Travels in Central Asia / Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand

The merchants made here a large purchase of pistachio nuts and Berek, a light cloth for the fabrication of which the Hezare women are renowned, and is employed throughout the whole of the north of Persia and Afghanistan as an overgarment, called Chekmen.

From Kalè No the way again passes over lofty mountains to Herat; the distance is only twenty miles, but the journey is very fatiguing, and requires four days for its accomplishment. The first day's halt was at a village called Alvar, near the ruins of the robber-castle where Shir Ali Hezareh housed himself. The second day we passed by the summit Serabend, covered with everlasting snows, and where we suffered severely from frost, in spite of the immense masses of wood which we lighted to warm us. The third day, we descended continually: there are some very dangerous places, the path passing close to the edge of the precipice being only a foot broad; a false step may plunge man and camel down into the ravine below. We reached, however, without accident, the valley at Sertcheshme, whence, it is believed, springs a strong stream, that after bathing Herat on the north side falls into the Heri-Rud. On the fourth day we arrived at Kerrukh, which belongs to Herat, and is distant from it four miles.

[Afghan Exactions and Maladministration.]

Herat was still besieged by Dost Mohammed Khan when the karavan had set out for Bokhara in the spring. Six months had now elapsed, the report of their native city having been taken and plundered had reached them, and the reader may imagine the anxiety felt by every Herati to seek his house, property, family {266} and friends! Notwithstanding this, all were forced to wait here another day, until the officer of the customs, whose appearance on the scene, with his arrogant Afghan air, took us early in the morning by surprise, had got ready an exact list of all that had come and everything they had brought with them. I had pictured to myself Afghanistan as a land already half organised, where, through long contact with Western influence, at least something of order and civilisation had been introduced. I flattered myself that I was upon the eve of getting rid at once of my disguise and sufferings. I was cruelly deceived. The Afghan functionary, the first whom I had yet seen of that nation, threw into the shade all the inhumanity and barbarity of similar officers in Central Asia; all the dreadful things I had heard about the searches as to customs amongst the Afghans was only a painting 'couleur de rose' compared with what I here witnessed. The bales of goods that owners would not open were sent under guard to the town; the baggage of the travellers was examined and written down article by article; in spite of the coldness of the weather, every one was obliged to strip, and with the exception of shirt, drawers, and upper garment, every object of dress was declared liable to duty. The brute taxed the Hadjis most severely, he did not even spare their little stock of haberdashery; and, what is unheard of, he exacted five krans per head for the asses, animals for which so much had been already paid for duty, and which were themselves worth from twenty to twenty-five krans. As many were really so poor as to be unable to pay, he caused their asses to be sold; this revolting proceeding wrung me very hard; it left me, in fact, almost without resources.

Towards evening, when we thought that the plundering was over, the Governor of Kerrukh, who has the rank of a Mejir, [Footnote 80] made his appearance also to receive his whip-money. He was somewhat exacting, too, but his genuine soldier-like bearing, and his uniform buttoned tight over his chest (the first object that had greeted my eyes for so long a time that recalled European associations), produced upon me an indescribably cheering impression. Even now I laugh at the pettiness of my feelings, but I could not regard with indifference the end of the entire jest of which I had been the author. Bator Khan (that was his name) had remarked my look of surprise. This made him regard me more attentively; he was struck by my foreign features, and questioned the Kervanbashi; directed me to seat myself near him, and treated me with affability and consideration. In the course of the conversation, which he continually turned upon Bokhara, he laughed in my face, and yet so that he was not observed by others, as if to congratulate me upon the accomplishment of my object, for he thought that I had been sent upon a mission; and although I persisted in supporting the character I had so long assumed, he extended to me his hand at his departure, and wished to shake mine à l'Anglaise, but, seeing his design, I anticipated him, raised my arms, and was about to give him a Fatiha, when he withdrew laughing.

[Footnote 80: Mejir corresponds with the English 'Major,' from which it is borrowed. I devoted much attention to the words 'Djornel' and 'Kornel' used by the Afghans in their army, until it at last occurred to me that the former sprung from General, and the latter from Colonel.]

Next morning our karavan was to enter Herat, having spent more than six weeks on the way hither from Bokhara, a journey that may be easily accomplished in from twenty to twenty-five days.

From the details already furnished, it is apparent that trade on this route is not in a very splendid condition. We will now sum up, in Tenghe, the amount paid altogether for slaves, goods, and cattle at the different places:--

Paid in Tenghe at 75 centimes each.

When we say, besides, that the interest of money at Herat is twenty per cent., we may form an idea of what the selling price must be to remunerate the merchant for his trouble!

CHAPTER XIV.

HERAT.

---Isidori Characeni, Mansiones Parthicae, 17, apud Müller. Geograph. Gr. minores.

[Herat; Its Ruinous State]

The traveller approaching from the north will certainly be surprised when, on turning round the mountain Khodja Abdullah Ansari, he sees lying before him the beautiful immense plain called Djölghei Herat, with its numerous canals and scattered groups of villages. Although trees, the principal ornament of every landscape, are here entirely wanting, he cannot but be convinced that he has reached the bounds of Turkestan, and with it of Central Asia, properly so called; for of this Herat is rightly named the gate, or key. Without going so far as the Orientals, in styling it 'Djennetsifat' (like Paradise), we cannot, nevertheless, deny to the surrounding country the character of loveliness and of fertility. Its natural advantages, {270} united with its political importance, have unhappily made it an apple of discord to adjoining nations, and when we consider the wars that have here been carried on, and the frequent sieges that the city has had to support, it is astonishing to us how rapidly the wounds inflicted seem to have scarred over. Only two months before we arrived, hordes of wild Afghans had here housed themselves, scattering desolation and devastation in every direction, and yet, even now, fields and vineyards looked flourishing, and the meadows were covered with high grass mixed with flowers.

Like all cities in the East, it has both ancient and modern ruins; and here, as everywhere else, we must pronounce the former the more beautiful and the nobler. The remains of the monuments on the Mosalla (place of prayer), remind us of the ruins of the ancient city of Timour; the round towers lying scattered singly about look like the immediate environs of Ispahan; but the city, and the fortress itself, in the state in which I saw it, form a ruin such as we rarely meet with, even in the East.

[Bazaar]

We entered by the gate Dervaze Arak. The houses which we passed, the advanced works, the very gate, looked like a heap of rubbish. Near the latter, in the inside of the city, is the Ark (citadel) having, from its elevation, served as a mark for the Afghan artillery; it lies there blasted and half demolished. The doors and windows have been stripped of their woodwork, for during the siege the inhabitants suffered most from the scarcity of fuel. In the bare openings of the walls are perched here and there a few wretched-looking Afghans or Hindoos--worthy guards of such a ruin. Each step we advance, we see greater indications of devastation. Entire quarters of the {271} town remain solitary and abandoned. The bazaar--that is to say, the arched part of it, where the quadrangle of the bazaar is united by its dome, and which has witnessed and resisted so many sieges--alone remains, and affords, in spite of its new population, dating only from three months ago, a really interesting sample of Oriental life--a blending of the characteristics of India, Persia, and Central Asia, better defined than even in the bazaar of Bokhara. It is only from the Karavanserai Hadji Resul to that of No that a throng, rightly so called, exists; and although the distance is small, the eye is bewildered by the diversity of races--Afghans, Indians, Tartars, Turkomans, Persians, and Jews. The Afghan parades about, either in his national costume, consisting of a long shirt, drawers, and dirty linen clothes, or in his military undress; and here his favourite garment is the red English coat, from which, even in sleep, he will not part. He throws it on over his shirt, whilst he sets on his head the picturesque Indo-Afghan turban. Others again, and these are the beau monde, are wont to assume a half Persian costume. Weapons are borne by all. Rarely does any one, whether civil or military, enter the bazaar without his sword and shield. To be quite à la mode, one must carry about one quite an arsenal, consisting of two pistols, a sword, poniard, hand-jar, gun, and shield. With the wild martial-looking Afghan we can only compare the Turkomanlike Djemshidi. The wretchedly-dressed Herati, the naked Hezare, the Teymuri of the vicinity, are overlooked when the Afghan is present. He encounters around him nothing but abject humility; but never was ruler or conqueror so detested as is the Afghan by the Herati.

The bazaar itself, dating from Herat's epoch of splendour, the reign of the Sultan Husein Mirza, and consequently about four hundred years old, deserved still, even in its ruins, the epithet beautiful. It is said, in earlier times, to have formed an entire street, from the Dervaze Arak to the Dervaze Kandahar. [Footnote 81] Of course, at present, the shops in the bazaar begin to open again, but only by degrees. The last siege and plundering of the city could not fail to prove a great discourager. Indeed, under the rapacious system of duties introduced by the Afghans, trade and manufacture have little prosperity opened to them; for it is extraordinary, indeed incredible, what taxes are extorted from both seller and purchaser, upon every article that is sold. They seem, besides, to be regulated by no fixed scale, but to be quite arbitrary. One has to pay a duty, for instance, for a pair of boots that has cost originally five francs, one and a half francs; for a cap, worth two francs, one franc; for a fur that has been purchased for eight francs, three francs; and so on. Every article imported or exported is stamped by tax-collectors, having offices in the bazaar and in different parts of the city.

[Footnote 81: Unlike the other gates this one suffered little during the siege. The Herati pretend that it can never he demolished, because built by the English, who lay brick over brick only as justice directs, unlike the Afghans, who mix the mortar with the tears of oppression.]

The original inhabitants of the city were Persians, and belonging to the race that spread itself from Sistan towards the north-east, and formed the ancient province of Khorasan, of which, until recent days, that remained the capital. In later times, the immigrations, of which Djenghis and Timour were the cause, {273} led to the infusion of Turco-Tartaric blood into the veins of the ancient population. The collective name Char-Aimak is the result, as well as the subdivision of the people into the Djemshidi, Firuzkuhi, Teïmeni or Timouri. These are races of different origin, and can only from a political point of view be regarded as one single nation. Thus far of the inhabitants of the Djölghei Herat.

The fortress itself is inhabited, for the most part, by Persians, who settled here in the last century, to maintain and spread the influence of their own country. They are now principally handicraftsmen or merchants. As for Afghans, one cannot find in the city more than one in five. They have become quite Persians, and are, particularly since the last siege, very hostile to their own countrymen. A Kabuli, or a Kaker from Kandahar, is as much regarded by him in the light of an oppressor, and therefore is as much detested, as by the aboriginal natives of Herat.

The diversified throngs I encountered in Herat produced a pleasing effect upon me. The Afghan soldiery in the English uniform, with shako--a covering for the head contrary to the prescriptions of the Koran, and the introduction of which into the Turkish army is regarded as impracticable [Footnote 82]--seemed {274} to lead to the conclusion that I had fallen upon a land where Islamite fanaticism had lost its formidable character, and where I might gradually discontinue my disguise. And when I saw many soldiers moving about with moustaches shaved off, and wearing whiskers--an appendage regarded as a deadly sin in Islam, and even in Constantinople as a renunciation of their religion--the hope seized me that perhaps I might meet here English officers; and how happy I should have considered myself to have found some son of Britain, whose influence, without doubt, from political circumstances, would have been here very great. I had, for the moment, forgotten that the Oriental is never what he seems, and my disappointment was, indeed, bitter.

[Footnote 82: The Osmanli insist that according to the Sunnet (tradition), Siper (a head-covering with a peak), and Zunnar (the cord round the loins of monks), are most rigorously forbidden as signs of Christianity. Sultan Mahmoud II., on introducing into Turkey for the first time a militia formed on the model of the European, was very desirous of substituting the shako for the highly inappropriate Fez, but the destroyer of the Janissaries did not venture to carry his wish into execution, for he would have been declared an apostate even by his best friends.]

[Author's Destitute Condition]

As I before remarked, my finances had melted away positively to nothing. I was obliged, on entering Herat, to sell at once even the ass upon which I rode. The poor brute, being quite worn out with his journey, brought me only twenty-six krans, out of which I was obliged to pay the tax upon the sale, and other little debts. The state in which I found myself was very critical. The want of bread admitted of remedy; but the nights had become quite cold, and in spite of my being inured to a life of hardship, my sufferings were great, when I slept in an open ruin, with scanty clothing, and on the bare earth. The thought that Persia might be reached in ten days cheered me up. Still, it was not so easy an enterprise to arrive thither. To go alone was impossible, and the karavan, preparing to go to Meshed, wished to wait still for an increase of travellers, and a more favourable opportunity; for the Tekke Turkomans not only rendered the journey exceedingly {275} unsafe, but plundered villages and karavans, and carried off captives before the very gates of Herat. During the first days of my arrival, I heard that a Persian envoy, named Mehemmed Bakir Khan, sent by the governor Prince of Khorasan to congratulate the young Serdar of Herat, proposed soon to return to Teheran. I immediately waited upon him, and begged him to take me with him. The Persian was very polite; but although I repeated to him over and over again the state of destitution in which I was, he paid no attention to that statement, and asked me (the dreadfully disfigured Hadji), if I had brought back with me any fine horses from Bokhara! Every word of his seemed to indicate a wish on his part to penetrate my secret. Seeing that I had nothing to expect, I left him. He quitted Herat soon after, accompanied by many of the Hadjis who had travelled with me from Samarcand and Kerki. All abandoned me--all but Mollah Ishak, my faithful companion from Kungrat, who had believed, when I said that in Teheran better fortunes awaited me, and who stood by me. The honest young man obtained our daily food and fuel by begging, and got ready besides our evening supper, which he even refused respectfully to share with me out of the same plate. Mollah Ishak forms, in another point of view, one of the most interesting of my episodes. He lives now, at this day, in Pesth, instead of being at Mecca, and in the sequel of my narrative we shall have occasion to speak of him.

[The Serdar Mehemmed Yakoub Khan; Parade of Afghan Troops]

Not to neglect any expedient to forward my journey on to Meshed, I went to the reigning Prince, Serdar Mehemmed Yakoub Khan, son of the present king of Afghanistan, a lad in his sixteenth year, who had been placed at the head of affairs in the conquered {276} province, his father, immediately after his accession to the throne, having been obliged to hasten away to Kabul, in order to prevent any steps being taken by his brothers to contest the throne with him. The young Prince resided in the Charbag, in the palace which had also served for the dwelling of Major Todd. It had, it is true, suffered much during the siege, but was naturally preferred, as a residence, to the citadel, which was a mere ruin. One part of that quadrangular court, a garden as they were in the habit of calling it, although I saw in it only a few trees, served as night quarters for him and his numerous retinue, whilst in the portions situate on the opposite side an Arz (public audience) of four or five hours' duration was held in a large long hall. The Prince was generally seated at the window in an armchair, dressed in military uniform, with high collars; and as the numerous petitioners, whom he was obliged officially to receive, very much wearied him, he made the Risale Company (the élite of the Afghan troops) exercise before his window, and seemed highly delighted with the wheeling of the columns, and the thundering word of command of the officer passing them in review, who, besides, pronounced the 'Right shoulder forward! Left shoulder forward!' with a genuine English accent.

[Interview with Serdar]

When I stepped into the court I have mentioned, accompanied by Mollah Ishak, the drill was at its most interesting point. The men had a very military bearing, far better than the Ottoman army, that was so drilled forty years ago. These might have been mistaken for European troops, if most of them had not had on their bare feet the pointed Kabuli shoe, and had not had their short trousers so tightly {277} stretched by their straps that they threatened every moment to burst and fly up above the knee. After having watched the exercises a short time, I went to the door of the reception-hall, which was filled by a number of servants, soldiers, and petitioners. If all made way for me, and allowed me undisturbed to enter the saloon, I had to thank the large turban I had assumed (my companion had assumed a similar one), as well as the 'anchorite' appearance which my wearisome journey had imparted. I saw the Prince as I have described; on his right hand sat his Vizir, and next to him there were ranged along against the wall other officers, Mollahs and Heratis; amongst these there was also a Persian, Imamverdi Khan, who on account of some roguery had fled hither from (Djam) Meshed. Before the Prince stood his keeper of the seal (Möhürdar), and four or five other servants. True to my Dervish character, on appearing I made the usual salutation, and occasioned no surprise to the company when I stepped, even as I made it, right up to the Prince, and seated myself between him and the Vizir, after having required the latter, a corpulent Afghan, to make room for me by a push with the foot. This action of mine occasioned some laughing, but it did not put me out of countenance. I raised my hands to repeat the usual prayer required by the law. [Footnote 83] Whilst I was repeating it, the Prince looked me full in the face. I saw his look of amazement, and when I was repeating the Amen, and all present were keeping time with me in stroking their beards, the Prince half rose from his chair, and, pointing {278} with his finger to me, he called out, half laughing and half bewildered, 'Vallahi, Billahi Schuma, Inghiliz hestid' ('By G--, I swear you are an Englishman!').

[Footnote 83: This is in Arabic, and to the following effect: 'God our Lord, let us take a blessed place, for of a verity Thou art the best quartermaster.']

A ringing peal of laughter followed the sudden fancy of the young king's son, but he did not suffer it to divert him from his idea; he sprang down from his seat, placed himself right before me, and, clapping both his hands like a child who has made some lucky discovery, he called out, 'Hadji, Kurbunet' ('I would be thy victim'), 'tell me, you are an Englishman in Tebdil (disguise), are you not?' His action was so naïve, that I was really sorry that I could not leave the boy in his illusion. I had cause to dread the wild fanaticism of the Afghans, and, assuming a manner as if the jest had gone too far, I said, 'Sahib mekun' ('have done'); 'you know the saying, "He who takes, even in sport, the believer for an unbeliever, is himself an unbeliever." [Footnote 84] Give me rather something for my Fatiha, that I may proceed further on my journey.' My serious look, and the Hadis which I recited, quite disconcerted the young man; he sat down half ashamed, and, excusing himself on the ground of the resemblance of my features, said that he had never seen a Hadji from Bokhara with such a physiognomy. I replied that I was not a Bokhariot, but a Stambuli; and when I showed him my Turkish passport, and spoke to him of his cousin, the son of Akbar Khan, Djelal-ed-din Khan, who was in Mecca and Constantinople in 1860, and had met with a distinguished reception from the Sultan, his manner quite changed; my passport went the round of the company, and met with approbation. The Prince gave me some krans, {279} and dismissed me with the order that I should often visit him during my stay, which I accordingly did.

[Footnote 84: Traditional sentence of the Prophet.]

'I SWEAR YOU ARE AN ENGLISHMAN!

However fortunate the issue of this amusing proceeding, it had still some consequences not very agreeable, as far as my continued stay in Herat was concerned. Following the Prince's example, every one wanted to detect in me the Englishman. Persians, Afghans, and Herati came to me with the express purpose of convincing themselves and verifying their suspicions. The most boring fellow was a certain Hadji Sheikh Mehemmed, an old man rejoicing in the reputation of being a great astrologer and astronomer, and really, as far as opportunity enabled me to judge, one well read in Arabic and Persian. He informed me that he had travelled with Mons. de Khanikoff, and had been of much service to him in Herat, and that the latter had given him a letter to the Russian ambassador in Teheran, of which he wished me to take charge. In vain did I try to persuade the good old man, that I had nothing to do with the Russians; he left me with his convictions unshaken. But what was most droll was the conduct of the Afghans and Persians; they thought they saw in me a man à la Eldred Pottinger, who made his first entry into Herat disguised as a horsedealer, and became later its master. They insisted that I had a credit here for hundreds, even thousands, of ducats, and yet no one would give me a few krans to purchase bread!

Ah, how long the time seemed that I had to pass in Herat waiting for the karavan! The city had a most gloomy troubled aspect; the dread of their savage conqueror was painted on the features of its inhabitants. The incidents of the last siege, its capture and plundering, formed the constant subjects of conversation.

[Conduct of Afghans on storming Herat]

According to the assertions of the Herati (which are, however, not founded in fact), Dost Mohammed Khan took the fortress, not by the bravery of the Kabuli, but by the treason of the garrison; they insist, too, that the beloved prince Sultan Ahmed was poisoned, and that his son Shanauvaz, who is almost deified by the Herati, did not obtain information of the treachery before a great part of the Paltan (soldiers) had already forced their way into the fortress. The struggle carried on by the besieged prince with his angry father-in-law was of the bitterest description, the sufferings borne and inflicted were dreadful, but worst of all were the sacking and plundering that took place unexpectedly some days after the actual capture, when many fugitive Herati returned with their property into the city. Four thousand Afghan soldiers, chosen expressly for the purpose from different tribes and regiments, rushed at a given signal, and from different sides of the city, upon the defenceless habitations, and are said not only to have carried off clothing, arms, furniture, whatever in fact met their eye, but forced every one to strip himself almost to a state of nudity, and to have left the half-naked tenants behind them in their thoroughly denuded and emptied houses. They tore away even from the sick their bedding and clothing, and robbed infants of cradles, nay, of the very swathing clothes, valueless but to them! A Mollah, who had been robbed of all his books, told me that he had lost sixty of the finest MSS.; but the loss he most deplored was that of a Koran bequeathed to him by his grandfather. He entreated the plunderer to leave him this one book, from which he promised that he would pray for his despoiler. 'Do not trouble thyself,' said the Kabuli; {281} 'I have a little son at home who shall pray for thee from it. Come, give it me.'

[Nazir Naïm the Vizir]

Whoever is acquainted with the covetousness of the filthy grasping Afghan, may picture to himself how he would behave in plundering a city. The besiegers levied contributions upon the city during a day, upon the country around during months. These are indeed natural consequences of war, occurring even in civilised countries, and which we will not make the subject of excessive reproach against the Afghans. But it is a pity that, instead of seeking to heal the wounds which they have inflicted, their miserable policy seems now to aim at reducing the whole province still further to beggary; so that in a country, where undoubtedly they are called upon to play an important part, they have rendered themselves objects of detestation: for the inhabitants would at once again plunge into a hopeless contest rather than ever acknowledge the supremacy of the Afghans. Herat, that is said now again to show signs of fresh life, has been left in the hands of a good-humoured inexperienced child. His guardian, the Khan of the Djemshidi, has an understanding with the Turkomans, against whose incursions he ought to protect the country. The Alamans extend their depredations to within a few leagues of Herat; scarcely does any week elapse without villages being surprised and plundered, and the inhabitants being led away to captivity. The Vizir of the Prince, named Nazir Naïm, is a man whose coarse features are, as it were, the sign-post of stupidity; he has in the course of only two months so enriched himself that he has purchased for himself in Kabul two houses with vineyards. As the internal affairs of the city and province are left in his hands, he {282} is accustomed, during the whole time of his hours of business, to surround himself with litigants and place-hunters. He soon tires, and when questions or petitions are addressed to him respecting the government recently established, to get rid of the wearisome application he has ever ready the stereotyped answer: 'Her tchi pish bud' (Everything as before). In his absence of mind he returns the same answer when accusations are laid before him of murder or theft; the plaintiff surprised repeats his story, but obtains the eternal answer, 'Her tchi pish bud,' and so he must retire.

[Embarrassed State of Revenue; Major Todd]

A striking proof of the confusion that pervades everything is the circumstance, that in spite of unheard-of duties, in spite of endless imposts, the young Serdar cannot raise out of the revenues of the province of Herat a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of the civil functionaries and the garrison of fourteen hundred men. Mr. Eastwick [Footnote 85] reports, according to a statement made by the Prince Governor of the province of Khorasan, that the income of Herat amounts yearly to 80,000 Toman (38,000l.), but from this sum are to be maintained, besides the corps of civilians, five regiments of infantry, and about 4,000 cavalry, for which purpose the amount given is clearly insufficient. With a larger income, Herat of the present day has far fewer expenses; the terrified city is easily governed; and it can only be ascribed to maladministration that a subvention is required from Kabul to defray the expenses of the troops. {283} Had Dost Mohammed only lived a year longer to consolidate the government of the newly-conquered province, the incorporation of Herat with Afghanistan might have been possible. As it is, fear alone keeps things together. It needs only some attack, no matter by whom, to be made upon Herat, for the Herati to be the first to take up arms against the Afghans. Nor does this observation apply to the Shiite inhabitants alone, whose sympathies are, of course, in favour of Persia, but even to those of the Sunnite persuasion, who would certainly prefer the Kizilbash to their present oppressors; but I find no exaggeration in the opinion that they long most for the intervention of the English, whose feelings of humanity and justice have led the inhabitants to forget the great differences in religion and nationality. The Herati saw, during the government of Major Todd, more earnestness and self-sacrifice with respect to the ransoming of the slaves [Footnote 86] than they had ever even heard of before on the part of a ruler. Their native governments had habituated them to be plundered and murdered, not spared or rewarded.

[Footnote 85: 'Journal of a Diplomate's Three Years' Residence in Persia,' vol. ii. p. 244.]

[Footnote 86: The report is general in Herat that Stoddart was sent on a mission to Bokhara to ransom the Herati there pining in captivity.]

[Mosalla, and Tomb of Sultan Husein Mirza; Tomb of Khodja Abdullah Ansari, and of Dost Mohammed Khan.]

Two days before my departure, I suffered an Afghan to persuade me to make an excursion to a village in the vicinity named Gazerghiah, to pay a visit there to the tombs of Khodja Abdullah Ansari, and of Dost Mohammed Khan, in order, as it is said, to kill two flies with one blow. On the way I paid my parting visit to the fine ruins of Mosalla. The remains of the mosque and of the sepulchre, which the great Sultan Husein Mirza, caused to be built for {284} himself ten years before his death (901), are, as I before mentioned, an imitation of the monuments of Samarcand. [Footnote 87] Time would have long spared these works of art, but they suffered shamefully during the last two sieges, when the place became the quarters of Shiite fanaticism. It is to be regretted that European officers, like General Borowsky and General Bühler--the former a Pole, the latter an Alsatian, and both present in those campaigns, could not interfere to prevent such acts of Vandalism. Gazerghiah itself, at a league's distance from Herat, and visible, by its position on a hill from that city, has many monuments of interest in sculpture and architecture. They date from the epoch of Shahrookh Mirza, a son of Timour, and have been described at large by Ferrier, but with some slight mistakes, which one readily excuses in an officer who travels. The name of the saint at Gazerghiah, for instance, is Khodja Abdullah Ansari--the latter word signifying that he was an Arab, and of the tribe that shared the Hidjra (flight) with the Prophet. More than six hundred years ago, he passed from Bagdad to Merv, thence to Herat, where he died, and was declared a saint. He now stands in high repute as patron of both city and province. Dost Mohammed Khan directed himself to be buried at the feet of Khodja Abdullah Ansari, at once flattering the prejudices of his countrymen {285} and offending those of his enemies. The grave, which lies between the walls of the adjoining edifice and the sepulchre of the Khodja, had when I saw it no decoration, and not even a stone; for his son and successor preferred first to lay the foundation of his inheritance before completing the tomb of him who had bequeathed it to him. This does not, however, prevent the Afghans from performing their reverential pilgrimages. The saint will, before long, be thrown into the shade by his mighty rival; and yet he has but his deserts, for he is probably one of the numerous Arabian vagabonds, but Dost Mahommed Khan was the founder of the Afghan nation.

[Footnote 87: The sepulchre particularly has much resemblance to that of Timour. The decorations and inscriptions upon the tomb are of the most masterly sculpture it is possible to conceive. Many stones have three inscriptions carved out, one above the other, in the finest Sulus writing, the upper line, the middle one, and lower one, forming different verses.]

CHAPTER XV.

FROM HERAT TO LONDON.

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw nigh home.--Byron.

[Author joins Karavan for Meshed; Kuhsun, last Afghan Town]

On the 15th November 1863, I quitted Herat, the gate of Central Asia or of India, as it is usually called, in order to complete my journey with the great karavan bound for Meshed. It consisted of 2,000 persons; half of whom were Hezare from Kabul, who in the greatest poverty and the most abject state of misery were undertaking with wives and children a pilgrimage to the tombs of Shiite saints. Although all formed one body, it had nevertheless many subdivisions. I was attached to a division consisting {287} of a troop of Afghans from Kandahar, who were trading with Persia in indigo or skins from Kabul, owing to my having made my agreement with the same Djilodar. I had been able to persuade him to allow me to take my seat on a lightly-loaded mule, under the engagement that I would pay him in Meshed as if I had had the sole use of it. By the pretension, now avowed by me, that in Meshed I should no longer be in a state of destitution, I began for the first time myself to throw a doubt upon the genuineness of the character I had hitherto assumed of a Hadji, but I did not dare completely to lay aside the mask, because the Afghans, more fanatical than the Bokhariots, would have probably avenged their insulted tenets upon the spot. The dubious light in which I stood afforded, however, a fund of interesting surmises to those by whom I was surrounded, for whilst some of them took me for a genuine Turk, others were disposed to think me an Englishman; the different parties even quarrelled on the subject, and it was very droll to observe how the latter began to triumph over the former, when it was observed that, in proportion as we drew nearer to Meshed, the bent posture of humility of the Dervish began more and more to give way to the upright and independent deportment of the European. Some Afghans, agents of wholesale indigo-houses in Moultan and Shikarpur, seemed quite to accommodate themselves to my metamorphosis; for although, whilst still in the district of Herat, they vaunted their characters of Gazi (men who have taken part in the war against the English), and boasted in the most extravagant manner of the victory in Kabul, they confided to me as we drew near {288} to Meshed that they were English subjects, and urged me to introduce them to the Vekil Dowlet (English consular agent), as his influence and protection would be of great service to them in their commercial affairs; and this they did without the slightest blush of shame. The Oriental is born and dies in a mask; candour will never exist in the East. Our way passed by Nukre, Kale Sefer Khan, Ruzenek, Shebesh and Kuhsun. At Shebesh the woody country begins, which extends along the bank of the Heri, and often serves the Turkomans for a retreat. In Kuhsun, where the territory of Herat ends, we were obliged to stay two days, to pay the last Afghan duties.

[False Alarm from Wild Asses]

On the second day we saw from the tower of the karavanserai an immense cloud of dust approaching the village. 'The Turkomans!' 'the Turkomans!' was the cry on all sides. The consternation in karavan and village beggars all description: at last, the cloud coming closer, we saw an immense squadron of wild asses, at some hundred paces' distance; they wheeled round and vanished from our eyes in the direction of the desert.

[Debatable Ground between Afghan and Persian Territory; Bifurcation of Route; Yusuf Khan Hezareh]

From this point to the Persian frontier, which commences at Kahriz and Taybad, lies a district without claimant or owner, over which from north to south as far as Khaf, Kaïn, and even Bihrdjan, the Tekke, Salor, and Sarik send forth their Alamans: these, consisting of hundreds of riders, fall unawares upon villages and hurry off with them into captivity, inhabitants and herds of cattle. In spite of its size, our karavan was further strengthened by an escort of all the men in Kuhsun capable of bearing arms. At Kafirkale we met another karavan coming from Meshed. I learnt {289} that Colonel Dolmage, an English officer in the Persian service, whom I had known before, was in the latter city. The tidings were a source of great satisfaction to me. After Kafirkale we came to the karavanserai Dagaru, where the route divides into two, the one going by Kahriz and Türbeti Sheikh Djam through a plain, the other, by Taybad, Riza, Shehrinow; the latter is very mountainous, and consequently the less dangerous of the two. The principal part of the karavan proceeded along the former, whereas we were obliged to take the latter, as it was the pleasure of the Afghans that we should do so. Our way passed from Taybad through a waste deserted country named Bakhirz (perhaps Bakhiz), inhabited by the Sunnite Hezare, who migrated hither from Kalè No. There are five stations before reaching the plain of Kalenderabad. In Shehrinow I met the Sertib (general), Yusuf Khan, a Hezare chief, in the pay of Persia, and nevertheless its bitterest enemy. The policy of sending him to the frontier was in one respect good, as the Hezare are the only 'tribe capable of measuring themselves' with the Turkomans, and at the same time objects of dread to them: but in another point of view it may be doubted how far it is judicious, in the danger that menaces Persia on the side of the Afghans, to make use of enemies to guard the frontiers.

[Ferimon]

From Shehrinow we proceeded over Himmetabad and Kelle Munar, [Footnote 88]which is a station situate on the top of a mountain, consisting merely of a single tower, built as a precaution against surprises. The severe cold occasioned us much suffering, but the next day {290} we reached Ferimon, the first place we had come to whose inhabitants were Persians. Here a warm stable made me forget for some time the sufferings of many days past. At last, on the twelfth day after our departure from Herat, the gilded dome of the mosque and tomb of Imam Riza glittering from afar announced to me that I was approaching Meshed, the city for which I had so longed. That first view threw me into a violent emotion, but I must admit not so great as I expected to have experienced on the occasion. Without seeking to exaggerate the dangers that had attended my undertaking, I may speak of this point as the date of my regeneration; and is it not singular, that the reality of a liberation from a state of danger and restraint soon left me perfectly indifferent, and when we were near the gates of the city I forgot Turkomans, desert, Tebbad, everything!

[Footnote 88: The word signifies 'hill of skulls.']

[Colonel Dolmage]

Half an hour after my arrival, I paid a visit to Colonel Dolmage, who filled many important offices here for the Prince-Governor, and stood in high estimation everywhere. He was still engaged in his official place of business, when his servants summoned him to me; they announced me as a singular Dervish from Bokhara. He hastened home, regarded me fixedly for a long time, and only when I began to speak did he recognise me, and then his warm embrace and tearful eye told me that I had found not only a European, but a friend. The gallant Englishman offered me his house, which I did not reject, and I have to thank his hospitality that I so far recovered from the hardships of my journey as to be able, in spite of the winter, in a month's time to continue my journey to Teheran.

[Prince Sultan Murad Mirza]

Colonel Dolmage introduced me also, during my stay in Meshed, to the Prince-Governor, Sultan Murad Mirza, the uncle of the reigning Shah. This prince, the son of that Abba Mirza, whose English predilections are so well known, is surnamed 'the kingdom's naked sword;' [Footnote 89] and he deserves the title, for it is to be ascribed only to his constant watchfulness and energy that Khorasan, under his administration, has not suffered more from the incursions of the Turkomans, and that the roads begin everywhere to assume an appearance of bustle and animation. I paid him several visits, and was always received with particular kindness and affability. We conversed for hours together respecting Central Asia, upon which subject he is tolerably well informed. His delight was great when I related to him how the bigoted and suspicious Emir of Bokhara, who styles himself, to the disgust of all the Shiites, 'Prince of the true believers,' [Footnote 90] had suffered himself to be blessed by me.

[Footnote 89: 'Husam es Saltanat.']

[Footnote 90: Emir-ul-Muminim, a title ascribed by the Shiites to Ali alone.]

To the praises rightly bestowed upon Sultan Murad Mirza by M. de Khanikoff and Mr. Eastwick, I will only add that in point of energy, sound judgment, and patriotism, there are few who resemble him in Persia, or scarcely even in Turkey; but, alas! it is not a single swallow that makes a summer, and his abilities will never find a worthy field of exertion in Persia.

[Author avows who he is to the Serdar of Herat]

On account of the scantiness of my European wardrobe, I was obliged to continue my turban as well as my Oriental dress, both in Meshed and during the remainder of my journey to Teheran; but, as the {292} reader will very well understand, I had said adieu to all disguise as a Dervish. My acquaintance with the European officer above mentioned had already told my fellow-travellers sufficiently who and what I was. My character and mission afforded a field to the Afghans for the most varying and extravagant conclusions, and, as it was easy for me to perceive that they would soon inform the young Prince of Herat of the fact, I thought it better at once myself to anticipate them, and make, in the customary form, my own communication. In a letter to the young prince, I congratulated him on his perspicacity, and told him that, although not an Englishman, I was next door to one, for that I was a European; that he was an amiable young man, but that I would advise him another time, when any person was obliged by local circumstances to travel incognito through his country, not to seek publicly and rudely to tear off his mask.

[Shahrud]

After having passed Christmas with the hospitable English officer whom I have mentioned, I began, on the day following (December 26), my journey to Teheran without either joining any karavan, or having any companion except my friend the Mollah. We were both mounted on good horses, my own property, as were also other articles that we took with us, consisting of culinary vessels and bedding, and, in fact, every possible travelling convenience; and in spite of my having, in the middle of winter, to perform twenty-four stations, I shall never forget the pleasure that I experienced in the journey that brought me, each step that I advanced, nearer to the West, that I loved so well. I even performed without escort the four stations from Mezinan to Shahrud, where {293} Persians, from fear of the Turkomans, proceed accompanied by pieces of artillery. In the last city I met, in the karavanserai, an Englishman from Birmingham, who was stopping there to purchase wool and cotton. What was the astonishment of the Briton when he heard a man in the dress of a Dervish, with an immense turban on his head, greet him in this distant land with a 'How do you do?' In his amazement his countenance assumed all hues; thrice he exclaimed, 'Well, I--,' without being able to say more. But a little explanation rid him of his embarrassment; I became his guest, and spent a famous day with him and another European, a well-informed Russian, who acted there as agent for the mercantile house of Kawkaz.

From Shahrud I took ten days to reach the Persian capital. Towards evening on the 19th of January, 1864, I was at a distance of two leagues, and, singular to say, I lost my way at the village Shah Abdul Azim, owing to the obscurity; and when, after searching about a long time in all directions, I at last reached the gate of the city, I found it shut, and I was obliged to pass the night in a karavanserai at the distance of only a few paces. The next morning I hastened, to avoid being noticed by any one in my droll costume, through the streets of Teheran to the Turkish Embassy.

[Teheran, and Welcome there by the Turkish Charge d' Affaires, Ismael Efendi; Kind Reception by Mr. Alison and the English Embassy]

The reader will easily understand in what tone of mind I again entered that edifice which, ten months before, I had left with my head full of such vague and adventurous plans. The intelligence that my benefactor Haydar Efendi had left Teheran affected me very much, although his successor, Ismael Efendi, accredited as Chargé d'affaires at the Persian Court, {294} gave me an equally kind and hearty reception. This young Turkish diplomatist, well known for his particularly fine breeding and excellent character, rendered me by his amiability eternally his debtor. He immediately vacated for me an entire suite of rooms at the Embassy, so that the comforts I enjoyed during two months in Teheran made me forget all the hardships and sufferings of my most fatiguing journey; indeed, I soon found myself so strong again that I felt capable of commencing a similar tour. No less kindness and favour awaited me at the English Embassy. The distinguished representative of the Queen, Mr. Alison, [Footnote 91] as well as the two secretaries, Messrs. Thompson and Watson, really rejoiced at the happy and successful termination of my journey; and I have to thank their kind recommendations alone, that on my arrival in England, to publish the narrative of my travels, I met with so much unhoped-for, and I may add, too, so much unmerited support. Nor can I omit here also to offer my acknowledgments for the courtesy shown to me by the Imperial chargé d'affaires, the Count Rochechouart.

[Footnote 91: This gentleman had, by an act of great generosity, the same winter that I returned to Teheran, caused much sensation in the Persian capital. Such a lesson is the best that can be given to Orientals, and far more meritorious and pregnant of consequence than all the hypocritical morality of which others make a vaunt.]