The ÁrminiusVambédays I spent in Tebriz passed quickly and pleasantly owing to my intercourse being partly with Europeans and not being exclusively confined to Asiatics. While I was there, an interesting festival took place, to which I succeeded in obtaining admission. The solemn investiture of the recently nominated Veli Ahd (heir apparent to the throne) gave me an opportunity of gazing upon the pageant and pomp of the Orient in all its splendour. Muzaffar-ed-din Mirza, the son of the king, now nine years old, but who, according to the custom of the country, had been elected, in his childhood, successor to the throne, was to be publicly invested with the Khalat, the royal parade robe. The whole town was on the alert. The festival lasted several days, and when, on its first day, I entered through the gate of the Ala Konak (the royal residence), which was surrounded by a dense crowd of people, into the interior court, my curiosity rose to the highest pitch. What a strange contrast of squalor and splendour, of pomp and misery! There, in the covered hall, opposite the gate, were seated the grandees of the land, and amongst them the prince with the principal officers of his household. Every face wore a solemnly grave expression, and the bearing of their manly forms, wrapped in flowing garments, the dignified motion of their arms, the proud carriage of their heads, everything indicated that they were well versed in the art of exhibiting a public pageant. Around the interior of the court were ranged two lines of _serbasses_ (soldiers), sad-looking fellows, in European uniforms and with Persian fur caps on their heads, looking as uncomfortable and awkward as possible in their foreign clothes. The most comical things about them were their cravats, some tied in front, others at the back, and others again anywhere between those two points.
One of the sides of the garden was entirely occupied by loaves of sugar and various Persian cakes and sweetmeats, which it is the custom to place upon huge wooden platters, and without which any festive occasion in Persia would be considered incomplete.
In the centre rose the throne, upon which the young boy-prince, looking feeble and pale, took his seat, surrounded by his splendid retinue. When he was seated, the loud booming of cannon was heard, the military band struck up a martial march, and immediately afterwards appeared the royal envoy bearing the robe of honour, which he placed upon the shoulders of the young prince in token of his new dignity. The envoy then produced the insignia of the diamond order of Shir-ú-Khurshid, fastened it upon the breast of the princely heir apparent, concluding the ceremony by suddenly removing a costly carpet which had concealed the portrait of the king, painted in oil upon canvas. At this moment the whole company rose to their feet; the young prince rushed forward and imprinted a kiss upon the portrait, which was then immediately covered up again with the carpet. Upon the prince returning to his seat from the ceremony of osculation, the deafening roar of cannon and the swelling sounds of music were heard again. A high priest came forward and invoked a blessing upon the prince, the royal order was loudly proclaimed, and finally a young poet stepped forward, and, taking a seat opposite to the prince, recited to his glorification a _Kascide_ (glorifying song). The proceedings of the young poet were quite new to me, and struck me even more than the bombastic tenor of his poetical effusion. He compared the prince to a tender rose, to the brilliant sun, and finally to a precious pearl fished out of the sea of the royal family, and destined to become now the most precious ornament in the crown of Iran. Then he called him a powerful hero, who with a single blow of his sword destroys whole armies, at whose glance the mountains tremble, and the flame of whose eyes makes the rivers run dry.