Tehran is the town best known by Europeans, for it is
the-capital of the country, a position it attained when the present royal
family came to the throne, the first Shah of the line transferring the seat of
the government there from Isfahan. It lies on the southern slope of the Elburz
Mountains, and from the town the great white cone of Damavand can be clearly
seen towering high above the rest of the range. There is little of real
interest in the town. One of the Shahs surrounded it with a dry moat and a wide
earthen rampart twelve miles in circumference. This is pierced by nine gateways
— flimsy buildings of brick veneered with glazed tiles and ornamented by little
turrets. From the outside the town shows a crowded mass of mud-walls and
tree-tops with an occasional red-painted iron roof. The older part of the city
is like other Oriental towns — a maze of narrow lanes hemmed in by high
mud-walls. Every now and then the road is arched over, for a short distance to
form a bazaar. The shops are merely recesses, in the side-walls, and the goods
are stored on shelves and in pigeon-holes or heaped on the ground.
