of Tehran, who had disputed the succession of Mohamed Shah, issued forth from his retirement in Kasvin to contest the Crown with his cousin; but the attempt came to an inglorious end.  A revolt at Meshed with a similar object also failed, and then Mirza Taki Khan, Amir-i-Nizam, proceeded successfully to consolidate the power of Nasr-ed-Din Shah, whose long reign, and on the whole good rule, have so accustomed the people to peace that the old ways of revolution and revolt on the death of a Shah have been forgotten and changed.

The regalia and Crown jewels of Persia mentioned in these changes of royal rule have, by inexplicable good fortune, been preserved from plunder while in the hands of rebels.  The Crown jewels are in great part a portion of the splendid spoil which Nadir Shah obtained in the sack of Delhi, when it was the capital of the richest empire in the East.  On his assassination near Meshed, the treasury was seized by the troops, and while a considerable share, including the famous Koh-i-Nur diamond, which now adorns the English crown, fell to the Afghans with Nadir’s army, the greater part, with the Koh-i-Nur companion diamond, known as the Darya-i-Nur (Sea of Light), was secured by Persian soldiers, who hid it all away in Khorasan and the adjoining districts.

When Agha Mohamed Shah found leisure from his wars and work of firmly establishing his authority, he turned his attention to the recovery of Nadirs jewels, and proceeded to Meshed, where, by means of cunning and cruelty, he succeeded in wresting from the plunderers of Nadir’s camp, and others, the rare collection of gems and ornaments now in the royal treasury at Tehran.  The value of the collection is believed to be very great.

The singular preservation of the regalia and Crown jewels of Persia from plunder while they were in the hands of rebels after the death of Agha Mohamed Shah, and again on the death of Fatch Ali Shah, is most remarkable.  A superstitious feeling of fear and respect appears to have kept them from being lost from the Crown, or it may be that, on the principle of ‘safety in numbers,’ every one, with a prospective share of the plunder in view, was a check on his neighbour against theft of that which they thought belonged to all.

Sultan Masud Mirza, better known as the Zil-es-Sultan, the eldest son of the late Shah, has generally been regarded as likely to challenge the right of his younger brother to the throne.  His ambition and overweening self-confidence combined to make him imprudent in permitting his partisans to speak aloud of his superior qualifications as a successor to his father.  The late Shah’s considerate treatment of him on all occasions also led him to make ill-judged requests for such extended rule in the South that his father said Persia was not large enough for two Shahs.  I think his idea of a viceroyalty in the South came from foolish vanity, and not from any serious thought of semi-independence, as some who heard him speak on this subject supposed.