The wall as is usual is of crumbling, rain-eaten, sun-dried bricks, and a very poor gateway admits the traveller into a network of narrow alleys, very ruinous, with infamous roadways, full of lumps, holes, slimy black channels, stout mangy dogs, some of them earless, tailless, and one-eyed, sleeping in heaps in the hot sun, the whole overwhelmingly malodorous.[16]
It was no easy matter to find the way to the American Mission House, even though the missionary Hakīm is well known and highly esteemed, and I rode through the filthy alleys of the city and its crowded bazars for more than an hour before I reached the Armenian quarter. The people were most polite. There was no shouting or crushing in the bazars, and in some cases men walked with me for some distance to show me the way, especially when I asked for the Khanum's house. Indeed they all seemed anxious to assist a stranger. Many of the children salaamed, as I thought, but I have since heard that they are fond of using to a Christian a word which sounds just like salaam, but which instead of meaning Peace is equivalent to "May you be for ever accursed!"
On reaching the Mission House I found it shut and that the missionaries were in the country, and after sending word that I had arrived I spent some hours in an Armenian house, where the people showed extreme hospitality and kindness.
They put a soft quilt down on the soft rugs, which covered the floor of a pretty whitewashed room, with many ornaments, chiefly Russian, and, finding that I was ill, they repeatedly brought tea, milk, and fruit instead of the heavy dinner which was at once cooked. The sight of several comely women dressed in shades of red, with clean white chadars, going about household avocations, receiving visitors and gracefully exercising the rites of hospitality in a bright clean house festooned with vines, was very pleasant to a dweller in tents. It is not Armenian custom for a daughter-in-law to speak in the presence of her mother-in-law, or even to uncover her mouth, or for young women to speak in presence of their elders. A wife cannot even address her husband in the presence of his mother, except in a furtive whisper. Owing to the custom of covering the mouth, which shows no symptom of falling into disuse, I did not see the face of a girl matron who, judging from her eyes, nose, and complexion, was the comeliest in the room.
Towards evening, as I lay trying to sleep, I was delightfully startled by a cheery European voice, and a lady bent over me, whose face was sunshine, and the very tone of her voice a welcome. Goodness, purity, love, capacity to lead as well as help, true strength, and true womanliness met in the expression of her countenance. Her spotless cambric dress, her becoming hat with its soft white pagri, the harmonious simplicity of her costume, and her well-fitting gloves and shoes were a joy after the slovenliness, slipshodness, and generally tumbling-to-pieces look of Oriental women. The Faith Hubbard School, one of the good works of the American Presbyterian Mission, was close by, and in half an hour Miss —— made me feel "at home." Blessed phrase!
I. L. B.
LETTER XXIII
Hamadan, Sept. 12.
I came for four days, and have been here nearly three weeks, which I would willingly prolong into as many months if the winter were not impending. Illness, the non-arrival of luggage containing winter clothing from Tihran, and the exceeding difficulty of finding a charvadar willing to go to Urmi by the route I wish to take, have all detained me. For some time I was unable to leave the house, and indeed have been out very little, and not outside the city at all.
I am disappointed both with Hamadan and its autumn climate. It stands at an elevation of 6156 feet [Schindler], and on the final slope of the Kuh-i-Hamadan, an offshoot of Mount Elwend, overlooking a plain about fifteen miles long by nine broad, populous and cultivated, bounded on the other side by low gravelly hills. At this altitude, and with autumn fairly begun, coolness might be expected, but the heat, which a fortnight ago seemed moderating, has returned in fury, with that peculiar faintness about it which only autumn gives. Mount Elwend attracts masses of clouds, and these tend to hang over the town and increase the stagnation of the air, about which there is a remarkable closeness, even in this high situation overlooking the plain. Intermittent fever and diphtheria are prevailing both in the city and the adjacent villages. Not only is the air close and still, but the sun is blazing hot, and the mercury only varies from 88° in the day to 84° at night. Brown dust-storms career wildly over the plain, or hang heavily over it in dust clouds, and the sand-flies are abundant and merciless. In the winter the cold is intense, and the roads are usually blocked with snow for several weeks.
Water is abundant, and is led through open channels in the streets. The plain too is well supplied, and the brown villages, which otherwise would be invisible on the brown plain, are denoted by dark green stains of willow, poplar, and fruit trees. The town itself has fine gardens, belonging to the upper classes, but these are only indicated by branches straying over the top of very high walls.
My first impressions have received abundant confirmation. Important as a commercial centre as Hamadan doubtless is, it is as ruinous, filthy, decayed, and unprosperous-looking a city as any I have seen in Persia. "Ruinous heaps," jagged weather-worn walls, houses in ruins, or partly ruined and deserted, roofs broken through, domes from which the glazed tiles have dropped off, roadways not easy by daylight and dangerous at night, water-channels leaking into the roads and often black with slime, and an unusual number of very poor and badly-dressed people going about, are not evidences of the prosperity which, in spite of these untoward appearances, really exists.
The high weather-worn mud walls along the alleys have no windows, in order that the women may not see or be seen by men. A doorway with a mounting-block outside it, in "well-to-do" houses, admits into a vaulted recess, from which a passage, dimly lighted, conducts into the courtyard, round which the house is built, or into the house itself. These courtyards are planted with trees and flowers, marigolds and autumnal roses being now in the ascendant. Marble basins with fountains, and marble walks between the parterres, suggest coolness, and walnuts, apples, and apricots give shade. The men's and women's apartments are frequently on opposite sides of the quadrangles, and the latter usually open on atriums, floored with white marble and furnished with rugs and brocaded curtains. I have only seen the women's apartments, and these in the houses of rich traders and high officials are as ornamental as the exteriors are repulsive and destitute of ornament. Gilding, arabesques in colour, fretwork doors and panelling, and ceilings and cornices composed of small mirrors arranged so as to represent facets, are all decorative in the extreme. These houses, with the deep shade of their courtyards, the cool plash of their fountains, and their spacious and exquisitely-decorated rooms, contrast everywhere with the low dark mud hovels, unplastered and windowless, in which the poor live, and which the women can only escape from by sitting in the heaped and filthy yards on which they open, and which the inhabitants share with their animals. The contrast between wealth and poverty is strongly emphasised in this, as in all Persian cities, but one must add that the gulf between rich and poor is bridged by constant benevolence on the part of the rich, profuse charity being practised as a work of merit by all good Moslems.
The bazars are shabby and partially ruinous, but very well supplied with native produce and manufactures, English cottons, Russian merchandise, and "knick-knacks" of various descriptions. The presence of foreigners in the town, although they import many things by way of Baghdad, has introduced foreign articles of utility into the bazars, which are not to be found everywhere, and which are commending themselves to the people, "Peek and Frean's" biscuits among them. The display of fruit just now is very fine, especially of grapes and melons. The best peaches, which are large and of delicious flavour, as well as the best pears, come from the beautiful orchards of Jairud, not far from Kûm. The saddlery and caravan equipment bazars are singularly well supplied, as indeed they should be, for Hamadan is famous for leather, and caravans loaded with hides for its tanneries are met with on every road. The bark and leaves of the pomegranate are used for tanning. Besides highly ornamental leather for book-bindings and women's shoes, the tanners prepare the strong skins which, after being dyed red, are used for saddles, coverings of trunks, and bindings for khūrjins.
Hamadan is also famous for namads or felts, which are used as carpets and horse-coverings, and as greatcoats by the peasants as well as by the Lurs. A good carpet felt of Hamadan manufacture is an inch thick, but some made at Yezd reach two inches. For rich men's houses they are made to order to fit rooms, and valuable rugs are laid over them. The largest I have seen is in the palace of the Minister of Justice at Tihran, which must be fully a hundred and twenty feet by eighty feet, and formed fourteen mule-loads; but sixty by forty feet is not an uncommon size, and makes eight mule-loads. These carpet namads, the most delicious of floor-coverings, are usually a natural brown, with an outline design in coloured threads or in a paler shade of brown beaten into the fabric. Namads, owing to their bulk and weight, are never exported. The best, made at Hamadan, are about 20s. the square yard. Chairs spoil them, and as it is becoming fashionable among the rich men of the cities to wear tight trousers, which bring chairs in their train, the manufacture of these magnificent floor-coverings will probably die.
The felt coats, which protect equally from rain and cold, are dark brown and seamless, and cost from 10s. to 20s. They have sleeves closed at the end to form a glove, and with a slit below the elbow through which the hand can be protruded and used. These coats are cloak-like, the sleeve is as long as the coat, and they are often worn merely suspended from the neck.
Hamadan is also famous for copper-work, and makes and dyes cottons. The tanneries and the dye-works between them create a stench which is perceptible for miles. The neighbourhood produces much wine, white like hock, and red like claret, both being harsh and the first heady. The Armenians are the chief makers and sellers of wine. I wish I could add that they are the only people who get drunk, but this is not the case, for from the Prince Governor downwards, among the rich Moslems, intemperance has become common, and even many young men are "going to wreck with drink," sacrificing the virtue to which Moslems have been able to point with pride as differentiating them from so-called Christians. I was unable to return the Prince Governor's visit and courtesies in accordance with the etiquette for a European lady traveller, because of the helpless condition in which he and a party of convivial friends were found by the messenger sent by me to ask him to appoint an hour for my visit. Raisins, treacle, and arak are also manufactured. The rich prefer cognac to arak. It is spirit-drinking rather than wine-drinking which is sapping the life of the Moslems of Hamadan.
It is singular that in this Ecbatana, the capital of Greater Media, there should be so very few remains of an ancient greatness and splendour. Just outside the town a low eminence called Musala is pointed out as the site of the palace of the Median kings, but even this is doubtful. Coins of an ancient date are both dug up and fabricated by the Jews. Only two really interesting objects remain, and the antiquity of one of these is not universally accepted. The tomb of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai is the great show-place of Hamadan, and is held in much veneration by the Jews of Turkey and Persia, who resort to it on pilgrimage. The Jews are its custodians.
This tomb consists of an outer and inner chamber, surmounted by a mean dome about fifty feet in height. The blue tiles with which it was covered have nearly all dropped off. The outer chamber, in which there are a few tombs of Jews who have been counted worthy of burial near the shrine, is entered by a very low door, and the shrine itself by one still lower, through which one is obliged to creep. The inner chamber is vaulted, and floored with blue tiles, and having been recently restored is in good order. Under the dome, which is lighted with the smoky clay lamps used by the very poor, are the two tombs, each covered with a carved wooden ark, much defaced and evidently of great antiquity. There is an entrance to the tombs below these arks, and each is lighted by an ever-burning lamp. There is nothing in the shrine but a Hebrew Old Testament and a quantity of pieces of paper inscribed with Hebrew characters, which are affixed by pilgrims to the woodwork. The tombs and the tradition concerning them are of such great antiquity that I gladly accept the verdict of those who assign them to the beautiful and patriotic Queen and her capable uncle.
On the dome is this inscription: "On Thursday the 15th of the month Adar in the year of the creation of the world 4474 the building of this temple over the tombs of Mordecai and Esther was finished by the hands of the two benevolent brothers Elias and Samuel, sons of Ismail Kachan."
The other object of interest, which has been carefully described by Sir H. Rawlinson and Sir H. Layard, is specially remarkable as having afforded the key to the decipherment of the cuneiform character. It is in the mountains above Hamadan, and consists of two tablets six feet six inches by eight feet six inches (Layard) cut in a red granite cliff which closes the end of a corrie. There are other tablets near them, carefully prepared, but never used. The three inscriptions are in parallel columns in the three languages spoken in the once vast Persian Empire—Persian, Median, and Babylonian, and contain invocations to Ormuzd, and the high-sounding names and titles of Darius Hystaspes and his son Xerxes.
Amidst the meanness, not to say squalor, of modern Hamadan, no legerdemain of the imagination can re-create the once magnificent Ecbatana, said by the early Greek writers to have been scarcely inferior to Babylon in size and splendour, with walls covered with "plates of gold," and fortifications of enormous strength; the capital of Arbaces after the fall of Nineveh, and the summer resort of the "Great King," according to Xenophon.
The Jews are supposed to number from 1500 to 2000 souls, and are in the lowest state of degradation, morally and socially. That bad act of Sarah in casting out "the bondwoman and her son" is certainly avenged upon her descendants. They are daily kicked, beaten, and spat upon in the streets, and their children are pelted and beaten in going to and from the school which the Americans have established for them. Redress for any wrongs is inaccessible to them. They are regarded as inferior to dogs. So degraded are they that they have not even spirit to take advantage of the help which American influence would give them to get into a better position. The accursed vices of low greed and low cunning are fully developed in them. They get their living by usury, by the making and selling of wine and arak, by the sale of adulterated drugs, by peddling in the villages, and by doing generally the mean and dishonest work from which their oppressors shrink. Many of them have become Moslems, the law being that a convert to Islam can take away the whole property of his family. A larger number have, it is believed, joined the secret sect of the Bābis. I never heard such a sickening account of degradation as is given of the Hamadan Jews by those who know them best, and have worked the most earnestly for their welfare.
There are a number of Armenians in Hamadan, and several villages in the district are inhabited exclusively by them. There are also villages with a mixed Persian and Armenian population. They all speak Persian, and the men at least are scarcely to be distinguished from Persians by their dress. They are not in any way oppressed, and, except during occasional outbreaks of Moslem fanaticism, are on very good terms with their neighbours. They live in a separate quarter, and both Gregorians and Protestants exercise their religion without molestation. They excel in various trades, specially carpentering and working in metals. Their position in Hamadan is improving, and this may be attributed in part to the high-class education given in the American High School for boys, and to the residence among them of the American missionaries, who have come to be regarded as their natural protectors.
The population of Hamadan is "an unknown quantity." It probably does not exceed 25,000, and has undoubtedly decreased. Seyyids and mollahs form a considerable proportion of it, and it is one of the strongholds of the Bābis. It is usually an orderly city, and European ladies wearing gauze veils and properly attended can pass through it both by day and night. Several parts of it are enclosed by gates, as at Canton, open only from sunrise to sunset, an arrangement which is supposed to be conducive to security.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXIV
Hamadan, Sept. 14.
I am visiting the three lady teachers of the Faith Hubbard Boarding School for girls, and the visit is an oasis on my journey. It is a most cheerful house, a perfect hive of industry, each one being occupied with things which are worth doing. I cannot say how kind and how helpful they have all been to me, and with what regret I am leaving them.
The house is large, plain, airy, and thoroughly sanitary, very well situated, with an open view over the Hamadan plain. It is closely surrounded by the houses of the Armenian quarter, and all those domestic operations which are performed on the roofs in hot weather are easily studied, such as the drying of clothes and herbs, the cleaning of heads, the beating of children, the bringing out of beds at night, and the rolling them up in the morning, the "going to bed" of families much bundled up, the performance of the very limited ablutions which constitute the morning toilette, and the making and mending of clothes, the roof being for many months both living-room and bedroom.
At sunset, as in all Persian towns, a great hush falls on Hamadan. Only people who have business are seen in the streets, the bazars are closed, and from sunset to sunrise there would be complete silence were it not for the yelping and howling of the scavenger dogs and the long melancholy call to prayer from the minarets. If it is necessary to go out at night a person of either sex is preceded by a servant carrying a lantern near the ground. These lanterns have metal tops and bottoms, and waxed, wired muslin between, which is ingeniously arranged to fold up flat. They are usually three feet long, but may be of any diameter, and as your consideration is evidenced by the size of your lantern there is a tendency to carry about huge transparencies which undulate very agreeably in the darkness.
This is the Moharrem or month of mourning, for Hassan and Houssein, the slain sons of Ali, who are regarded by the Shiahs as the rightful successors of the Prophet and as the noblest martyrs in the Calendar. During this period the whole Persian community goes into deep mourning, and the streets and bazars are filled with black dresses only. In this month is acted throughout the Empire the Tazieh or Passion Play, which has for its climax the tragic deaths of these two men.[17]
I arrived in Hamadan on what should have been the first day of Moharrem, but there had been a difference of opinion among the mollahs as to the date, and it was postponed to the next day, for me a most fortunate circumstance, as no Christian ought to be seen in the streets at a time when they are filled with excited throngs frenzied by religious fanaticism. On the following day the quiet of the city was interrupted by singular cries, and by children's voices, high pitched, singing a chant so strange and weird that one both longs and dreads to hear it repeated. The Christians kept within their houses. Business was suspended. Bands of boys carrying black flags perambulated the town, singing one of the chants of the Passion Play. As night came on it was possible to feel the throb of the excitement of the city, and till the small hours the march of frenzied processions was heard, and the loud smiting on human breasts and the clash of the chains with which the dervishes beat themselves, were intermingled with a united rhythmic cry of anguish—Ah Houssein! Wai Houssein! (O Houssein! Woe for Houssein!) Ya Houssein! Ya Hassan! and in the flickering light of the torches black flags were waving, and frenzied men were seen beating their bare breasts.
In some of the cities these processions are a sickening spectacle. Throngs move along the streets, escorting large troops of men either stripped to their waists or wearing only white shirts which expose the bosom. Beating their breasts with their right hands in concert till they make them raw, gashing themselves on their heads with daggers, streaming with blood, and maddened by religious frenzy, they pass from street to street, and the yell rises from all quarters, Ya Houssein! Wai Houssein! Occasionally men drop down dead from excitement, and others, falling from loss of blood, are carried away by their friends. It is at the end of the month of mourning that these processions, called testeh, increase so much in frenzy and fanaticism as to be dangerous to the good order of cities, clashing with each other, and sometimes cutting their way through each other with loss of life. To join in a testeh is to perform a "pious act," and atones for sin committed and to be committed. The Tazieh or Passion Play itself, acted in splendour before the Shah, is repeated everywhere throughout Persia, lasting from ten to twelve days, the frenzy with which the different incidents are received culminating on the last day, when the slaughter of Houssein is represented. On the whole the Tazieh is among the most remarkable religious phenomena of our age.
Under the rule of the present Prince Governor complete religious toleration exists in Hamadan, and the missionaries have a fair field, though it must never be forgotten that a proselytising Christian, rendering honour to Christ as God, by his mere presence introduces a disturbing element into a Moslem population. In consequence of this tolerant official spirit there are a few Moslem girls among the sixty boarders here. In addition there are a large number of day pupils.
The girls live in native fashion, and wear native dresses of red cotton printed with white patterns, white chadars, and such ornaments as they possess. They sit on the floor at their meals, at each of which one of the ladies is present. They have excellent food, meat once a day in summer and twice in winter, bread, tea, soup, curds, cheese, melons, cucumbers, pickles, and gourds. The winter supplies are now being laid in, and caravans of asses are arriving daily with firewood, cheeses, and melons. The elder girls cook, and all the washing, making, and mending are done at home, each elder girl in addition having a small family of young ones under her care. The only servant is the bheestie or water-carrier. The dormitories, class-rooms, eating-room, and hammam are large and well ventilated, but very simple.
A plain but thorough education of the "National School" type is given, in combination with an industrial training, fitted for girls whose early destiny is wifehood and maternity. Some of the teachers are men, but the religious instruction, on which great stress is laid, is given by the ladies themselves, and is made singularly interesting and attractive. Music and singing are regarded as among the recreations. The discipline is perfect, and the dirtiest, roughest, lumpiest, and most refractory raw material is quickly transformed into cleanliness, brightness, and docility, partly by the tone of the school and the influence of the girls who have been trained in it, but chiefly by the influence of love.
The respect with which the office of a teacher is regarded in the East allows of much more apparent familiarity than would be possible with us. Out of school hours the ladies are accessible at all times even to the youngest children. Many a little childish trouble finds its way to their maternal sympathies, and they are just as ready to give advice about the colour and making of dolls' clothes as about more important matters. The loving, cheerful atmosphere of an English home pervades the school. I write English rather than American because the ladies are Prince Edward Islanders and British subjects.
Some of the girls who have been trained here are well married and make good wives, and the school bids fair to be resorted to in the future by young men who desire companionship as well as domestic accomplishments in their wives. The ordinary uneducated Armenian woman is a very stupid lump, very inferior to the Persian woman. Of the effect of the simple, loving, practical, Christian training given, and enforced by the beauty of example it is easy to write, for not only some of the girls who have left the school, but many who are now in it show by the purity, gentleness, lovingness, and self-denial of their lives that they have learned to follow the Master, a lesson the wise teaching of which is, or should be, I think, the raison d'être of every mission school. Christianity thus translated into homely lives may come to be the disinfectant which will purify in time the deep corruption of Persian life.
The cost of this school under its capable and liberal management is surprising—only £3:15s. per head per annum! Its weak point (but at present it seems an inevitable blemish) is, that the board and education are gratuitous.
There is a High School for boys, largely attended, under the charge of Mr. Watson, the clerical missionary, with an Armenian Principal, Karapit, educated in the C.M.S. school in Julfa, a very able man, and he is assisted by several teachers. There is also a large school of Jewish girls, who are often maltreated on their way to and from it.
There are a flourishing medical mission and dispensary under Dr. Alexander's charge, with a hospital nearly finished for the more serious cases. There is another dispensary at Sheverin, and both there and here the number of patients is large. A small charge is made for medicines. Mirza Sa'eed, a medical student of mature years and remarkable capacities, occasionally itinerates in the distant villages, and, being a learned scholar in the Koran, holds religious disputations after his medical work is done. He was a Moslem, and having embraced Christianity preaches its doctrines with much force and enthusiasm. He is popular in Hamadan, and much thought of by the Governor in spite of his "perversion." He also gives addresses on Christianity to the patients who assemble at the dispensary. Any person is at liberty to withdraw during this religious service, but few avail themselves of the permission. Miss —— speaks on Christianity to the female patients at Sheverin, and befriends them in their own homes.
The day's work here begins at six, and is not over till 9 p.m. An English class for young men is held early, after which people on business and visitors of all sorts and creeds are arriving and departing all day, and all are welcome. On one day I counted forty-three, and there were many more than these. The upper class of Persian women announce their visits beforehand, and usually arrive on horseback, with attendants to clear the way. No man-servant must enter the room with tea or anything else during their visits. The Armenian women call at all hours, and the Jewish women in large bands without previous announcement. Tea à la Russe is provided for all, and Ibrahim goes to the door and counts the shoes left outside in order to know how many to provide for. "Khanum," he exclaimed one day after this inspection, "there are at least twenty of them!"
Some call out of politeness or real friendliness, others to see the tamasha (the sights of the house), many from the villages to talk about their children, and some of the Jewish women, who have become Bābis, ask to have the New Testament read to them in the hope of hearing something which they may use in the propagation of their new faith. A good many women have called on me out of politeness to my hostesses. Persian gentlemen invariably send the day before to know if a visit can be conveniently received, and on these occasions the ladies always secure the chaperonage of one of the men missionaries. The concierge has orders not to turn any one away, and it is a blessing when sunset comes and the stream of visitors ceases.
All meet with a genial reception, and the ladies usually succeed not only in lifting the conversation out of the customary frivolous grooves, but in awaking more or less interest in the religion which they are here to propagate. They are missionaries first and everything else afterwards, and Miss ——, partly because of her goodness and benevolence to all, and partly because of an uncompromising honesty in her religious beliefs which the people thoroughly appreciate, has a remarkable influence in Hamadan, and is universally respected. Her jollity and sense of humour are a great help. She thoroughly enjoys making people laugh.
I have never been in any place in which the relations with Moslems have been so easy and friendly. The Sartip Reza Khan told me it would be a matter of regret to all except a few fanatics if the ladies were to leave the city. From the Prince Governor downwards courtesy and kindness are shown to them, and their philanthropic and educational work is approved in the highest quarters, though they never blink the fact that they are proselytisers.[18]
There is an Armenian Protestant congregation with a native pastor and a fine church, and nothing shows more plainly the toleration which prevails in Hamadan than the number of Moslems to be seen every Sunday at the morning service, which is in Persian. In this church total abstinence is a "term of communion," and unfermented wine is used in the celebration of the Eucharist.
This wine is very delicious, and has the full flavour and aroma of the fresh grape even after being three years in bottle. It is not boiled, as much "unfermented wine" is here, but the grapes are put into a coarse bag, through which the juice drops without pressure. The gluten being retained by the bag, fermentation does not take place, and a bottle of the juice, even if left without a cork, retains its excellence till it dries up.
Hamadan, September 15.—"Revenons à nos moutons"—the moutons in this instance being my travelling arrangements. Three roads go to Urmi from Hamadan, one, the usual caravan route viâ Tabriz, the commercial capital of Persia, and round the north end of Lake Urmi, very long, but safe; another called the "Kurdistan route," which no charvadar will take by reason of its danger; and a third by Sujbulāk, the capital of Persian Kurdistan, twenty marches, only five of which are reported as risky. I decided on the last, but it was only two days ago that I was able to get a charvadar willing to undertake the journey. "It is too late," they say, "there are robbers on the road," they "don't know the way," or "provender is dear," or "snow will come on" before they can return. Kerbelai, the excellent fellow who brought my loads from Burujird, wished to go, and I engaged him gladly, but afterwards his father came and declared he could not let him go, for he did not know the way, and would be robbed. Another man was engaged, but never reappeared.
Soon after I came a tall, well-dressed rich Turk, the owner of sixty mules, applied for the engagement, and we think that by certain underhand proceedings, familiar to the Persian mind, he has driven off other competitors, and made himself my last resource. I engaged him on Saturday, and the mules and Mirza went off this morning. An agreement was drawn up in Persian and English placing five mules under my absolute control, to halt or march as I desire, at thirteen pence a day each so long as I want them, with two men, "handing over the mules and men" to me till I reach Urmi, which arrival is to suit my own convenience. This was read over twice, and the Turk sealed it in presence of four witnesses. All his other mules are going with loads to Urmi, and this accounts for his great desire to send the five with me. I have expressly stipulated that I am to have nothing to do with the big caravan, but am to take my own time. This Turk has good looks and plausible manners, and the animals have sound backs, but I distrust him.
The servant difficulty, which threatened to keep me here indefinitely, is also adjusted. Hassan left me when I arrived, being unwilling to go to the north of Persia so late, and he bought a new opium pipe, saying that he cannot bear the pain and craving of being without it. He was a fair travelling servant for a Persian, not unreasonably dishonest, and I am sorry to lose him. In the attempt to replace him a maze of lies, fraud, and underhand dealing has been passed through. I have at last engaged Johannes, a strong-looking young Armenian, speaking Turkish and Persian besides Armenian. He has never served Europeans, but has learned baking and the wine trade. He looks much of a cub. For appearance sake I have armed him with a long gun. He and Mirza are alike incompetent to make any travelling arrangements or overcome any difficulties, to discover where escorts are needed and where they may be dispensed with, or to meet any emergencies, and as Persian will be considerably replaced by Turki en route Mirza will be of less and less use as an interpreter. I cannot get any recent information about the route, and very little at all. I see endless difficulties ahead, and a prospect of illustrating in my own experience the dictum often dinned into my ears, that "No lady ought to travel alone in Persia."
This will be my last opportunity of posting a letter for nearly a month. The Persian post is only exceeded in 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.
LETTER XXV
Gaukhaud, Sept. 18.
This is a difficult journey. The road is rarely traversed by Europeans, the marches are long, and I am really not well enough to travel at all, not having been able to shake off the fever. Cooler days and cold nights are, however, coming to the rescue.
My Hamadan friends gave me a badraghah (a parting escort)—Miss C. M——, Mr. Watson, Pastor Ovannes and his boy, all on horseback; Mrs. Watson and her baby on an ass; several servants on foot, and Miss M—— and Mrs. Alexander in a spidery American buggy with a pair of horses; Dr. Alexander, a man six feet two inches high and very thin, "riding postilion" on one of them to get the buggy over difficult places; Ibrahim, the ladies' factotum, with a gun slung behind him, following on horseback. Two of the ladies and the native pastor stayed at night. It was not a pleasant return to camp life, for Johannes is quite ignorant of it, and everything was at sixes and sevens. Nor was the first morning pleasant, for the head charvadar, Sharban, came speaking loud with vehement gesticulation, saying that if I did not march with the big caravan and halt when it did, they would only give me one man, and added sundry other threats. Miss M—— scolded him, reminding them of their agreement, and Ibrahim told them that if they violated it in the way they threatened they would have to "eat more wood than they had ever eaten in their lives on going back to Hamadan." ("Eating wood" is the phrase for being bastinadoed.) A squabble the first morning is a usual occurrence, and Miss M—— thought it would be all right, and advised me to go on to Kooltapa, the first stage put down by the charvadars.
Cultivation extends over the eight miles from Hamadan to Bahar. There are streams, and willows, and various hamlets with much wood, and Bahar is completely buried in orchards and poplars. It is a place of 1500 people, and has well-built houses, small mosques, and mollahs' schools. It makes gelims (thin carpets), and grows besides wheat, barley, cotton, and oil seeds, an immense quantity of fruit, which has a ready market in the city.
Miss M—— and Pastor Ovannes escorted me for the first mile, and, meeting the caravan on their way back, gave Sharban a parting exhortation. As soon as they were out of sight he sent back one man, and, in spite of Mirza's remonstrances, drove my yabus with the big caravan—a grievance to start with, as his baggage animals were so heavily loaded that they could not go even two miles an hour, and I have taken five, though I only need three, in order to get over the ground at three miles an hour. I am obliged to have Johannes with me, as comparatively little Persian is spoken by the common people along this road.
Beyond Bahar the road lies over elevated table-lands, destitute of springs and streams, and now scorched up. One or two small villages, lying off the track, and some ruinous towers on eminences, built for watching robbers, scarcely break the monotony of this twenty-four miles' march.
At three, having ascended nearly 1000 feet, we reached the small and very poor walled village of Kooltapa, below which are some reservoirs, a series of pools connected by a stream, and the camping-ground, a fine piece of level sward, much of which was already occupied by two Turkish caravans, with 100 horses in each, and a man to every ten. The loads were all carefully stacked, covered with rugs, and watched by very large and fierce dogs.
I lay down in the shuldari, feeling really ill. Four o'clock, five o'clock, sunset came, but no caravan. Johannes was quite ill, but went to the village to hire a samovar, and to try to get tea and supplies. There was neither tea nor samovar, and no supplies but horse food and some coarse cheese and blanket bread, too sour and dirty to be eaten. Long after dark they brought a little milk. Boy was locked up in a house, and I rolled myself in his blanket and the few wraps I had with me, and, making the best of circumstances, tried to sleep; but it was too cold, and the position too perilous, and Johannes, who had loaded his gun with ball, overcome with fatigue, instead of watching was sound asleep. At eleven Mirza's voice, though it said, "Madam, these charvadars won't do for you, they are wicked men," was very welcome. They had stopped half-way, and four of them, including Sharban's father, had dragged him off his horse with some violence, and had unloaded it. He appealed to the village headman, who, after wrangling with them for some hours, persuaded them to let him have a mule, and come to Kooltapa with the servants' tent, my bed, and other comforts, and sent two armed guides with him.
The larger tent was pitched and I went to bed, and not having the nettings which hang from the roof of my Cabul tent, and are a complete security against mere pilferers, I put all I could under the blankets and arranged the other things within reach of my hand in the middle of the tent. I also burned a light, having learned that Kooltapa is a dangerous place. At midnight the Turkish caravans started with noise inconceivable, yells of charvadars, shouts of village boys, squeals of horses, barking of big dogs, firing of guns, and jangling of 200 sets of bells, all sobering down into a grandly solemn sound as of many church steeples on the march.
I went out to see that all was right, found my servants sleeping heavily and had not the heart to awake them, found the mercury a degree below the freezing point, and lay down, covering my head with a blanket, for the shivering stage of fever had come on. The night was very still, and after some time I heard in the stillness the not uncommon noise of a dog (as I thought) fumbling outside my tent. I took no notice till he seemed getting in, when I jumped up with an adjuration, saw the floor vacant, and heard human feet running away. I ran out and fired blank cartridge several times in the direction of the footsteps, hoping that the flashes would reveal the miscreant, but his movements had been more agile than mine. Mirza ran into the village and informed the ketchuda, but he took it very quietly and said that the robbers were Turks, which was false. I offered a large reward, but it was useless.
When daylight came and I investigated my losses I found myself without any of the things which I have come to regard as indispensable. My cork helmet, boots, gloves, sun umbrella, stockings, scanty stock of underclothing, all my brushes, towels, soap, scissors, needles, thread, thimble, the strong combination knife which Aziz coveted and which was used three or four times every day, a large silk handkerchief a hundred years old which I wore as a protection from the sun, my mask, revolver case, keys, pencils, paint brushes, sketches, notes of journeys, and my one mug were all gone. If anything could be worse, my gold pen, with which I have written for the last eighteen years, had also disappeared. Furthermore, to relieve the tedium of the long wait during the pitching of my tent, and of the hour's rest which I am obliged to take on my bed after getting in, I was "doing" a large piece of embroidery from an ancient Irish pattern, arabesques on dark, apricot-coloured coarse silk in low-toned greens, pinks, and blues, all outlined in gold. This work has been a real pleasure to me, and I relied on it for recreation for the rest of my journey. Gone too, with all the silks and gold for finishing it! Now I have nothing to do when the long marches are over, and as I can scarcely write with this pen and have also lost my drawing materials, a perspective of dulness opens out before me. If Sharban had not disobeyed orders and stayed behind with my tent all this would not have happened. I now realise what it is to be without what to a European are "the necessaries of life," and I can scarcely replace any of them for three weeks.
The caravan came in at nine, and I soon got into my tent and spent much of the day in making a head-cover by rolling lint and wadding in handkerchiefs and sewing them up into a sort of turban with a leather-needle and packthread obtained from Mirza. I was able to get from a villager a second-hand pair of ghevas,—most serviceable shoes, with "uppers" made of stout cotton webbing knitted here by the women and among the Bakhtiaris by the men, and with soles of rag sewn and pressed tightly together and tipped with horn. These and the "uppers" are connected with very stout leather brought to a point at the toe and heel. Ghevas are the most comfortable, and for dry weather and mountain-climbing the most indestructible of shoes. Thus provided I have to face the discomfort caused by the other losses as best I may. "It's no use crying over spilt milk!"
The day before, when the charvadars pulled Mirza off his mule and he threatened them with the agreement, they replied that it was false that they had made any agreement except to take me to Urmi in twenty days, and that they were not afraid of the Prince Governor of Hamadan, "for he is always asleep, and the Feringhi is only a Khanum." I sent to them that I wished to leave Kooltapa at noon. They replied that they were not going to move. I was in their power, for they had received advance pay for seven days, and I said no more about moving. However, at noon I sent Mirza to read the agreement to them, and Sharban and his father could not deny the authenticity of the seal, and a superior villager, who could read, testified that Mirza had read it correctly.
They then saw that they had put themselves into a "tight place," and sent that they desired to humble themselves, saying, "your foot is on our eyes," a phrase of humility. I took no notice of them all day, but at sunset sent for Sharban, and telling Mirza not to soften down my language, spoke to him in few words. "You have broken your agreement, and you will have to take the consequences. Your conduct is disgraceful and abominable, so cowardly that you don't deserve to be called a man, it is only what one would expect from a pidar sag. Do you mean to keep your agreement or not?" He began to whine, and threw himself at my feet, but I reluctantly assumed a terrific voice, and saying "Khamosh! Bero!" (Be silent! Begone!), shut the tent.
Bijar, September 21.—No Persian ever believes your word, and these poor fellows did not believe that I had letters to the governors en route. They are now terribly frightened, and see that a Feringhi, even though "only a Khanum," cannot be maltreated with impunity. When I arrived here, even before I sent my letter of introduction, the Governor sent a farash-bashi with compliments and offers of hospitality, and afterwards a strong guard. Then Sharban piteously entreated that I would not take him before the Governor, and would not make him "eat wood," and his big caravan at last has chimed away on its northward journey to be seen no more. Thus, by acting a part absolutely hateful to me, the mutiny was quelled, and things are now going on all right, except that Sharban avails himself of small opportunities of being disobliging. I do sincerely detest the cowardliness of the Oriental nature, which is probably the result of ages of oppression by superiors.
It is so vexing that the policy of trust which has served me so well on all former journeys has to be abandoned, and that one of suspicion has to be substituted for it. I am told by all Europeans that from the Shah downwards no one trusts father, brother, wife, superior, or inferior. Every one walks warily and suspiciously through a maze of fraud and falsehood. If one asks a question, or any one expresses an opinion, or tells what passes for a fact, he looks over each shoulder to see that no one is listening.[19]
A noble Persian said to me, "Lying is rotting this country. Persians tell lies before they can speak." Almost every day when one is wishing to be trustful, kind, and considerate, one encounters unmitigated lying, cowardly bluster, or dexterously-planned fraud, and the necessity of being always on guard is wearing and repulsive.
Here is another specimen of the sort of net which is woven round a traveller. At Kooltapa, after the theft, I sent to the ketchuda for a night-watchman, and he replied that he could not give one without an order, and that as he knew only Turki, my letter in Persian from the Prince Governor of Hamadan was nothing to him. Later, a sowar, who said he was also a "road-guard," came and said that he only was responsible for the safety of travellers, and that I could not get a watchman from the ketchuda, as no one could pass the gates after sunset without his permission. I already knew that there were no gates. He said he was entitled to five krans a night for protecting the tents. (The charge is one kran, or under exceptional circumstances two.) I told him we were quite capable of protecting ourselves. Late in the evening an apparently respectable man came and warned us to keep a good look-out, as this sowar and another had vowed to rob our tents out of revenge for not having been employed. These men, acting as road-guards, are a great terror to the people. They levy blackmail on caravans and take food for their horses and themselves, "the pick of everything," without payment. The people also accuse them of committing, or being accessory to, the majority of highway robberies. The women who came to condole with me on my losses accused these men of being the thieves, but it was younger feet which clattered away from my tent.
Sharban, thoroughly subdued for the time, and his servant watched, and to show that they were awake fired their guns repeatedly. The nightly arrangement now is to secure a watchman from the ketchuda; to walk round the camp two or three times every night to see that he is awake, and that Boy is all right; to secure the yekdan to my bed with a stout mule-chain, and to rope the table and chair on which I put my few remaining things also to the bed, taking care to put a tin can with a knife in it on the very edge of the table, so that if the things are tampered with the clatter may awake me.
After leaving Kooltapa, treeless country becomes bushless, and nothing combustible is to be got but animal fuel. Manure is far too precious for this purpose to be wasted on the fields. Men with asses follow caravans and collect it in bags. The yards into which the flocks and herds are driven at night have now been cleaned out, and in every village all the women are occupied in moulding the manure into kiziks or cakes fully a foot long and four inches thick. These, after being dried in the sun, are built up into conical stacks, often exceeding twenty feet in height, and are plastered with a layer of the same material. The making of this artificial fuel is one of the most important industries of Persia, and is exclusively in the hands of women. The preparation of the winter stock takes from six to fourteen weeks, and is very hard wet work. The fuel gives out a good deal of heat, but burns fast. Its combustible qualities are increased by an admixture of cut straw. At this season, between the colossal black stacks of fuel and the conical piles of winter "keep" upon the roofs, the villages are almost invisible.
The march to Gaukhaud was over twenty miles of rolling scorched table-lands—baked mud, without inhabitants. Gaukhaud and the villages for fifty miles farther are unwalled, but each house, with its cattle-yard and upper and underground folds, has a massive mud wall sloping slightly inwards, with an entrance closed by a heavy wooden gate, strengthened with iron. The upper sheep-folds have thick stone doors three feet square. Each house is a fortress, and nothing is to be seen above its walls but a quantity of beehive roofs and a number of truncated cones of winter fodder on a central platform.
The female costume is also different. The women, unveiled, bold-faced, and handsome in the Meg Merrilees style, wear black sleeveless jackets vandyked and tasselled, red skirts, and black handkerchiefs rolled round their heads. Little Persian is spoken or even understood, and everything indicates that the limit of Persia proper, i.e. the Persia of Persians, has been passed. Gaukhaud is a village of 350 houses, grows wheat, barley, grapes, and melons; and though a once splendid caravanserai on a height is roofless and ruined, and the village has no better water than an irrigation ditch, it is said to be fairly prosperous.
The march to Babarashan is for twenty miles along a featureless irrigated valley about a mile wide, with grass and stubble, several beehive villages, and mud hills never over 150 feet high on either side. Crossing a brick bridge over a trifling stream, and passing through the large village of Tulwar, where men who were burying a corpse politely laid fried funeral-cakes flavoured with sesamum on my saddle-bow, we ascended over low scorched hills, much ploughed for winter sowing, to the beehive village of Babarashan, of 180 houses, abundantly supplied with water, where we camped close to some tents of the Kara Tepe and a large caravan. The dust blown across the camp from the threshing-floors was obnoxious but inevitable. The "sharp threshing instruments having teeth" are not used in this region, but mobs of animals, up to a dozen, tied together, oxen, cows, horses, and asses, are driven over the wheat.
I am finding the disadvantages of having an untrained servant. Johannes that evening ran hither and thither without method, never finished anything, spent an hour in bargaining for a fowl, failed to get his fire to burn, consequently could not cook or make tea, and I went supperless to bed. The same confusion prevailed the next morning, but things have been better since. No life is so charming as camp life, but incompetent servants are a great drawback.
Another uninteresting march of twenty miles over high table-lands and through a valley surrounded by mud hills, with quaint outcrops of broken rock on their summits, and a pass through some picturesque rocky hills brought us into a basin among mountains, in which stands the rather important town of Bijar in the midst of poplars, willows, apricots, and vines. Bijar is said to have 5000 inhabitants. It has a Governor for itself and the surrounding district, and a garrison of a regiment of infantry and 100 sowars to keep the turbulent frontier Kurds in order. It has ruinous mud walls, no regular bazars, only shops at intervals; fully a third is in ruins, and most of the houses and even the Governor's palace are falling into decay. It is, however, accounted a thriving place, and is noted for gelims and carpenters' work. It has four caravanserais, hardly habitable, however, seven hammams, and a few mosques and mollahs' schools. It has an air of being quite out of the world. I have been here two days, and as foreigners are very rarely seen, the greater part of the population has strolled past my tent.
I camped as usual outside the walls, near a small spring, and soon a farash-bashi came from the Governor, with a message expressive of much annoyance at my having "camped in the wilderness when I was their guest, and they would have given me a safe camping-ground in the palace garden." Mirza took my introduction to him, and he sent a second message saying that the next three marches were "very dangerous," and appointed an hour for an interview. Soon eight infantrymen, well uniformed and set up, with rifles and fixed bayonets, arrived and mounted guard round my tent, changing every six hours. This completed Sharban's discomfiture.
Various difficulties arose on Sunday, and much against my will I had to call on the Governor. He received me in a sort of durbar. A great number of men, litigants and others, crowded the corridors and reception-rooms. He looked bloated and dissipated, and seemed scarcely sober. He sat on cushions on the floor, with a row of scribes and mollahs on his right, and many farashes and soldiers stood about the door. Seyyids, handsome and haughty, glanced at me contemptuously, and the drunken giggle of the Khan and the fixed scowl of the motionless row of scribes were really overpowering. Tea was produced, but the circumstances were so disagreeable that I did not wait for the conventional third cup. The Khan said that the ladies are in the country a few miles off, and hoped I would visit them, that some marches on the road are unsafe, and that he would give me a letter which would be useful in procuring escorts after I left his jurisdiction, and he has since sent it. He was quite courteous, as indeed all Persians of the upper classes are, but I hope never again to pass through the ordeal of calling upon a Moslem without a European escort.
Later, the principal wife of the military commander of the district called with a train of shrouded women, followed by servants bringing an abundant dinner, with much fruit. She came to ask me to take up my quarters in the very handsome house which is her husband's, very near my tent. After a good deal of intelligent conversation she asked if I had a husband and children, and on my replying in the negative she expressed very kindly sympathy, but added, "There are things far worse, things which can never be where, as among you, there is only one wife. One may have a husband and children, and yet, God knows, be made nearly mad by troubles," and she looked as if indeed her sorrows were great. Doubtless a young wife has been installed as favourite, or there is a divorce impending.
Takautapa, September 24.—This is a great grain-growing region, and by no means unprosperous, but it only yields one crop a year, the land is ploughed immediately after harvest, and the irrigation is cut off until sowing-time. Consequently nothing can exceed the ugliness of the aspect of the country at this time. There is not one redeeming feature, and on the long marches there is rarely anything to please or interest the eye. On the march from Bijar there was not a green thing except some poplars and willows by a stream, not a blade of grass, not a green "weed,"—nothing but low mud hills, with their sides much ploughed and the furrows baked hard, and unploughed gravelly stretches covered sparsely with scorched thistles.
Eight miles of an easy descent of 1500 feet brought us to the Kizil Uzen, a broad but fordable stream, on the other side of which is Salamatabad, a village consisting chiefly of the large walled gardens and houses of the Governor of Bijar. A little higher up there is a solid eight-arched stone bridge, over 300 feet long. This Kizil Uzen is one of the most important streams in north Persia. It drains a very large area, and after a long and devious course enters the Caspian Sea under the name of the Sefid Rud. Eleven miles from this place I crossed the lofty crest of the ridge which divides the drainage basins of the Kizil Uzen and Urmi. A number of sowars came out and escorted me through a gateway down a road with high walls and buildings on both sides to an inner gateway leading to the Khan's andarun. Here we all dismounted, but the next step was not obvious, for the heavy wooden gate which secludes the andarun was strongly barred, and showed no symptoms of welcome. An aged eunuch put his melancholy head out of a hole at the side, and said that the ladies were expecting me and that food was ready for the animals and the servants, but still the gate moved not. I asked if Mirza could go with me to interpret, the sowars suggesting that he could be screened behind a curtain, quite a usual mode of disposing of such a difficulty. The eunuch returned, and with him the Khan's mother, a fiendish-looking middle-aged woman, who looked through the peep-hole, but on seeing a good-looking young man drew back, and said very definitely that no man could be admitted, especially in the absence of the Khan. All the men were warned off, and the door was opened so as just to allow of my entrance and no more.
The principal wife received me in a fine lofty room with fretwork windows opening on a courtyard with a fountain in it and a few pomegranates, and a crowd of Persian, Kurdish, and negro women, with all manner of babies. The lady is from Tihran, and her manners have some of the ease and polish of the capital. It is still the Moharrem, and she was enveloped in a black chadar, and wore as her sole ornament a small diamond-studded watch as a locket. Her mother-in-law, who, like many mothers-in-law in Persia, fills the post of duenna to the establishment, frightened me by the expression of her handsome face and her sneering, fiendish laugh. It must be admitted that there was much to amuse her, for my slender stock of badly-pronounced Persian is the Persian of muleteers rather than of polite circles, and she mimicked every word I uttered, looking all the time like one of Michael Angelo's "Fates."
The room was very prettily curtained, and furnished with Russian materials, they told me, and the lithographs, the photographs and their frames, and the many "knick-knacks" which adorned the tables and recesses were all Russian. They showed me several small clocks and very ingenious watches, all Russian also. They said that the goods in the shops at Bijar are chiefly Russian, and added, "The English don't try to suit our taste as the Russians do." The principal lady expressed a wish for greater liberty, though she qualified it by saying that men who love their wives could not let them go about as the English ladies do in Tihran. Dinner had been prepared, a huge Persian dinner, but they kindly allowed me to take tea instead, and produced with it gaz (manna) and a cake flavoured with asafœtida. When I came to an end of my Persian, and they of their ideas, I said farewell, and was followed to the gate by the mocking laugh of the duenna.
The sowars asserted that the next farsakh was "very dangerous," so we kept together. Wild, desolate, rolling, scrubless open country it is, the spurs of the Kurdish hills. The sowars were very fussy and did a great deal of galloping and scouting, saying that bands of robber horsemen are often met with on this route, who, being Sunnis, would rejoice in attacking Shiahs. Doubtless they magnified the risk in order to enhance the value of their services. In the early afternoon we reached the Kurdish village of Karabulāk, sixty mud hovels, on the flaring mud hillside, the great fodder stacks on the flat roofs alone making the houses obvious. The water is very bad and limited in quantity, and of milk there was none. The people are very poor and unprosperous, and a meaner set of donkeys and oxen than those which were treading out the corn close to my tent I have not seen.
Though most of the inhabitants are Kurds, there are some Persians and Turks, and each nationality has its own ketchuda. Towards evening the sowars came to me with the three ketchudas, who, they said, would arrange for a guard, and for my escort the next day. I did not like this, for the sowars had good double-barrelled guns, and were in Persian uniform, and had been given me for three days, but there was no help for it. The ketchudas said that they could not guarantee my safety that night with less than ten men, and I saw in the whole affair a design on my very slender purse. A monetary panic set in before I reached Hamadan: the sovereign had fallen from thirty-four to twenty-eight krans, the Jews would not take English paper at any price, I could not cash my circular notes, and it was only through the kindness of the American missionaries that I had any money at all, and I had only enough for ordinary expenses as far as Urmi. I told them that I could only pay two men, and dismissed the sowars with a present quite out of proportion to the time they had been with me.
During these arrangements the hubbub was indescribable, but the men were very pleasant. Three hours later the sowars returned, saying that after riding eight miles they had met a messenger with a letter from the Khan, telling them to go on another day with me. I asked to see the letter, and then they said it was a verbal message. They had never been outside of Karabulāk! I tell this in detail to show how intricate are the meshes of the net in which a traveller on these unfrequented roads is entangled.
Later, ten wild-looking Kurds with long guns, various varieties of old swords, and long knives, lighted great watch-fires on either side of my tent, and put Boy between them. This pet likes fires, and lies down fearlessly among the men, close to the embers.
A little below my camp was a solitary miserable-looking melon garden with a low mud wall. At midnight I was awakened by the loud report of several guns close to my tent, and confused shouts of men, with outcries of women and children. The watchmen saw two men robbing the melon garden, shot one, and captured both. I gave a present to the guards in the morning, and the ketchudas took half of it.
The march to Jafirabad is over the same monotonous country, over ever-ascending rolling hills, with small plateaux among them, very destitute of water, and consequently of population, the village of Khashmaghal, with 150 houses, and two ruined forts, being the one object of interest.
On the way to Jafirabad is the small village of Nasrabad, once a cluster of semi-subterranean hovels, inhabited by thieves. Some years ago the present Shah halted near it on one of his hunting excursions, and observing the desolation of the country, and water running to waste, gave money and lands to bribe a number of families to settle there. There are now sixty houses surrounded by much material wealth. The Shah still divides 100 tumans yearly among the people, and takes a very small tribute. Nasr-ed-Din has many misdeeds to answer for, many despotic acts, and some bloodshed, but among the legions of complaints of oppression and grinding exactions which I hear in most places, I have not heard one of the tribute fixed by him—solely of the exactions and merciless rapacity of the governors and their subordinate officials.
Jafirabad, a village of 100 houses in the midst of arable land, has one of those camping-grounds of smooth green sward at once so tempting and so risky, and we all got rheumatism in the moist chilliness of the night. The mercury is still falling slowly and steadily, and the sun is only really hot between ten and four. Jafirabad is a prosperous village, owned, as many in this region are, by the Governor of Tabriz, who is merciful as to tribute.
Everything was wet, even inside my tent. It was actually cold. In the yellow dawn I heard Mirza's cheerful voice saying, "Madam, they think your horse is dead!" The creature had been stretched out motionless for two hours in the midst of bustle and packing. I told them to take off his nose-bag, which was nearly full, but still he did not move. I went up to him and said sharply, "Come, get up, old Boy" and he struggled slowly to his feet, shook himself, and at once fumbled in my pockets for food, thumping me with his head as usual when he failed to find any. He was benumbed by sleeping on the damp ground in the hoar-frost. The next night he chose to sleep under the verandah of my tent, snoring loudly. He has became quite a friend and companion.
The sowars finally left me there, and I was escorted by the ketchuda, a very pleasant intelligent man of considerable property, with his two retainers. The next stage has the reputation of being "very dangerous," and many people anxious to go to the next village joined my caravan. My tents were guarded by eight wild-looking village Kurds, armed with clubbed sticks and long guns. I asked the ketchuda if two were not enough, and he said that I should only pay for two, the others were there for his satisfaction, that two might combine to rob me, but that more would watch each other, and that the robbers of this region do not pilfer in ones and twos, but swoop down on tents in large parties.
The next march is chiefly along valleys among low hills. The ketchuda did much scouting, not without good reason, and we all kept close together. A party of well-mounted men rode down upon us and joined us. Mirza sidled up to me, and in his usual cheery tones said "Madam, these are robbers." They were men of a well-known band, under one Hassan Khan. They spoke Persian, and Mirza kept me informed of what they were saying. They said they had been out a night and a day without success, and they must take my baggage and horse—they wanted horses badly. The ketchuda, to whom they were well known, remonstrated with them, and the parley went on for some time, they insisting, and he threatening them with the regiment from Bijar, but all he said was of no use, till he told them that I was the wife of the Governor of Tabriz, that I had been paying a visit to Hamadan, and was then going to be the guest of the ladies of Hadji Baba, Governor of Achaz, that I had been committed to him, and that he was answerable for my safety. "You know I am a man of my word," was the conclusion of this brilliant lie, which served its purpose, for they said they knew him, and would not rob me then.
They rode with us for some miles, in fact the leader, a sinister-looking elderly man, in a turban and brown abba like an Arab, rode so close to me that the barrel of his gun constantly touched my saddle. They carried double-barrelled guns besides revolvers. On coming to a part of the country where the ketchuda said the road became safe, I sent the caravan on with the servants, the band having gone in another direction, and halted for two hours. Riding on again, and turning sharply round a large rock, there they all were, dismounted, and rushed out upon us. A mêlée ensued, and as I then had only two men they were two to one, and would certainly have overpowered my escort had not several horsemen appeared in the distance, when they mounted and rode away. One of the horses was scratched, and I got an accidental cut on my wrist. They believed that I had a considerable sum of money with me. The ketchuda of Takautapa said that they had robbed his village of some cattle a few days before.
Takautapa is a village of thirty-five houses, with two shops, and a gunsmith who seemed to drive a "roaring trade." For three days I have scarcely seen an unarmed man. Shepherds, herdsmen, ploughmen, travellers, all carry arms. Mirza went to the Governor of Achaz, six miles off, with my letter from the Governor of Bijar, and he was most courteous. He sent his secretary to ask me to spend a day or two at his house, and told him, in case I could not, to remain for the night to arrange for my comfort and safety, an order very efficiently carried out.[20]
He sent word also that if I could not accept his hospitality I was still to be his guest, and not to pay for anything—a kindness which, for several reasons, I never accept. He added, that though the road was safe, he should send three sowars "to show the Khanum honour," and they had received strict orders not to accept any present. The men who attempted to rob my caravan spent the night here, and, as they had robbed them before, the villagers were very glad of the protection of the Governor's scribe and my sowars.