LETTER xxiv POSTS AND TELEGRAPHS 167

unreliability by the Persian telegraph. To register letters
is the only way of securing their safe arrival, and it is
necessary to send a trustworthy man to the Post Offices,
who, after seeing the effacing stamp put upon the postage
stamp, will further insist upon seeing the postmaster put
the letters in the bag. In Tihran the Europeans make
much use of the Legation bags, and the merchants
prefer to trust their letters to private gholams rather
than to the post, while at Isfahan people are often
glad to send their letters by the monthly telegraph
chapar rather than run a postal risk. However, a foreign
letter, registered, is pretty safe. The telegraph is worse;
you often have to bribe the telegraph clerk to send the
message, and unless you see it sent it will probably be
destroyed. Of five messages sent by me from Hamadan
one was returned because the British agent in Isfahan
was "not known"(!), two were slower than letters sent the
same day, the fourth took a week, and of the fifth there is
"no information." Even in this important commercial
city the Post Office is only open for a short time on two
days in the week. I. L. B.