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 from the capital, and where the landowner can fall back upon his tribesmen for support in case of resistance. Two bodies of foreign missionaries, American and French respectively, have for many years past devoted their painstaking endeavours to the improvement of this portion of the Christian population of Persia. The system followed by the American missionaries is to afford the best secular education which they have it in their power to bestow upon the pupils who attend their schools, and to instruct the Nestorians in the tenets of that sect of Christianity to which they profess to belong. No proselytism of any kind is attempted by these missionaries. The French priests at Salmas direct their labours towards the extension amongst the sectaries of Persia of the faith of Rome. The education which many children of both sexes are year after year receiving in these charitable establishments would be much more highly appreciated if there were more means open to Christian ryots of honesty and capacity for securing to themselves advancement in the different walks of life; but in a country where fair-dealing between man and man is scarcely believed in, and where Christianity is a despised religion, the earnest labours of many devoted men during long years have not as yet produced any appreciable effect upon the general material condition of the Christians of Persia.

The attack on Salmas which I have mentioned was repulsed after a time by an armed force sent from Tabreez, and tranquillity was for the time re-established along the Turko-Persian frontier. The Pasha of Baghdad soon again gave trouble, but was obliged to pay a fine to the Shah, and to engage not to levy any toll upon