It should be said in justice that the present Shah has done all he can to stop the torture system, and confine the death-sentence to one of two methods--painless and instantaneous--throat-cutting and blowing from a gun.

Notwithstanding, executions such as the one I have mentioned are common enough in remote districts, and crucifixion, walling up, or burying and burning alive are, although less common than formerly, by no means out of date.

Women are usually put to death by being strangled, thrown from a precipice or well, or wrapped up in a carpet and jumped upon; but the execution of a woman is now, fortunately, rare in Persia.
A dreary desert surrounds Ispahan on every side save to the southward, where dark masses of rock, a thousand feet high, break the sky-line.
The environs of the city are well populated, and, as we rode out, _en route_ for Shiraz, we passed through a good deal of cultivated land.
This is irrigated by the Zandarood, whose blue waters are visible for a long distance winding through the emerald-green plain, with its gay patchwork of white and scarlet poppy-gardens.

The cultivation of this plant is yearly increasing in Persia, for there is an enormous demand for the drug in the country itself, to say nothing of the export market, the value of which, in 1871, was 696,000 rupees.

In 1881 it had progressed to 8,470,000 rupees, and is steadily increasing every year.