suburb Rei identified with Ragha. From Teheran the author proceeded to the shore of the Caspian, where he took a steamer at Resht for Baku. His journey thence through Turkestan to Samarkand is to form the subject of another work.

As the subtitle indicates, the book is intended for two classes of readers—the specialist and the man of general cultivation; and the first point that claims recognition is the skill with which these partly diverse interests have been prevented from coming into conflict. For the general reader the work possesses all the elements that go to make books of travel in strange lands interesting reading. It is a story of danger and hardship encountered with courage, and overcome by patience, endurance, and perseverance in the pursuit of an important end—a story told with the utmost modesty, and enlivened with flashes of a humor that must have helped the author in many a situation. Politics and the details of trade relations do not enter into the plan of the book, but thanks to the keenness of Professor Jackson's observations and his unusual power of expressing them in language, the book presents a most vivid picture of the life in Persia both of the traveller and of the people by whom he was surrounded, of the present aspects of the country, and of the monuments of its past greatness. The unusual merit that constitutes the superiority of the book is that the reader is made to see all this through the eyes of one who has studied deeply Persia's history, literature, and religion, and he thus receives the benefits of a truer perspective and a far richer association of ideas than could be given by the description of what any ordinary traveller had seen. In this connection attention may be directed especially to the chapters headed, "Persia, the Land and its History, and our Interest in the Country", "Zoroaster and the Avesta", and "The Rock Inscriptions of the Great Persian Kings", which are models of the popular exposition of the results of scientific study. Another charm of the book is due to the author's love of nature and of literature, both well exemplified in the chapter on "Shiraz, the Home of the Persian Poets." In his enjoyment of the book the general reader may go from cover to cover without inconvenience from the scholarly work, which chiefly settles like a rich sediment in the foot-notes. In these moreover an awakened interest will find a guide to further information. The author fears that the general reader may check at some dozen of pages of discussion of the new readings of the Behistan inscription, but to the reviewer it seems that one would be unwilling to miss this insight into the nature of the main motive to which he is indebted for the production of such an attractive book.

For the scholar the book is valuable both for the richness of its bibliographical references and for its own contributions to the subject. Among these the work at Behistan would alone constitute a memorable achievement. A quotation from Rawlinson will indicate the difficulty and importance of the task: "I will not say much as to the danger