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192 192 CHAPTER VIII. RUSSIA AND PERSIA. For practical purposes Russia and Persia may be said to have first come into contact with each other in the reign of Peter the Great. In the year 1722, when an Afghan prince was seated upon the throne of Isfahan, a Russian embassy arrived in that capital. It came to demand the redress of various wrongs, and the settlement of several grievances. But there can be little doubt that its ostensible object was not the real cause of the rupture between the States which shortly afterwards took place. Mir Mahmoud, Afghan ruler, replied that he could not be responsible for the acts of the previous Persian sovereign, and that, moreover, his authority did not extend over the Usbegs or the Lesghians. The principal cause of offence was the injury Russian subjects had incurred at the hands of the Lesghians at Shamakee ; but there is much better reason for supposing that the Czar, piqued by the failure of his Central Asian projects elsewhere, had turned to the task of securing complete possession of