THE FAMINE IN PERSIA.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2689, 29 September 1871, Page 3

THE FAMINE IN PERSIA.

(From the Sau Francisco Bulletin.) Tt is a curious fact that this famine is, to certain extent, one result, though of course an indirect one, of the American civil war. There is a belt of country in Persia which is eminently well calculated for the .production of cotton, and the high price of that article seven or eight years ago induced many of the smaller cultivators to abandon other crops and to embark in its production. 'This opening for commerce rapidly developed into a large trade, and a couple of lines of steamers have been started from Bombay to Bushire, a port on the Persian Gulf, which is the only one of importance on Persia’s limited seacoast. The money gained by the sale of cotton was obtained to buy provisions f om Pars or Fasistan, and the southern provinces, which are better adapted to the growth of wheat and rice. The high price of opium, owing to the tax imposed upon its exjiort by the British Indian Government, has also stimulated the production of poppies in place of grain. Last year there were two thousand chests of this drug exported from Bushire. The silk trade has also largely increased. These causes have all operated to diminish the area of land employed in the raising of provisions, and have doubtless tended to aggravate the consequences of the present bad season. The partial famine Inst year exhausted such small accumulated stocks of provisions as were in the country. people, however, managed to linger through the winter, sustained by the hope that the spring crop (there are two yearly crops in Persia) would bring back plenty. ' Early in the year, in spite of the general impoverishment of the people, the Government, with shocking inhumanity, raised the taxes. This completed the misery of its unhappy subjects. What little money they had left was torn from them, and they were left beggared to face a year whose horrors had but begun. The first effect of the increased taxation was to drive the people from their homes in the country to the big cities, as, owing to a curious law, the imposts upon tillers of the soil are very much heavier than those exacted from the dwellers in towns. In cities, indeed, the mass of the population practically escape taxation, and the revenue is raised, with the exception of a poll-tax, from the merchant,S. Sefore the end of winter famine had spread from Farsistan to the other provinces, which depended upon it for supplies. The cities of Ispahan, Yezd', Kerman, and Shiraz were crowded with starving multitudes. Teheran, the capital, suffered leasf't, even there the priyatioßS vfere terrible. Wheat in Kerman rose to nine times its usual price. The new crop has failed also. The people have endeavoured to keep themselves alive by eating grass and roots ; but ev n this scanty nourishment has now been exhausted. In Khorassan, whicli borders on Gabool, and the wild steppes of Central Asia, people sold their children into slavery among the Turcoma s in order to save them from starvation. and at the same time to acquire a few tomauns to spe.d in the bazaar for sustenance. In Ispahm men have been caught in the act of exhuming the corpses of .the dead for the purpose of eating them. Among the results of the famine may be mentioned that all domestic animals, even horses, of which Persia raised a great many, not only for her own use, but also for exportation to India, have been killed and eaten. The people are almost beyond the reach of help. Even if food were brought from India, there are no cattle loft to transport it to the interior ; and oven if there was, it is a month’s journey from Bushire to Ispahan, and six weeks to Khorassan, This dearth will probably be the most horrible on record. Two years ago a couple of millions of people died in India of starvation. Unless, however, the Persian Government consents to the deportatio i of its subjects, there will be among its 8,000,000 of people a mortality even more appalling this this.