about 30,000 inhabitants, and situated in an extensive and
well cultivated plain. But the most flourishing part of the
province is that which surrounds the shores of lake Urumiyah.
On its western and southern sides are Oilman, in the valley
of Selmast, a town of about 15,000 inhabitants, with Sas-
sanian sculptures in its neighbourhood;1 Urumiyah (the
supposed birth-place of Zoroaster), with about 12,000,2 Nak-
hodeh, and Ushnei; and So-uj Bolak,3 with the ancient caveS
of Karaftu, and the ruins of Shiz at some distance southeastward
of the lake. On the eastern side of this body of
water are Dehergan and Binab, and beyond the latter is
the town of Maraghah, containing about 15,000 inhabitants,
and having several fine excavations in the neighbourhood.
Tabriz, the seat of government, is a fortified city of some
little strength, and is situated in the centre of the province,
near a range of arid mountains. It contains about 8000
houses, built, as usual, of sun-dried bricks, good bazars,
several mosques, karvanserais, and an extensive ma'idan, or
square, within the walls.
At the south-western extremity of the town is the citadel
of Ali Shah, and near it the remarkable structure called the
Ark, intended, as it is said, for an open Musjed, and constructed
soon after the time of Harun al Rashid. It occupies
three sides of a square, with a massive double wall nearly
100 feet high, having an arched recess in the interior side.
The top of the building commands a fine view of the distant
mountains towards the west, the plain of Ahmedia, and the
numerous villages and inclosed gardens, kiosks, &c., forming
the extensive suburbs ; besides that constant adjunct of every
oriental city, the cemetery: the size of the latter, owing to
earthquakes,4 cholera, plague, war, and oppression, has been
greatly increased at the expense of the population, which,
perhaps, does not now exceed 20,000 souls.6
1 Colonel Shiel’s Journey.—Vol. V III. Part I., p. 56, of the Royal
Geographical Journal. 2 Kinneir.
3 Major Rawlinson.—Vol. X. Part I., pp. 15 and 35, of the Royal
Geographical Journal. 4 10,000 perished in this way in 1121.
5 In 1832, on the cessation of plague, which had followed a visit of the
cholera.
Notwithstanding its decayed state,1 Tabriz, as the commercial
depot of Northern Persia, enjoys a considerable trade
with Constantinople, England, and Russia, by way of Tiflis ;
and it has a commercial representative of the first class from
the two latter nations.
In summer the heat of the province is considerable, and
during winter the cold is intense ; for, although nearly in
the latitude of Athens, the elevation of the country causes
the snow to remain on the ground for many weeks, during
which time a severe frost prevails ; the climate is, however,
healthy.
This provinòe represents Media Atropatene, which bordered
Media Magna along the line of the Amardus, now the Kizil
U'zen, or Golden river, and included the tract northward of
that river, as far as the Araxes; it also extended from the
Caspian to the same distance westward of Lake Urumiyah.2
Near the last were the Matiene, and, more eastward, the
Cadusians and the Caspians, together with some nomadic
tribes.3 The lake (says Strabo) is on the east of Armenia
and Matiene, and is on the north of the latter, as well as
of great Media. It lies also towards the south of the people
living at the corner of the Hyrcanian Sea.4
The capital was Gaza,6 the Azata, or Azaga, of Ptolemy.6
It is now called Shiz and Takhti-Soleïmân, and is the Atro-
patenian Ecbatana of Rawlinson.7
It would, however, appear, that at a remote period this
province was designated Southern, or greater Media ;8 the
first country of the Arii at the foot of the Caucasus being
Northern Media. The name Media, therefore, had been
successively applied to each of the subdivisions9 at different
1 Chardin estimated the population at 500,000 in 1686.
2 Lake Spauta.— Strabo, lib. XI., p. 523 ; and K’habodan of the Armenians.
—St. Martin, Mémoires sur l ’Arménie, Tome II., p. 311.
3 Herodotus, lib. III., cap. xcii.
4 StTabo, lib. XI., p. 522. 6 Ibid., p. 523.
° Lib. VI., cap. ii.
7 Vol. X. Part I., of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.
3 Ogilby’s Asia, p. 21.
“ La Mèdie étoit divisée en trois grandes provinces—l’Atropatène au