On Pierson’s return to Hamadan, I gladly prepared to start with him for Kermanshah. My traps were not numerous—a folding-table, four chairs, a tressel bedstead, and two bullock-trunks, formed one load; and my bedding in a case, made of carpet, bound with leather, and surmounted by my head-man, another; my groom was perched on a third, sitting on the clothing of the two horses, and carrying their head and heel ropes and the stable spade, with which their bed of “pane” (dried horse-dung) is prepared at night, and the copper bucket for watering them.

The cook, with all his batterie de cuisine, had the fourth, and Ramazan and the contents of the dispensary took two more. I think another was charged with bottled beer, and of course we each rode our horses. The stages were:—

An hour’s riding took us clear of the vineyards of Hamadan, and we passed over grassy downs with patches of desert till we got to the commencement of the Seydabad Pass. This, though it would be looked on as a tremendous matter in England, is nothing difficult to get over when there is no snow, and an hour’s smart climb brought us to the top.

The descent on the other side was much longer, and we made the seven farsakhs, about twenty-eight miles, in nine hours’ continuous marching. The road was very bad, being full of loose stones the whole of the way from the commencement of the ascent. We put up at the “chupper-khana;” as this was my first experience of marching, I may as well detail our arrangements.

As soon as we had cleared the top of the pass, the servants pushed on with those loads that it was needful to unpack, while we came on slowly with the mules; the grooms, too, went on as smartly as possible; my fellow had my other horse led in a halter. As it got to nearly sunset (we had started very late, as is always the case in a first stage), we cantered gently in to the post-house.

Our grooms were at the door ready to take our horses, and we found the dirty little mud room swept, carpeted, a fire lighted, and the entrance curtained with a tent door; the chairs and table had been put out, and the kalians got under weigh. Our servants had tea ready, and we were quite prepared to rest and be thankful. Our books and pipes had been put handy in our bedding, and were laid out for us.

Half-an-hour after sunset the groom came to say he was going to feed the horses. We go into the yard, into which our room opens, and find Pierson’s stud of Gods on one side, my two on the other, each tethered by double head-ropes to a mud manger, which is constructed in the wall, and secured by heel-ropes of goats’ hair tied to pins of iron a foot long, firmly driven into the ground.

The horses had been carefully dry-rubbed and clothed, the nammads, or felt coverings, drawn over their necks, for it was chilly, and the beds of “pane” laid for them.

The Persians use no straw for making beds for their horses, as it is too valuable; but they utilise the dung, which is carefully dried in the sun and then stored, as bedding; this is very dry, clean, and soft, and quite without smell. When thus dried, it is called “pane.” It is laid a foot deep all round the standing of the horse, and the edges carefully smoothed (as a gardener in England smooths his flower-beds) by the grooms.

The horses, well aware that it is feeding-time, and having been watered some ten minutes before (they had been walked about for half-an-hour to cool them on arrival—a thing a Persian never omits), now commenced neighing, playfully biting and letting out at each other as far as their heel-ropes would permit. Pierson’s head-groom measured out in handfuls the allowance of barley for each beast, and it was poured into a nosebag filled with “kah,” or chaff, and then affixed to the animal’s head, that not a grain might be lost. When we had seen this done, and noticed that each horse fed well, we left, our place being taken by the head-servant, who stayed till the barley was eaten; for in those days we could not trust our grooms, who would always steal the barley if they could.

Oats are not used in Persia, though there are many salt-marshes in the country where they would grow well. Barley is the only food for horses, the allowance being from seven to ten pounds of barley for the animal’s two feeds; generally seven pounds are not exceeded. (It must be remembered that the general run of animals is much smaller than that of English horses, fourteen hands being the usual height, and fifteen being an unusually large beast.) This allowance is divided into two feeds, five pounds at night and two in the morning. This, with as much as he chooses to consume of wheat or barley straw, broken in pieces two inches long (“kah”), is all the animal has from one end of the year to the other; no hay is given, but for a month the horse is put on an entire diet of young green barley-grass, of which he will eat two hundred and fifty pounds a day. Prior to being put on this diet, which is termed full grass, he has a larger and larger proportion administered with his chaff; this mixture is called “teleet.”

The barley-grass is cut by the grooms, by tearing handfuls of it against a curved toothed sickle fixed upright in a piece of wood, and is given from two to four inches long. As the horse is given “teleet,” his grain is diminished, and, when he is on full grass, stopped altogether; as he gets more and more grass, his teeth get blunt, and do not break the grain, and on leaving off grass his barley has to be soaked.

A horse on grass cannot do any serious work, and the gentlest canter will put him in a lather. Of course it is very difficult to march a horse when on grass, and in Persia it can only be had in the spring; and unless he is going from a country where the season is early to one where it is late, the animal has to do without grass altogether, or even to march on “teleet”—a very dangerous thing, as he will often break down. The Persians are very fond of seeing their horses fat, particularly the townsmen, so that these latter will keep their beasts on entire grass for two months, and on “teleet” seven months in the year, giving clover, too, mixed with the “kah,” when they can get it. The result is an animal bursting with fat, very irritable and restive, but who can do no work.

To old horses “nawallah,” or balls of dough made of barley flour and water, are given; the animals take to this, which is the usual camel food, and will look fat and work well when they have not a tooth in their heads.

During the only grape season that I was in Hamadan, the fruit was so cheap that we put our horses on a diet of it for a week. Hasseens, or earthen pans of tile, were affixed to the wall in the mangers, and the horses grew extremely fat on a diet of grapes alone.

Persian horses, like Persian women, age early; possibly they are ridden too young; the two-year-old is often put to hard work, and an animal of nine is an old horse.

The young colt of two is termed a no zin, or newly fit for the saddle. On one occasion I had removed a tooth for the Zil-es-sultan, the Governor of Ispahan (the king’s eldest son). As it came out at once he was much pleased, and gave me an order on his master of horse for an “asp-i-no zin,” “a horse just ready for the saddle,” meaning a two-year-old.

I sent over the order, and to my disgust got back an eight-months-old colt. This, of course, was of comparatively little value. I did not like to complain, for “one must not look a gift-horse in the mouth,” and the master of horse was an acquaintance, and the prince’s maternal uncle.

I had recourse to stratagem, being put on my mettle by ironical questions from my Persian friends, as to whether I had ridden my horse, etc.

The prince was about to review the troops, and I sent a polite message to the master of the horse, asking the loan of a Persian saddle, for, said I, “I want to ride out on my new horse, and to thank the prince for his present.” This brought the master of the horse (“mir-achor,” or “lord of the manger”) to my house to call on his dear friend the English doctor. Pipes were smoked, tea drunk, and then I was asked why I wanted a Persian saddle.

“You see, the prince’s present has been probably only used to a Persian saddle, having been just broken in, and I have none.”

“But, dear doctor sahib, he is not fit to ride, he is eight months old.”

“Oh, my friend, you, as the mir-achor, are far too good a servant of his Royal Highness to give me other than his order said, a horse fit for the saddle—the order said so, so he must be fit for the saddle. I ride him out to the review to-morrow, and shall thank the prince.”

The mir-achor sighed, and with a half-wink said, “I see you don’t like the colt, I shall send you another; in fact, some to choose from.”

“Many, many thanks, let them be good, or I shall surely ride out on the one I have; and in case I don’t take any of those you send, don’t forget the saddle.”

The mir-achor left, and in an hour sent me over three full-grown but worthless brutes to choose from.

I sent them back, telling his servants that I would send for the saddle their master would lend me.

The grooms returned with a full-grown horse of considerable value, which I took, and returned the worthless eight-months-old colt. I was duly felicitated on my action by my Persian friends, and was told that I had behaved in a very diplomatic way.

The horses most in use in Persia are, in the north, the Turkoman, rarely seen south of Teheran, and despised in Fars—a tall, ungainly animal, sometimes over sixteen hands, with no barrel, heavy head, but great stride and endurance.

These Turkomans, when one is on them, give the idea of riding on a gate, there is so little between the knees. They will get over, at a jog or loose canter, one hundred miles a day, and will keep it up for ten days. Their gallop is apparently slow, but, from the length of stride, they get over a great deal of ground.

They are, however, not sure-footed, and quite useless on bad roads and hilly country, having a tendency to fall. I have never seen a Persian of condition ride a Turkoman horse himself, though many great personages keep several for show, on which they mount servants. In their own plains, and for the long expeditions for plunder (“chuppaos”) made by the Turkomans, they are doubtless invaluable; they are able to go without water for three days, and to subsist on the hardest and scantiest fare, and after the severe training they undergo previous to these expeditions, they will get over an amount of ground that no other breed could hope to cover. Their paces are rough and uncomfortable. They vary in price from kerans three hundred to kerans five thousand; the usual price is four hundred to six hundred for a good one. The mane is in some cases almost wanting, and what there is is generally removed by a knife, and the stubble burnt off by a hot iron, or by means of gunpowder or depilatory. This gives the breed an unearthly and incomplete appearance. The tail, too, is very slenderly provided with hair.

The “Karabagh”—also used in the north and towards the Caspian; he is seldom seen south of Teheran—is a miniature edition of the English hunter: big-boned and clean-limbed, he stands fourteen and a half to sixteen hands; the latter is, however, an unusual size; he is generally evil-tempered, but is up to hard work, and always has a black mark running from the mane to the insertion of the tail; his mane is thick, so is his tail; his head is heavy. Many big horses are produced in Teheran from the mixture of the Turkoman and Karabagh, but they are leggy, and retain the tendency of the Turkoman to fall on stony ground. They are called “Yamūt;” the price is two hundred and fifty to five hundred kerans. There is an underbred look about both species.

Ispahan produces a peculiar kind of cob, with great weight-bearing powers, short-legged, big barrelled, never exceeding fourteen hands, often less. These animals are taught to amble, and are capable of carrying heavy men or heavier loads. The neck is generally very short and thick. Often very full of go, they are seldom fast, but have much bottom, are very hardy, and stand exposure and hard work. They have a clumsy appearance, enormous manes and tails, and often a good deal of long hair under the jaw; all have huge ears and coarse coats; the colour is generally grey; their appetites are enormous, and they eat more than larger horses. Price, from one hundred and twenty to four hundred kerans. This, I am convinced, is the natural horse of Persia.

The horses of Shiraz, or “Gulf Arabs” as they are called in India, because they are shipped from the Persian Gulf for the Indian market, are the result of cross-breeding from big Persian mares by the smaller and better-bred Arab horse. They are practically the best horses in the country, quite free from vice, fast, and with most of the good points of the Arab, particularly the small head. In the good ones the forehead (brow) is always very convex, never flat. The ears are small and carried well. The tail is carried, as the Persians put it, like a flag, the tail-bone very short and straight. Among the natives, if the tail is carried at all on one side, and not well up, it considerably detracts from the animal’s value. They frequently dock the tail-bone, but the hair is never shortened. Grey is the usual colour; though there are many chestnuts and bays, I never saw a black. The barrel and chest are very large, and the body short and compact; they have magnificent shoulders, and are full of bottom. The better ones are not at all goose-rumped, which all other breeds in Persia, except Arabs, are, while the hoofs are large and healthy. These horses are always full of spirit, and willing, their faults being that they are a little delicate, and dainty feeders; they are very sure-footed, going at full speed over the roughest ground or loose stones. They all pull, and, from the severe nature of the Persian bit, are hard-mouthed, till they have been ridden on the snaffle for some months. Many have a tendency to shy, but no other vices; they stand fourteen and a half to fifteen hands, and cost from five hundred to two thousand kerans.

The real Arabs, which come from Baghdad and the frontier, in the Kermanshah Province, are too well known to need description, and are all that the heart could desire, save as to size. They stand thirteen three to fourteen two, seldom more, and cost from five hundred kerans up to anything.

In the last fifteen years the price of horses has gone up from fifty to eighty per cent.; this is due to the steady drain for the Indian market, and also to the famine, when thousands were starved to death and thousands more killed and eaten, and to opium-growing in lieu of corn.

When I first came to Persia a fair yabū, or pony, could be got for one hundred and twenty kerans; they cost now (1883) two hundred to two hundred and forty. Horses in proportion. But the Gulf Arabs are very cheap in Teheran, which is by far the best place to buy horses in.

To return. We have smoked and chatted till eight o’clock, when our dinner is put on the table—soup, tinned fish, a leg of mutton, potatoes, a custard-pudding; these have been properly cooked, and are served hot.

Save the eggs and the milk for the custard, we brought all these good things from Hamadan, and the cook deserves great credit, for his kitchen has been merely a corner of the post-house yard, his range three or four bricks, and he has roasted his leg of mutton in a saucepan, and sent it to table with delicious gravy; and thus we fare daily while on the road. Some men, even when marching, insist on a hot breakfast on the road itself, of three or four courses, but this is only needful when there are ladies. Dinner over, kalians and coffee are brought. Our beds are made one on each side of the fireplace, but not on the ground, for we have tressel bedsteads, and ten sees us fast asleep.

A fertile plain brings us, next morning’s stage, to Kangawar, a large and prosperous village. Here the climate grows warmer. It is a very well-watered district, and the people seem well-to-do. In fact, in Persia, wherever there is water there is prosperity.

There is the ruin here of a temple said to have been erected to Diana; nothing seems to be known about it, and it is only memory that tells me that some authority gives it as a temple to Diana. However, the four stone columns, minus their capitals, are still standing; they are united by a mud wall, and form part of a villager’s house.

In the swamp in front of the village we go out for snipe; Pierson gets three brace and one double snipe. I manage to get a teal, which I pot from behind some reeds, the snipe being as yet too much for me. I also shoot several snippets, but am disappointed when Pierson tells me to throw them away. I have one cooked in defiance—it is uneatable.

We stop two days in Kangawar, and live in a tent. This is a very comfortable one, with double walls, the property of Government, made, so a label on it says, at the school at Jubbulpoor. It is constructed, so another label tells me, for two subalterns. It has a passage a yard wide between the walls, which keeps it cool in summer. We find it chilly at night, and as we have no stove we are unable to light a fire. The second day Pierson gets several double snipe, and I get very wet.

On our next march we come upon the Kara-Su (black water) River, and see a valley teeming with bird-life—herons, ducks, geese, what appear to be black swans, cormorants, cranes of various colours, from the big white “leg-leg” with black wings, to small and graceful ones of pure white; mallards, teal, and widgeon. They unfortunately are on the other side of the river, which is unfordable here, in a swamp which extends for miles.

As we near Sana we see a man and woman seated on a mound commanding the road, under a big green cotton umbrella, near a grove. The woman, gaily dressed, with her face painted and without any veil, her hair in long tails, strung with coins, importunately solicited us. The man remained under the umbrella, and took no notice. They were “Susmanis,” or gypsies. These people have no particular religion—certainly they are not Mussulmans; they live by singing, dancing, and prostitution. The woman, who had considerable attractions, followed us for nearly a mile, and begged hard for a present. Sana is always infested by bands of these “Susmanis,” who prey on the pilgrims.

We are now on the direct pilgrims’ road to Kerbela, where are buried the imams, or saints, of the Sheahs, Hussein and Hassan, one of the greatest shrines of Persian pilgrims. More groups of “Susmanis” accost us, and demand alms, openly proclaiming their trade.

We reach Sana, and pitch the tent in a large garden with plenty of running water, where we are able to get a good bath next day. The climate is here very pleasant; although it is early in spring, the sun is very powerful, and the night no longer chilly. The greater part of the afternoon is taken up with a long wrangle with the head-men of the village as to the price of poles for the telegraph-line. Pierson’s ideas and theirs differ widely as to the value of these, but a threatened reference to the Imād-u-dowlet (“Pillar of the State”), the Governor of Kermanshah, soon reduces the price, for these sharks would much prefer dealing with the Feringhi than their fellow-countrymen, as the latter would probably take the poles for nothing.

Another day’s journey brings us to Besitūn, which is distinguished by an inscription carved on the face of a perpendicular cliff, with colossal figures, of which a correct and learned description has been given by Sir Henry Rawlinson. At the foot of this cliff are a few fragments of what is supposed to have been “Shushan the palace.”

It is said that here, when Sir Henry Rawlinson was engaged in copying the inscriptions, on a scaffolding on the face of the cliff, at a great height from the ground, that he fell over backwards, and was caught by his trusty Arab muleteer, Hadji Khaleel; and that, in gratitude, Sir Henry, who at that time held a diplomatic position in Persia, made the Hadji British Agent in Kermanshah. This is the legend among the natives. I give it as I heard it.

I had the pleasure of the honest old Hadji’s acquaintance in that place, and was shown much kindness by him. Whether or no this legend had any ground I cannot say; but Hadji Khaleel was a charming old man, honest as the day, though with somewhat rough manners.

His son, Agha Hassan, who was, at the time I speak of, his right hand, is now the British Agent, and has become, by successful commerce, the wealthiest man in the province. Agha Hassan rode out to meet us, his father, Hadji Khaleel being ill, and Pierson told me that he recognised and spoke in rapturous terms of my “Senna,” to whom by this time I had become much attached, and who once had belonged to him.

An istikhbal of a colonel, his attendants, and two led-horses, were sent out to do Pierson honour by the Governor; kalians were smoked on the high road, and we came in sight of Kermanshah after crossing the Kara-Su River by a fairly well-made bridge.

The place looks well, and appears surrounded by a grassy plain, a very unusual sight in Persia. The town had an air of prosperity, and the people were well fed and well clothed. It occupied several small hills, and hence appeared considerably larger than it was.

Like all Persian towns, the streets were narrow, and, save in the bazaars, in which were the shops, one saw nothing but dead walls; each house having an arched entrance closed by a heavy, unpainted wooden door, with many big nails in it.

The causeway was generally some three feet wide, and raised a yard from the ground, and frequently ran on both sides of a path a yard wide and often two feet deep in mud or water, looking like a ditch, but it was really the road (save the mark!) for horses, mules, and camels. Many of the houses were built of burnt bricks, and the place seemed busier than Hamadan. I noticed many Arabs about wearing the gay Baghdad dress, with fez and small turban. The town was straggling, with many open spaces.

Quarters were assigned to us in the house of a man who was ejected to enable us to occupy them; they were not in themselves a bad place, but were in the worst and most disreputable part of the town; while the house I was obliged to rent was actually next door but one to that occupied by the public executioner, one Jaffer, and where dwelt the public women, the monopoly of whom was the largest source of this man’s revenue. All this is now changed, and Europeans can in most parts of Persia live where they like, the householders being only too glad to get a solvent tenant. Save in the capital, houses rarely are rented by Persians, it being usual to borrow a spare house, or, if a man has more than one, to put a relation in, rent-free.

The farce of the danger of living in the Persian towns is still kept up in Ispahan (the Ispahanis are the quietest men in Persia), where the English inhabit an unclean Armenian village, paying high rents, when houses in the town could be had much better and cheaper; the real reason probably being that the Armenians may enjoy the immunity they have from all control, caused by the presence of the European. But it has not answered, for in Ispahan the European is looked on as merely a clean and sober Armenian. Still, as an experiment of what the Armenian would be when practically unrestrained, it is valuable.

The Hamadan Armenian is hard-working and respectable, if occasionally a drunkard, looked on by his Persian fellow-subject as a friend and a good citizen. While the Ispahani looks on the Julfa Armenian as a race apart, and merely the panderer to his vice and the maker of intoxicating liquors; and the hang-dog Armenian, with his sham Turkish or European dress and the bottle of arrack in his pocket, scowls staggering along in secure insolence, confident in the moral protection given him by the presence of the Englishman, whom he robs; respecting neither his priest, whom he has been taught to despise; nor the missionary, whom he dislikes at heart (though he has educated his children gratuitously), and whom his priest openly reviles.

A curious instance of the religious stability of the Julfa Armenian is shown in the fact, that a Protestant on any dispute with the missionary becomes Catholic or Old Armenian. The Old Armenian, after a row with the priest, becomes either Protestant or Catholic. The Catholics, as a rule, do not relapse or become perverts. In fact, a common threat with the Armenian to his spiritual pastor and master, missionary, priest or padre, is to say, “Do it, and I’ll turn,” and some have many times; in fact, a very small temporal matter often is the cause of conversions as sudden as insincere.

We were glad enough to get in, and had hardly got our boots off ere a number of trays of sweetmeats were brought for Pierson, on the part of Hadji Khaleel, with compliments, and a similar present was sent from the Imād-u-dowlet, who sent his farrash-bashi (literally chief carpet-spreader, but really his minister) to represent him. This man was well bred, well meaning and obliging, and afterwards, through a singular circumstance, one of my best friends among the Persians.

I continued to stay with Pierson, not moving into my own quarters till he left Kermanshah.