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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I
+(of 2), by Isabella L. Bird
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I (of 2)
+       Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit
+       to the Nestorian Rayahs
+
+Author: Isabella L. Bird
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2012 [EBook #38827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNEYS IN PERSIA, KURDISTAN, VOL I ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved.  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+  Two of the Letters are entitled "Letter XIV."
+
+  Macrons (straight lines above the characters) are represented as
+  [=a], [=e], [=i], and [=u].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+     JOURNEYS
+     IN
+     PERSIA AND KURDISTAN
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: MRS. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. BIRD).]
+
+
+
+
+
+     JOURNEYS
+     IN
+     PERSIA AND KURDISTAN
+
+     INCLUDING A SUMMER IN THE UPPER KARUN
+     REGION AND A VISIT TO THE
+     NESTORIAN RAYAHS
+
+     BY MRS. BISHOP
+     (ISABELLA L. BIRD)
+
+     HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
+     AUTHOR OF 'SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS'
+     'UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN,' ETC.
+
+     IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. I.
+
+     WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+     LONDON
+     JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+     1891
+
+
+
+
+
+     TO
+     The Untravelled Many,
+     THESE VOLUMES
+     ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKS BY MRS. BISHOP.
+
+
+   "Miss Bird's fascinating and instructive work on Japan fully
+   maintains her well-earned reputation as a traveller of the first
+   order, and a graphic and picturesque writer. Miss Bird is a born
+   traveller, fearless, enthusiastic, patient, instructed, knowing
+   as well what as how to describe. No peril daunts her, no
+   prospect of fatigue or discomfort disheartens or repels
+   her."--_Quarterly Review._
+
+I. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN, Including Visits to the Aborigines of
+Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko and Isé.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+II. A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
+
+With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+III. THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO: Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral
+Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+IV. THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE AND THE WAY THITHER.
+
+With Map and Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 14s.
+
+
+JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The letters of which these volumes are composed embrace the second
+half of journeys in the East extending over a period of two years.[1]
+They attempt to be a faithful record of facts and impressions, but
+were necessarily written in haste at the conclusion of fatiguing
+marches, and often in circumstances of great discomfort and
+difficulty, and I relied for their correction in the event of
+publication on notes made with much care. Unfortunately I was robbed
+of nearly the whole of these, partly on my last journey in Persia and
+partly on the Turkish frontier,--a serious loss, which must be my
+apology to the reader for errors which, without this misfortune, would
+not have occurred.
+
+The bibliography of Persia is a very extensive one, and it may well be
+that I have little that is new to communicate, except on a part of
+Luristan previously untraversed by Europeans; but each traveller
+receives a different impression from those made upon his predecessors,
+and I hope that my book may be accepted as an honest attempt to make a
+popular contribution to the sum of knowledge of a country and people
+with which we are likely to be brought into closer relations.
+
+As these volumes are simply travels in Persia and Eastern Asia Minor,
+and are _not a book on either country_, the references to such
+subjects as were not within the sphere of my observation are brief and
+incidental. The administration of government, the religious and legal
+systems, the tenure of land, and the mode of taxation are dismissed in
+a few lines, and social customs are only described when I came in
+contact with them. The Ilyats, or nomadic tribes, form a very
+remarkable element of the population of Persia, but I have only
+noticed two of their divisions--the Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs. The
+antiquities of Persia are also passed over with hardly a remark, as
+well as many other subjects, which have been "threshed out" by
+previous writers with more or less of accuracy.
+
+I make these omissions with all the more satisfaction, because most
+that is "knowable" concerning Persia will be accessible on the
+publication of a work now in the Press, _Persia and the Persian
+Question_, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P., who has not only
+travelled extensively in the country, but has bestowed such enormous
+labour and research upon it, and has had such exceptional
+opportunities of acquiring the latest and best official information,
+that his volumes may fairly be described as "exhaustive."
+
+It is always a pleasant duty to acknowledge kindness, and I am deeply
+grateful to several friends for the help which they have given me in
+many ways, and for the trouble which some of them have taken to
+recover facts which were lost with my notes, as well as for the
+careful revision of a portion of my letters in MS. I am indebted to
+the Indian authorities for the materials for a sketch map, for
+photographs from which many of the illustrations are taken, and for
+the use of a valuable geographical report, and to Mr. Thistleton Dyer,
+Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, for the identification
+of a few of my botanical specimens.
+
+In justice to the many kind friends who received me into their homes,
+I am anxious to disclaim having either echoed or divulged their views
+on Persian or Turkish subjects, and to claim and accept the fullest
+responsibility for the opinions expressed in these pages, which,
+whether right or wrong, are wholly my own. It is from those who know
+Persia and Kurdistan the best that I am sure of receiving the most
+kindly allowance wherever, in spite of an honest desire to be
+accurate, I have fallen into mistakes.
+
+The retention, not only of the form, but of the reality of diary
+letters, is not altogether satisfactory either to author or reader,
+for the author sacrifices the literary and artistic arrangement of his
+materials, and however ruthlessly omissions are made, the reader is
+apt to find himself involved in a multiplicity of minor details,
+treated in a fashion which he is inclined to term "slipshod," and to
+resent the egotism which persistently clings to familiar
+correspondence. Still, even with all the disadvantages of this form of
+narrative, I think that letters are the best mode of placing the
+reader in the position of the traveller, and of enabling him to share,
+not only first impressions in their original vividness, and the
+interests and enjoyments of travelling, but the hardships,
+difficulties, and tedium which are their frequent accompaniments!
+
+For the lack of vivacity which, to my thinking, pervades the following
+letters, I ask the reader's indulgence. They were originally written,
+and have since been edited, under the heavy and abiding shadow, not
+only of the loss of the beloved and only sister who was the
+inspiration of my former books of travel, and to whose completely
+sympathetic interest they owed whatever of brightness they possessed,
+but of my beloved husband, whose able and careful revision
+accompanied my last volume through the Press.
+
+Believing that these letters faithfully reflect what I saw of the
+regions of which they treat, I venture to ask for them the same kindly
+and lenient criticism with which my travels in the Far East and
+elsewhere were received in bygone years, and to express the hope that
+they may help to lead towards that goal to which all increase of
+knowledge of races and beliefs tends--a truer and kindlier recognition
+of the brotherhood of man, as seen in the light of the Fatherhood of
+God.
+
+     ISABELLA L. BISHOP.
+
+     _November 12, 1891._
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] I left England with a definite object in view, to which others
+were subservient, but it is not necessary to obtrude it on the reader.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+IN VOLUME I.
+
+
+     Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird)         _Frontispiece_
+
+     A Gopher                                    _Page_ 19
+
+     A Turkish Frontier Fort             _To face page_ 78
+
+     Lodgings for Travellers                            82
+
+     Persian Bread-making                              159
+
+     The Shrine of Fatima                              167
+
+     A Dervish                                         237
+
+     Castle of Ardal                                   318
+
+     Imam Kuli Khan                                    326
+
+     The Karun at Dupulan               _To face page_ 351
+
+     Ali Jan                                           362
+
+     Armenian Women of Libasgun                        366
+
+     Wall and Gate of Libasgun          _To face page_ 368
+
+     A Perso-Bakhtiari Cradle                          372
+
+     A Dastgird Tent                    _To face page_ 378
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+
+_Abambar_, a covered reservoir.
+
+_Agha_, a master.
+
+_Andarun_, women's quarters, a _haram_.
+
+_Arak_, a coarse spirit.
+
+_Badg[=i]r_, wind-tower.
+
+_Badragah_, a parting escort.
+
+_Balakhana_, an upper room.
+
+_Bringals_, egg plants.
+
+_Chapar_, post.
+
+_Chapar Khana_, post-house.
+
+_Chapi_, the Bakhtiari national dance.
+
+_Charvadar_, a muleteer.
+
+_Far[=a]sh_, _lit._ a carpet-spreader.
+
+_Farsakh_, from three and a half to four miles.
+
+_Gardan_, a pass.
+
+_Gaz_, a sweetmeat made from manna.
+
+_Gelims_, thin carpets, drugget.
+
+_Gheva_, a summer shoe.
+
+_Gholam_, an official messenger or attendant.
+
+_H[=a]kim_, a governor.
+
+_Hak[=i]m_, a physician.
+
+_Hammam_, a Turkish or hot bath.
+
+_Ilyats_, the nomadic tribes of Persia.
+
+_Imam_, a saint, a religious teacher.
+
+_Imamzada_, a saint's shrine.
+
+_Istikbal_, a procession of welcome.
+
+_Jul_, a horse's outer blanket.
+
+_Kabob_, pieces of skewered meat seasoned and toasted.
+
+_Kafir_, an infidel, a Christian.
+
+_Kah_, chopped straw.
+
+_Kajawehs_, horse-panniers.
+
+_Kalian_, a "hubble-bubble" or water-pipe for tobacco.
+
+_Kamarband_, a girdle.
+
+_Kanaat_, an underground water-channel.
+
+_Kanat_, the upright side of a tent.
+
+_Karsi_, a wooden frame for covering a fire-hole.
+
+_Katirgi_ (Turkish), a muleteer.
+
+_Ketchuda_, a headman of a village.
+
+_Khan_, lord or prince; a designation as common as esquire.
+
+_Khan_ (Turkish), an inn.
+
+_Khanjar_, a curved dagger.
+
+_Khanji_ (Turkish), the keeper of a _khan_.
+
+_Khanum_, a lady of rank.
+
+_Khurjins_, saddle bags.
+
+_Kizik_, a slab of animal fuel.
+
+_Kotal_, _lit._ a ladder, a pass.
+
+_Kourbana_ (Syriac), the Holy Communion.
+
+_Kran_, eightpence.
+
+_Kuh_, mountain.
+
+_Lira_ (Turkish), about £1.
+
+_Malek_ (Syriac, _lit._ king), a chief or headman.
+
+_Mamachi_, midwife.
+
+_Mangel_, a brazier.
+
+_Mast_, curdled milk.
+
+_Medresseh_, a college.
+
+_Mirza_, a scribe, secretary, or gentleman. An educated man.
+
+_Modakel_, illicit percentage.
+
+_Mollah_, a religious teacher.
+
+_Munshi_, a clerk, a teacher of languages.
+
+_Namad_, felt.
+
+_Nasr_, steward.
+
+_Odah_ (Turkish), a room occupied by human beings and animals.
+
+_Piastre_, a Turkish coin worth two-pence-halfpenny.
+
+_Pirahan_, a chemise or shirt.
+
+_Pish-kash_, a nominal present.
+
+_Qasha_ (Syriac), a priest.
+
+_Rayahs_, subject Syrians.
+
+_Roghan_, clarified butter.
+
+_Samovar_, a Russian tea-urn.
+
+_Sartip_, a general.
+
+_Seraidar_, the keeper of a caravanserai.
+
+_Sharbat_, a fruit syrup.
+
+_Shroff_, a money-changer.
+
+_Shuldari_ (_Shooldarry_), a small tent with two poles and a ridge
+pole, but without _kanats_.
+
+_Shulwars_, wide trousers.
+
+_Sowar_, a horseman, a horse soldier.
+
+_Takch[=a]h_, a recess in a wall.
+
+_Taktrawan_, a mule litter.
+
+_Tand[=u]r_, an oven in a floor.
+
+_Tang_, a rift or defile.
+
+_Tufangchi_, a foot soldier, an armed footman.
+
+_Tuman_, seven shillings and sixpence.
+
+_Vakil_, an authorised representative.
+
+_Vakil-u-Dowleh_, agent of Government.
+
+_Yabu_, a pony or inferior horse.
+
+_Yailaks_, summer quarters.
+
+_Yekdan_, a mule or camel trunk, made of leather.
+
+_Yohoort_ (Turkish), curdled milk.
+
+_Zaptieh_ (Turkish), a _gendarme_.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+
+     BASRAH, ASIATIC TURKEY, _Jan. 1, 1890_.
+
+A _shamal_ or N.W. wind following on the sirocco which had accompanied
+us up "the Gulf" was lashing the shallow waters of the roadstead into
+reddish yeast as we let go the anchor opposite the sea front of
+Bushire, the most important seaport in Persia. _The_ Persian
+man-of-war _Persepolis_, officered by Germans, H.M. ship _Sphinx_, two
+big steamers owned in London, a British-built three-masted clipper,
+owned and navigated by Arabs, and a few Arab native vessels tugged at
+their anchors between two and three miles from the shore. Native
+_buggalows_ clustered and bumped round the trading vessels, hanging on
+with difficulty, or thumped and smashed through the short waves, close
+on the wind, easily handled and sailing magnificently, while the
+Residency steam-launch, puffing and toiling, was scarcely holding her
+own against a heavy head sea.
+
+Bushire, though it has a number of two-storied houses and a population
+of 15,000, has a most insignificant appearance, and lies so low that
+from the _Assyria's_ deck it gave the impression of being below the
+sea-level. The _shamal_ was raising a sand storm in the desert beyond;
+the sand was drifting over it in yellow clouds, the mountains which at
+a greater or less distance give a wild sublimity to the eastern shores
+of the Gulf were blotted out, and a blurred and windy shore
+harmonised with a blurred and windy sea.
+
+The steam-launch, which after several baffled attempts succeeded in
+reaching the steamer's side, brought letters of welcome from Colonel
+Ross, who for eighteen years has filled the office of British Resident
+in the Persian Gulf with so much ability, judgment, and tact as to
+have earned the respect and cordial esteem of Persians, Arabs, the
+mixed races, and Europeans alike. Of his kindness and hospitality
+there is no occasion to write, for every stranger who visits the Gulf
+has large experience of both.
+
+The little launch, though going shorewards with the wind, was tossed
+about like a cork, shipping deluges of spray, and it was so cold and
+generally tumultuous, that it was a relief to exchange the shallow,
+wind-lashed waters of the roadstead for the shelter of a projecting
+sea-wall below the governor's house. A curricle, with two fiery little
+Arab horses, took us over the low windy stretch of road which lies
+behind Bushire, through a part of the town and round again to the
+sea-shore, on which long yellow surges were breaking thunderously in
+drifts of creamy foam. The Residency, a large Persian house, with that
+sort of semi-fortified look which the larger Eastern houses are apt to
+have, is built round courtyards, and has a fine entrance, which was
+lined with well-set-up men of a Bombay marine battalion. As is usual
+in Persia and Turkey, the reception rooms, living rooms, and guest
+rooms are upstairs, opening on balconies, the lower part being
+occupied by the servants and as domestic offices. Good fires were a
+welcome adjunct to the genial hospitality of Colonel Ross and his
+family, for the mercury, which for the previous week had ranged from
+84° to 93°, since the sunrise of that day had dropped to 45°, and the
+cold, damp wind suggested an English February. Even the Residency,
+thick as its walls are, was invaded by sea sand, and penetrated by
+the howlings and shriekings of the _shamal_ and the low hiss at
+intervals of wind-blown spray.
+
+This miserable roadstead does a large trade,[2] though every bale and
+chest destined for the cities of the interior must be packed on mules'
+backs for carriage over the horrible and perilous _kotals_ or rock
+ladders of the intervening mountain ranges. The chief caravan route in
+Persia starts from Bushire _viâ_ Shiraz, Isfahan, Kashan, and Kûm, to
+Tihran. A loaded mule takes from thirty to thirty-five days to
+Isfahan, and from Isfahan to Tihran from twelve to sixteen days,
+according to the state of the roads.
+
+Bushire does not differ in appearance from an ordinary eastern town.
+Irregular and uncleanly alleys, dead mud walls, with here and there a
+low doorway, bazars in which the requirements of caravans are largely
+considered, and in which most of the manufactured goods are English, a
+great variety in male attire, some small mosques, a marked
+predominance of the Arab physiognomy and costume, and ceaseless
+strings of asses bringing skins of water from wells a mile from the
+town, are my impressions of the first Persian city that I have ever
+seen. The Persian element, however, except in officialism and the
+style of building, is not strong, the population being chiefly
+composed of "Gulf Arabs." There are nearly fifty European residents,
+including the telegraph staff and the representatives of firms doing a
+very large business with England, the Persian Gulf Trading Company,
+Messrs. Hotz and Company, Messrs. Gray, Paul, and Company, and the
+British India Steam Navigation Company, which has enormously developed
+the trade of the Gulf.
+
+Bushire is the great starting-point of travellers from India who
+desire "to go home through Persia" by Shiraz and Persepolis.
+_Charvadars_ (muleteers) and the necessary outfit are obtainable, but
+even the kindness of the Resident fails to overcome the standing
+difficulty of obtaining a Persian servant who is both capable and
+trustworthy. Having been forewarned by him not to trust to Bushire for
+this indispensable article, I had brought from India a Persian of good
+antecedents and character, who, desiring to return to his own country,
+was willing to act as my interpreter, courier, and sole attendant.
+Grave doubts of his ability to act in the two latter capacities
+occurred to me before I left Karachi, grew graver on the voyage, and
+were quite confirmed as we tossed about in the Residency launch, where
+the "young Persian gentleman," as he styled himself, sat bolt upright
+with a despairing countenance, dressed in a tall hat, a beautifully
+made European suit, faultless tan boots, and snowy collar and cuffs, a
+man of truly refined feeling and manners, but hopelessly out of place.
+I pictured him helpless among the _déshabillé_ and roughnesses of a
+camp, and anticipated my insurmountable reluctance to ask of him
+menial service, and was glad to find that the same doubts had occurred
+to himself.
+
+I lost no time in interviewing Hadji,--a Gulf Arab, who has served
+various travellers, has been ten times to Mecca, went to Windsor with
+the horses presented to the Queen by the Sultan of Muscat, speaks more
+or less of six languages, knows English fairly, has some
+recommendations, and professes that he is "up to" all the requirements
+of camp life. The next morning I engaged him as "man of all work," and
+though a big, wild-looking Arab in a rough _abba_ and a big turban,
+with a long knife and a revolver in his girdle, scarcely looks like a
+lady's servant, I hope he may suit me, though with these antecedents
+he is more likely to be a scamp than a treasure.
+
+The continuance of the _shamal_ prevented the steamer from unloading
+in the exposed roadstead, and knocked the launch about as we rejoined
+her. We called at the telegraph station at Fao, and brought off Dr.
+Bruce, the head of the Church Missionary Society's Mission at Julfa,
+whose long and intimate acquaintance with the country and people will
+make him a great acquisition on the Tigris.
+
+"About sixty miles above the bar outside the Shat-el-Arab" (the united
+Tigris and Euphrates), "forty miles above the entrance to that estuary
+at Fao, and twenty miles below the Turkish port of Basrah, the present
+main exit of the Karun river flows into the Shat-el-Arab from the
+north-east by an artificial channel, whose etymology testifies to its
+origin, the Haffar" (dug-out) "canal. When this canal was cut, no one
+knows.... Where it flows into the Shat-el-Arab it is about a quarter
+of a mile in width, with a depth of from twenty to thirty feet.
+
+"The town of Mohammerah is situated a little more than a mile up the
+canal on its right bank, and is a filthy place, with about 2000
+inhabitants, and consists mainly of mud huts and hovels, backed by a
+superb fringe of date palms."[3] In the rose flush of a winter morning
+we steamed slowly past this diplomatically famous confluence of the
+Haffar and Shat-el-Arab, at the angle of which the Persians have
+lately built a quay, a governor's house, and a large warehouse, in
+expectation of a trade which shows few signs of development.
+
+A winter morning it was indeed, splendid and invigorating after the
+ferocious heat of the Gulf. To-day there has been frost!
+
+The Shat-el-Arab is a noble river or estuary. From both its Persian
+and Turkish shores, however, mountains have disappeared, and dark
+forests of date palms intersected by canals fringe its margin heavily,
+and extend to some distance inland. The tide is strong, and such
+native boats as _belems_, _buggalows_, and dug-outs, loaded with
+natives and goods, add a cheerful element of busy life.
+
+We anchored near Basrah, below the foreign settlement, and had the
+ignominy of being placed for twenty-four hours in quarantine, flying
+the degrading yellow flag. Basrah has just been grievously ravaged by
+the cholera, which has not only carried off three hundred of the
+native population daily for some time, but the British Vice-Consul and
+his children. Cholera still exists in Turkey while it is extinct in
+Bombay, and the imposition of quarantine on a ship with a "clean bill
+of health" seems devised for no other purpose than to extract fees, to
+annoy, and to produce a harassing impression of Turkish officialism.
+
+After this detention we steamed up to the anchorage, which is in front
+of a few large bungalows which lie between the belt of palms and the
+river, and form the European settlement of Margil. A fever-haunted
+swamp, with no outlet but the river; canals exposing at low water
+deep, impassable, and malodorous slime separating the bungalows; a
+climate which is damp, hot, malarious, and prostrating except for a
+few weeks in winter, and a total absence of all the resources and
+amenities of civilisation, make Basrah one of the least desirable
+places to which Europeans are exiled by the exigencies of commerce. It
+is scarcely necessary to say that the few residents exercise unbounded
+hospitality, which is the most grateful memory which the stranger
+retains of the brief halt by the "River of Arabia."
+
+This is the dead season in the "city of dates." An unused river
+steamer, a large English trader, two Turkish ships-of-war painted
+white, the _Mejidieh_, one of two English-owned steamers which are
+allowed to ply on the Tigris, and the _Assyria_ of the B.I.S.N. Co.,
+constitute the fleet at anchor. As at Bushire, all cargo must be
+loaded and unloaded by boats, and crowds of native craft hanging on to
+the trading vessels give a little but not much vivacity.
+
+October, after the ingathering of the date harvest, is the busiest
+month here. The magnitude of the date industry may be gathered from
+the fact that in 1890, 60,000 tons of dates were exported from Basrah,
+20,000 in boxes, and the remainder in palm-leaf mats, one vessel
+taking 1800 tons. The quantity of wood imported for the boxes was 7000
+tons in cut lengths, with iron hooping, nails, and oiled paper for
+inside wrapping, brought chiefly from England.
+
+A hundred trees can be grown on an acre of ground. The mature tree
+gives a profit of 4s., making the profit on an acre £20 annually. The
+Governor of Mohammerah has lately planted 30,000 trees, and date palms
+to the number of 60,000 have been recently planted on Persian soil.
+
+It is said that there are 160 varieties of dates, but only a few are
+known to commerce. These great sombre date forests or "date gardens,"
+which no sunshine can enliven, are of course artificial, and depend
+upon irrigation. The palms are propagated by means of suckers taken
+from the female date. The young trees begin to bear when they are
+about five years old, reach maturity at nine, and may be prolific for
+two centuries. Mohammed said wisely, "Honour the palm, it is your
+paternal aunt." One soon learns here that it not only provides the
+people with nutritious food, but with building materials, as well as
+with fuel, carpets, ropes, and mats. But it is the least beautiful of
+the palms, and the dark monotonous masses along the river contrast
+with my memories of the graceful coco palm fringing the coral islands
+of the Pacific.
+
+I left the _Assyria_ with regret. The captain and officers had done
+all that intelligence and kindness could do to make the voyage an
+agreeable one, and were altogether successful. On shore a hospitable
+reception, a good fire, and New Year's Day come together
+appropriately. The sky is clear and cloudless, and the air keen. The
+bungalows belonging to the European firms are dwelling-houses above
+and offices below, and are surrounded by packing-yards and sheds for
+goods. In line with them are the Consulates.
+
+The ancient commercial glories of Basrah are too well known to need
+recapitulation. Circumstances are doing much to give it something of
+renewed importance. The modern Basrah, a town which has risen from a
+state of decay till it has an estimated population of 25,000, is on
+the right bank of the river, at some distance up a picturesque
+palm-fringed canal. Founded by Omar soon after the death of Mohammed,
+and tossed like a shuttlecock between Turk and Persian, it is now
+definitely Turkish, and the great southern outlet of Chaldæa and
+Mesopotamia, as well as the port at which the goods passing to and
+from Baghdad "break bulk." A population more thoroughly polyglot could
+scarcely be found, Turks, Arabs, Sabeans, Syrians, Greeks, Hindus,
+Armenians, Frenchmen, Wahabees, Britons, Jews, Persians, Italians, and
+Africans, and there are even more creeds than races.
+
+_S.S. Mejidieh, River Tigris, Jan. 4._--Leaving Basrah at 4 P.M. on
+Tuesday we have been stemming the strong flood of the Tigris for three
+bright winter days, in which to sit by a red-hot stove and sleep under
+a pile of blankets have been real luxuries after the torrid heat of
+the "Gulf." The party on board consists of Dr. Bruce, Mr. Hammond, who
+has been for some months pushing British trade at Shuster, the
+Assistant Quartermaster-General for India, a French-speaking Jewish
+merchant, the Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., and Mr. Swabadi, a Hungarian
+gentleman in the employment of the Tigris and Euphrates Steam
+Navigation Company, a very scholarly man, who in the course of a long
+residence in Southern Turkey has acquainted himself intimately with
+the country and its peoples, and is ever ready to place his own stores
+of information at our disposal. Mr. Curzon has been "prospecting" the
+Karun river, and came on board from the _Shushan_, a small stern-wheel
+steamer with a carrying capacity of 30 tons, a draught when empty of
+18 inches, and when laden of from 24 to 36. She belongs to the Messrs.
+Lynch Brothers, of the Tigris and Euphrates S.N. Co. They run her once
+a fortnight at a considerable loss between Mohammerah and Ahwaz. Her
+isolated position and diminutive size are a curious commentary on the
+flourish of trumpets and _blether_ of exultation with which the
+English newspapers announced the very poor concession of leave to run
+steamers on the Karun between the Shat-el-Arab and Ahwaz.
+
+[Since this letter was written, things have taken rather a singular
+turn, and the development of trade on the Karun has partly fallen into
+the hands of a trading corporation of Persians, the _Nasiri_ Company.
+By them, and under their representative partner, Haja Mahomad, a man
+of great energy, the formidable rapids at Ahwaz are being circumvented
+by the construction of a tramway 2400 yards long, which is proceeding
+steadily. A merchants' caravanserai has already been built on the
+river bank at the lower landing-place and commencement of the tramway,
+and a bakery, butchery, and carpentry, along with a _café_ and a
+grocery and general goods stores, have already been opened by men
+brought to Ahwaz by H. Mahomad.
+
+A river face wall, where native craft are to lie, is being constructed
+of hewn stone blocks and sections of circular pillars, remains of the
+ancient city.
+
+The _Nasiri_ Company has a small steamer, the _Nasiri_, plying on the
+lower Karun, chiefly as a tug, taking up two Arab boats of
+twenty-seven tons each, lashed alongside of her. On her transference
+at the spring floods of this year to the river above Ahwaz, the
+_Karun_, a steam launch of about sixty tons, belonging to the Governor
+of Mohammerah, takes her place below, and a second steamer belonging
+to the same company is now running on the lower stream. Poles from
+Zanzibar have been distributed for a telegraph line from Mohammerah to
+Ahwaz. The Messrs. Lynch have placed a fine river steamer of 300 tons
+on the route; but this enterprising firm, and English capitalists
+generally, are being partially "cut out" by the singular "go" of this
+Persian company, which not only appears to have strong support from
+Government quarters, but has gained the co-operation of the
+well-known and wealthy Sheikh Mizal, whose personal influence in
+Arabistan is very great, and who has hitherto been an obstacle to the
+opening of trade on the Karun.
+
+A great change for the better has taken place in the circumstances of
+the population, and villages, attracted by trade, are springing up,
+which the _Nasiri_ Company is doing its best to encourage. The
+land-tax is very light, and the cultivators are receiving every
+encouragement. Much wheat was exported last year, and there is a brisk
+demand for river lands on leases of sixty years for the cultivation of
+cotton, cereals, sugar-cane, and date palms.
+
+Persian soldiers all have their donkeys, and at Ahwaz a brisk and
+amusing competition is going on between the soldiers of a fine
+regiment stationed there and the Arabs for the transport of goods past
+the rapids, and for the conveyance of tramway and building materials.
+This competition is enabling goods to pass the rapids cheaply and
+expeditiously.
+
+One interesting feature connected with these works is the rapidly
+increased well-being of the Arabs. In less than a year labour at 1
+_kran_ (8d.) a day has put quite a number of them in possession of a
+pair of donkeys and a plough, and seed-corn wherewith to cultivate
+Government lands on their own account, besides leaving a small balance
+in hand on which to live without having to borrow on the coming crop
+at frightfully usurious rates.
+
+Until now the sheikhs have been able to command labour for little more
+than the poorest food; and now many of the very poor who depended on
+them have started as small farmers, and things are rapidly changing.
+
+The careful observer, from whose report on Persia to the Foreign
+Office, No. 207, I have transferred the foregoing facts, wrote in
+January 1891: "It was a sight to see the whole Arab population on the
+river banks hard at work taking advantage of the copious rain which
+had just fallen; every available animal fit for draught was yoked to
+the plough--horses, mules, bullocks, and donkeys, and even mares, with
+their foals following them up the furrows."
+
+This, which is practically a Persian opening of the trade of the
+Karun, is not what was expected, however much it was to be desired.
+After a journey of nine months through Persia, I am strongly of
+opinion that if the Empire is to have a solid and permanent
+resurrection, it must be through the enterprise of Persians, aided it
+may be by foreign skill and capital, though the less of the latter
+that is employed the more hopefully I should regard the Persian
+future. The _Nasiri_ Company and the Messrs. Lynch may possibly unite,
+and the New Road Company may join with them in making a regular
+transport service by river and road to Tihran, by which England may
+pour her manufactured goods even into Northern Persia, as this route
+would compete successfully both with the Baghdad and Trebizond routes.
+
+Already, owing to the improved circumstances of the people, the import
+of English and Indian cotton goods and of sugar has increased; the
+latter, which is French, from its low price, only 2½d. a pound in the
+Gulf, pushing its way as far north as Sultanabad. Unfortunately the
+shadow of Russia hangs over the future of Persia.]
+
+At present two English and four Turkish boats run on the Tigris. They
+are necessarily of light draught, as the river is shallow at certain
+seasons and is full of shifting sand-banks. The _Mejidieh_ is a
+comfortable boat, with a superabundance of excellent food. Her saloon,
+state-rooms, and engines are on the main deck, which is open fore and
+aft, and has above it a fine hurricane deck, on the fore part of which
+the deck passengers, a motley crowd, encamp. She is fully loaded with
+British goods.
+
+The first object of passing interest was Kornah, reputed among the
+Arabs to be the site of the Garden of Eden, a tongue of land at the
+junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. The "Garden of Eden" contains a
+village, and bright fires burned in front of the mat-and-mud houses.
+Women in red and white, and turbaned men in brown, flitted across the
+firelight; there was a mass of vegetation, chiefly palms with a number
+of native vessels moored to their stems, and a leaning minaret. A
+frosty moonlight glorified the broad, turbid waters, Kornah and the
+Euphrates were left in shadow, and we turned up the glittering
+waterway of the Tigris. The night was too keenly frosty for any dreams
+of Paradise, even in this classic Chaldæa, and under a sky blazing
+down to the level horizon with the countless stars which were not to
+outnumber the children of "Faithful Abraham."
+
+Four hours after leaving Kornah we passed the reputed tomb of Ezra the
+prophet. At a distance and in the moonlight it looked handsome. There
+is a buttressed river wall, and above it some long flat-roofed
+buildings, the centre one surmounted by a tiled dome. The Tigris is so
+fierce and rapid, and swallows its alluvial banks so greedily, that it
+is probable that some of the buildings described by the Hebrew
+traveller Benjamin of Tudela as existing in the twelfth century were
+long since carried away. The tomb is held in great veneration not only
+by Jews and Moslems but also by Oriental Christians. It is a great
+place of Jewish pilgrimage, and is so venerated by the Arabs that it
+needs no guard.[4]
+
+Hadji brought my breakfast, or as he called it, "the grub," the next
+morning, and I contemplated the Son of Abraham with some astonishment.
+He had discarded his turban and _abba_, and looked a regular
+uncivilised desert Ishmaelite, with knives and rosaries in his belt,
+and his head muffled in a _kiffiyeh_, a yellow silk shawl striped with
+red, with one point and tassels half a yard long hanging down his
+back, and fastened round his head by three coils of camel's-hair rope.
+A loose coat with a gay girdle, "breeks" of some kind, loose boots
+turned up at the toes and reaching to the knees, and a striped
+under-garment showing here and there, completed his costume.
+
+The view from the hurricane deck, though there are no striking
+varieties, is too novel to be monotonous. The level plains of Chaldæa,
+only a few feet higher than the Tigris, stretch away to the distant
+horizon, unbroken until to-day, when low hills, white with the first
+snows of winter, are softly painted on a pure blue sky, very far away.
+The plains are buff and brown, with an occasional splash, near
+villages as buff and brown as the soil out of which they rise, of the
+dark-green of date gardens, or the vivid green of winter wheat. With
+the exception of these gardens, which are rarely seen, the vast
+expanse is unbroken by a tree. A few miserable shrubs there are, the
+_mimosa agrestis_ or St. John's bread, and a scrubby tamarisk, while
+liquorice, wormwood, capers, and some alkaline plants which camels
+love, are recognisable even in their withered condition.
+
+There are a few villages of low mud hovels enclosed by square mud
+walls, and hamlets of mat huts, the mats being made of woven sedges
+and flags, strengthened by palm fronds, but oftener by the tall, tough
+stems of growing reeds bent into arches, and woven together by the
+long leaves of aquatic plants, chiefly rushes. The hovels, so
+ingeniously constructed, are shared indiscriminately by the Arabs and
+their animals, and crowds of women and children emerged from them as
+we passed. Each village has its arrangement for raising water from the
+river.
+
+Boats under sail, usually a fleet at a time, hurry downstream, owing
+more to the strong current than to the breeze, or are hauled up
+laboriously against both by their Arab crews.
+
+The more distant plain is sparsely sprinkled with clusters of brown
+tents, long and low, and is dotted over with flocks of large brown
+sheep, shepherded by Arabs in _kiffiyehs_, each shepherd armed with a
+long gun slung over his shoulder. Herds of cattle and strings of
+camels move slowly over the brown plain, and companies of men on
+horseback, with long guns and lances, gallop up to the river bank,
+throw their fiery horses on their haunches, and after a moment of
+gratified curiosity wheel round and gallop back to the desert from
+which they came. Occasionally a stretch of arable land is being
+ploughed up by small buffaloes with most primitive ploughs, but the
+plains are pastoral chiefly, tents and flocks are their chief
+features--features which have changed little since the great Sheikh
+Abraham, whose descendants now people them, left his "kindred" in the
+not distant Ur of the Chaldees, and started on the long march to
+Canaan.
+
+Reedy marshes, alive with water-fowl, arable lands, bare buff plains,
+brown tents, brown flocks, mat huts, mud and brick villages, groups of
+women and children, flights of armed horsemen, alternate rapidly,--the
+unchanging features are the posts and wires of the telegraph.
+
+The Tigris in parts is wonderfully tortuous, and at one great bend,
+"The Devil's Elbow," a man on foot can walk the distance in less than
+an hour which takes the steamer four hours to accomplish. The current
+is very strong, and the slow progress is rendered slower at this
+season of low water by the frequent occurrence of sand-banks, of which
+one is usually made aware by a jolt, a grinding sound, a cessation of
+motion, some turns astern, and then full speed ahead, which often
+overcomes the obstacle. Some hours' delay and the floats of one
+paddle-wheel injured were the most serious disasters brought about;
+and in spite of the shallows at this season, the Tigris is a noble
+river, and the voyage is truly fascinating. Not that there are many
+remarkable objects, but the desert atmosphere and the desert freedom
+are in themselves delightful, the dust and _débris_ are the dust and
+_débris_ of mighty empires, and there are countless associations with
+the earliest past of which we have any records.
+
+Aimarah, a rising Turkish town of about 7000 people, built at a point
+where the river turns at a sharp angle to the left, is interesting as
+showing what commerce can create even here, in less than twenty years.
+A caravan route into Persia was opened and Aimarah does a somewhat
+busy trade. Flat-faced brick buildings, with projecting lattice
+windows, run a good way along the left bank of the river, which is so
+steep and irregular that the crowd which thronged it when the steamer
+made fast was shown to great advantage--Osmanlis, Greeks, Persians,
+Sabeans, Jews of great height and superb _physique_, known by
+much-tasselled turbans, and a predominating Arab element.
+
+We walked down the long, broad, covered bazar, with a broken water
+channel in the middle, where there were crowds, solely of men, meat,
+game, bread, fruit, grain, lentils, horse-shoes, pack saddles,
+Manchester cottons, money-changers, silversmiths, and scribes, and
+heard the roar of business, and the thin shouts of boys unaccustomed
+to the sight of European women. The crowds pressed and followed,
+picking at my clothes, and singing snatches of songs which were not
+complimentary. It had not occurred to me that I was violating rigid
+custom in appearing in a hat and gauze veil rather than in a _chadar_
+and face cloth, but the mistake was made unpleasantly apparent. In
+Moslem towns women go about in companies and never walk with men.
+
+We visited an enclosed square, where there are barracks for _zaptiehs_
+(gendarmes), the Kadi's court, and the prison, which consists of an
+open grating like that of a menagerie, a covered space behind, and
+dark cells or dens opening upon it, all better than the hovels of the
+peasantry. There were a number of prisoners well clothed, and
+apparently well fed, to whom we were an obvious diversion, but the
+guards gesticulated, shouted, and brandished their side-arms, making
+us at last understand that our presence in front of the grating was
+forbidden. After seeing a large barrack yard, and walking, still
+pursued by a crowd, round the forlorn outskirts of Aimarah, which
+include a Sabean village, we visited the gold and silversmiths' shops
+where the Sabeans were working at their craft, of which in this region
+they have nearly a monopoly, not only settling temporarily in the
+towns, but visiting the Arab encampments on the plains, where they are
+always welcome as the makers and repairers of the ornaments with which
+the women are loaded. These craftsmen and others of the race whom I
+have seen differ greatly from the Arabs in appearance, being white
+rather than brown, very white, _i.e._ very pale, with jet-black hair;
+large, gentle, intelligent eyes; small, straight noses, and small,
+well-formed mouths. The handsome faces of these "Christians of St.
+John" are very pleasing in their expression, and there was a dainty
+cleanliness about their persons and white clothing significant of
+those frequent ablutions of both which are so remarkable a part of
+their religion. The children at Aimarah, and generally in the riparian
+villages, wear very handsome chased, convex silver links, each as
+large as the top of a breakfast cup, to fasten their girdles.
+
+The reedy marshes, the haunts of pelicans and pigs, are left behind at
+Aimarah, and tamarisk scrub and liquorice appear on the banks. At
+Kut-al-Aimarah, a small military post and an Arab town of sun-dried
+bricks on the verge of a high bank above the Tigris, we landed again,
+and ragamuffin boys pressed very much upon us, and ragamuffin
+_zaptiehs_,[5] grotesquely dressed in clothes of different European
+nationalities, pelted them with stones. To take up stones and throw
+them at unwelcome visitors is a frequent way of getting rid of them in
+the less civilised parts of the East.
+
+A _zaptieh_ station, barracks, with a large and badly-kept parade
+ground, a covered bazar well supplied, houses with blank walls, large
+_cafés_ with broad matted benches, asafoetida, crowds of men of
+superb _physique_, picturesque Arabs on high-bred horses, and a total
+invisibility of women, were the salient features of Kut-al-Aimarah.
+Big-masted, high-stemmed boats, the broad, turbid Tigris with a great
+expanse of yellowish sand on its farther shore, reeds "shaken with the
+wind," and a windy sky, heavily overcast, made up the view from the
+bank. There were seen for the first time by the new-comers the most
+venerable boats in the world, for they were old even when Herodotus
+mentions them--_kufas_ or _gophers_, very deep round baskets covered
+with bitumen, with incurved tops, and worked by one man with a paddle.
+These remarkable tubs are used for the conveyance of passengers,
+goods, and even animals.
+
+  [Illustration: A GOPHER.]
+
+Before leaving we visited the Arab Khan or Sheikh in his house. He
+received us in an upper room of difficult access, carpeted with very
+handsome rugs, and with a divan similarly covered, but the walls of
+brown mud were not even plastered. His manner was dignified and
+courteous, and his expression remarkably shrewd. A number of men
+sitting on the floor represented by their haughty aspect and
+magnificent _physique_ the royalty of the Ishmaelite descent from
+Abraham. This Khan said that his tribe could put 3000 fighting men
+into the field, but it was obvious that its independence is broken,
+and that these tribal warriors are reckoned as Osmanli irregulars or
+Bashi Bazouks. The Khan remarked that "the English do not make good
+friends, for," he added, "they back out when difficulties arise."
+
+On board the steamer the condition of the Arabs is much discussed,
+and the old residents describe it as steadily growing worse under the
+oppression and corruption of the Osmanli officials, who appear to be
+doing their best to efface these fine riparian tribes by merciless
+exactions coming upon the top of taxation so heavy as to render
+agriculture unprofitable, the impositions actually driving thousands
+of them to seek a living in the cities and to the Persian shores of
+the Gulf, where they exchange a life of hereditary freedom for a
+precarious and often scanty subsistence among unpropitious
+surroundings. Still, the Arab of the desert is not conquered by the
+Turks.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] According to the returns for 1889, the British tonnage entering
+the Bushire roadstead was 111,745 out of 118,570 tons, and the imports
+from British territory amounted to a value of £744,018 out of
+£790,832. The exports from Bushire in the same year amounted to
+£535,076, that of opium being largely on the increase. Among other
+things exported are pistachio nuts, gum, almonds, madder, wool, and
+cotton. Regarding gum, the wars in the Soudan have affected the supply
+of it, and Persia is reaping the benefit, large quantities now being
+collected from certain shrubs, especially from the wild almond, which
+abounds at high altitudes. The drawback is that firewood and charcoal
+are becoming consequently dearer and scarcer. The gum exported in 1889
+was 7472 cwts., as against 14,918 in 1888, but the value was more than
+the same.
+
+The imports into Bushire, as comparing 1889 with 1888, have increased
+by £244,186, and the exports by £147,862. The value of the export of
+opium, chiefly to China, was £231,521, as against £148,523 in 1888.
+
+[3] "The Karun River," Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., _Proceedings of R.G.S._,
+September 1890.
+
+[4] Sir A. H. Layard describes the interior of the domed building as
+consisting of two chambers, the outer one empty, and the inner one
+containing the Prophet's tomb, built of bricks covered with white
+stucco, and enclosed in a wooden case or ark, over which is thrown a
+large blue cloth, fringed with yellow tassels, the name of the donor
+being inscribed in Hebrew characters upon it.--Layard's _Early
+Adventures_, vol. i. p. 214.
+
+[5] A year later in Kurdistan, the _zaptiehs_, all time-expired
+soldiers and well set up soldierly men, wore neat, serviceable, dark
+blue braided uniforms, and high riding-boots.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I (_Continued_)
+
+
+     BAGHDAD, _Jan. 5_.
+
+The last day on the Tigris passed as pleasantly as its predecessors.
+There was rain in the early morning, then frost which froze the rain
+on deck, and at 7 A.M. the mercury in my cabin stood at 28°.
+
+In the afternoon the country became more populous, that is, there were
+_kraals_ of mat huts at frequent intervals, and groups of tents to
+which an external wall of mats gave a certain aspect of permanence.
+Increased cultivation accompanied the increased population. In some
+places the ground was being scratched with a primitive plough of
+unshod wood, or a branch of a tree slightly trimmed, leaving a scar
+about two inches deep. These scars, which pass for furrows, are about
+ten inches apart, and camel thorn, tamarisk, and other shrubs inimical
+to crops stand between them. The seed is now being sown. After it
+comes up it grows apace, and in spite of shallow scratches, camel
+thorn, and tamarisk the tilth is so luxuriant that the husbandmen
+actually turn cattle and sheep into it for two or three weeks, and
+then leave it to throw up the ear! They say that there are from
+eighteen to thirty-five stalks from each seed in consequence of this
+process! The harvest is reaped in April, after which water covers the
+land.
+
+Another style of cultivation is adopted for land, of which we saw a
+good deal, very low lying, and annually overflowed, usually
+surrounding a nucleus of permanent marsh. This land, after the water
+dries up, is destitute of vegetation, and presents a smooth, moist
+surface full of cracks, which scales off later. No scratching is
+needed for this soil. The seed is sown broadcast over it, and such of
+it as is not devoured by birds falls into the cracks, and produces an
+abundant crop. All this rich alluvial soil is stoneless, but is strewn
+from Seleucia to Babylon with fragments of glass, bricks, and pottery.
+Artificial mounds also abound, and remains of canals, all denoting
+that these fertile plains in ancient days supported a large stationary
+population. Of all that once was, this swirling river alone remains,
+singing in every eddy and ripple--
+
+     "For men may come and men may go,
+           But I go on for ever."
+
+As we were writing in the evening we were nearly thrown off our chairs
+by running aground with a thump, which injured one paddle wheel and
+obliged us to lie up part of the night for repairs near the ruins of
+the ancient palace of Ctesiphon. Seleucia, on the right bank of the
+river, is little more now than a historic name, but the palace of
+Tak-i-Kasr, with its superb archway 100 feet in height, has been even
+in recent times magnificent enough in its ruin to recall the glories
+of the Parthian kings, and the days when, according to Gibbon,
+"Khosroes Nushirwan gave audience to the ambassadors of the world"
+within its stately walls. Its gaunt and shattered remains have even
+still a mournful grandeur about them, but they have suffered so
+severely from the barbarous removal of the stones and the fall of much
+of the front as to be altogether disappointing.
+
+Soon after leaving Ctesiphon there is increased cultivation, and
+within a few miles of Baghdad the banks of the river, which is its
+great high road, become populous. "Palatial residences," in which the
+women's apartments are indicated by the blankness of their walls, are
+mixed up with mud hovels and goat's-hair tents; there are large
+farmhouses with enclosures for cattle and horses; date gardens and
+orange groves fringe the stream, and arrangements for drawing water
+are let into its banks at frequent intervals. Strings of asses laden
+with country produce, companies of horsemen and innumerable foot
+passengers, all moved citywards.
+
+The frosty sun rose out of an orange sky as a disc of blood and flame,
+but the morning became misty and overcast, so that the City of the
+Arabian Nights did not burst upon the view in any halo of splendour. A
+few tiled minarets, the blue domes of certain mosques, handsome
+houses,--some of them European Consulates, half hidden by orange
+groves laden with their golden fruitage,--a picturesque bridge of
+boats, a dense growth of palms on the right bank, beyond which gleam
+the golden domes of Kazimain and the top of Zobeide's tomb, the
+superannuated British gun-boat _Comet_, two steamers, a crowd of
+native craft, including _kufas_ or _gophers_, a prominent
+Custom-house, and decayed alleys opening on the water, make up the
+Baghdad of the present as seen from the _Mejidieh's_ deck.
+
+As soon as we anchored swarms of _kufas_ clustered round us, and
+swarms of officials and _hamals_ (porters) invaded the deck. Some of
+the passengers had landed two hours before, others had proceeded to
+their destinations at once, and as my friends had not come off I was
+alone for some time in the middle of a tremendous Babel, in which
+every man shouted at the top of his voice and all together, Hadji
+assuming a deportment of childish helplessness. Certain officials
+under cover of bribes lavished on my behalf by a man who spoke
+English professed to let my baggage pass unopened, then a higher
+official with a sword knocked Hadji down, then a man said that
+everything would be all right if I would bestow another gold _lira_,
+about £1, on the officers, and I was truly glad when kind Captain
+Dougherty with Dr. Sutton came alongside in the _Comet's_ boat, and
+brought me ashore. The baggage was put into another of her boats, but
+as soon as we were out of sight it was removed, and was taken to the
+Custom-house, where they insisted that some small tent poles in a
+cover were guns, and smashed a box of dates in the idea that it was
+tobacco!
+
+The Church Mission House, in which I am receiving hospitality, is a
+"native" house, though built and decorated by Persians, as also are
+several of the Consulates. It is in a narrow roadway with blank walls,
+a part of the European quarter; a door of much strength admits into a
+small courtyard, round which are some of the servants' quarters and
+reception rooms for Moslem visitors, and within this again is a
+spacious and handsome courtyard, round which are kitchens, domestic
+offices, and the _serdabs_, which play an important part in Eastern
+life.
+
+These _serdabs_ are semi-subterranean rooms, usually with arched
+fronts, filled in above-ground with latticework. They are lofty, and
+their vaulted roofs are supported in rich men's houses on pillars. The
+well of the household is often found within. The general effect of
+this one is that of a crypt, and it was most appropriate for the
+Divine Service in English which greeted my arrival. The cold of it
+was, however, frightful. It was only when the Holy Communion was over
+that I found that I was wearing Hadji's revolver and cartridge belt
+under my cloak, which he had begged me to put on to save them from
+confiscation! In these vaulted chambers both Europeans and natives
+spend the hot season, sleeping at night on the roofs.
+
+Above this lower floor are the winter apartments, which open upon a
+fine stone balcony running round three sides of the court. On the
+river side of the house there is an orange garden, which just now
+might be the garden of the Hesperides, and a terrace, below which is
+the noble, swirling Tigris, and beyond, a dark belt of palms. These
+rooms on the river front have large projecting windows, six in a row,
+with screens which slide up and down, and those which look to the
+courtyard are secluded by very beautiful fretwork. The drawing-room,
+used as a dormitory, is a superb room, in which exquisitely beautiful
+ceiling and wall decorations in shades of fawn enriched with gold, and
+fretwork windows, suggest Oriental feeling at every turn. The
+plaster-work of this room is said to be distinctively Persian and is
+very charming. The house, though large, is inconveniently crowded,
+with the medical and clerical mission families, two lady missionaries,
+and two guests. Each apartment has two rows of vaulted recesses in its
+walls, and very fine cornices above. It is impossible to warm the
+rooms, but the winter is very short and brilliant, and after ulsters,
+greatcoats, and fur cloaks have been worn for breakfast, the sun
+mitigates the temperature.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+
+     BAGHDAD, _Jan. 9_.
+
+Baghdad is too well known from the careful descriptions given of it by
+Eastern travellers to justify me in lingering upon it in detail, and I
+will only record a few impressions, which are decidedly _couleur de
+rose_, for the weather is splendid, making locomotion a pleasure, and
+the rough, irregular roadways which at other seasons are deep in foul
+and choking dust, or in mud and pestilential slime, are now firm and
+not remarkably dirty.
+
+A little earlier than this the richer inhabitants, who have _warstled_
+through the summer in their dim and latticed _serdabs_, emerge and
+pitch their tents in the plains of Ctesiphon, where the men find a
+stimulating amusement in hunting the boar, but it is now the "season"
+in the city, the liveliest and busiest time of the year. The cholera,
+which is believed to have claimed 6000 victims, has departed, and the
+wailing of the women, which scarcely ceased day or night for a month,
+is silent. The Jewish troubles, which apparently rose out of the
+indignation of the Moslems at the burial within the gates, contrary to
+a strict edict on the subject, of a Rabbi who died of cholera, have
+subsided, and the motley populations and their yet more motley creeds
+are for the time at peace.
+
+In the daytime there is a roar or hum of business, mingled with
+braying of asses, squeals of belligerent horses, yells of
+camel-drivers and muleteers, beating of drums, shouts of beggars,
+hoarse-toned ejaculations of fakirs, ear-splitting snatches of
+discordant music, and in short a chorus of sounds unfamiliar to
+Western ears, but the nights are so still that the swirl of the Tigris
+as it hurries past is distinctly heard. Only the long melancholy call
+to prayer, or the wail of women over the dead, or the barking of dogs,
+breaks the silence which at sunset falls as a pall over Baghdad.
+
+Under the blue sunny sky the river view is very fine. The river itself
+is imposing from its breadth and volume, and in the gorgeous sunsets,
+with a sky of crimson flame, and the fronds of the dark date palms
+mirrored in its reddened waters, it looks really beautiful. The city
+is stately enough as far as the general _coup-d'oeil_ of the river
+front goes, and its river _façade_ agreeably surprises me. The Tigris,
+besides being what may be called the main street, divides Baghdad into
+two unequal parts, and though the city on the left bank has almost a
+monopoly of picturesque and somewhat stately irregularity in the
+houses of fair height, whose lattices and oriel windows overhang the
+stream from an environment of orange gardens, the dark date groves
+dignify the meaner buildings of the right bank. The rush of a great
+river is in itself attractive, and from the roof of this house the
+view is fascinating, with the ceaseless movements of hundreds of boats
+and _kufas_, the constant traffic of men, horses, asses, and caravans
+across the great bridge of boats, and the long lines of buildings
+which with more or less picturesqueness line the great waterway.
+
+Without the wearisomeness of sight-seeing there is much to be seen in
+Baghdad, and though much that would be novel to a new-comer from the
+West is familiar to me after two years of Eastern travel, there is a
+great deal that is really interesting. The _kufas_ accumulating at
+their landing, freighted with the products of the Upper Tigris, the
+transpontine city, in which country produce takes the foremost place;
+the tramway to Kazimain constructed during the brief valiship of
+Midhat Pasha, on which the last journey of the day is always performed
+at a gallop, _coûte que coûte_; the caravans of asses, each one with a
+huge fish, the "Fish of Tobias," hanging across its back; the strings
+of the same humble animal, carrying skins of water from the river
+throughout the city; the tombs, the mosques, the churches, the great
+caravans of mules and camels, almost monopolising the narrow roadways,
+Arabs and Osmanlis on showy horses, Persians, Turks, Arabs, Jews,
+Armenians, Chaldæans, in all the variety of their picturesque national
+costumes, to which the niggardly clothing of a chance European acts as
+an ungraceful foil; Persian dead, usually swaddled, making their last
+journey on mule or horseback to the holy ground at Kerbela, and the
+occasional march of horse or foot through the thronged bazars, are
+among the hourly sights of a city on which European influence is
+scarcely if at all perceptible.
+
+Turkish statistics must be received with caution, and the population
+of Baghdad may not reach 120,000 souls, but it has obviously recovered
+wonderfully from the effects of war, plague, inundation, and famine,
+and looks busy and fairly prosperous, so much so indeed that the
+account given of its misery and decay in Mr. Baillie Fraser's charming
+_Travels in Kurdistan_ reads like a story of the last century. If
+nothing remains of the glories of the city of the Caliphs, it is
+certainly for Turkey a busy, growing, and passably wealthy
+nineteenth-century capital. It is said to have a hundred mosques,
+twenty-six minarets, and fifteen domes, but I have not counted them!
+
+Its bazars, which many people regard as the finest in the East outside
+of Stamboul, are of enormous extent and very great variety. Many are
+of brick, with well-built domed roofs, and sides arcaded both above
+and below, and are wide and airy. Some are of wood, all are covered,
+and admit light scantily, only from the roof. Those which supply the
+poorer classes are apt to be ruinous and squalid--"_ramshackle_," to
+say the truth, with an air of decay about them, and their roofs are
+merely rough timber, roughly thatched with reeds or date tree fronds.
+Of splendour there is none anywhere, and of cleanliness there are few
+traces. The old, narrow, and filthy bazars in which the gold and
+silversmiths ply their trade are of all the most interesting. The
+trades have their separate localities, and the buyer who is in search
+of cotton goods, silk stuffs, carpets, cotton yarn, gold and silver
+thread, ready-made clothing, weapons, saddlery, rope, fruit, meat,
+grain, fish, jewellery, muslins, copper pots, etc., has a whole alley
+of contiguous shops devoted to the sale of the same article to choose
+from.
+
+At any hour of daylight at this season progress through the bazars is
+slow. They are crowded, and almost entirely with men. It is only the
+poorer women who market for themselves, and in twos and threes, at
+certain hours of the day. In a whole afternoon, among thousands of
+men, I saw only five women, tall, shapeless, badly-made-up bundles,
+carried mysteriously along, rather by high, loose, canary-yellow
+leather boots than by feet. The face is covered with a thick black
+gauze mask, or cloth, and the head and remainder of the form with a
+dark blue or black sheet, which is clutched by the hand below the
+nose. The walk is one of tottering decrepitude. All the business
+transacted in the bazars is a matter of bargaining, and as Arabs shout
+at the top of their voices, and buyers and sellers are equally keen,
+the roar is tremendous.
+
+Great _cafés_, as in Cairo, occur frequently. In the larger ones from
+a hundred to two hundred men are seen lounging at one time on the
+broad matted seats, shouting, chaffering, drinking coffee or _sharbat_
+and smoking _chibouks_ or _kalians_. Negro attendants supply their
+wants. These _cafés_ are the clubs of Baghdad. Whatever of public
+opinion exists in a country where the recognised use of words is to
+"conceal thought," is formed in them. They are centres of business
+likewise, and much of the noise is due to bargaining, and they are
+also manufactories of rumours, scandals, and fanaticism. The great
+caravanserais, such as the magnificent Khan Othman, are also resorts
+of merchants for the display and sale of their goods.
+
+Europeans never make purchases in the bazars. They either have the
+goods from which they wish to make a choice brought to their houses,
+or their servants bargain for them, getting a commission both from
+buyer and seller.
+
+The splendour of the East, if it exists at all, is not to be seen in
+the bazars. The jewelled daggers, the cloth of silver and gold, the
+diaphanous silk tissues, the brocaded silks, the rich embroideries,
+the damascened sword blades, the finer carpets, the inlaid armour, the
+cunning work in brass and inlaid bronze, and all the articles of
+_vertu_ and _bric-à-brac_ of real or spurious value, are carefully
+concealed by their owners, and are carried for display, with much
+secrecy and mystery, to the houses of their ordinary customers, and to
+such European strangers as are reported to be willing to be
+victimised.
+
+Trade in Baghdad is regarded by Europeans and large capitalists as
+growing annually more depressed and unsatisfactory, but this is not
+the view of the small traders, chiefly Jews and Christians, who start
+with a capital of £5 or upwards, and by buying some cheap lot in
+Bombay,--gay handkerchiefs, perfumery, shoes, socks, buttons, tin
+boxes with mirror lids, scissors, pocket-knives, toys, and the
+like,--bid fair to make small fortunes. The amount of perfumery and
+rubbish piled in these ramshackle shops is wonderful. The trader who
+picks up a desert Arab for a customer and sells him a knife, or a
+mirror box, or a packet of candles is likely to attract to himself a
+large trade, for when once the unmastered pastoral hordes of Al
+Jaz[=i]ra, Trak, and Stram[=i]ya see such objects, the desire of
+possession is aroused, and the refuse of Manchester and Birmingham
+will find its way into every tent in the desert.
+
+The best bazars are the least crowded, though once in them it is
+difficult to move, and the strings of asses laden with skins of water
+are a great nuisance. The foot-passenger is also liable at any moment
+to be ridden down by horsemen, or squeezed into a jelly by the passage
+of caravans.
+
+It is in the meat, vegetable, cotton, oil, grain, fruit, and fish
+bazars that the throngs are busiest and noisiest, and though
+cucumbers, the great joy of the Turkish palate, are over, vegetables
+"of sorts" are abundant, and the slant, broken sunbeams fall on
+pyramids of fruit, and glorify the warm colouring of melons, apples,
+and pomegranates.
+
+A melon of 10 lbs. weight can be got for a penny, a sheep for five or
+six shillings, and fish for something like a farthing per pound, that
+is the "Fish of Tobias," the monster of the Tigris waters, which is
+largely eaten by the poor. Poultry and game are also very cheap, and
+the absolute necessaries of life, such as broken wheat for porridge,
+oil, flour, and cheese, cost little.
+
+Cook-shops abound, but their viands are not tempting, and the bazars
+are pervaded by a pungent odour of hot sesamum oil and rancid fat,
+frying being a usual mode of cooking in these restaurants. An
+impassive Turk, silently smoking, sits cross-legged on a platform at
+each Turkish shop door. He shows his goods as if he had no interest in
+them, and whether he sells or not seems a matter of indifference, so
+that he can return to his pipe. It is not to him that the overpowering
+din is owing, but to the agitated eagerness of the other
+nationalities.
+
+The charm of the bazars lies in the variety of race and costume and in
+the splendid _physique_ of the greater number of the men. The European
+looks "nowhere." The natural look of a Moslem is one of _hauteur_, but
+no words can describe the scorn and lofty Pharisaism which sit on the
+faces of the Seyyids, the descendants of Mohammed, whose hands and
+even garments are kissed reverently as they pass through the crowd; or
+the wrathful melancholy mixed with pride which gives a fierceness to
+the dignified bearing of the magnificent beings who glide through the
+streets, their white turbans or shawl head-gear, their gracefully
+flowing robes, their richly embroidered under-vests, their Kashmir
+girdles, their inlaid pistols, their silver-hilted dirks, and the
+predominance of red throughout their clothing aiding the general
+effect. Yet most of these grand creatures, with their lofty looks and
+regal stride, would be accessible to a bribe, and would not despise
+even a perquisite. These are the _mollahs_, the scribes, the traders,
+and the merchants of the city.
+
+The Bedouin and the city Arabs dress differently, and are among the
+marked features of the streets. The under-dress is a very coarse shirt
+of unbleached homespun cotton, rarely clean, over which the Sheikhs
+and richer men wear a robe of striped silk or cotton with a Kashmir
+girdle of a shawl pattern in red on a white ground. The poor wear
+shirts of coarse hair or cotton, without a robe. The invariable
+feature of Arab dress is the _abba_--a long cloak, sleeveless, but
+with holes through which to pass the arms, and capable of many
+adaptations. It conceals all superabundance and deficiency of attire,
+and while it has the dignity of the _toga_ by day it has the utility
+of a blanket by night. The better-class _abba_ is very hard, being
+made of closely-woven worsted, in broad brown and white or black and
+white perpendicular stripes. The poorest _abba_ is of coarse brown
+worsted, and even of goat's-hair. I saw many men who were destitute of
+any clothing but tattered _abbas_ tied round their waists by frayed
+hair ropes. The _abba_ is the distinctive national costume of the
+Arabs. The head-gear is not the turban but a shawl of very thick silk
+woven in irregular stripes of yellow and red, with long cords and
+tassels depending, made of the twisted woof. This handsome square is
+doubled triangularly, the double end hangs down the back, and the
+others over the shoulders. A loosely-twisted rope of camel's-hair is
+wound several times round the crown of the head. When the weather is
+cold, being like all Orientals very sensitive in their heads, they
+bring one side of the shawl over the whole of the face but the eyes,
+and tuck it in, in great cold only exposing one eye, and in great heat
+also. Most Moslems shave the head, but the Arabs let their hair grow
+very long, and wear it in a number of long plaits, and these elf-locks
+mixed up with the long coloured tassels of the _kiffiyeh_, and the
+dark glittering eyes looking out from under the yellow silk, give them
+an appearance of extreme wildness, aided by the long guns which they
+carry and their long desert stride.
+
+The Arab moves as if he were the ruler of the country, though the grip
+of the Osmanli may be closing on him. His eyes are deeply set under
+shaggy eyebrows, his nose is high and sharp, he is long and thin, his
+profile suggests a bird of prey, and his demeanour a fierce
+independence.
+
+The Arab women go about the streets unveiled, and with the _abba_
+covering their very poor clothing, but it is not clutched closely
+enough to conceal the extraordinary tattooing which the Bedouin women
+everywhere regard as ornamental. There are artists in Baghdad who make
+their living by this mode of decorating the person, and vie with each
+other in the elaboration of their patterns. I saw several women
+tattooed with two wreaths of blue flowers on their bosoms linked by a
+blue chain, palm fronds on the throat, stars on the brow and chin, and
+bands round the wrists and ankles. These disfigurements, and large
+gold or silver filigree buttons placed outside one nostril by means of
+a wire passed through it, worn by married women, are much admired.
+When these women sell country produce in the markets, they cover their
+heads with the ordinary _chadar_.
+
+The streets are narrow, and the walls, which are built of fire-burned
+bricks, are high. Windows to the streets are common, and the oriel
+windows, with their warm brown lattices projecting over the roadways
+at irregular heights, are strikingly picturesque. Not less so are
+latticework galleries, which are often thrown across the street to
+connect the two houses of wealthy residents, and the sitting-rooms
+with oriel windows, which likewise bridge the roadways. Solid doorways
+with iron-clasped and iron-studded doors give an impression of
+security, and suggest comfort and to some extent home life, and sprays
+of orange trees, hanging over walls, and fronds of date palms give an
+aspect of pleasantness to the courtyards.
+
+The best parts of the city, where the great bazars, large
+dwelling-houses, and most of the mosques are, is surrounded by a
+labyrinth of alleys, fringing off into streets growing meaner till
+they cease altogether among open spaces, given up to holes, heaps,
+rubbish, the slaughter of animals, and in some favoured spots to the
+production of vegetables. Then come the walls, which are of
+kiln-burned bricks, and have towers intended for guns at intervals.
+The wastes within the walls have every element of decay and meanness,
+the wastes without, where the desert sands sweep up to the very foot
+of the fortifications, have many elements of grandeur.
+
+Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried bricks. There
+are about twenty-five kilns, chiefly in the hands of Jews and
+Christians in the wastes outside the city, but the demand exceeds the
+supply, not for building only, but for the perpetual patchings which
+houses, paths, and walls are always requiring, owing to the absorption
+of moisture in the winter.
+
+Bricks at the kilns sell for 36s. per thousand twelve inches square,
+and 18s. per thousand seven inches square. They are carried from the
+kilns on donkeys, small beasts, each taking ten large or twenty-five
+small bricks.
+
+Unskilled labour is abundant. Men can be engaged at 9d. a day, and
+boys for 5d.
+
+This afternoon, in the glory of a sunset which reddened the yellow
+waste up to the distant horizon, a caravan of mules, mostly in single
+file, approached the city. Each carried two or four white bales slung
+on his sides, or two or more long boxes, consisting of planks roped
+rather than nailed together. This is the fashion in which thousands of
+Persian Moslems (Shiahs or "Sectaries") have been conveyed for ages
+for final burial at Kerbela, the holiest place of the Shiahs, an easy
+journey from Baghdad, where rest the ashes of Ali, regarded as
+scarcely second to Mohammed, and of Houssein and Hassan his sons,
+whose "martyrdom" is annually commemorated by a Passion Play which is
+acted in every town and village in Persia. To make a pilgrimage to
+Kerbela, or to rest finally in its holy dust, or both, constitutes
+the ambition of every Shiah. The Sunnis, or "Orthodox," who hate the
+Shiahs, are so far kept in check that these doleful caravans are not
+exposed to any worse molestation than the shouts and ridicule of
+street Arabs.
+
+The mode of carrying the dead is not reverent. The _katirgis_, who
+contract for the removal, hurry the bodies along as goods, and pile
+them in the yards of the caravanserais at night, and the mournful
+journey is performed, oftener than not, without the presence of
+relations, each body being ticketed with the name once borne by its
+owner. Some have been exhumed and are merely skeletons, others are in
+various stages of decomposition, and some are of the newly dead.[6]
+
+Outside the walls predatory Arabs render the roads unsafe for solitary
+travellers, and at times for feeble caravans; but things in this
+respect are better than they were.
+
+Visits to the Armenian and Chaldæan Churches, to the Mosque of Abdel
+Kader, with its courts thronged by Afghan pilgrims, and to the Jewish
+quarter, have been very interesting. There are said to be 30,000 Jews
+here, and while a large proportion of them are in poverty, on the
+whole they are an influential nationality, and some of them are very
+rich.
+
+Through the liberality of Sir Albert Sassoon a Jewish High School has
+been opened, where an admirable education is given. I was extremely
+pleased with it, and with the director, who speaks French fluently,
+and with the proficiency in French of the elder students. He describes
+their earnestness and energetic application as being most remarkable.
+
+The French Carmelite monks have a large, solid "Mission Church" or
+Cathedral with a fine peal of bells, and a very prosperous school
+attached, in which are boys belonging to all the many creeds professed
+in Baghdad. The sisters of St. Joseph have a school for girls, which
+Turkish children are not slow to avail themselves of. The sisters find
+a remarkable unhandiness among the women. Few, if any, among them have
+any idea of cutting out or repairing, and rich and poor are equally
+incapable of employing their fingers usefully.
+
+The people here are so used to the sight of Europeans that it is quite
+easy for foreign ladies to walk in this quarter only attended by a
+servant, and I have accompanied Mrs. Sutton on visits to several
+Armenian houses. The Armenians are in many cases wealthy, as their
+admirably-designed and well-built houses testify. The Christian
+population is estimated at 5000, and its wealth and energy give it
+greater importance than its numbers warrant. One of the houses which
+we visited was truly beautiful and in very good taste, the solidity of
+the stone and brickwork, the finish of the wood, and the beauty of the
+designs and their execution in hammered iron being quite remarkable.
+The lofty roofs and cornices are elaborately worked in plaster, and
+this is completely concealed by hundreds or thousands of mirrors set
+so as to resemble facets, so that roof and cornices flash like
+diamonds. This is a Persian style of decoration, and is extremely
+effective in large handsome rooms. Superb carpets and divans and tea
+tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl furnish the reception and smoking
+rooms, and the bedrooms and nurseries over which we were taken were
+simply arranged with French bedsteads and curtains of Nottingham
+mosquito net. As in other Eastern houses, there were no traces of
+occupation, no morning room or den sacred to litter; neither was there
+anything to look at--the opposite extreme from our overloaded
+drawing-rooms--or any library. Cigarettes and black coffee in minute
+porcelain cups, in gold filigree receptacles, were presented on each
+occasion, and the kind and courteous intention was very pleasing.
+
+The visits which I paid with Dr. Sutton were very different. He has
+worked as a medical missionary here for some years, and his unaffected
+benevolence and quiet attention to all suffering persons, without
+distinction of race or creed, and his recent extraordinary labours by
+night and day among the cholera-smitten people, have won for him
+general esteem and confidence, and he is even allowed to enter Moslem
+houses and prescribe for the women in some cases.
+
+The dispensary, in which there is not half enough accommodation, is
+very largely attended by people of all creeds, and even Moslem women,
+though exclusively of the poorer classes, avail themselves of it.
+Yesterday, when I was there, the comfortable seats of the cheerful
+matted waiting-room were all occupied by Armenian and Chaldæan women,
+unveiled and speaking quite freely to Dr. Sutton; while a few Moslem
+women, masked rather than veiled, and enveloped in black sheets,
+cowered on the floor and scarcely let their voices be heard even in a
+tremulous whisper.
+
+I am always sorry to see any encroachment made by Christian teachers
+on national customs where they are not contrary to morality, and
+willingly leave to Eastern women the _pardah_ and the veil, but still
+there is a wholesomeness about the unveiled, rosy, comely, frank faces
+of these Christian women. But--and it is a decided but--though the
+women were comely, and though some of the Armenian girls are
+beautiful, every one has one or more flattish depressions on her
+face--scars in fact--the size of a large date stone. Nearly the whole
+population is thus disfigured. So universal is it among the
+fair-skinned Armenian girls, that so far from being regarded as a
+blemish, it is viewed as a token of good health, and it is said that a
+young man would hesitate to ask for the hand of a girl in marriage if
+she had not a "date mark" on her face.
+
+These "date boils," or "Baghdad boils," as they are sometimes called,
+are not slow in attacking European strangers, and few, if any, escape
+during their residence here. As no cause can reasonably be assigned
+for them, so no cure has been found. Various remedies, including
+cauterisation, have been tried, but without success, and it is now
+thought wisest to do nothing more than keep them dry and clean, and
+let them run their natural course, which lasts about a year. Happily
+they are not so painful as ordinary boils. The malady appears at first
+as a white point, not larger than a pin's head, and remains thus for
+about three months. Then the flesh swells, becomes red and hard and
+suppurates, and underneath a rough crust which is formed is corroded
+and eaten away as by vitriol. On some strangers the fatal point
+appears within a few days of their arrival.
+
+In two years in the East I have not seen any European welcomed so
+cordially as Dr. Sutton into Moslem homes. The _Hak[=i]m_, exhibiting
+in "quiet continuance in well-doing" the legible and easily-recognised
+higher fruits of Christianity, while refraining from harsh and
+irreverent onslaughts on the creeds of those whose sufferings he
+mitigates, is everywhere blessed.[7]
+
+To my thinking, no one follows in the Master's footprints so closely
+as the medical missionary, and on no agency for alleviating human
+suffering can one look with more unqualified satisfaction. The
+medical mission is the outcome of the living teachings of our faith. I
+have now visited such missions in many parts of the world, and never
+saw one which was not healing, helping, blessing; softening prejudice,
+diminishing suffering, making an end of many of the cruelties which
+proceed from ignorance, restoring sight to the blind, limbs to the
+crippled, health to the sick, telling, in every work of love and of
+consecrated skill, of the infinite compassion of Him who came "not to
+destroy men's lives, but to save them."
+
+In one house Dr. Sutton was welcome because he had saved a woman's
+life, in another because a blind youth had received his sight, and so
+on. Among our visits was one to a poor Moslem family in a very poor
+quarter. No matter how poor the people are, their rooms stand back
+from the street, and open on yards more or less mean. It is a misnomer
+to call this dwelling a house, or to write that it _opens_, for it is
+merely an arched recess which can never be shut!
+
+In a hole in the middle of an uneven earthen floor there was a fire of
+tamarisk root and animal fuel, giving off a stinging smoke. On this
+the broken wheat porridge for supper was being cooked in a copper pot,
+supported on three rusty cannon-balls. An earthenware basin, a wooden
+spoon, a long knife, a goat-skin of water, a mallet, a long hen-coop,
+which had served as the bed for the wife when she was ill, some ugly
+hens, a clay jar full of grain, two heaps of brick rubbish, and some
+wadded quilts, which had taken on the prevailing gray-brown colour,
+were the plenishings of the arch.
+
+Poverty brings one blessing in Turkey--the poor man is of necessity a
+monogamist. Wretched though the place was, it had the air of home, and
+the smoky hole in the floor was a fireside. The wife was unveiled and
+joined in the conversation, the husband was helping her to cook the
+supper, and the children were sitting round or scrambling over their
+parents' knees. All looked as happy as people in their class anywhere.
+It is good to have ocular demonstration that such homes exist in
+Turkey. God be thanked for them! The man, a fine frank-looking Turk,
+welcomed Dr. Sutton jovially. He had saved the wife's life and was
+received as their best friend. Who indeed but the medical missionary
+would care for such as them and give them of his skill "without money
+and without price"? The hearty laugh of this Turk was good to hear,
+his wife smiled cordially, and the boys laughed like their father. The
+eldest, a nice, bright fellow of nine, taught in the mosque school,
+was proud to show how well he could read Arabic, and read part of a
+chapter from St. John's Gospel, his parents looking on with wonder and
+admiration.
+
+Among the Christian families we called on were those of the dispenser
+and catechist--people with very small salaries but comfortable homes.
+These families were living in a house furnished like those of the rich
+Armenians, but on a very simple scale, the floor and daïs covered with
+Persian carpets, the divan with Turkish woollen stuff, and there were
+in addition a chair or two, and silk cushions on the floor. In one
+room there were an intelligent elderly woman, a beautiful girl of
+seventeen, married a few days ago, and wearing her bridal ornaments,
+with her husband; another man and his wife, and two bright,
+ruddy-cheeked boys who spoke six languages. All had "date marks" on
+their faces. After a year among Moslems and Hindus, it was startling
+to find men and women sitting together, the women unveiled, and taking
+their share in the conversation merrily and happily. Even the young
+bride took the initiative in talking to Dr. Sutton.
+
+Of course the Christian women cover their faces in the streets, but
+the covering is of different material and arrangement, and is really
+magnificent, being of very rich, stiff, corded silk--self-coloured
+usually--black, heliotrope, or dark blue, with a contrasting colour
+woven in deep vandykes upon a white ground as a border. The silk is
+superb, really capable of standing on end with richness. Such a sheet
+costs about £5. The ambition of every woman is to possess one, and to
+gratify it she even denies herself in the necessaries of life.
+
+The upper classes of both Moslem and Christian women are rarely seen
+on foot in the streets except on certain days, as when they visit the
+churches and the mosques and burial-grounds. Nevertheless they go
+about a great deal to visit each other, riding on white asses, which
+are also used by _mollahs_ and rich elderly merchants. All asses have
+their nostrils slit to improve their wind. A good white ass of long
+pedigree, over thirteen hands high, costs as much as £50. As they are
+groomed till they look as white as snow, and are caparisoned with red
+leather trappings embroidered with gold thread and silks, and as a
+rider on a white ass is usually preceded by runners who shout and
+brandish sticks to clear the way, this animal always suggests
+position, or at least wealth.
+
+Women of the upper classes mounted on these asses usually go to pay
+afternoon visits in companies, with mounted eunuchs and attendants,
+and men to clear the way. They ride astride with short stirrups, but
+the rider is represented only by a shapeless blue bundle, out of which
+protrude two yellow boots. Blacks of the purest negro type frequently
+attend on women, and indeed consequence is shown by the possession of
+a number of them.
+
+Of the Georgian and Circassian _belles_ of the harams, a single
+lustrous eye with its brilliancy enhanced by the use of _kohl_ is all
+that one sees. At the bottom of the scale are the Arab women and the
+unsecluded women of the lower orders generally, who are of necessity
+drudges, and are old hags before they are twenty, except in the few
+cases in which they do not become mothers, when the good looks which
+many of them possess in extreme youth last a little longer. If one's
+memories of Baghdad women were only of those to be seen in the
+streets, they would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old,
+figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained hands crinkled
+and deformed by toil.
+
+Baghdad is busy and noisy with traffic. Great quantities of British
+goods pass through it to Persia, avoiding by doing so the horrible
+rock ladders between Bushire and Isfahan. The water transit from
+England and India, only involving the inconvenience of transhipment at
+Basrah, makes Baghdad practically into a seaport, with something of
+the bustle and vivacity of a seaport, and caravans numbering from
+20,000 to 26,000 laden mules are employed in the carriage of goods to
+and from the Persian cities. A duty of one per cent is levied on goods
+in transit to Persia.[8]
+
+The trade of Baghdad is not to be despised. The principal articles
+which were imported from Europe amounted in 1889 to a value of
+£621,140, and from India to £239,940, while the exports from Baghdad
+to Europe and America were valued in the same year at £469,200, and
+to India by British India Company steamers only at £35,150. In looking
+through the Consular list of exports, it is interesting to notice that
+13,400 cwts. of gum of the value of £70,000 were exported in 1889.
+Neither the Indian postage stamps nor ours should suffer from the
+partial failure of the Soudan supply.
+
+Liquorice roots to the value of £7800 were exported in 1888, almost
+solely to America, to be used in the preparation of quid tobacco and
+"fancy drinks"!
+
+The gall nuts which grow in profusion on the dwarf oaks which cover
+many hillsides, were exported last year to the value of £35,000, to be
+used chiefly in the production of ink, so closely is commerce binding
+countries one to the other.
+
+Two English firms have concessions for pressing wool and making it
+into bales suitable for shipment. There are five principal English
+firms here, three French, and six Turkish, not including the small
+fry. There are five foreign Consulates.
+
+The carriage of goods is one of the most important of Persian and
+Turkish industries, and the breeding of mules and the manufacture of
+caravan equipments give extensive employment; but one shudders to
+think of the amount of suffering involved in sore backs and wounds,
+and of exhausted and over-weighted animals lying down forlornly to
+die, having their eyes picked out before death.
+
+The mercury was at 37° at breakfast-time this morning. Fuel is scarce
+and dear, some of the rooms are without fireplaces, and these good
+people study, write, and work cheerfully in this temperature in open
+rooms, untouched by the early sun.
+
+The preparations for to-morrow's journey are nearly complete. Three
+mules have been engaged for the baggage--one for Hadji, and a saddle
+mule for myself; stores, a revolver, and a _mangel_ or brazier have
+been bought; a permit to travel has been obtained, and my hosts, with
+the most thoughtful kindness, have facilitated all the arrangements. I
+have bought two mule _yekdans_, which are tall, narrow leather trunks
+on strong iron frames, with stout straps to buckle over the top of the
+pack saddle. On the whole I find that it is best to adopt as far as
+possible the travelling equipments of the country in which one
+travels. The muleteers and servants understand them better, and if any
+thing goes wrong, or wears out, it can be repaired or replaced. I have
+given away _en route_ nearly all the things I brought from England,
+and have reduced my camp furniture to a folding bed and a chair. I
+shall start with three novelties--a fellow-traveller,[9] a saddle
+mule, and an untried saddle.
+
+It is expected that the journey will be a very severe one, owing to
+the exceptionally heavy snowfall reported from the Zagros mountains
+and the Persian plateau. The Persian post has arrived several days
+late. I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] I heard that the Shah had prohibited this "Dead March" to Kerbela,
+on account of the many risks to the public health involved in it, but
+nearly a year later, in Persian Kurdistan, I met, besides thousands of
+living pilgrims, a large caravan of the dead.
+
+[7] Six months later a Bakhtiari chief, a bigoted Moslem, said to me
+at the conclusion of an earnest plea for European medical advice,
+"Yes, Jesus was a great prophet; _send us a Hak[=i]m in His
+likeness_," and doubtless the nearer that likeness is the greater is
+the success.
+
+[8] The entire trade of Baghdad is estimated at about £2,500,000, of
+which the Persian transit trade is nearly a quarter. The Persian
+imports and exports through Baghdad are classified thus: Manufactured
+goods, including Manchester piece goods, and continental woollens and
+cottons, 7000 to 8000 loads. Indian manufactures, 1000 loads. Loaf
+sugar, chiefly from Marseilles, 6000 loads. Drugs, pepper, coffee,
+tea, other sugars, indigo, cochineal, copper, and spelter, 7000 loads.
+The Persian exports for despatch by sea include wool, opium, cotton,
+carpets, gum, and dried fruits, and for local consumption, among
+others, tobacco, _roghan_ (clarified butter), and dried and fresh
+fruits, with a probable bulk of from 12,000 to 15,000 loads.
+
+[9] I had given up the idea of travelling in Persia, and was preparing
+to leave India for England, when an officer, with whom I was then
+unacquainted, and who was about to proceed to Tihran on business,
+kindly offered me his escort. The journey turned out one of extreme
+hardship and difficulty, and had it not been for his kindness and
+efficient help I do not think that I should have accomplished it.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III[10]
+
+
+     YAKOBIYEH, ASIATIC TURKEY, _Jan. 11_.
+
+Whether for "well or ill" the journey to Tihran is begun. I am ashamed
+to say that I had grown so nervous about its untried elements, and
+about the possibilities of the next two months, that a very small
+thing would have made me give it up at the last moment; but now that I
+am fairly embarked upon it in splendid weather, the spirit of travel
+has returned.
+
+Much remained for the last morning,--debts to be paid in complicated
+money, for Indian, Turkish, and Persian coins are all current here;
+English circular notes to be turned into difficult coin, and the usual
+"row" with the muleteers to be endured. This disagreeable farce
+attends nearly all departures in the East, and I never feel the
+comfortable assurance that it means nothing.
+
+The men weighed my baggage, which was considerably under weight, the
+day before, but yesterday three or four of them came into the
+courtyard, shouting in Arabic at the top of their loud harsh voices
+that they would not carry the loads. Hadji roared at them, loading his
+revolver all the time, calling them "sons of burnt fathers," and other
+choice names. Dr. Bruce and Dr. Sutton reasoned with them from the
+balcony, when, in the very height of the row, they suddenly
+shouldered the loads and went off with them.
+
+Two hours later the delightful hospitalities of Dr. and Mrs. Sutton
+were left behind, and the farewell to the group in the courtyard of
+the mission house is a long farewell to civilisation. Rumours of
+difficulties have been rife, and among the various dismal prophecies
+the one oftenest repeated is that we shall be entangled in the snows
+of the Zagros mountains; but the journey began propitiously among
+oranges and palms, bright sunshine and warm good wishes. My mule turns
+out a fine, spirited, fast-walking animal, and the untried saddle
+suits me. My marching equipment consists of two large holsters, with a
+revolver and tea-making apparatus in one, and a bottle of milk, and
+dates in the other. An Afghan sheepskin coat is strapped to the front
+of the saddle, and a blanket and stout mackintosh behind. I wear a
+cork sun-helmet, a gray mask instead of a veil, an American mountain
+dress with a warm jacket over it, and tan boots, scarcely the worse
+for a year of Himalayan travel. Hadji is dressed like a wild
+Ishmaelite.
+
+Captain Dougherty of H.M.S. _Comet_ and his chief engineer piloted us
+through the narrow alleys and thronged bazars,--a _zaptieh_, or
+gendarme, with a rifle across his saddle-bow, and a sheathed sabre in
+his hand, shouting at the donkey boys, and clearing the crowd to right
+and left. Through the twilight of the bazars, where chance rays of
+sunshine fell on warm colouring, gay merchandise, and picturesque
+crowds; along narrow alleys, overhung by brown lattice windows; out
+under the glorious blue of heaven among ruins and graves, through the
+northern gateway, and then there was an abrupt exchange of the roar
+and limitations of the City of the Caliphs for the silence of the
+desert and the brown sweep of a limitless horizon. A walled Eastern
+city has no suburbs. It is a literal step from a crowded town to
+absolute solitude. The contrast is specially emphasised at Baghdad,
+where the transition is made from a great commercial city with a
+crowded waterway, to an uninhabited plain in the nudity of mid-winter.
+
+A last look at gleaming domes, coloured minarets, and massive
+mausoleums, rising out of an environment of palms and orange groves,
+at the brick walls and towers of the city, at the great gate to which
+lines of caravans were converging from every quarter, a farewell to
+the kindly pilots, and the journey began in earnest.
+
+The "Desert" sweeps up to the walls of Baghdad, but it is a misnomer
+to call the vast level of rich, stoneless, alluvial soil a desert. It
+is a dead flat of uninhabited earth; orange colocynth balls, a little
+wormwood, and some alkaline plants which camels eat, being its chief
+products. After the inundations reedy grass grows in the hollows. It
+is a waste rather than a desert, and was once a populous plain, and
+the rich soil only needs irrigation to make it "blossom as the rose."
+Traces of the splendid irrigation system under which it was once a
+garden abound along the route.
+
+The mid-day and afternoon were as glorious as an unclouded sky, a warm
+sun, and a fresh, keen air could make them. The desert freedom was all
+around, and the nameless charm of a nomadic life. The naked plain,
+which stretched to the horizon, was broken only by the brown tents of
+Arabs, mixed up with brown patches of migrating flocks, strings of
+brown camels, straggling caravans, and companies of Arab horsemen
+heavily armed. An expanse of dried mud, the mirage continually seen, a
+cloudless sky, and a brilliant sun--this was all. I felt better at
+once in the pure, exhilarating desert air, and nervousness about the
+journey was left behind. I even indulged in a gallop, and except for
+her impetuosity, which carried me into the middle of a caravan, and
+turning round a few times, the mule behaved so irreproachably that I
+forgot the potential possibilities of evil. Still, I do not think that
+there can ever be that perfect correspondence of will between a mule
+and his rider that there is between a horse and his rider.
+
+The mirage was almost continual and grossly deceptive. Fair blue lakes
+appeared with palms and towers mirrored on their glassy surfaces,
+giving place to snowy ranges with bright waters at their feet, fringed
+by tall trees, changing into stately processions, all so absolutely
+real that the real often seemed the delusion. These deceptions,
+continued for several hours, were humiliating and exasperating.
+
+Towards evening the shams disappeared, the waste purpled as the sun
+sank, and after riding fifteen miles we halted near the mud village of
+Orta Khan, a place with brackish water and no supplies but a little
+brackish sheep's milk. The caravanserai was abominable, and we rode on
+to a fine gravelly camping-ground, but the headman and some of the
+villagers came out, and would not hear of our pitching the tents where
+we should be the prey of predatory hordes, strong enough, they said,
+to overpower an officer, two _zaptiehs_, and three orderlies! Being
+unwilling to get them into trouble, we accepted a horrible
+camping-ground, a mud-walled "garden," trenched for dates, and lately
+irrigated, as damp and clayey as it could be. My _dhurrie_ will not be
+dry again this winter. The mules could not get in, the baggage was
+unloaded at some distance, and was all mixed up, and Hadji showed
+himself incapable; my tent fell twice, remained precarious, and the
+_kanats_ were never pegged down at all.
+
+The _dhurrie_ was trampled into the mud by clayey feet. Baggage had to
+be disentangled and unpacked after dark, and the confusion apt to
+prevail on the first night of a march was something terrible. It
+opened my eyes to the thorough inefficiency of Hadji, who was so dazed
+with opium this morning that he stood about in a dream, ejaculating
+"_Ya Allah!_" when it was suggested that he should bestir himself,
+leaving me to do all the packing, groaning as he took up the tent
+pegs, and putting on the mule's bridle with the bit hanging under her
+chin!
+
+The night was very damp, not quite frosty, and in the dim morning the
+tent and its contents were wet. Tea at seven, with Baghdad rusks, with
+a distinctly "native taste," two hours spent in standing about on the
+damp, clayey ground till my feet were numb, while the men, most of
+whom were complaining of rheumatism, stumbled through their new work;
+and then five hours of wastes, enlivened by caravans of camels, mules,
+horses, or asses, and sometimes of all mixed, with their wild, armed
+drivers. The leader of each caravan carries a cylinder-shaped bell
+under his throat, suspended from a red leather band stitched with
+cowries, another at his chest, and very large ones, often twenty-four
+inches long by ten in diameter, hanging from each pack. Every other
+animal of the caravan has smaller bells, and the tones, which are
+often most musical, reach from the deep note of a church bell up to
+the frivolous jingle of sleigh bells; jingle often becomes jangle when
+several caravans are together. The _katirgis_ (muleteers) spend large
+sums on the bells and other decorations. Among the loads we met or
+overtook were paraffin, oranges, pomegranates, carpets, cotton goods,
+melons, grain, and chopped straw. The waste is covered with tracks,
+and a guide is absolutely necessary.
+
+The day has been still and very gloomy, with flakes of snow falling at
+times. The passing over rich soil, once cultivated and populous, now
+abandoned to the antelope and partridge, is most melancholy. The
+remains of canals and water-courses, which in former days brought the
+waters of the Tigris and the Diyalah into the fields of the great
+grain-growing population of these vast levels of Chaldæa and
+Mesopotamia, are everywhere, and at times create difficulties on the
+road. By road is simply meant a track of greater or less width,
+trodden on the soil by the passage of caravans for ages. On these two
+marches not a stone has been seen which could strike a ploughshare.
+
+Great ancient canals, with their banks in ruins and their deep beds
+choked up and useless, have been a mournful feature of rather a dismal
+day's journey. We crossed the bed of the once magnificent Nahrwan
+canal, the finest of the ancient irrigation works to the east of the
+Tigris, still in many places from twenty-five to forty feet deep and
+from 150 to 200 feet in breadth.
+
+For many miles the only permanent village is a collection of miserable
+mud hovels round a forlorn caravanserai, in which travellers may find
+a wretched refuge from the vicissitudes of weather. There is a
+remarkable lack of shelter and provender, considering that this is not
+only one of the busiest of caravan routes, but is enormously
+frequented by Shiah pilgrims on their way from Persia to the shrines
+of Kerbela.
+
+After crossing the Nahrwan canal the road keeps near the right bank of
+the Diyalah, a fine stream, which for a considerable distance runs
+parallel with the Tigris at a distance of from ten to thirty miles
+from it, and falls into it below Baghdad; and _imamzadas_ and villages
+with groves of palms break the line of the horizon, while on the left
+bank for fully two miles are contiguous groves of dates and
+pomegranates. These groves are walled, and among them this
+semi-decayed and ruinous town is situated, miserably shrunk from its
+former proportions. We entered Yakobiyeh after crossing the Diyalah
+by a pontoon bridge of twelve boats, and found one good house with
+projecting lattice windows, and a large entrance over which the head
+and ears of a hare were nailed; narrow, filthy lanes, a covered bazar,
+very dark and ruinous, but fairly well supplied, an archway, and
+within it this caravanserai in which the baggage must be waited for
+for two hours.
+
+This first experience of a Turkish inn is striking. There is a large
+square yard, heaped with dirt and rubbish, round which are stables and
+some dark, ruinous rooms. A broken stair leads to a flat mud roof, on
+which are some narrow "stalls,"--_rooms_ they cannot be called,--with
+rude doors fastening only from the outside, for windows small round
+holes mostly stuffed with straw near the roof, for floors sodden
+earth, for fireplaces holes in the same, the walls slimy and
+unplastered, the corners full of ages of dusty cobwebs, both the walls
+and the rafters of the roof black with ages of smoke, and beetles and
+other abominations hurry into crannies, when the doors are opened, to
+emerge as soon as they are shut. A small hole in the wall outside each
+stall serves for cooking. The habits of the people are repulsive, foul
+odours are only hybernating, and so, mercifully, are the vermin.
+
+While waiting for the "furniture" which is to make my "unfurnished
+apartment" habitable, I write sitting on my camp stool with its back
+against the wall, wrapped up in a horse-blanket, a heap of saddles,
+swords, holsters, and gear keeping the wind from my feet. The Afghan
+orderly smokes at the top of the stair. Plumes of palms and
+faintly-seen ridges of snowy hills appear over the battlements of the
+roof. A snow wind blows keenly. My fingers are nearly numb, and I am
+generally stiff and aching, but so much better that discomforts are
+only an amusement. Snow is said to be impending. I have lunched
+frugally on sheep's milk and dates, and feel everything but my present
+surroundings to be very far off, and as if I had lived the desert
+life, and had heard the chimes of the great caravans, and had seen the
+wild desert riders, and the sun sinking below the level line of the
+desert horizon, for two months instead of two days.
+
+Yakobiyeh is said to have 800 houses. It has some small mosques and
+several caravanserais, of which this is the best! It was once a
+flourishing place, but repeated ravages of the plague and chronic
+official extortions have reduced it to decay. Nevertheless, it grows
+grain enough for its own needs on poorly irrigated soil, and in its
+immense gardens apples, pears, apricots, walnuts, and mulberries
+flourish alongside of the orange and palm.
+
+_Kizil Robat, Jan. 14._--It was not very cold at Yakobiyeh. At home
+few people would be able to sit in a fireless den, with the door open,
+on a January night, but fireless though it was, my slender camp
+equipage gave it a look of comfort, and though rats or mice ate a bag
+of rusks during the night, and ran over my bed, there were no other
+annoyances. Hadji grows more dazed and possibly more unwilling every
+day, as he sees his vista of perquisites growing more limited, and to
+get off, even at nine, I have to do the heavy as well as the light
+packing myself.
+
+There was a great "row," arising out of an alleged delinquency of the
+_katirgis_ concerning payment, when we left Yakobiyeh the following
+morning. The owners of the caravanserai wanted to detain us, and the
+archway was so packed with a shouting, gesticulating, scowling, and
+not kindly crowd, mostly armed, that it was not easy for me to mount.
+The hire of mules always includes their fodder and the keep of the
+men, but in the first day or two the latter usually attempt to break
+their bargain, and compel their employer to provide for them. So long
+as Arabic is spoken Hadji acts as sole interpreter, and though
+soldiers and _zaptiehs_ were left with him he was scared at being left
+behind with the baggage. The people stormed and threatened at the top
+of their voices, but doubtless it was not so bad as it sounded, for we
+got through the bazars without molestation, and then into a perplexing
+system of ancient water-courses whose high broken banks and deep
+waterless beds intersect each other and the road. In contrast to this
+magnificent irrigation system there are modern water-channels about a
+foot wide, taken from the river Diyalah, which, small as they are,
+turn the rich deep soil into a "fruitful field."
+
+After these glimpses of a prosperity which once was and might be again
+(for these vast alluvial plains, which extend from the Zagros
+mountains to the Euphrates and up to the Syrian desert, are capable
+with irrigation and cultivation of becoming the granary of Western
+Asia), the road emerges on a level and somewhat gravelly waste, on
+which after a long ride we were overtaken by a _zaptieh_ sent by the
+Persian agent in Yakobiyeh, to say that the baggage and servants were
+being forcibly detained, but shortly afterwards with a good glass the
+caravan was seen emerging from the town.
+
+The country was nearly as featureless as on the preceding day, and on
+the whole quite barren; among the few caravans on the road there were
+two of immense value, the loads being the best description of Persian
+carpets. There were a few families on asses, migrating with all their
+possessions, and a few parties of Arab horsemen picturesquely and very
+fully armed, but no dwellings, till in the bright afternoon sunshine,
+on the dreariest stretch of an apparently verdureless waste, we came
+on the caravanserai of Wiyjahea, a gateway with a room above it, a
+square court with high walls and arched recesses all round for goods
+and travellers, and large stables. A row of reed huts, another of Arab
+tents, and a hovel opposite the gateway, where a man with two guns
+within reach sells food, tobacco, and hair ropes, make up this place
+of horror. For, indeed, the only water is a brackish reedy pool, with
+its slime well stirred by the feet of animals, and every man's hand is
+against his brother.
+
+We proposed to pitch my tent in a ruined enclosure, but the headman
+was unwilling, and when it was suggested that it should be placed
+between the shop and the caravanserai, he said that before sunset all
+the predatory Arabs for ten miles round would hear that "rich
+foreigners were travelling," and would fall upon and plunder us, so we
+must pitch, if at all, in the filthy and crowded court of the
+caravanserai. The _balakhana_, or upper room, was too insecure for me,
+and had no privacy, as the fodder was kept in it, and there was no
+method of closing the doors, which let in the bitterly cold wind.
+
+We arrived at 3 P.M., and long before sunset a number of caravans came
+in, and the courtyard was full of horses, mules, and asses. When they
+halted the loads were taken off and stacked in the arched recesses;
+next, the great padded pack-saddles, which cover nearly the whole
+back, were removed, revealing in most cases deep sores and ulcers.
+Then the animals were groomed with box curry-combs, with "clatters"
+like the noise of a bird-scarer inside them. Fifty curry-combs going
+at once is like the din of the cicada. Then the beasts were driven in
+batches to the reedy pool, and came flying back helter-skelter through
+the archway, some fighting, others playing, many rolling. One of them
+nearly pulled my tent over by rolling among the tent ropes. It had
+been pitched on damp and filthy ground in a corner of the yard, among
+mules, horses, asses, dogs, and the roughest of rough men, but even
+there the damp inside looked like home.
+
+After this brief hilarity, the pack-saddles, which serve as blankets,
+were put on, the camels were made to lie down in rows, most of the
+mules and horses were tethered in the great stable, where they
+neighed, stamped, and jangled their bells all night, and others were
+picketed in the yard among the goats and donkeys and the big dogs,
+which wandered about yelping. Later, the small remaining space was
+filled up with sheep. It was just possible to move, but no more, and
+sheep and goats were even packed under the _flys_ of my tent. The
+muleteers and travellers spread their bedding in the recesses, lighted
+their fires of animal fuel, and cooked their food.
+
+At sunset the view from the roof was almost beautiful. Far away, in
+all directions, stretched the level desert purpling in the purple
+light. Very faintly, on the far horizon to the north-east, mountain
+ranges were painted in amethyst on an orange sky. Horsemen in
+companies galloped to tents which were not in sight, strings of camels
+cast their long shadows on the purple sand, and flocks of big brown
+sheep, led by armed shepherds, converged on the reedy pool in long
+brown lines. The evening air was keen, nearly frosty.
+
+The prospects for the night were not encouraging, and on descending
+the filthy stair on which goats had taken up their quarters, I found
+the malodorous, crowded courtyard so blocked, that shepherds, with
+much pushing, shouting, and barking of big dogs, with difficulty made
+a way for me to pass through the packed mass of sheep and goats into
+the cold, damp tent, which was pitched on damp manure, two or three
+feet deep, into which heavy feet had trampled the carpet. The uproar
+of _katirgis_ and travellers went on for another two hours, and was
+exchanged later for sounds of jangling bells, yelping and quarrelling
+dogs, braying asses, bleating sheep, and coarsely-snoring men.
+
+At 9 P.M. the heavy gates, clamped with iron, were closed and barred,
+and some belated travellers, eager to get in from the perils of the
+outside, thundered at them long and persistently, but "the door was
+shut," and they encountered a hoarse refusal. The _seraidar_ said that
+400 horses and mules, besides camels and asses, 2000 sheep, and over
+70 men were lodged in the caravanserai that night.
+
+The servants were in a recess near, and Hadji professed that he
+watched all night, and said that he fired at a man who tried to rob my
+tent after the light went out, but I slept too soundly to be
+disturbed, till the caravans and flocks left at daybreak, after a
+preliminary uproar of two hours. It was bitterly cold, and my tent and
+its contents were soaked with the heavy dew, nearly doubling their
+weight.
+
+I started at 9 A.M., before the hoar-frost had melted, and rode with
+the _zaptieh_ over flat, stoneless, alluvial soil, with some
+irrigation and the remains of some fine canals. There are villages to
+be seen in the distance, but though the soil is rich enough to support
+a very large population, there are no habitations near the road except
+a few temporary reed huts, beside two large caravanserais. There was
+little of an interesting kind except the perpetual contrast between
+things as they are and things as they were and might be. Some large
+graveyards, with brick graves, a crumbling _imamzada_, a pointed arch
+of brick over the Nahrud canal, a few ass caravans, with a live fowl
+tied by one leg on the back of each ass, and struggling painfully to
+keep its uneasy seat, some cultivation and much waste, and then we
+reached the walled village of Sheraban, once a town, but now only
+possessing 300 houses.
+
+Passing as usual among ruinous dwellings and between black walls with
+doors here and there, by alleys foul with heaps of refuse, and
+dangerous from slimy pitfalls, in the very foulest part we turned into
+the caravanserai, its great courtyard reeking with filth and puddles,
+among which are the contaminated wells from which we are supposed to
+drink. The experience of the night before was not repeated. There were
+fairly good rooms, mine looking into a palm garden, through a wooden
+grating, cold truly, but pleasant. I fear we may never have such
+"luxury" again. I remarked to my fellow-traveller that our early
+arrival had fortunately given us the "choice of rooms," and he
+replied, "choice of pig-styes,--choice of dens!" but my experience at
+Wiyjahea has deprived me of the last remnants of fastidiousness!
+
+I walked through the ruinous, wretched town, and its poor bazar, where
+the very fine _physique_ of the men was in marked contrast with their
+wretched surroundings, and gives one the impression that under honest
+officials they might be a fine people. They are not genial to
+strangers, however. There was some bad language used in the bazar, and
+on the roads they pass one in silence at the best, so unlike the
+Tibetans with their friendly _Tzu_. At Sheraban one of the muleteers
+forced his way into my room, and roughly turned over my saddle and
+baggage, accusing me of having taken his blanket! Hadji is useless
+under such circumstances. He blusters and fingers his revolver, but
+carries no weight. Indeed his defects are more apparent every day. I
+often have to speak to him two or three times before I can rouse him
+from his opium dream, and there is a growing inclination to shirk his
+very light work when he can shift it upon somebody else. I hope that
+he is well-meaning, as that would cover a multitude of faults, but he
+is very rough and ignorant, and is either unable or unwilling to learn
+anything, even how to put up my trestle bed!
+
+Open rooms have sundry disadvantages. In the night a cat fell from
+the roof upon my bed, and was soon joined by more, and they knocked
+over the lamp and milk bottle, and in the darkness had a noisy quarrel
+over the milk.
+
+The march of eighteen miles here was made in six hours, at a good
+caravan pace. The baggage animals were sent off in advance, and the
+_zaptieh_ led a mule loaded with chairs, blankets, and occupations. I
+ride with the _zaptieh_ in front of me till I get near the
+halting-place, when M---- and his orderly overtake me, as it might be
+disagreeable for a European woman to enter a town alone.
+
+The route lies over treeless levels of the same brown alluvial soil,
+till it is lifted on a gentle gravelly slope to a series of low
+crumbling mounds of red and gray sandstone, mixed up with soft
+conglomerate rocks of jasper and porphyry pebbles. These ranges of
+mounds, known as the Hamrin Hills, run parallel to the great Kurdistan
+ranges, from a point considerably below Baghdad, nearly to Mosul and
+the river Zab. They mark the termination in this direction of the vast
+alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and are the first step to
+the uplifted Iranian plateau.
+
+Arid and intricate ravines, dignified by the name of passes, furrow
+these hills, and bear an evil reputation, as Arab robbers lie in wait,
+"making it very unsafe for small caravans." A wild, desolate,
+ill-omened-looking region it is. When we were fairly within the pass,
+the _zaptieh_ stopped, and with much gesticulation and many
+repetitions of the word _effendi_, made me understand that it was
+unsafe to proceed without a larger party. We were unmolested, but it
+is a discredit to the administration of the province that an organised
+system of pillage should be allowed to exist year after year on one of
+the most frequented caravan routes in Turkey. There were several
+companies of armed horsemen among the ranges, and some camels
+browsing, but we met no caravans.
+
+From the top of the descent there was a striking view over a great
+brown alluvial plain, watered by the Beladruz and the Diyalah, with
+serrated hills of no great height, but snow-covered; on its east side
+a silent, strange, weird view, without interest or beauty as seen
+under a sullen sky. There are no villages on this march, but ancient
+canals run in all directions, and fragments of buildings, as well as
+of brick and pottery, scattered over the unploughed surface, are
+supposed by many to mark the situation of Dastagird, the residence of
+Khosroe Parviz in the seventh century. I have no books of reference
+with me, and can seldom write except of such things as I see and hear.
+
+Farther on a multitude of irrigation ditches have turned a plain of
+dry friable soil into a plain of mud, through which it was difficult
+to struggle. Then came a grove of palms, and then the town or village
+of Kizil Robat (Red Shrine), with its _imamzada_, whose reputation for
+sanctity is indicated by the immense number of graves which surround
+it. The walls of this decayed and wretched town are of thick layers of
+hardened but now crumbling earth, and on the east side there is an old
+gateway of burned brick. There are said to be 400 houses, which at the
+lowest computation would mean a population of 2000, but inhabited
+houses and ruins are so jumbled up together that one cannot form any
+estimate.
+
+So woe-begone and miserable a place I never saw, and the dirt is
+appalling even in this dry weather. In spring the alleys of the town
+are impassable, and people whose business calls them out cross from
+roof to roof on boards. Pools of filthy water, loathsome ditches with
+broad margins of trodden slime full of abominations, ruins of houses,
+yards foul with refuse, half-clothed and wholly unwashed children, men
+of low aspect standing in melancholy groups, a well-built brick bazar,
+in which Manchester cottons are prominent, more mud and dirt, some
+ruinous caravanserais, and near the extremity of the town or village
+is the horrible one in which I now am, said to be the best, with a
+yard a foot deep in manure and slush, in the midst of which is the
+well, and around which are stables and recesses for travellers.
+
+At first it seemed likely that I should fall so low as to occupy one
+of these, but careful investigation revealed a ruinous stair leading
+to the roof, up which were two rooms, or shall I say three?--an arched
+recess such as coals are kept in, a small room within it, and a low
+wood hole. The open arch, with a _mangel_ or iron pan of charcoal,
+serves as the "parlour" this January night, M---- occupies the wood
+hole, and I the one room, into which Hadji, with many groans and
+ejaculations of "_Ya Allah!_" has brought up the essential parts of my
+baggage. The evening is gray and threatening, and low, snow-covered
+hills look grimly over the bare brown plain which lies outside this
+mournful place.
+
+_Khannikin, Jan. 15._--This has been a hard, rough march, but there
+will be many worse ahead. Rain fell heavily all night, converting the
+yard into a lake of trampled mud, and seemed so likely to continue
+that it was difficult to decide whether to march or halt. Miserable it
+was to see mules standing to be loaded, up to their knees in mud,
+bales of tents and bedding lying in the quagmire, and the shivering
+Indian servants up to their knees in the swamp. In rain steadily
+falling the twelve animals were loaded, and after the usual scrimmage
+at starting, in which the _bakhsheesh_ is often thrown back at us, we
+rode out into a sea of deep mud, through which the mules, struggling
+and floundering, got on about a mile an hour.
+
+After a time we came to gravel, then relapsed into deep alluvial soil,
+which now means deep mire, then a low range of gravelly hills on
+which a few sheep and camels were browsing on artemisia and other
+aromatic herbs gave a temporary respite, then again we floundered
+through miles of mud, succeeded by miles of gravel and stones. The
+rain fell in torrents, and there was a cold strong wind to fight
+against. There was that amount of general unpropitiousness which is
+highly stimulating and inspiriting.
+
+When noon came, there was not a rock or bush for shelter, and turning
+our backs to the storm we ate our lunch in our saddles. There was
+nothing to look at but brown gravel, or brown mud, brooded over by a
+gray mist. So we tramped on, hour after hour, in single file, the
+_zaptieh_ leading, everything but his gun muffled in his brown _abba_,
+splashing through mud and water, the water pouring from my hat and
+cloak, the six woollen thicknesses of my mask dripping, seeing neither
+villages nor caravans, for caravans of goods do not travel in such
+rain as this. Then over a slope we went down into a lake of mud, where
+the _aide-de-camp_ of the Governor of Khannikin, in a fez and military
+frock-coat and trousers, with a number of Bashi Bazouks or irregulars,
+met M---- with courtesies and an invitation.
+
+From the top of the next slope there was a view of Khannikin, a
+considerable-looking town among groves of palms and other trees. Then
+came a worse sea of mud, and a rudely cobbled causeway, so horrible
+that it diverted us back into the mud, which was so bottomless that it
+drove us back to the causeway, and the causeway back to the mud, the
+rain all the time coming down in sheets. This causeway, without
+improvement, is carried through Khannikin, a town with narrow blind
+alleys, upon which foul courtyards open, often so foul as to render
+the recent ravages of cholera (if science speaks truly) a matter of
+necessity. The mud and water in these alleys was up to the knees of
+the mules. Not a creature was in the streets. No amount of curiosity,
+even regarding the rare sight of a Frank woman, could make people face
+the storm in flimsy cotton clothes.
+
+Where the road turns to the bridge a line of irregular infantry was
+drawn up, poorly dressed, soaked creatures, standing in chilly mud up
+to their ankles, in soaked boots reaching to their knees. These joined
+and headed the cavalcade, and I fell humbly in the rear. Poor fellows!
+To keep step was impossible when it was hard work to drag their feet
+out of the mire, and they carried their rifles anyhow. It was a
+grotesque procession. A trim officer, forlorn infantry, wild-looking
+Bashi Bazouks, Europeans in stout mackintoshes splashed with mud from
+head to foot, mules rolling under their bespattered loads, and a
+_posse_ of servants and orderlies crouching on the top of baggage,
+muffled up to the eyes, the asses which carry the _katirgis_ and their
+equipments far behind, staggering and nearly done up, for the march of
+seventeen miles had taken eight and a half hours.
+
+An abrupt turn in the causeway leads to the Holwan, a tributary of the
+Diyalah, a broad, rapid stream, over which the enterprise of a Persian
+has thrown a really fine brick bridge of thirteen heavily-buttressed
+arches, which connects the two parts of the town and gives some
+dignity and picturesqueness to what would otherwise be mean. On the
+left bank of the Holwan are the barracks, the governor's house, some
+large caravanserais, the Custom-house, and a quarantine station,
+quarantine having just been imposed on all arrivals from Persia,
+giving travel and commerce a decided check.
+
+After half a mile of slush on the river bank we entered by a handsome
+gateway a nearly flooded courtyard, and the Governor's house
+hospitably engorged the whole party.
+
+The fully-laden mules stuck in the mud a few miles off, and did not
+come in for two hours, and in spite of covers everything not done up
+in waterproof was very wet. The servants looked most miserable, and
+complained of chills and rheumatism, and one of the orderlies is
+really ill. We cannot move till the storm is over.
+
+The rain falls heavily still, the river is rising, the alleys are two
+feet deep in slush, travel is absolutely suspended, and it is not
+possible without necessity to go out. It was well indeed that we
+decided to leave the shelterless shelter of Kizil Robat. Nothing can
+exceed the wretchedness of Khannikin or any Turkish town in such rain
+as this. Would that one could think that it would be washed, but as
+there are no channels to carry off the water it simply lodges and
+stagnates in every depression, and all the accumulations of summer
+refuse slide into these abominable pools, and the foul dust, a foot
+deep, becomes mud far deeper; buried things are half uncovered;
+torrents, not to be avoided, pour from every roof, the courtyards are
+knee-deep in mud, the cows stand disconsolately in mud; not a woman is
+to be seen, the few men driven forth by the merciless exigences of
+business show nothing but one eye, and with "loins girded" and big
+staffs move wearily, stumbling and plunging in the mire.
+
+After some hours the flat mud roofs begin to leak, water finds out
+every weak place in the walls, the bazars, only half open for a short
+time in the day, are deserted by buyers, and the patient sellers
+crouch over _mangels_, muffled up in sheepskins, the caravanserais are
+crammed and quarrelsome; the price of fodder and fuel rises, and every
+one is drowned in rain and wretchedness. Even here, owing to the
+scarcity of fuel, nothing can be dried; the servants in their damp
+clothes come in steaming; Hadji in his misshapen "jack-boots," which
+he asserts he cannot take off, spreads fresh mud over the carpets
+whenever he enters; I shift from place to place to avoid the drip from
+the roof--and still the rain comes down with unabated vigour!
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[10] I present my diary letters much as they were written, believing
+that the details of travel, however wearisome to the experienced
+traveller, will be interesting to the "Untravelled Many," to whom
+these volumes are dedicated.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III (_Continued_)
+
+
+The house consists of two courtyards, with buildings round them. The
+larger and handsomer is the _haram_ or women's house, which is
+strictly enclosed, has no exterior windows, and its one door into the
+men's house is guarded by a very ancient eunuch. The courtyard of this
+house is surrounded partly by arched _serdabs_, with green lattice
+fronts, and partly by a kitchen, bakery, wood-house, _hammam_ or hot
+bath, and the servants' quarters. The _haram_ has a similar
+arrangement on the lower floor. A broad balcony, reached by a steep
+and narrow stair, runs round three sides of the upper part of this
+house. There are very few rooms, and some of them are used for storing
+fruit. The wet baggage is mostly up here, and under the deep roof the
+servants and orderlies camp, looking miserable. The _haram_ has a
+balcony all round it, on which a number of reception and living rooms
+open, and though not grand or elaborately decorated, is convenient and
+comfortable.
+
+The Turkish host evidently did not know what to do with such an
+embarrassing guest as a European woman, and solved the difficulty by
+giving me the guest-chamber in the men's house, a most fortunate
+decision, as I have had quiet and privacy for three days. Besides,
+this room has a projecting window, with panes of glass held in by
+nails, and there is not only a view of the alley with its slush, but
+into the house of some poor folk, and over that to the Holwan,
+sometimes in spate, sometimes falling, and through all the hours of
+daylight frequented by grooms for the purpose of washing their horses.
+Some shingle banks, now overflowed, sustain a few scraggy willows, and
+on the farther side is some low-lying land. There may be much besides,
+but the heavy rain-clouds blot out all else.
+
+My room is whitewashed, and is furnished with Persian rugs, Austrian
+bent-wood chairs, and a divan in the window, on which I sleep. Lamps,
+_samovars_, and glasses are kept in recesses, and a black slave is
+often in and out for them. Otherwise no one enters but Hadji. I get my
+food somewhat precariously. It is carved and sent from table at the
+beginning of meals, chiefly pillau, curry, _kabobs_, and roast
+chicken, but apparently it is not etiquette for me to get it till
+after the men have dined, and it is none the better for being cold.
+
+The male part of the household consists of the Governor and his
+brother-in-law, a Moslem judge, and the quarantine doctor, a Cretan,
+takes his meals in the house. The Governor and doctor speak French. My
+fellow-traveller lives with them.
+
+The night we arrived, the Governor in some agitation asked me to go
+and see his wife, who is very ill. The cholera has only just
+disappeared, and the lady had had a baby, which died of it in three
+days, and "being a boy her heart was broken," and "something had come
+under her arm." So I went with him into the _haram_, which seemed
+crowded with women of various races and colours, peeping from behind
+curtains and through chinks of doors, tittering and whispering. The
+wife's room is richly carpeted and thoroughly comfortable, with a huge
+charcoal brazier in the centre, and cushions all over the floor,
+except at one end, where there is a raised alcove with a bed in it.
+
+On this the lady sat--a rather handsome Kurdish woman, about
+thirty-five, dressed in a silk quilted jacket, and with a black gauze
+handkerchief round her head, and a wadded quilt over her crossed legs.
+She was supported by a pile of pillows. Since then I have been sent
+for to see her several times every day, and found her always in the
+same position. There is surely something weird about it. She says she
+sits there all night, and has not lain down for two months. A black
+slave was fanning her, and two women, shrouded in veils of tinselled
+gauze, sat on the bed combing her luxuriant hair. She is not really
+beautiful at all, but her husband assures me constantly that she is
+"_une femme savante_." She has property and the consideration which
+attaches to it. She was burning with fever and very weak.
+
+I had scarcely returned to my room when my host sent again, begging
+that I would go back and see the doctor. I found that it was expected
+that I should persuade the lady to consent to have the abscess, or
+whatever it is, reopened. The room was full of women and eunuchs, and
+the chief eunuch, an elderly Arab, sat on the bed and supported her
+while the doctor dressed the wound, and even helped him with it. Her
+screams were fearful, and five people held her with difficulty. Her
+husband left the room, unable to bear her cries.
+
+Quite late I was sent for again, and that time by the lady, to know if
+I thought she would die. It appears that her brother, the judge,
+remains here to see that she is not the victim of foul play, but I
+don't like to ask to whom the suspicion points, or whether our host,
+although the civil governor, keeps him here that he may not be
+suspected in case his rich wife dies.
+
+Except for the repeated summonses to the sick-room, a walk on the
+slime of the roof when the rain ceases for a time, and on the balcony
+of the _haram_ when it does not, and a study of the habits of my
+neighbours over the way, it is very dull. I have patched and mended
+everything that gave any excuse for either operation, have written
+letters which it is not safe to post, and have studied my one book on
+Persia till I know it throughout, and still the rain falls nearly
+without cessation and the quagmires outside deepen.
+
+So bad is it that, dearly as Orientals love bazars and _hammams_,
+Hadji refuses leave to go to either. I remarked to him that he must be
+glad of such a rest, and he replied in his usual sententious fashion:
+"They who have to work must work. God knows all." I fear he is very
+lazy, and he has no idea of making one comfortable or of keeping
+anything clean. He stamps the mud of the courtyard into the carpets,
+and wipes my plates without washing them, with his shirt. He considers
+that our host has attained the height of human felicity. "What is
+there left to wish for?" he says. "He has numbers of slaves, and he's
+always buying more, and he's got numbers of women and eunuchs, and
+everything, and when he wants money he just sends round the villages.
+God is great! _Ya Allah!_"
+
+Khannikin, being the nearest town to the Persian frontier, should be a
+place of some importance. It is well situated at an altitude of 1700
+feet among groves of palms, on both banks of the Holwan, and having
+plenty of water, the rich alluvium between it and Yakobiyeh is able to
+support its own population, though it has to import for caravans. Most
+of the Persian trade with Baghdad and thousands of Shiah pilgrims
+annually pass through it. It is a customs station, and has a regiment
+of soldiers. Nevertheless, it is very ruinous, and its population has
+diminished of late years from 5000 to about 1800 (exclusive of the
+troops), and of this number a fifth have been carried off by cholera
+within the last few weeks. It has no schools, and no special
+industries. The stamp of decay rests upon it. Exactions, crushing
+hope out of the people, the general insecurity of property, and the
+misrule which has blighted these fine Asiatic provinces everywhere,
+sufficiently explain its decadence.
+
+The imposition of quarantine on arrivals from Persia has all but
+stopped the supply of charcoal, and knowing the scarcity in the house,
+I am going without a fire, as most of the inhabitants are doing. A
+large caravanserai outside the walls is used as a quarantine station,
+and three others are taken as lazarettos. Out of these arrangements
+the officials make a great deal of money in fees, but anything more
+horrible than the sanitary state of these places cannot be conceived.
+The water appears to be the essence of typhoid fever and cholera, and
+the unfortunate _détenus_ are crowded into holes unfit for beasts,
+breathing pestiferous exhalations, and surrounded by such ancient and
+modern accumulations of horrors that typhus fever, cholera, and even
+the plague might well be expected to break out.
+
+Yesterday, for a brief interval, hills covered with snow appeared
+through rolling black clouds, and a change seemed probable, but rain
+fell in torrents all night; there is a spate in the river, and though
+we were ready to start at eight this morning, the _katirgis_ declined
+to move, saying that the road could not be travelled because of the
+depth of the fords and the mud.
+
+The roof, though a good one, is now so leaky that I am obliged to
+sleep under my waterproof cloak, and the un-puttied window-frames let
+in the rain. Early this morning a gale from the south-west came on,
+and the howling and roaring have been frightful, the rain falling in
+sheets most of the time. Sensations are not wanting. One of the
+orderlies is seriously ill, and has to be left behind under medical
+care till he can be sent to India,--the second man who has broken
+down. A runner came in with the news that all caravans are stopped in
+the Zagros mountains by snow, which has been falling for five days,
+and that the road is not expected to be open for a fortnight. Later,
+the Persian agent called to say that on the next march the road, which
+is carried on a precipice above the river, has slid down bodily, and
+that there are fifteen feet of water where there should be only two.
+Of course this prolonged storm is "exceptional." The temperature is
+falling, and it is so cold without a fire that though my bed is only a
+blanket-covered dais of brick and lime, dripped upon continually, in a
+window with forty draughts, I am glad to muffle myself up in its
+blankets and write among wraps.
+
+The Governor, recognising the craze of Europeans for exercise, sent
+word that M---- might walk in the balcony of the _haram_ if I went to
+chaperon him, and this great concession was gladly accepted, for it
+was the only possible way of getting warm. The apparition of a strange
+man, and a European, within the precincts of the _haram_ was a great
+event, and every window, curtain, and doorway was taken advantage of
+by bright dark eyes sparkling among folds of cotton and gauze. The
+enjoyment was surreptitious, but possibly all the more keen, and
+sounds of whispering and giggling surged out of every crevice. There
+are over thirty women, some of them negresses. Some are Kurds and very
+handsome, but the faces of the two handsomest, though quite young,
+have something fiendish in their expression. I have seldom seen a
+_haram_ without its tragedies of jealousy and hate, and every fresh
+experience makes me believe that the system is as humiliating to men
+as it is to women.
+
+The _haram_ reception-rooms here are large and bright, with roofs and
+cornices worked daintily in very white plaster, and there are superb
+carpets on the floors, and divans covered with Damascus embroidery in
+gold silk on cream muslin.
+
+Each day the demands for my presence in the sick-room are more
+frequent, and though I say that I can scarcely aspire to be a nurse,
+they persist in thinking that I am a _Haki[=i]m_, and possibly a
+useful spy on the doctor. I have become aware that unscrupulous
+jealousy of the principal wife exists, and, as is usual in the East,
+everybody distrusts everybody else, and prefers to trust strangers.
+The husband frequently asks me to remove what seems a cancerous
+tumour, and the doctor says that an operation is necessary to save the
+lady's life, but when I urge him to perform it, and offer a nurse's
+help, he replies that if she were to die he would be at once accused
+of murder, and would run a serious risk.
+
+The Governor to-day was so anxious that I should persuade the lady to
+undergo an operation that he even brought Hadji into the room to
+interpret what I said in Arabic. His ceaseless question is, "Will she
+die?" and she asks me the same many times every day. She insists that
+I shall be present each day when the wound is dressed, and give help,
+lest the doctor without her leave should plunge a knife into the
+swelling. These are most distressing occasions, for an hour of
+struggle and suffering usually ends in delirium.
+
+This afternoon, however, she was much freer from pain, and sent for me
+to amuse her. She wore some fine jewels, and some folds of tinselled
+gauze round her head, and looked really handsome and intelligent. Her
+husband wished that we could converse without his imperfect
+interpreting, and repeated many times, "She is a learned woman, and
+can write and read several languages." The room was as usual full of
+women, who had removed their veils at their lord's command. I showed
+the lady some Tibetan sketches, but when I came to one of a man the
+women replaced their veils!
+
+When I showed some embroidery, the Governor said he had heard that the
+Queen of England employed herself with her needle in leisure hours,
+but that it is not _comme il faut_ here for ladies to work. It seems
+that the making of sweetmeats is the only occupation which can be
+pursued without loss of dignity. Is it wonderful that intolerable
+_ennui_ should be productive of the miserable jealousies, rivalries,
+intrigues, and hatreds which accompany the system of polygamy?
+
+The host, although civil governor of a large district, also suffers
+from _ennui_. The necessary official duties are very light, and the
+accounts and reports are prepared by others. If money is wanted he
+makes "an exaction" on a village, and subordinates screw it out of the
+people. Justice, or the marketable commodity which passes for such, is
+administered by a _kadi_. He clatters about the balconies with
+slippered feet, is domestic, that is, he spends most of the day in the
+_haram_, smokes, eats two meals of six or seven courses each, and
+towards evening takes a good deal of wine, according to a habit which
+is becoming increasingly common among the higher classes of Moslems.
+He is hospitable, and is certainly anything but tyrannical in his
+household.
+
+The customs and ways of the first Turkish house I have visited in
+would be as interesting to you as they were to myself, but it would be
+a poor return for hospitality to dwell upon anything, unless, like the
+difficulties regarding the illness of the principal wife, it were a
+matter of common notoriety.
+
+It is a punishable act in Persia, and possibly here also, to look into
+a neighbour's house, but I cannot help it unless I were to avoid the
+window altogether. Wealth and poverty are within a few feet of each
+other, and as Moslems are charitable to a degree and in a manner
+which puts us to shame, the juxtaposition is advantageous.
+
+My neighbour's premises consist of a very small and mean yard, now a
+foot deep in black mire, a cow-shed, and a room without door or
+windows, with a black uneven floor, and black slimy rafters--neither
+worse nor better than many hovels in the Western Isles of Scotland. A
+man in middle life, a woman of dubious age, two girls from eight to
+ten years old, and a boy a little older are the occupants. The
+furniture consists of some wadded quilts, a copper pot, an iron
+girdle, a clay ewer or two, a long knife, a wooden spoon, a clay
+receptacle for grain, two or three earthenware basins, glazed green,
+and a wicker tray. The cow-shed contains--besides the cow, which is
+fed on dried thistles--a spade, an open basket, and a baggage pad. A
+few fowls live in the house, and are disconcerted to find that they
+cannot get out of it without swimming.
+
+The weather is cold and raw, fuel is enormously dear, work is at a
+standstill, and cold and _ennui_ keep my neighbours in bed till the
+day is well advanced. "Bed" consists of a wadded quilt laid on the
+floor, with another for a covering. The man and boy sleep at one end
+of the room, the woman and girls at the other, with covered heads.
+None make any change in their dress at night, except that the man
+takes off the _pagri_ of his turban, retaining only a skull cap.
+
+The woman gets up first, lights a fire of tamarisk twigs and thistles
+in a hole in the middle of the floor, makes porridge of some coarse
+brownish flour and water, and sets it on to warm--to _boil_ it, with
+the means at her disposal, is impossible. She wades across the yard,
+gives the cow a bunch of thistles, milks it into a basin, adds a
+little leaven to the milk, which she shakes in a goat skin till it is
+thick, carries the skin and basket to the house, feeds the fowls from
+the basket, and then rouses her lord. He rises, stretches himself,
+yawns, and places himself cross-legged by the fire, after putting on
+his _pagri_. The room is dense with pungent wood smoke, which escapes
+through the doorway, and only a few embers remain. The wife hands him
+an earthen bowl, pours some porridge into it, adds some "thick milk"
+from the goat skin, and stands before him with her arms crossed while
+he eats, then receives the bowl from his hands and kisses it, as is
+usual with the slaves in a household.
+
+Then she lights his pipe, and while he enjoys it she serves her boy
+with breakfast in the same fashion, omitting the concluding ceremony,
+after which she and the girls retire to a respectful distance with the
+big pot, and finish its contents simultaneously. The pipe over, she
+pours water on her lord's hands, letting it run on the already damp
+floor, and wipes them with her _chadar_. No other ablution is
+customary in the house.
+
+Poor as this man is, he is a Hadji, and having brought from Mecca a
+"prayer stone," with the Prophet's hand upon it, he takes it from his
+girdle, puts it on the floor, bows his forehead on it, turning
+Mecca-ward, and says his prayers, repeating his devotions towards
+evening. The first day or two he went out, but the roads now being
+almost impassable, he confines himself to the repairing of a small
+dyke, which keeps the water from running into the room, which is lower
+than the yard, and performs its duty very imperfectly, the soak from
+the yard and the drip from the roof increasing the sliminess hourly.
+These repairs, an occasional pipe, and much sleep are the record of
+this man's day till an hour before sunset, when the meal of the
+morning is repeated with the addition of some cheese.
+
+The children keep chiefly in bed. Meanwhile the woman, the busy bee of
+the family, contrives to patter about nearly all day in wet clothing,
+carrying out rubbish in single handfuls, breaking twigs, cleaning the
+pot, and feeding the cow. The roof, which in fine weather is the scene
+of most domestic occupations, is reached by a steep ladder, and she
+climbs this seven times in succession, each time carrying up a fowl,
+to pick for imaginary worms in the slimy mud. Dyed yarn is also
+carried up to steep in the rain, and in an interval of dryness some
+wool was taken up and carded. An hour before sunset she lights the
+fire, puts on the porridge, and again performs seven journeys with
+seven fowls, feeds them in the house, attends respectfully to her
+lord, feeds her family, including the cow, paddles through mire to
+draw water from the river, and unrolls and spreads the wadded quilts.
+By the time it is dark they are once more in bed, where I trust this
+harmless, industrious woman enjoys a well-earned sleep.
+
+The clouds are breaking, and in spite of adverse rumours it is decided
+_coûte que coûte_ to start to-morrow. For my own part I prefer the
+freedom even with the "swinishness" of a caravanserai to receiving
+hospitality for which no fitting return can be made.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+
+     SARIPUL-I-ZOHAB, _Jan. 21_.
+
+The rain at last ceased, and after the _katirgis_ had squabbled for an
+hour over the baggage, we got off at ten, two days ago, very grateful
+for shelter and hospitality under such untoward circumstances. Six
+Bashi Bazouks and two _zaptiehs_ on foot in ragged and incongruous
+uniforms escorted us to the Turkish frontier.
+
+The streets were in a terrible condition, and horse and footmen, after
+an attempt to march in pairs, fell perforce into a floundering and
+disorderly single file, the footmen occasionally pulling themselves
+out of mud holes by the tails of the horses. Outside the town there
+was an expanse of mud and flooded water-channels which broke up the
+last attempt at a procession, and led to a general _sauve qui peut_.
+The mire was tenacious and up to the horses' knees, half the mules
+were down with their loads, Hadji rolled into the mud, my capable
+animal snorted and struggled, some went on banks and some took to
+streams, the asses had to be relieved of their loads, and the air was
+full of shouts and objurgations, till after much delay the forlorn
+rabble all struggled to the _terra firma_ of a gravelly slope,
+splashed from head to foot.
+
+The road crosses low, rolling, gravelly hills, with an occasional
+outcrop of red sandstone, and ascends on the whole. The sun was
+bright, but the wind was strong and very cold. The Bashi Bazouk escort
+was altogether harum-scarum and inconsequent, careering in circles,
+and firing at birds (which they never hit) from the saddle, and when
+we reached some low hills bearing a bad reputation, the officer, in
+order to represent danger and his vigilant care, threw them out in all
+directions scouting for robbers, till we came to a steepish hill
+crowned by a round tower with a mushroom top, a few ruinous mud
+buildings, and a tattered tent. Here the escort formed into one line,
+and the ragged garrison into another, with an officer facing them, and
+were photographed as they shivered in the biting wind. This tower is a
+Turkish frontier fort.
+
+Soon afterwards the Persian frontier is crossed, the hills increase
+considerably in size, and mud was exchanged for firm, rough gravel. A
+feature of the otherwise featureless landscape is the frequent
+occurrence of towers like martello towers, on hill-tops, placed there
+for the shelter of the guards who formerly kept a look-out for
+robbers. In the uninteresting gravel lie pebbles of jasper and agate,
+emerald green, red, yellow, and purple. The first object of the
+slightest interest in this new country was a village of Ilyats, built
+of reed screens, with roofs of goat's-hair cloth, and with small yards
+with reed walls in front. The women, who wore full trousers and short
+jackets, were tall, somewhat striking-looking, and unveiled. Their
+hair hung down in long plaits, and they wore red handkerchiefs knotted
+at the back of the head.
+
+There an escort of four Persian _sowars_ joined us. The type of face
+was that with which we are familiar on Sasanian coins and sculptured
+stones, the brow and chin receding considerably, and the nose thin and
+projecting, the profile suggesting a beak rather than a human face,
+and the skin having the appearance of being drawn so tightly over the
+bones as to force the eyes into singular prominence.
+
+  [Illustration: A TURKISH FRONTIER FORT.]
+
+A six hours' march ended at the wildly-situated village of
+Kasr-i-Shirin, high on the right bank of the Holwan, with a plantation
+of dates on the left bank and considerable cultivation in the valley.
+It has only eighty houses of the most wretched construction, rivalled
+in height and size by middens, the drainage of which wastes itself on
+the wretched roadway. A caravanserai of the most miserable
+description, a square fort with a small garrison, and some large
+graveyards with domed tombs and curious obelisks, are the salient
+features of this village. Its wretched aspect is accounted for by its
+insecurity. It has been destroyed by robber tribes as often as there
+was anything worth destroying, and it has been so tossed to and fro
+between Turkey and Persia as not to have any of the special
+characteristics of either empire.
+
+We stopped short of the village, at a great pile of building on a
+height, in massiveness and irregularity resembling a German medieval
+castle, in which a letter had secured accommodation. It has been
+unoccupied since its owner, Jan Mir, a sheikh of a robber tribe, and
+the terror of the surrounding neighbourhood, was made away with by the
+Persian Government.
+
+The accommodation consisted of great, dark, arched, vaulted rooms,
+with stone-flagged floors, noble in size, but needing fifty candles
+and huge log fires to light up and warm their dark recesses, and
+gruesome and damp with one candle and a crackle of twigs. They were
+clean, however, and their massive walls kept out the cold. The village
+is at an elevation of 2300 feet, and the temperature has greatly
+changed.
+
+The interest of Kasr-i-Shirin is that it lies among masses of ancient
+rubble, and that the slopes which surround it are completely covered
+with hewn and unhewn stones of all sizes, the relics of a great city,
+at the western extremity of which the present wretched hamlet
+stands.[11] The walls, which are easily traced, enclose an irregular
+square, the shortest front of which is said to be three miles long.
+They are built of roughly-hewn blocks of gray and red sandstone, and
+very hard mortar or concrete. The blocks are so huge in many places as
+to deserve the often misused epithet Cyclopean.
+
+Within this enclosure are remains of houses built of water-worn round
+stones, which lie in monstrous heaps, and of a large fort on an
+eminence. In another direction are the ruins of an immense palace of
+quadrangular form, with only one entrance, and large underground rooms
+now nearly choked up. There are remains of what must have been very
+fine archways, but as the outer coating of hewn stone and all the
+decorations have fallen off, leaving only the inner case of rough
+rubble and concrete, the architectural forms are very badly defined,
+and the aspect of what must once have been magnificent is now
+forbidding and desolate. The remains of an aqueduct cut in the rock,
+and of troughs and stone pipes by which water was brought into the
+palace and city, from a distance of fifteen miles, are still traceable
+among the desolations, but of the beautiful gardens which they
+watered, and with which Khosroe surrounded the beautiful Shirin, not a
+trace remains. There was a pale sunset, flushing with pale pink
+distant leagues of sodden snow, and right across a lurid opening in a
+heavy mass of black clouds the great ruined pile of the palace of
+Khosroe the Magnificent stood out, a dismal commentary on splendour
+and fame.
+
+The promise of the evening was fulfilled the next day in windy rain,
+which began gently, but afterwards fell in persistent torrents, varied
+by pungent swirls of sleet and snow. Leaving the gash through cliffs
+with curious stratification in white and red, formed by the Holwan,
+the day was spent in skirting or crossing low hills. The mud was very
+deep and tenacious, and the rate of progress barely two miles an hour.
+There were no caravans, travellers, or population, and no birds or
+beasts. The rain clouds hung low and heavy, mists boiled up from among
+the folds of the hills, the temperature fell perceptibly. It was
+really inspiriting for people protected by good mackintoshes.
+
+After riding for six hours the rain changed into sleet and wet snow,
+blotting out the hills and creating an unnatural twilight, in which we
+floundered in mud up to the mules' knees into the filthiest village I
+have ever seen, a compound of foul, green ditches, piles of dissolving
+manure, mud hovels looking as if they were dissolving too, reed huts,
+and an Ilyat village, grouped round the vilest of caravanserais, the
+entrance to which was knee-deep in mire. To lodge in it was voted
+impossible, and the escort led us in the darkening mist and pelting
+sleet to an adjacent mud hamlet as hopeless-looking on the other side
+of the bridge, where, standing up to the knees of the mules in liquid
+manure, we sought but vainly for shelter, forded the Holwan, and
+returned to the caravanserai through almost impassable slush.
+
+It was simply loathsome, with its stench, its foulness, and its mire,
+and was already crowded and noisy with men and beasts. There was a
+great courtyard with arched recesses all round, too abominable to be
+occupied, too exposed and ruinous, even had they been cleaned, to give
+shelter from the driving sleet. The last resource was to pass through
+an archway into the great, lofty mule stable, on both sides of which
+are similar recesses or mangers, about ten feet by seven and about
+eight feet high. The stable was of great size and height with a domed
+roof. Probably it runs half-way round the quadrangle at the back of
+the uninhabitable recesses. There were at least four hundred mules in
+this place, jangling their great bells, and crowds of _katirgis_,
+travellers, and _zaptiehs_, all wet and splashed over their heads with
+mud, some unloading, others making fires and feeding their mules, all
+shouting when they had anything to say, the Babel aggravated by the
+clatter of the rattles of a hundred curry-combs and the squeals of
+fighting horses.
+
+  [Illustration: LODGINGS FOR TRAVELLERS.]
+
+The floor was deep with the manure of ages and piled with bales and
+boxes. In the side recesses, which are about the height of a mule's
+back, the muleteers camped with their fires and their goods, and laid
+the provender for their beasts in the front. These places are the
+mangers of the eastern caravanserai, or _khan_, or inn. Such must have
+been the inn at Bethlehem, and surely the first step to the
+humiliation of "the death of the cross" must have been the birth in
+the manger, amidst the crowd and horrors of such a stable.
+
+The odour was overpowering and the noise stunning, and when our wet,
+mud-covered baggage animals came in, adding to the din, there was
+hardly room to move, far less for the roll in which all mules indulge
+when the loads are taken off; and the crush resulted in a fight, and
+one mule got his fore-feet upon my "manger," and threatened to share
+it with me. It was an awful place to come to after a six hours' march
+in rain and snow, but I slid off my mule into the recess, had it
+carpeted, put down my chair, hung a blanket up in front, and prepared
+to brave it, when the inhabitants of this room, the one place which
+has any pretensions to being a room in the village, were bribed by an
+offer of six _krans_ (about four shillings) to vacate it for me. Its
+"pretensions" consist in being over a gateway, and in having a door,
+and a square hole looking on the street; a crumbling stair slippery
+with mud leads up to it. The roof leaks in every direction, and the
+slimy floor is full of pools, but it is luxury after the caravanserai
+stable, and with one waterproof sheet over my bed and another over
+myself I have fared well, though the door cannot be shut, and the rest
+of the party are in the stable at an impassable distance.
+
+Our language happily has no words in which the state of this village
+can be described. In front of this room is a broken ditch full of
+slimy greenish water, which Hadji took for my tea! There has been a
+slight snowfall during the night, and snow is impending. We have now
+reached a considerable altitude, and may expect anything. Hadji has
+just climbed the stair with groans of "_Ya Allah_," and has almost
+wailed out, "Colonel says we go--God help us."
+
+_Kirrind, Jan. 23._--From Saripul-i-Zohab we are taking the most
+southerly of the three routes to Kirmanshah traversed by Sir H.
+Rawlinson in 1836.[12] A sea of mud varied by patches of sodden snow,
+walls of rock with narrow passes, great snow-covered mountains, seen
+spectrally for a minute at a time through swirling snow-clouds, black
+tents of nomads, half-drowned villages, and a long, cold, steep
+ascent, among scrub oaks and dwarf ash, to snow which was not melting,
+and the hospitalities of a Kurdish village, comprise the interests of
+the march from Saripul to Myan Tak, so far as they lie on the surface,
+but in various ways this part of Kurdistan has many interests, not to
+be absolutely ignored even in a familiar letter.
+
+Here the Ilyats, who are supposed to constitute a fifth of the rural
+population of Persia, are met with in large numbers, and their brown
+flocks and herds are still picking up a scanty subsistence. The great
+chief of this, the Gur[=a]n tribe, holds the region on an annual
+payment to the Persian Government, gives grain to his tribesmen, and
+receives from them, of corn one-half, and of rice two-thirds of the
+crop. These people sow their grain in early spring, and then move up
+with their flocks to the mountain pastures, leaving behind only a few
+men to harvest the crops. They use no manure, this being required for
+fuel, and in the case of rice they allow a fallow of at least seven
+years. There are very few cultivators resident upon these lands, but
+Ilyat camps occur frequently.
+
+The region is steeped in history. The wretched village of Saripul is
+the Calah of Asshur and the Halah of the Israelitish captivity,[13]
+and gave to the surrounding country the name of Chalonitis, which we
+have on our old maps. A metropolitan See in the fifth century A.D.,
+soon after the institution of the Nestorian hierarchy, it was called
+Calah, Halah, and Holwan. If the Diyalah be the ancient Gyndes,
+noteworthy for the singular delay of Cyrus on his march to Babylon,
+and Saripul the ancient Holwan, and if in addition to the numerous
+Chaldæan and Sasanian remains there are relics of Semiramis and of the
+fire-temples of the Magi, the crowd of historic associations is almost
+too much for one day, and I will return to the insignificant details
+of the journey.
+
+We left at nine, crossed the Holwan by a four-arched brick bridge, and
+in falling snow and deep mud rode over fairly level ground till we
+came to an abrupt range of limestone rock, with a natural rift, across
+which the foundations of a wall still remain. The clouds were rolling
+low, and the snow was driving wildly, so as to make it impossible to
+see the sculptured tablet described by Rawlinson and Layard, on which
+a high-priest of the Magi is represented, with one hand raised in
+benediction, and the other grasping a scroll, the dress being the
+pontifical robe worn by the Zoroastrian priests, with a square cap,
+pointed in front, and lappets covering the mouth. Above this is a tomb
+with an ornamented entrance.
+
+We were now among a very strange and mysterious people, of whose
+ancestry and actual beliefs very little is known. They are Ali-Ilahis,
+but Europeans often speak of them as "Davidites," from their special
+veneration for King David. This tomb in the rift is called
+Dukkani-Daoud, or David's shop, and the people believe that he still
+dwells there, and come on pilgrimages and to offer animals in
+sacrifice from all parts of Kurdistan. He is believed to work as a
+smith, and the _katirgis_ say that he makes suits of fine armour. A
+part of the tomb which is divided from the rest by a low partition is
+believed to be a reservoir containing the water which he uses to
+temper his metal. A great mound with some building in the centre, on
+the right of the road near this gorge, though properly it bears
+another name, is called by the people "David's Fort." Jewish
+traditions abound, specially concerning David, who is regarded by the
+tribes as their great tutelar prophet.
+
+The Gur[=a]ns and Kalhurs, who are the nomadic inhabitants of this
+district, are of a very marked type of physiognomy, so Israelitish
+indeed that, taken along with certain traditions of their origin,
+their Jewish names, and their veneration for David, they have been put
+forward as claimants to the dignity of being the "lost tribes." The
+great Hebrew traveller of the twelfth century, to whom I have referred
+before, believed that the whole of the Ali-Ilahis were Jews, and
+writes of 100 synagogues in the Zagros mountains, and of 50,000 Jewish
+families in the neighbourhood.
+
+As we shall be for some days among these people, I will abbreviate Sir
+H. Rawlinson's sketch of their tenets. He considers that Ali-Ilahism
+bears evident marks of Judaism, mixed up with Moslem, Christian, and
+Sabæan legends. The Ali-Ilahis believe in 1001 incarnations of the
+Godhead in a series; among them Benjamin, Moses, Elias, David, Jesus
+Christ, Ali and Salman his tutor, the Imam Houssein and the Haft[=a]n
+(or seven bodies), the chief spiritual guides in the early ages of
+Islam, "and each, worshipped as a Deity, is an object of adoration in
+some locality of Kurdistan." The tomb of one of these, B[=a]b[=a]
+Yadg[=a]r, is their holy place, and this was regarded as the dwelling
+of Elijah at the time when the Arabs invaded Persia. All these
+incarnations are regarded as of one and the same person. All that
+changes is the bodily form of the Divine manifestation. There are
+degrees in the perfection of the development, and the most perfect
+forms are Benjamin, David, and Ali.
+
+Practically, however, the metaphysical speculations involved in this
+creed of successive incarnations are unknown, and the Imam Ali, the
+cousin of Mohammed, is the great object of worship. Though professing
+Mohammedanism the Ali-Ilahis are held in great horror by "believers,"
+and those of this region lie under the stigma of practising unholy
+rites as a part of their religion, and have received the name of
+"Chiragh Sonderan," the putters-out of lights.[14] This accusation,
+Sir A. H. Layard observes, may be only a calumny invented, like many
+another, to justify persecution.
+
+Passing through the rift in the Dukkani-Daoud range which has led to
+this digression, we entered an ascending valley between the range
+through which we had passed and some wild mountains covered with snow,
+which were then actively engaged in brewing a storm. Farther on there
+was irrigation and cultivation, and then the wretched village of Pai
+Tak, and the ruins of a bridge. There, the people told us, we must
+halt, as the caravanserai at the next place was already full, and we
+plunged about in the snow and mud looking for a hovel in which to take
+shelter, but decided to risk going on, and shortly began the ascent of
+the remarkable pass known as "The Gates of Zagros," on the ancient
+highway between Babylonia and Media, by which, in a few hours, the
+mountain barrier of Zagros is crossed, and the plain of Kirrind, a
+part of the great Iranian plateau, is reached.
+
+This great road, which zigzags steeply up the pass, is partly composed
+of smoothed boulders and partly of natural rock, somewhat dressed, and
+much worn by the continual passage of shod animals. It is said to be
+much like a torrent bed, but the snow was lying heavily upon it,
+filling up its inequalities. Dwarf oaks, hawthorn, ash, and other
+scrub find root-hold in every crevice. All that may be ugly was draped
+in pure white, and looking back from the surrounding glitter, the view
+of low ranges lying in indigo gloom was very striking. On the ascent
+there is a remarkable arch of great blocks of white marble, with a
+vaulted recess, called the "Tak-i-Girreh," "the arch holding the
+road," which gives the popular name of Gardan-i-Tak-i-Girreh (the pass
+of Tak-i-Girreh) to the ascent, though the geographers call it
+Akabah-i-Holwan (the defile of Holwan).
+
+After the deep mud of the earlier part of the march it was a pleasure
+to ride through pure, deep, powdery snow, and to find the dirt of the
+village of Myan Tak, a Kurdish hamlet situated on a mountain torrent
+among steep hills and small trees, covered with this radiant mantle.
+The elevation of the pass is 4630 feet, but Myan Tak is at a lower
+altitude an hour farther on.
+
+The small and ruinous caravanserai was really full of caravans
+detained by the snowstorm, and we lodged in a Kurdish house, typical
+of the style of architecture common among the settled tribes. Within a
+wide doorway without a door, high enough for a loaded mule to enter,
+is a very large room, with a low, flat mud roof, supported on three
+rows of misshapen trunks of trees, with their branches cut off about a
+foot from the stem, all black and shiny with smoke. Mud and rubble
+platforms, two feet high, run along one side and one end, and on the
+end one there is a clay, beehive-shaped fireplace, but no chimney.
+Under this platform the many fowls are shut in at night by a stone at
+the hole by which they enter. Within this room is a perfectly dark
+stable of great size. Certainly forty mules, besides asses and oxen,
+were lodged in it, and the overflow shared the living-room with a
+number of Kurds, _katirgis_, servants, dogs, soldiers, and Europeans.
+The furniture consisted of guns and swords hanging on the walls.
+
+The owner is an old Kurd with some handsome sons with ruddy
+complexions and auburn hair. The big house is the patriarchal roof,
+where the patriarch, his sons, their wives and children, and their
+animals, dwell together. The women, however, had all been got rid of
+somehow. The old Kurd made a great fire on the dais, wood being
+plentiful, and crouched over it. My bed was pitched near it, and
+enclosed by some reed screens. With chairs and a table, with routes,
+maps, writing materials, and a good lantern upon it, an excellent
+dinner of soup and a leg of mutton, cooked at a bonfire in the middle
+of the floor, and the sight of all the servants and _katirgis_ lying
+round it, warm and comfortable, and the knowledge that we were above
+the mud, the clouds of blinding smoke which were the only drawback
+scarcely affected the cheerfulness and comfort of the blazing,
+unstinted fire. The doorway gave not only ample ventilation but a
+brilliant view of snow, and of myriads of frosty stars.
+
+It was infinitely picturesque, with the fitful firelight falling on
+the uncouth avenues of blackened tree-stumps, on big dogs, on
+mild-eyed ox faces and long ass ears, on turbaned Indian heads, and on
+a confused crowd of Turks, Kurds, and Persians, some cooking, some
+sleeping, some smoking, while from the black depth beyond a startling
+bray of an ass or the abortive shriek of a mule occasionally
+proceeded, or a stray mule created a commotion by rushing in from the
+snow outside.
+
+I slept comfortably, till I was awakened early by various country
+sounds--the braying of an ass into my ear (for I was within a few
+inches of the stable), the crowing of cocks, and some hens picking up
+crumbs upon my bed. The mules were loaded in the living-room. The
+mercury was only 26° at 9 A.M., and under cloudless sunshine the
+powdery snow glittered and crackled. There were difficulties ahead, we
+heard. The road heavily blocked with snow was only just open, and the
+Persian post, which should have passed forty-eight hours before, had
+not been heard of, showing that the snow is very deep farther on.
+
+It was beautiful, that uplifted, silent world of snow and mountains,
+on whose skirts for some miles grew small apple and pear trees, oak,
+ash, and hawthorn, each twig a coral spray. In the deepest depression,
+among great rocks, now masses of snow, tumbles a now partially
+arrested stream, gleaming with icicles, one of the head-waters of the
+Holwan. After getting through this picturesque forest of scrub, the
+road emerges on the plateau of the Kirrind valley, the greatest
+altitude of which is about 5800 feet. It is said to be irrigated and
+fertile. It is now, as I describe it, a wide valley, without a tree or
+bush, a rolling plain of snow from two to three feet deep, marked only
+by lines made by birds' feet and the beating of the tips of birds'
+wings, the track across it a corrugated trench, wide enough for one
+mule, the sun brilliant, the sky blue, the surface of the snow
+flashing light from millions of crystals with a glitter not to be
+borne, all dazzling, "glistering," silent,--a white world and a blue
+heaven, with a sun "shining in his strength,"--light without heat.
+
+It has been a tremendous day's march, only fourteen miles in seven and
+a half hours of severe toil! The _katirgis_ asked us to keep together
+in case of difficulties with caravans. Difficulties indeed! A mild
+term! I was nearly smashed. I little knew what meeting a caravan in
+these circumstances meant till we met the first sixty animals, each
+laden with two heavy packing-cases. The question arises who is to
+give way, and who is to drive his heavily-laden beasts off the track,
+to struggle, flounder, and fall in three feet of snow, not to get up
+again without being unloaded, and even then with difficulty.
+
+The rub came on a bank near a stream where there was a deep drift. I
+decided to give way, but nothing would induce my mule to face the
+snow. An orderly was in front and Hadji behind. Down the track came
+sixty animals, loaded with their great packing-cases. They could not
+and would not give way, and the two caravans came into collision.
+There were mules struggling and falling, loads overturned, muleteers
+yelling and roaring, Hadji groaning "God help us!" my mule, a new one,
+a big strong animal, unused to a bit, plunging and kicking, in the
+middle of a "free fight." I was struck hard on my ankle by a
+packing-case and nearly knocked off. Still, down they came, in
+apparently endless hordes; my mule plunged her bridle off, and kicked
+most violently; there were yells all round. My snow spectacles were
+knocked off and lost, then came another smash, in which I thought a
+bone was broken. Fearing that I should be laid up with a broken limb
+for weeks in some horrible caravanserai, and really desperate with the
+danger and confusion, I called over and over again to Hadji to get off
+and pull my mule into the snow or I should be killed! He did not stir,
+but sat dazed on his pack moaning "God help us!" till he, the mule,
+and the load were rolled over in the drift. The orderly contrived to
+get the bridle on my mule, and to back his own in front of me, and as
+each irrepressible animal rolled down the bank he gave its load a
+push, which, nicely balanced as these loads are, made it swerve, and
+saved me from further damage. Hadji had rolled off four times
+previously, and the last I saw of him at that time and of the caravan
+was a man, five mules, and their loads buried in the snow. The
+personal results to me of what is euphemistically called a
+"difficulty," are my blue glasses gone, a number of bruises, a
+badly-torn riding-skirt, and a bad cut, which bled profusely, and then
+the blood froze.
+
+A number of caravans snowed up for several days were _en route_, and
+there were many similar encounters, and donkeys and mules falling with
+their loads and rolling into the deep snow, and _katirgis_ coming to
+blows over the right-of-way. If a donkey is forced off the track it
+goes down at once. I unfortunately caught my foot in the pack of one
+and rolled it over, and as it disappeared in the snow its pack and
+saddle fell over its head and displayed the naked vertebræ of its poor
+back.
+
+This Kirrind valley must be fully twenty miles long by from two to
+five broad, but there was only one village inhabited and two in ruins.
+As we floundered along in the snow with our jaded animals, two
+well-armed men on fine horses met and joined us, sent by the _Agha_
+Abdul Rahim, son of the British agent at Kirmanshah, whose guests we
+are to be. Following them was a _taktrawan_ or litter for me, a wooden
+box with two side doors, four feet high, six feet long, and three feet
+wide. At each end are long shafts, and between each pair of shafts a
+superb mule, and each mule has a man to lead him. I could never use
+such a thing except in case of a broken limb, but I am very grateful
+to Abdul Rahim for sending it fifty-six miles.
+
+The temperature fell with the sun; the snowy hills took on every shade
+of rose and pink, and in a universal blush of tender colouring we
+reached Kirrind. All of a sudden the colour died out, the rose-flushed
+sky changed to blue-gray, and pallid wastes of unbroken snow
+stretching into the gray distance made a glorious winter landscape.
+We are now fairly in for the rigours of a Persian winter.
+
+Kirrind, the capital of the Kirrind Kurds, is either grotesquely or
+picturesquely situated in and around a narrow gap in a range of lofty
+hills, through which the Ab-i-Kirrind rushes, after rising in a spring
+immediately behind. The gap suggests the word jaws, and in these open
+jaws rise one above another flat-roofed houses straggling down upon
+the plain among vineyards, poplars, willows, fruit-trees, and immense
+walnuts and gardens. There are said to be 900 houses, but many of them
+are ruinous. The stream which bursts from the hills is divided into
+innumerable streamlets, which must clothe these gardens with beauty.
+
+A _far[=a]sh_ riding on ahead had engaged a house, so we avoided the
+horrors of the immense caravanserai, crammed to-night with storm-bound
+caravans. The house is rough, but has three adjoining rooms, and the
+servants are comfortable. A fire, with its usual accompaniment of
+stinging smoke, fails to raise the temperature of my room to the
+freezing-point, yet it is quite possible to be comfortable and employ
+oneself.
+
+_Mahidasht, Jan. 24._--My room at Kirrind was very cold. The ink
+froze. The mercury fell to 2° below zero in it, and outside in the sun
+was only 14° at 8.30. There was a great Babel at starting. Some men
+had sold four chickens for the high price of 2s. each, the current
+price being 6d., and had robbed the servants of two, and they took one
+of the mules, which was sent after us by an official. Slipping,
+floundering, and falling in the deep snow, and getting entangled among
+caravans, we rode all day over rolling levels. The distance seemed
+interminable over the glittering plains, and the pain and stiffness
+produced by the intense cold were hard to bear, and it was not
+possible to change the cramped position by walking. The mercury fell
+to 4°, as with tired animals we toiled up the slope on which Harunabad
+stands.
+
+A very large caravanserai and a village of sixty houses occupy the
+site of a town built by Harun-al-Raschid on the upper waters of the
+Kerkhah. It has the reputation of being one of the coldest places in
+Persia, so cold that its Ilyat inhabitants desert it in winter,
+leaving two or three men who make a business of supplying caravans.
+Usually people come out of the villages in numbers as we arrive, but
+we passed group after group of ruinous hovels without seeing a
+creature. We obtained awfully cold rooms at a great height above a
+bazar, now deserted. I write "awfully" advisedly, for the mercury in
+them at sunset was 2° below zero, the floors were plaster, slippery
+with frozen moisture, the walls were partly wood, with great apertures
+between the planks; where they were mud the blistered plaster was
+fringed with icicles. Later the mercury sank to 12°, and before
+morning to 16° below zero, and the hot water froze in my basin before
+I could use it!
+
+We were to have started at eight, as there was no possible way of
+dividing the nine hours' march, but when the time came the _katirgis_
+said it was too cold to rope the loads, a little later that we could
+only get half-way, and later that there was no accommodation for mules
+half-way and that we must go the whole way! At nine the mercury was at
+4° below zero, and the slipperiness was fearful. The poor animals
+could scarcely keep on their feet. We have crossed two high passes,
+Nal Shikan (the Horse-Shoe breaking pass) and the Charzabar Pass, in
+tremendous snow, riding nine hours, only dismounting to walk down one
+hill. At the half-way hamlet I decided to go on, having still a
+lingering prejudice against sharing a den with a quantity of human
+beings, mules, asses, poultry, and dogs.
+
+On one long ascent we encountered a "blizzard," when the mercury was
+only 3° above zero. It was awful. The men covered their heads with
+their _abbas_ and turned their backs to the wind. I got my heavy
+mackintosh over everything, but in taking off three pairs of gloves
+for one minute to button it the pain of my hand was literally
+excruciating. At the summit the snow was four feet deep, and a number
+of mules were down, but after getting over the crest of the Nal Shikan
+Pass and into the Zobeideh valley it became better. But after every
+descent there was another ascent to face till we reached the pass
+above the Cheshmeh-i-Charzabar torrent, in a picturesque glen, with a
+village and some primitive flour mills.
+
+Below this height lies the vast and fertile plain of Mahidasht, one
+expanse of snow, broken by mud villages looking like brown islands,
+and the truncated cone of Goree, a seat of the ancient fire-worship.
+In the centre of the plain is an immense caravanserai with some houses
+about it. When this came into sight it was only five miles off, but we
+were nearly three hours in reaching it! The view was wonderful. Every
+speck on the vast plain was seen distinctly; then came a heavy snow
+blink, above which hovered ghosts of snow mountains rising into a pale
+green sky, a dead and lonely wilderness, looking as if all things
+which lived and moved had long ago vanished from it. Those hours after
+first sighting the village were very severe. It seemed to grow no
+nearer. I was half-dead with the journey of twenty-two miles at a slow
+foot's pace, and was aching and cramped from the intense cold, for as
+twilight fell the mercury sank to 3° below zero. The Indian servants,
+I believe, suffered more than I did, and some of the _katirgis_ even
+more than they.
+
+At last by a pointed brick bridge we crossed the little river of
+Mahidasht, and rode into the house of the headman, who is a sort of
+steward of Abdul Rahim, our future host, the owner of many villages on
+this plain. The house is of the better class of Kurdish houses, with a
+broad passage, and a room on each side, at the end a great, low, dark
+room, half living-room, half stable, which accommodates to-night some
+of the mules, the muleteers, the servants, and the men of the family.
+Beyond this again is a large stable, and below-ground, reached by a
+sloping tunnel, is the sheep-fold. One room has neither door nor
+window, mine has an outer and inner door, and a fire of live embers in
+a hole in the floor.
+
+The family in vacating the room have left their goods behind,--two
+plank beds at one end heaped with carpets and felts, a sacking cradle
+hanging from the roof, two clay jars five feet high for storing grain,
+and in the _takchahs_, or recesses of the walls, _samovars_ or
+tea-urns, pots, metal vases, cartridge belts, and odds and ends. Two
+old guns, an old sword, and a coarse coloured print of the Russian
+Imperial family are on the wall.
+
+I was lifted from the mule to my bed, covered with all available
+wraps, a pot of hot embers put by the bed, my hands and feet rubbed,
+hot syrup coloured with tea produced in Russian glasses, and in two
+hours I was able to move. The caravan, which we thought could not get
+through the snow, came in three hours later, men and mules thoroughly
+knocked up, and not till nine could we get a scanty dinner. It has
+been a hard day all round. The _far[=a]shes_ in the kitchen are
+cursing the English sahibs, who will travel in the winter, wishing our
+fathers may be burned, etc., two of the muleteers have been howling
+with pain for the last two hours, and I went into the kitchen to see
+the poor fellows.
+
+In a corner of the big room, among the rough trunks of trees which
+support the sooty roof, the muleteers were lying in a heap in their
+big-sleeved felt coats round a big fire, about another the servants
+were cooking their food, the _far[=a]shes_ were lying round another,
+and some of the house people about a fourth, and through smoke and
+flame a background of mules and wolf-like dogs was dimly seen, a gleam
+now and then falling into the dark stable beyond, where the jaded
+baggage animals were lying in heaps.
+
+Mahidasht is said to be one of the finest and most fertile plains in
+Persia, seventy-two miles long by fifteen broad, and is irrigated
+throughout by a small stream swarming with turtles. Its population,
+scattered over it in small villages, is estimated--over-estimated
+probably--at 4000. At a height of 5050 feet the winters are severe.
+The snow is nearly three feet deep already, and more is impending.
+
+The mercury in my room fell to 5° below zero before midnight, but rose
+for a gray cloudy day. The men and animals were so done up that we
+could not start till nearly eleven. The march, though not more than
+sixteen miles, was severe, owing to the deep snow and cold wind. Five
+miles over the snowy billows of the Mahidasht plain, a long ascent, on
+which the strong north wind was scarcely bearable, a succession of
+steep and tiresome ridges, many "difficulties" in passing caravans,
+and then a gradual descent down a long wide valley, opened upon the
+high plateau, on which Kirmanshah, one of the most important cities in
+Persia, is situated.
+
+Trees, bare and gaunt, chiefly poplars, rising out of unsullied snow,
+for two hours before we reached it, denoted the whereabouts of the
+city, which after many disappointments bursts upon one suddenly. The
+view from the hill above the town was the most glorious snow view I
+ever saw. All around, rolled to a great height, smooth as the icing of
+a cake, hills, billowy like the swell of the Pacific after a storm--an
+ocean of snow; below them a plateau equally unsullied, on the east
+side of which rises the magnificently precipitous Besitun range,
+sublime in its wintry grandeur, while on the distant side of the
+plateau pink peaks raised by an atmospheric illusion to a colossal
+height hovered above the snow blink, and walled in the picture. Snow
+was in the air, snow clouds were darkening over the Besitun range;
+except for those pink peaks there were no atmospheric effects; the
+white was very pallid, and the gray was very black; no illusions were
+possible, the aspect was grim, desolate, and ominous, and even before
+we reached the foot of the descent the huge peaks and rock masses of
+Besitun were blotted out by swirls of snow.
+
+Kirmanshah, approached from the south-west, added no elements of
+picturesqueness to the effect. A ruinous wall much too large for the
+shrunken city it encloses, parts of it lying in the moat, some ruinous
+loopholed towers, lines of small domes denoting bazars below, a few
+good-looking houses rising above the insignificant mass, gardens,
+orchards, vineyards, and poplars stretching up the southerly hollow
+behind, and gardens, now under frozen water, to the north, made up a
+not very interesting contrast with the magnificence of nature.
+
+We circled much of the ruinous wall on thin ice, turned in between
+high walls and up an alley cumbered with snow, dismounted at a low
+door, were received by a number of servants, and were conducted
+through a frozen courtyard into a handsomely-carpeted room with divans
+beside a blazing fire, a table in the centre covered with apples,
+oranges, and sweetmeats, and the large Jubilee photograph of Queen
+Victoria hanging over the fireplace.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] Another interest, however, is its connection with many of the
+romantic legends still told of Khosroe Parviz and his beautiful queen,
+complicated with love stories concerning the sculptor Farhad, to whom
+the Persians attribute some of their most famous rock sculptures. One
+of the most romantic of these legends is that Farhad loved Shirin, and
+that Khosroe was aware of it, and promised to give her to him if he
+could execute the impossible task of bringing to the city the abundant
+waters of the mountains. Farhad set himself to the Herculean labour,
+and to the horror of the king nearly accomplished it, when Khosroe,
+dreading the advancing necessity of losing Shirin or being
+dishonoured, sent to inform him of her death. Being at the time on the
+top of a precipice, urging on the work of the aqueduct, the news
+filled him with such ungovernable despair that he threw himself down
+and was killed.
+
+[12] The Pashalik of Zohab, now Persian territory, is fully described
+by Major Rawlinson in a most interesting paper in _The Journal of the
+Royal Geographical Society_, vol. ix. part 1, p. 26.
+
+[13] Gen. x. 11; 2 Kings xviii. 11; 1 Chron. v. 26.
+
+[14] See Sir A. H. Layard's _Early Adventures_, vol. i. p. 217.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+
+     KIRMANSHAH, _Jan. 31_.
+
+This hospitable house is the residence of the British Agent or _Vakil_
+for Kirmanshah, in whose absence at Tihran, his son, Abdul Rahim,
+performs the duties of hospitality in a most charming manner, as if
+though a very busy man he had nothing else to do but carry out the
+wishes of his guests. His hospitality is most unobtrusive also, and
+considerate. If such a wish is expressed as to visit the sculptures of
+the Takt-i-Bostan, or anything else, everything is quietly and
+beautifully arranged; a landau-and-four with outriders, superb led
+saddle-horses, and arrangements for coffee are ready outside the
+walls, with the host as _cicerone_, ready to drive or ride at the
+pleasure of his guests. The rooms in which he receives Europeans are
+on the opposite side of the courtyard from the house, and have been
+arranged according to European ideas.
+
+The family history, as usually told, is an interesting one. They are
+Arabs, and the grandfather of our host, Hadji Khalil, was a trusted
+_katirgi_ in the employment of Sir Henry Rawlinson, and saved his life
+when he fell from a scaffolding while copying the Besitun
+inscriptions. His good qualities, and an honesty of character and
+purpose rare among Orientals, eventually placed him in the important
+position of British _Vakil_ here, and he became a British subject, and
+was succeeded in his position by his son, Agha Hassan, who is now by
+virtue of singular business capacities the wealthiest man in this
+province and possibly in Persia, and bears the very highest character
+for trustworthiness and honour.[15]
+
+Abdul Rahim is a very fine-looking man, with noticeable eyes, very
+large and prominent. He has a strong sense of humour, which flits over
+his face in an amused smile. He and his father are very large
+landowners, and are always adding land to land, and are now the owners
+of the magnificent sculptures and pleasure-grounds of the
+Takt-i-Bostan. They are bankers likewise, and money-lenders, merchants
+on a large scale, and have built a very fine caravanserai, with great
+brick warehouses for the use of traders. Agha Hassan travels _en
+prince_, driving to Tihran and back in an English landau with four
+horses and a number of outriders and attendants, and his son
+entertains visitors in the same way, mounting even the outriders and
+pipe-bearers on well-bred Arabs. When he walks in the city it is like
+a royal progress. Everybody bows low, nearly to the ground, and his
+purse-bearer follows, distributing alms among the poor.
+
+I mention all this because it is a marvel in Persia, where a
+reputation for wealth is the last thing a rich man desires. To elevate
+a gateway or to give any external sign of affluence is to make himself
+a mark for the official rapacity which spares none. The policy is to
+let a man grow quietly rich, to "let the sheep's wool grow," but as
+soon as he shows any enjoyment of wealth to deprive him of his gains,
+according to a common Persian expression, "He is ripe, he must be
+squeezed." The _Vakil_ and his son are the only men here who are not
+afraid to show their wealth, and for the simple reason that it cannot
+be touched, because they are British subjects. They can neither be
+robbed, squeezed, nor mulcted beyond the legitimate taxation by
+Persian officials, and are able to protect the property of others when
+it is entrusted to their keeping. British protection has been in fact
+the making of these men.
+
+The _ménage_ is simple. The dining-room is across the frozen
+courtyard. The meals are served in European fashion, the _major-domo_
+being an ancient man, "born in the house," who occasionally inserts a
+remark into the conversation or helps his master's memory. The
+interpreter sits on the floor during meals. I breakfast in my room,
+but lunch and dine with our host, who spends the evening in the
+_salon_; sherbet is provided instead of wine. Abdul Rahim places me at
+the head of the table, and I am served first! The interpreting is from
+Persian into Hindustani, and _vice versâ_. Our host expresses almost
+daily regret that he cannot talk with me on politics!
+
+Kirmanshah, which is said to be a favourable specimen of a Persian
+town, is absolutely hideous and uninteresting. It is really half in
+ruins. It has suffered terribly from "plague, pestilence, and famine,"
+and from the awful rapacity of governors. It once had 12,000 houses,
+but the highest estimate of its present population is 25,000. So
+severely have the town and province been oppressed that some years ago
+three-quarters of the inhabitants migrated, the peasants into Turkey,
+and the townspeople into the northern province of Azerbijan. If a
+governor pays 30,000 _tumans_ (£10,000) to the Shah for an
+appointment, of which he may be deprived any day, it can scarcely be
+expected of Oriental, or indeed of any human nature, that he will not
+make a good thing of it while he has it, and squeeze all he can out of
+the people.
+
+The streets are very narrow, and look narrower just now, because the
+snow is heaped almost to the top of the mud walls, which are not
+broken up as in Turkish towns by projecting lattice windows, but are
+absolutely blank, with the exception of low-arched entrances to the
+courtyards within, closed by heavy, unpainted wooden doors, studded
+with wooden nails. The causeways, on which, but for the heaps of
+slippery snow two men might walk abreast, have a ditch two or three
+feet wide between them, which is the roadway for animals. There are
+some open spaces, abounding in ruinous heaps, others where goods are
+unloaded, surrounded with warehouses, immense brick bazars with domed
+roofs, a citadel or _ark_, where the Governor lives, a large parade
+ground and barracks for 2000 men, mosques of no pretensions, public
+baths, caravanserais, brick warehouses behind the bazars, public
+gardens, with fountains and avenues of poplars, a prison, and some
+good houses like this one, hidden behind high mud walls. Although the
+snow kindly veils a good deal of deformity, the city impresses one as
+ruinous and decayed; yet it has a large trade, and is regarded as one
+of the most prosperous places in the Empire.[16]
+
+The bazars are spacious and well stocked with European goods,
+especially with Manchester cottons of colours and patterns suited to
+Oriental taste, which loves carnation red. There are many Jews,
+otherwise the people are Shiah Moslems, with an increasing admixture
+of the secret sect of the _B[=a]bis_. In some respects the Shiahs are
+more fanatical than the Sunnis, as, for instance, it is quite possible
+to visit a mosque in Turkey, but here a Christian is not allowed to
+cross the threshold of the outer gate. Certain customs are also more
+rigidly observed. A Persian woman would be in danger of death from the
+mob if she appeared unveiled in the streets. When I walked through the
+town, though attended by a number of men, the _major-domo_ begged me
+to exchange my gauze veil for a mask, and even when I showed this
+deference to custom the passing through the bazars was very
+unpleasant, the men being decidedly rude, and inclined to hoot and use
+bad language. Even the touch of a Christian is regarded as polluting,
+and I nearly got into trouble by handling a "flap-jack," mistaking it
+for a piece of felt. The bazars are not magnificent. No rich carpets
+or other goods are exposed to view for fear of exactions. A buyer
+wanting such things must send word privately, and have them brought to
+his house.
+
+Justice seems to be here, much as in Turkey, a marketable commodity,
+which the working classes are too poor to buy. A man may be kept in
+prison because he is too poor to get out, but justice is usually
+summary, and men are not imprisoned for long terms. If prisoners have
+friends, the friends feed them, if not they depend on charity, and
+charity is a Moslem virtue. There is no prison here for women. They
+are punished by having their heads shaved, and by being taken through
+the town on asses. Various forms of torture are practised, such as
+burning with hot irons, the bastinado, and squeezing the fingers in a
+vice. The bastinado is also most extensively used as a punishment.
+
+Yesterday by appointment we were received by the Governor of the
+Province. Riding through the slippery snow-heaped alleys is not what
+Europeans would think of, and our host with his usual courtesy
+humoured the caprice by walking with us himself, preceded by six
+_far[=a]shes_ (lit. carpet-spreaders) and followed by his purse-bearer
+casting money to the poor, and a train of servants. The Citadel, or
+Governor's residence, like all else, is forlorn, dirty, and ruinous in
+its approaches, which are long vaulted corridors capable of much
+adornment. Crowds of soldiers, _mollahs_, dervishes, and others were
+there to see the visit, which was one of ceremony. The Palace and
+Government offices are many-windowed, well-built brick-and-tile
+buildings, arranged round a large _place_ with trees and fountains.
+
+Two little fellows in scarlet uniform were at the entrance, and the
+lobby upstairs was crowded with Persian and Negro servants, all in
+high, black lambskin caps, tight black trousers, and tight coats with
+full skirts. The Governor received us in a very large, lofty,
+vacant-looking room, and shook hands. I never saw a human being more
+nearly like an ape in appearance, and a loud giggle added to the
+resemblance. This giggle and a fatuous manner are possibly assumed,
+for he has the widespread reputation of being a very able man, shrewd
+in business and officially rapacious, as was his father before him.
+The grotesque figure, not more than five feet high, was dressed in a
+black Astrakan cap, a coat of fine buff Russian kerseymere with full
+skirts, and tight trousers of the same, and an under-coat of rich,
+Kerman silk brocade, edged with costly fur. He made a few curt remarks
+to his foreign guests, and then turned to Abdul Rahim, and discussed
+local affairs for the remainder of a very long visit.
+
+A table covered with exquisite-looking sweetmeats was produced, and we
+were regaled with tea _à la Russe_ in Russian glasses, ice-cream, and
+_gaz_. Then young, diminutive, raw-looking soldiers in scarlet coats
+and scarlet trousers with blue stripes marched into the courtyard, and
+stood disconsolately in the snow, and two bands brayed and shrieked
+for an hour. Then _kalians_ were smoked, and coffee was handed round,
+the cups being in gold filigree holders incrusted with turquoises.
+This was the welcome signal for the termination of a very tedious
+visit. The reception-room is a dismal combination of Persian and
+European taste, invariably a failure. The carpets are magnificent, but
+the curtains are common serge bordered with white cotton lace, and the
+tea-table with its costly equipments was covered with a tawdry
+cretonne cover, edged with some inferior black cotton lace. The lofty
+walls of plain plaster of Paris have their simplicity destroyed by
+some French girandoles with wax grapes hanging from them.
+
+The Governor returned the visit to-day, arriving on horseback with
+fully forty mounted attendants, and was received in a glass room on
+the roof, furnished with divans, tables covered with beautiful
+confectionery, and tea and coffee equipages. The conversation was as
+local as yesterday, in spite of our host's courteous efforts to
+include the strangers in it. The Governor asked if I were going to
+Tihran to be _Hak[=i]m_ to the Shah's _haram_, which our host says is
+the rumour in Kirmanshah! During such visits there are crowds of
+attendants in the room all the time pouring out tea, filling
+_kalians_, and washing cups on the floor, and as any guest may be a
+spy and an enemy, the conversation is restricted to exaggerated
+compliments and superficial remarks.
+
+Everything is regulated by an elaborate code of etiquette, even the
+compliments are meted out by rule, and to give a man more than he is
+entitled to is understood to be intended as sarcasm. The number of
+bows made by the entertainer, the distance he advances to meet his
+guest, and the position in which he seats him are matters of careful
+calculation, and the slightest mistake in any particular is liable to
+be greatly resented by a superior.
+
+The Persian is a most ceremonious being. Like the Japanese he is
+trained from infancy to the etiquette of his class, and besides the
+etiquette of class there is here the etiquette of religion, which is
+far more strict than in Turkey, and yields only when there is daily
+contact, as in the capital, between Moslems and Christians. Thus, a
+Moslem will not accept refreshments from a Christian, and he will not
+smoke a pipe after a Christian even if he is his guest, and of equal
+or higher rank.
+
+The custom is for a visitor, as in the case of the Governor, to
+announce his visit previously, and he and his train are met, when he
+is the superior, by a mounted servant of the recipient of the honour,
+who precedes him to the door, where the servants are arranged
+according to their rank, and the host waits to take his hand and lead
+him to a seat. On entering the room a well-bred Persian knows at once
+what place he ought to take, and it is rare for such a _fiasco_ as
+that referred to in Luke xiv. 9 to occur. Refreshments and pipes are
+served at regulated intervals, and the introduction of a third cup of
+tea or coffee and a third _kalian_ is the signal for the guest to
+retire. But it is necessary to ask and receive permission to do so,
+and elaborate forms of speech regulated by the rank of the visitor are
+used on the occasion. If he is of equal or superior rank, the host,
+bowing profoundly, replies that he can have no other wish than that of
+his guest, that the house has been purified by his presence, that the
+announcement of the visit brought good luck to the house, that his
+headache or toothache has been cured by his arrival, and these flowery
+compliments escort the ordinary guest to the door, but if he be of
+superior rank the host walks in advance to the foot of the stairs,
+and repeats the compliments there.
+
+The etiquette concerning pipes is most elaborate.[17] _Kalians_ are
+invariably used among the rich. The great man brings his own, and his
+own pipe-bearer. The _kalian_ is a water pipe, and whatever its form
+the principle is the same, the smoke being conducted to the bottom of
+a liberal supply of water, to be sucked up in bubbles through it with
+a gurgling noise, as in the Indian "hubble-bubble." This water-holder
+is decanter-shaped, of plain or cut glass, with a wide mouth; the
+fire-holder, as in the case of the Governor's pipe, is often a work of
+high art, in thin gold, chased, engraved, decorated with _repoussé_
+work, or incrusted with turquoises, or ornamented with rich enamel,
+very costly, £40 or even £50 being paid by rich men for the decoration
+of a single pipe-head. Between this and the water-holder is a wooden
+tube about fourteen inches long, from one end of which an inner tube
+passes to the bottom of the water. A hole in the side of the tube
+admits the flexible smoking tube, more used in Turkey than in Persia,
+or the wooden stem, about eighteen inches long. The fire-holder is
+lined with clay and plaster of Paris. Besides these there is the
+wind-guard, to prevent the fire from falling or becoming too hot,
+usually of silver, with dependent silver chains, and four or six
+silver or gold chains terminating in flat balls hang from the
+fire-holder.
+
+The _kalian_ is one of the greatest institutions of Persia. No man
+stirs without it, and as its decoration gives an idea of a man's
+social position, immense sums are lavished upon it, and the
+pipe-bearer is a most important person. The lighting is troublesome,
+and after all there seems "much ado about nothing," for a few whiffs
+exhaust its capacities.
+
+The tobacco, called _tumbaku_, which is smoked in _kalians_ is
+exceptionally poisonous. It cannot be used the first year, and
+improves with age, being preserved in bags sewn up in raw hide. Unless
+it is moistened it produces alarming vertigo. When the _kalian_ is
+required, about three-quarters of an ounce is moistened, squeezed like
+a sponge, and packed in the fire-holder, and morsels of live charcoal,
+if possible made from the root of the vine, are laid upon it and blown
+into a strong flame. The pipe-bearer takes two or three draws, and
+with an obeisance hands it with much solemnity to his master. Abdul
+Rahim smokes three or four pipes every evening, and coffee served with
+the last is the signal for his departure.
+
+A guest, if he does not bring his own pipe and pipe-bearer has a
+_kalian_ offered to him, but if the host be of higher rank any one but
+an ignoramus refuses it till he has smoked first. If under such
+circumstances a guest incautiously accepts it, he is invariably
+mortified by seeing it sent into the ante-room to be cleaned and
+refilled before his superior will smoke. If it be proper for him to
+take it, he offers it in order of rank to all present, but takes good
+care that none accept it till he has enjoyed it, after which the
+attendant passes it round according to rank. In cases of only one
+_kalian_ and several guests, they smoke in order of position, but each
+one must pay the compliment of suggesting that some one else should
+smoke before himself. The etiquette of smoking is most rigid. I heard
+of a case here in which a _mollah_, who objected to smoke after a
+European, offered it to one after he had smoked it himself--so gross a
+piece of impertinence that the other called the pipe-bearer, saying,
+"You can break that pipe to pieces, and burn the stick, I do not care
+to smoke it," upon which the _mollah_, knowing that his violation of
+etiquette merited this sharp rebuke, turned pale and replied, "You say
+truly, I have eaten dirt."
+
+The lower classes smoke a coarse Turkish tobacco, or a Persian mild
+sort looking like whitish sawdust, which is merely the pounded leaf,
+stalk, and stem. The pipe they use and carry in their girdles has a
+small iron, brass, or clay head, and a straight cherry-wood stick,
+with a very wide bore and no mouthpiece, and it is not placed in the
+teeth but is merely held between the lips. Smoking seems a necessity
+rather than a luxury in Persia, and is one of the great features of
+social life.
+
+Kirmanshah is famous for its "rugs," as carpets are called in this
+country. There are from twenty-five to thirty kinds with their
+specific names. Aniline dyes have gone far to ruin this manufacture,
+but their import is now prohibited. A Persian would not look at the
+carpets loosely woven and with long pile, which are made for the
+European market, and are bought just now from the weavers at 13s. the
+square yard. A carpet, according to Persian notions, must be of fast
+colours, fine pile, scarcely longer than Utrecht velvet, and ready to
+last at least a century. A rug can scarcely be said to have reached
+its prime or artistic mellowness of tint till it has been "down" for
+ten years. The permanence of the dyes is tested by rubbing the rug
+with a wet cloth, when the worthless colours at once come off.
+
+Among the real, good old Persian carpets there are very few patterns,
+though colouring and borders vary considerably. A good carpet, if new,
+is always stiff; the ends when doubled should meet evenly. There must
+be no creases, or any signs on the wrong side of darning or
+"fine-drawing" having been resorted to for taking out creases, and
+there must be no blue in the white cotton finish at the ends. Carpets
+with much white are prized, as the white becomes primrose, a colour
+which wears well. Our host has given me a rug of the oldest Persian
+pattern, on a white ground, very thin and fine. Large patterns and
+thick wool are comparatively cheap. It is nearly impossible to say
+what carpets sell at, for if one has been made by a family and poverty
+presses, it may be sold much under value, or if it is a good one and
+they can hold on they may force a carpet fancier to give a very high
+price. From what Abdul Rahim says, the price varies from 13s. to 50s.
+a square yard, the larger carpets, about fourteen feet by eight feet,
+selling for £40.[18]
+
+Abdul Rahim took me to see carpet-weaving, a process carried on in
+houses, hovels, and tents by women and children. The "machinery" is
+portable and marvellously simple, merely two upright beams fixed in
+the floor, with a cross-beam near the top and bottom, round which the
+stout cotton or woollen threads which are the basis of the carpet are
+stretched. The wools are cut in short lengths and are knotted round
+two threads, according to the pattern, which, however elaborate, the
+weaver usually carries in her head. After a few inches have been woven
+in this simple way the right side is combed and the superfluous length
+cut off with rough scissors. Nothing can be more simple than the
+process or more beautiful than the result. The vegetable dyes used are
+soft and artistic, specially a madder red and the various shades of
+indigo. A soft turquoise blue is much used, and an "olive green,"
+supposed to be saffron and indigo. The dull, rich tints, even when
+new, are quite beautiful. The women pursue this work chiefly in odds
+and ends of time, and in some cases make it much of a pastime. Men
+being present they were very closely veiled, and found great
+difficulty in holding on the _chadars_ and knotting the wool at the
+same time.
+
+After taking tea in the pleasant upper room of the carpet-weaver's
+house, we visited the large barracks and parade ground. The appearance
+of the soldiers could not possibly impress a stranger favourably. They
+looked nothing better than "dirty, slouching ragamuffins," slipshod,
+in tattered and cast-off clothes of all sorts, on the verge of actual
+mendicancy, bits of rusty uniform appearing here and there amongst
+their cotton rags. The quarters are not bad. The rank and file get one
+and a half pounds of bread daily and five rupees a month nominally,
+but their pay is in arrears, and they eke it out by working at
+different trades. These men had not been drilled for two months, and
+were slovenly and unsoldierly to a degree, as men must be who have no
+proper pay, rations, instruction, clothing, or equipments.
+
+The courtesy of the host leaves nothing unthought of. In returning
+from a long stroll round the city a wet place had to be crossed, and
+when we reached it there were saddle-horses ready. On arriving at dusk
+in the bazar several servants met us with lanterns. The lantern is an
+important matter, as its size is supposed to indicate the position of
+the wearer. The Persian lantern has a tin or iron top and bottom,
+between which is a collapsible wired cylinder of waxed muslin. The
+light from the candle burning inside is diffused and soft. Three feet
+long and two feet wide is not an uncommon size. They are carried close
+to the ground, illustrating "Thy Word is a lamp unto my path," and
+none but the poor stir out after dark without a lantern-bearer in
+front. Our lanterns, as befits the _Vakil's_ position, are very large.
+
+There is something Biblical in the progress of Abdul Rahim through
+the streets, always reminding me of "greetings in the market-place,"
+and "doing alms to be seen of men,"--not that I think our kind host
+sins in either direction. "Peace be with you," say the people, bending
+low. "To you be peace," replies the Agha.
+
+A wish having been expressed to visit the rock-sculptures of the
+Takt-i-Bostan, a winter picnic was quietly arranged for the purpose.
+There was a great snowstorm on the night we arrived, succeeded by
+intense frost and clear blue skies,--glorious Canadian winter weather.
+Outside the wall an English landau, brought in pieces from Baghdad,
+awaited us, with four Arab horses, two of them ridden. There were
+eleven outriders and some led horses, and a Turki pipe-bearer rode
+alongside the carriage with two cylinders of leather containing
+_kalians_ in place of holsters, on one side, behind a leather
+water-bottle, and on the other a brazier of lighted charcoal hanging
+by chains much below the horse's body. Another pipe-bearer lighted the
+_kalian_ at intervals and handed it into the carriage to his master.
+Some of the horsemen carried rifles and wore cartridge-belts.
+
+Reaching the Karasu river we got out into deep mud, were ferried over
+in a muddy box hauling on a rope, and drove to the Takt-i-Bostan,
+where several tanks of clear water, a house built into the rock, a
+number of Kurds on fine horses, the arched recesses in the rock which
+contain the sculptures, and the magnificent range of the
+Jabali-Besitun formed a very striking scene.
+
+Sir H. Rawlinson considers these sculptures the finest in Persia, and
+regards them as the work of Greek artists. The lower of the two
+bas-reliefs at the back of the main recess is a colossal figure of a
+king on horseback, "the staff of whose spear is as a weaver's beam."
+On the sides of the recess, and, like the equestrian figure, in very
+high relief and very much undercut, are scenes from the chase of a
+most spirited description, representing a king and court mounted on
+elephants, horses, and camels, hunting boars, stags, and other
+animals, their enthusiasm in the pursuit being successfully conveyed
+by the art of the sculptor. In the spandrels of the archway of the
+main recess are carved, winged female figures. In the smaller arch,
+also containing a bas-relief, is a Pehlevi inscription.[19]
+
+There is a broad stone platform in front of the arch, below which
+flows direct from the mountain a great volume of water, which
+replenishes the tanks. The house, which also contains a tank fed by
+the same living water, the mountain and its treasures, the tanks, and
+some miles of avenues of willows, have been bought by the _Vakil_, and
+his son laughingly says that he hopes to live to see a time when Cook
+will give "tourist excursion tickets" by rail to the Takt-i-Bostan!
+
+Coffee and _kalians_ were served to the Kurds in the arch, and
+mounting the horses we rode to a country house belonging to our host
+in the midst of large rose gardens, and with a wonderful view of the
+magnificent Besitun range, of the rolling snowy hills on which
+Kirmanshah and its plantations lay like a black splotch, and of this
+noble plain, six miles long from north to south, and thirty from east
+to west, its absolutely unbroken snow gleaming like satin, and shadows
+lying upon it in pure blue. Many servants and a large fire awaited us
+in that pleasant bungalow, as well as coffee and sweetmeats, and we
+stayed there till the sinking sun flushed all the surrounding hills
+with pink, and the gray twilight came on.
+
+I rode a splendid Arab, with a neck "clothed with thunder," a horse
+to make one feel young again, with his elastic stride and pride of
+bearing, but indeed I "snatched a fearful joy," for the snow was
+extremely slippery, and thirteen Arab horses in high condition
+restrained to a foot's pace had belligerent views of their own,
+tending to disconcert an unwary rider. We crossed the Karasu by a deep
+and devious ford up to the girths, and had an exhilarating six miles'
+ride by moonlight in keen frost, the powdery snow crackling under the
+horses' feet. It was too slippery to enter the town on horseback, but
+servants with lanterns awaited us at the gates and roaring fires and
+dinner were ready here, after a delightful expedition.
+
+I dined alone with our host, Hadji, who understands and speaks English
+fairly well, acting as interpreter. Abdul Rahim at once plunged into
+politics, and asked very many intelligent questions about English
+politics and parties, the condition and housing of our working
+classes, and then about my own family and occupations. He is a zealous
+Moslem, and the pious phrases which sit so oddly on Hadji come very
+naturally from his lips. In reply to a sketch of character which I
+gave him he said: "What God does is good. He knows, we submit. He of
+whom you speak laid up great treasure for another life. Whoso loves
+and befriends the poor is acceptable to God. One day we shall know
+all. God is good." He said he had been too busy to learn English, but
+that he understands a great deal, and added, with a roguish gleam
+lighting up his whole face, and a very funny laugh, "And I hear what
+M---- says." He has seen but very few English ladies, and it shows
+great quickness of apprehension that he should never fail in the
+respectfulness and quiet courteous attentions which would be shown to
+a lady by an English host.
+
+Even after India, the quantity of servants employed in such a
+household as this is very impressive. Besides a number who are with
+the _Vakil_ in Tihran, there are the _nazr_ or steward, who under the
+master is supreme, cooks and their assistants, table servants,
+_far[=a]shes_, who are sweepers and message-runners, in any number,
+pipe-bearers, coffee and ice-makers, plate-cleaners, washermen,
+lamp-cleaners, who are also lantern-bearers, a head groom, with a
+groom for each horse under him, and a number more, over forty in all,
+receiving, if paid at the usual rate of wages in Kirmanshah, which is
+a cheap place, from sixty _krans_ a month down to twenty, the _kran_
+being now about 8d. These wages do not represent the actual gains of a
+servant, for he is entitled to perquisites, which are chiefly in the
+form of commissions on things bought and sold by his master, and which
+are regarded as legitimate if they do not exceed 10 per cent. It is of
+no use to fight again this "_modakel_," or to vex one's soul in any
+way about it. Persians have to submit to it as well as Europeans.
+Hadji has endeavoured to extract from 50 to 80 per cent on purchases
+made by him for me, but this is thought an outrage.
+
+This _modakel_ applies to all bargains. If a _charvadar_ (no longer a
+_katirgi_) is hired, he has to pay one's servant 10 per cent on the
+contract price. If I sell a horse, my servant holds out for a good
+price, and takes his 10 per cent, and the same thing applies to a pair
+of shoes, or a pound of tea, or a chicken, or a bottle of milk. The
+system comes down from the highest quarters. The price paid by the
+governor of a province to the Shah is but the Shah's _modakel_, and
+when a governor farms the taxes for 60,000 _tumans_ and sells them for
+80,000, the difference is his _modakel_, and so it goes on through all
+official transactions and appointments, and is a fruitful source of
+grinding oppression, and of inefficiency in the army and other
+departments. The servant, poor fellow, may stop at 10 per cent, but
+the Shah's servant may think himself generous if he hesitates at 50
+per cent. I have heard it said that when the late Shah was dying he
+said to the present sovereign: "If you would sit long upon the throne,
+see that there is only one spoon among ten men," and that the system
+represented by this speech is faithfully carried out.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] I had the pleasure of seeing Agha Hassan at the British Legation
+at Tihran. He is charming, both in appearance and manner, a specimen
+of the highest type of Arab good breeding, with a courteous kindliness
+and grace of manner, and is said to have made a very favourable
+impression when he went to England lately to be made a C.M.G. Both
+father and son wear the Arab dress, in plain colours but rich
+materials, with very large white turbans of Damascus embroidery in
+gold silk, and speak only Arabic and Persian.
+
+[16] A journey of nine months in Persia, chiefly in the west and
+north-west, convinced me that this aspect of ruin and decay is
+universal.
+
+[17] The reader curious as to this and other customs of modern Persia
+should read Dr. Wills's book, _The Land of the Lion and the Sun_.
+
+[18] A rug only eight feet by five feet was given me by a Persian in
+Tihran, which was valued for duty at Erzerum at £3 the square yard,
+with the option of selling it to the Custom-house at that price, which
+implies that its value is from 70s. to 80s. per yard. It has a very
+close pile, nearly as short and fine as velvet.
+
+[19] For the Sasanian inscriptions, vide _Early Sasanian
+Inscriptions_, by E. Thomas. The great work published by the French
+Government, _Voyage en Perse_, Paris, 1851, by Messieurs Flandin et
+Coste, contains elaborate and finely-executed representations of these
+rock sculptures, which are mostly of the time of the later Sasanian
+monarchs.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+
+     KIRMANSHAH, _Feb. 2_.
+
+On January 28 there was a tremendous snowfall, and even before that
+the road to Hamadan, which was our possible route, had been blocked
+for some days. The temperature has now risen to 31°, with a bitter
+wind, and much snow in the sky. The journey does not promise well. Two
+of the servants have been ill. I am not at all well, and the reports
+of the difficulties farther on are rather serious. These things are
+certain,--that the marches are very long, and without any possibility
+of resting _en route_ owing to mud or snow, and that the food and
+accommodation will be horrible.
+
+Hadji is turning out very badly. He has fever now, poor fellow, and is
+even more useless than usual. Abdul Rahim does not like him to
+interpret, and calls him "the savage." He does no work, and is both
+dirty and dishonest. The constant use of pious phrases is not a good
+sign either of Moslem or Christian. I told him this morning that I
+could not eat from so dirty a plate. "God is great," he quietly
+answered. He broke my trestle bed by not attending to directions, and
+when I pointed out what he had done, he answered, "God knows all, God
+ordains all things." It is really exasperating.
+
+It is necessary to procure an additional outfit for the journey--a
+slow process--masks lined with flannel, sheepskin bags for the feet,
+the thick felt coats of the country for all the servants, additional
+blankets, _kajawehs_ for me, and saddle-horses. The marches will
+frequently be from twenty to thirty miles in length, and the fatigue
+of riding them at a foot's pace when one cannot exchange riding for
+walking will be so great that I have had a pair of _kajawehs_ made in
+which to travel when I am tired of the mule. These panniers are oblong
+wooden boxes, eighteen inches high, with hoops over them for curtains.
+One hangs on each side of the mule on a level with his back, and they
+are mounted, _i.e._ they are scrambled into from the front by a
+ladder, which is carried between them. Most women and some men travel
+in them. They are filled up with quilts and cushions. The mule which
+is to carry them is a big and powerful animal, and double price is
+charged for him.
+
+Horses are very good and cheap here. A pure Arab can be bought for
+£14, and a cross between an Arab and a Kurdish horse--a breed noted
+for endurance--for even less. But to our thinking they are small,
+never exceeding fifteen hands. The horses of the Kirmanshah province
+are esteemed everywhere, and there is a steady drain upon them for the
+Indian market. The stud of three horses requires a groom, and Abdul
+Rahim is sending a _sowar_, who looks a character, to attend us to
+Tihran. A muleteer, remarkable in appearance and beauty, and twelve
+fine mules have been engaged. The _sowar_ and several other men have
+applied to me for medicine, having fearful coughs, etc., but I have
+not been fortunate enough to cure them, as their maladies chiefly
+require good feeding, warm bedding, and poultices, which are
+unattainable. It is pitiable to see the poor shivering in their thin
+cotton clothes in such weather. The men make shift with the seamless
+felt coats--more cloaks than coats, with long bag-like sleeves
+tapering to the size of a glove but with a slit midway, through which
+the hands can be protruded when need arises. The women have no outer
+garment but the thin cotton _chadar_.
+
+I have tried to get a bed made, but there is no wood strong enough for
+the purpose, and the bazars cannot produce any canvas.
+
+_Sannah, Feb. 5._--Yesterday we were to have started at nine, but the
+usual quarrelling about loads detained us till 10.30, so that it was
+nearly dark when we reached the end of the first stage of a three
+weeks' journey. From the house roof the prospect was most dismal. It
+was partly thawing, and through the whiteness of the plain ran a brown
+trail with sodden edges, indicating mud. The great mass of the
+Jabali-Besitun, or Behistun, or Behishtan, though on the other side of
+the plain, seemed actually impending over the city, with its great
+black rock masses, too steep to hold the snow, and the Besitun
+mountain itself, said to be twenty-four miles away, looming darkly
+through gray snow clouds, looked hardly ten. Our host had sent men on
+to see if the landau could take me part of the way at least; but their
+verdict was that the road was impassable.
+
+After much noise the caravan got under way, but it was soon evident
+that the fine mules we had engaged had been changed for a poor,
+sore-backed set, and that the fine saddle-mule I was to have had was
+metamorphosed into a poor weak creature, which began to drop his leg
+from the shoulder almost as soon as we were outside the walls, and on
+a steep bridge came down on his nose with a violent fall, giving me a
+sharp strain, and fell several times afterwards; indeed, the poor
+animal could scarcely keep on his legs during the eight hours' march.
+
+Hadji rode in a _kajaweh_, balanced by some luggage, and was to keep
+close to me, but when I wanted to change my broken-down beast for a
+pannier he was not to be seen, then or afterwards, and came in late.
+The big mule had fallen, he was bruised, the _kajawehs_ were smashed
+to pieces, and were broken up for firewood, and I am now without any
+means of getting any rest from riding! "It's the pace that kills." In
+snow and mud gallops are impossible, and three miles an hour is good
+going.
+
+An hour from Kirmanshah the road crosses the Karasu by a good brick
+bridge, and proceeds over the plain for many miles, keeping the
+Besitun range about two miles on the left, and then passes over
+undulating ground to the Besitun village. Two or three large villages
+occur at a distance from the road, now shut in, and about eight miles
+from Besitun there are marble columns lying on the ground among some
+remains of marble walls, now only hummocks in the snow.
+
+The road was churned into deep mud by the passage of animals, and the
+snow was too deep to ride in. My mule lost no opportunity of tumbling
+down, and I felt myself a barbarian for urging him on. Hills and
+mountains glistened in all directions. The only exception to the
+general whiteness was Piru, the great rock mass of Besitun, which ever
+loomed blackly overhead through clouds and darkness, and never seemed
+any nearer. It was very solitary. I met only a caravan of carpets, and
+a few men struggling along with laden asses.
+
+It was the most artistic day of the whole journey, much cloud flying
+about, mountains in indigo gloom, or in gray, with storm clouds round
+their heads, or pure white, with shadows touched in with cobalt, while
+peaks and ridges, sun-kissed, gleamed here and there above indigo and
+gray. Not a tree or even bush, on them or on the plain, broke the
+monotony after a summer palace of the Shah, surrounded by poplars, was
+passed. There is plenty of water everywhere.
+
+As the sun was stormily tinging with pink the rolling snow-clouds here
+and there, I halted on the brow of a slope under the imposing rock
+front of Besitun to wait for orders. It was wildly magnificent: the
+huge precipice of Piru, rising 1700 feet from the level, the mountains
+on both sides of the valley approaching each other, and behind Piru a
+craggy ravine, glorified here and there by touches of amber and pink
+upon the clouds which boiled furiously out of its depths. In the
+foreground were a huge caravanserai with a noble portal, a solitary
+thing upon the snow, not a dwelling, but offering its frigid
+hospitality to all comers; a river with many windings, and the ruinous
+hovels of Besitun huddled in the mud behind. An appalling view in the
+wild twilight of a winter evening; and as the pink died out, a
+desolate ghastliness fell upon it. As I waited, all but worn out by
+the long march, the tumbling mule, and the icy wind, I thought I
+should like never to hear the deep chimes of a Persian caravan, or see
+the huge portal of a Persian caravanserai any more. These are cowardly
+emotions which are dispelled by warmth and food, but at that moment
+there was not much prospect of either.
+
+Through seas of mud and by mounds of filth we entered Besitun, a most
+wretched village of eighteen hovels, chiefly ruinous, where we
+dismounted in the mixed snow and mud of a yard at a hovel of three
+rooms vacated by a family. It was a better shelter than could have
+been hoped for, though after a fire was made, which filled the room
+with smoke, I had to move from place to place to avoid the drip from
+the roof.
+
+Hadji said he was ill of fever, and seemed like an idiot; but the orderly
+said that the illness was shammed and the stupidity assumed in order not
+to work. I told him to put the mattress on the bed; "Pour water on the
+mattress," he replied. I repeated, "Put--the--mattress--on--the--bed,"
+to which he replied, "Put the mattress into water!" I said if he felt
+too ill for his work he might go to bed. "God knows," he answered.
+"Yes, knows that you are a lazy, good-for-nothing, humbugging
+brute"--a well-timed objurgation from M----, which elicited a
+prolonged "_Ya Allah!_" but produced no effect, as the tea and
+_chapatties_ were not relatively but absolutely cold the next morning.
+
+The next day dawned miserably, and the daylight when it came was only
+a few removes from darkness, yet it was enough to bring out the
+horrors of that wretched place, and the dirt and poverty of the
+people, who were a prey to skin diseases. Many readers will remember
+that Sir H. Rawlinson considers that there are good geographical and
+etymological reasons for identifying Besitun with the Baghistan, or
+Place of Gardens of the Greeks, and with the famous pleasure-grounds
+which tradition ascribes to Semiramis. But of these gardens not a
+trace remains. A precipitous rock, smoothed at its lower part, a
+vigorous spring gushing out at the foot of the precipice, two tablets,
+one of which, at a height of over 300 feet, visible from the road but
+inaccessible, is an Achæmenian sculpture portraying the majesty of
+Darius, with about a thousand lines of cuneiform writing, are all that
+survive of the ancient splendours of Besitun, with the exception of
+some buttresses opposite the rock, belonging to a vanished Sasanian
+bridge over the Gamasiab, and some fragments of other buildings of the
+Sasanian epoch. These deeply interesting antiquities have been
+described and illustrated by Sir H. Rawlinson, Flandin and Coste, and
+others.
+
+It has been a severe day. It was so unpromising that a start was only
+decided on after many pros and cons. Through dark air small flakes of
+snow fell sparsely at intervals from a sky from which all light had
+died out. Gusts of icy wind swept down every gorge. Huge ragged masses
+of cloud drifted wildly round the frowning mass of Piru. Now and then
+the gusts ceased, and there was an inauspicious calm.
+
+I rode a big mule not used to the bit, very troublesome and mulish at
+first, but broken in an hour. A clear blink revealed the tablets, but
+from their great altitude the tallest of the figures only looked two
+feet high. There is little to see on this march even under favourable
+circumstances. A few villages, the ruined fort of Hassan Khan, now
+used as a caravanserai, on a height, the windings of the Gamasiab, and
+a few canals crossed by brick bridges, represent its chief features.
+Impressions of a country received in a storm are likely to be
+incorrect, but they were pleasurable. Everything seemed on a grand
+scale: here desolate plateaus pure white, there high mountains and
+tremendous gorges, from which white mists were boiling up--everything
+was shrouded in mystery--plain prose ceased to be for some hours.
+
+The others had to make several halts, so I left the "light division"
+and rode on alone. It became dark and wild, and presently the surface
+of the snow began to move and to drift furiously for about a foot
+above the ground. The wind rose to a gale. I held my hat on with one
+half-frozen hand. My mackintosh cape blew inside out, and struck me
+such a heavy blow on the eyes that for some time I could not see and
+had to trust to the mule. The wind rose higher; it was furious, and
+the drift, not only from the valley but from the mountain sides, was
+higher than my head, stinging and hissing as it raced by. It was a
+"blizzard," a brutal snow-laden north-easter, carrying fine, sharp,
+hard-frozen snow crystals, which beat on my eyes and blinded them.
+
+After a short experience of it my mule "turned tail" and needed
+spurring to make him face it. I fought on for an hour, crossed what
+appeared to be a bridge, where there were a few mud hovels, and
+pressed on down a narrower valley. The blizzard became frightful;
+from every ravine gusts of storm came down, sweeping the powdery snow
+from the hillsides into the valley; the mountains were blotted out,
+the depression in the snow which erewhile had marked the path was
+gone, I could not even see the mule's neck, and he was floundering in
+deep snow up to the girths; the hiss of the drift had increased to a
+roar, the violence of the storm produced breathlessness and the
+intense cold numbness. It was dangerous for a solitary traveller, and
+thinking that M---- would be bothered by missing one of the party
+under such circumstances, I turned and waited under the lee of a
+ruinous mud hovel for a long, long time till the others came up--two
+of the men having been unhorsed in a drift.
+
+In those hovels there were neither accommodation nor supplies, and we
+decided to push on. It was never so bad again. The wind moderated, wet
+snow fell heavily, but cleared off, and there was a brilliant blue
+heaven with heavy sunlit cloud-wreaths, among which colossal mountain
+forms displayed themselves, two peaks in glorious sunlight, high, high
+above a whirling snow-cloud, which was itself far above a great
+mountain range below. There were rifts, valleys, gorges, naked, nearly
+perpendicular rocks, the faces of mountains, half of which had fallen
+down in the opposite direction, a snow-filled valley, a winding river
+with brief blue stretches, a ruined fort on an eminence, a sharp turn,
+a sudden twilight, and then another blizzard far colder than the last,
+raging down a lateral ravine, up which, even through the blinding
+drift, were to be seen, to all seeming higher than mountains of this
+earth, the twin peaks of Shamran lighted by the sun. I faced the
+blizzard for some time, and then knowing that Hadji and the cook, who
+were behind me, would turn off to a distant village, all trace of a
+track having disappeared, I rode fully a mile back and waited half an
+hour for them. They were half-frozen, and had hardly been able to urge
+their mules, which were lightly laden, through the snow, and Hadji was
+groaning "_Ya Allah!_"
+
+The blizzard was over and the sky almost cloudless, but the mercury
+had fallen to 18°, and a keen wind was still blowing the powdery snow
+to the height of a foot. I sent the two men on in front, and by dint
+of calling to them constantly, kept them from getting into drifts of
+unknown depth. We rode up a rising plateau for two hours--a plateau of
+deep, glittering, blinding, trackless snow, giving back the sunshine
+in millions of diamond flashings. Through all this region thistles
+grow to a height of four feet, and the only way of finding the track
+was to look out for a space on which no withered thistle-blooms
+appeared above the snow.
+
+This village of Sannah lies at an altitude of about 5500 feet, among
+poplar plantations and beautiful gardens, in which fine walnut trees
+are conspicuous. Though partly ruinous it is a flourishing little
+place, its lands being abundantly watered by streams which run into
+the Gamasiab. It is buried now in snow, and the only mode of reaching
+it is up the bed of a broad sparkling stream among the gardens. The
+_sowar_ met us here, the navigation being difficult, and the "light
+division" having come up, we were taken to the best house in the
+village, where the family have vacated two rooms, below the level of a
+yard full of snow. The plateau and its adjacent mountains were flushed
+with rose as we entered Sannah, and as soon as the change to the
+pallor of death came on the mercury raced down to zero outside, and it
+is only 6° in the room in which I am writing.
+
+There is a large caravanserai at the entrance to Sannah, and I suspect
+that the _sowar_ in choosing private quarters bullies the _ketchuda_
+(headman) and throws the village into confusion, turning the women and
+children out of the rooms, the owners, though they get a handsome sum
+for the accommodation, having to give him an equally handsome
+_modakel_.
+
+After nearly nine hours of a crawling pace and exposure to violent
+weather, I suffered from intense pain in my joints, and was dragged
+and lifted in and put into a chair. I write "put," for I was nearly
+helpless, and had to take a teaspoonful of whisky in warm milk. While
+the fire was being made two women, with a gentle kindliness which won
+my heart, chafed my trembling, nearly frozen hands with their own,
+with kindly, womanly looks, which supplied the place of speech.
+
+I lay down under a heap of good blankets, sorry to see them in thin
+cotton clothes, and when I was less frozen observed my room and its
+grotesquely miserable aspect, "the Savage" never taking any trouble to
+arrange it. There are no windows, and the divided door does not shut
+by three inches. A low hole leads into the granary, which is also the
+fowl-house, but the fowls have no idea of keeping to their own
+apartment. Two sheep with injured legs lie in a corner with some
+fodder beside them. A heap of faggots, the bed placed diagonally to
+avoid the firehole in the floor, a splashed tarpaulin on which Hadji
+threw down the saddle and bridle plastered with mud, and all my
+travelling gear, a puddle of frozen water, a plough, and some ox
+yokes, an occasional gust of ashes covering everything, and clouds of
+smoke from wood which refuses to do anything but smoke, are the
+luxuries of the halt. The house is full of people, and the women come
+in and out without scruple, and I am really glad to see them, though
+it is difficult to rouse Hadji from his opium pipe and coffee, and his
+comfortable lounge by a good fire, to interpret for them.
+
+The day's experiences remind me of the lines--
+
+     "Bare all he could endure,
+     And bare not always well."
+
+But tired and benumbed as I am I much prefer a march with excitements
+and difficulties to the monotony of splashing through mud in warm
+rain.
+
+_Hamilabad, Feb. 7._--The next morning opened cloudless, with the
+mercury at 18°, which was hardly an excuse for tea and _chapatties_
+being quite cold. I was ready much too early, and the servants having
+given out that I am a _Hak[=i]m_, my room was crowded with women and
+children, all suffering from eye diseases and scrofula, five women not
+nearly in middle life with cataract advanced in both eyes, and many
+with incurved eyelids, the result of wood smoke. It was most painful
+to see their disappointment when I told them that it would need time
+to cure some of them, and that for others I could do nothing. Could I
+not stay? they pleaded. I could have that room and milk and eggs--the
+best they had. "And they lifted up their voices and wept." I felt like
+a brute for leaving them. The people there showed much interest in our
+movements, crowding on the roofs to see our gear, and the start.
+
+The order of march now is--light division, three mules with an
+orderly, Hadji, and the cook upon them, the two last carrying what is
+absolutely necessary for the night in case the heavy division cannot
+get on. M---- and an orderly, the _sowar_, Abbas Khan, another who is
+changed daily, the light division and I, sometimes start together; but
+as the others are detained by work on the road, I usually ride on
+ahead with the two servants.
+
+To write that we all survived the march of that day is strange, when
+the same pitiless blast or "demon wind," blowing from "the roof of the
+world"--the Pamir desert, made corpses of five men who started with a
+caravan ahead of us that morning. We had to climb a long ascending
+plateau for 1500 feet, to surmount a pass. The snow was at times three
+feet deep, and the tracks even of a heavy caravan which crossed before
+us were effaced by the drift in a few minutes.
+
+A sun without heat glared and scintillated like an electric light,
+white and unsympathetic, out of a pitiless sky without a cloud. As
+soon as we emerged from Sannah the "demon wind" seized on us--a
+steady, blighting, searching, merciless blast, no rise or fall, no
+lull, no hope. Steadily and strongly it swept, at a temperature of 9°,
+across the glittering ascent--swept mountain-sides bare; enveloped us
+at times in glittering swirls of powdery snow, which after biting and
+stinging careered over the slopes in twisted columns; screeched down
+gorges and whistled like the demon it was, as it drifted the light
+frozen snow in layers, in ripples, in waves, a cruel, benumbing,
+blinding, withering invisibility!
+
+The six woollen layers of my mask, my three pairs of gloves, my
+sheepskin coat, fur cloak, and mackintosh piled on over a swaddling
+mass of woollen clothing, were as nothing before that awful blast. It
+was not a question of comfort or discomfort, or of suffering more or
+less severe, but of life or death, as the corpses a few miles ahead of
+us show. I am certain that if it had lasted another half-hour I too
+should have perished. The torture of my limbs down to my feet, of my
+temples and cheekbones, the anguish and uselessness of my hands, from
+which the reins had dropped, were of small consequence compared with a
+chill which crept round my heart, threatening a cessation of work.
+
+There were groans behind me; the cook and Hadji had rolled off into
+the snow, where Hadji was calling on Him "who is not far from every
+one of us." M---- was on foot. His mask was frozen hard. He was using
+a scientific instrument, and told his orderly, an Afghan, a smart
+little "_duffadar_" of a crack Indian _corps_, to fasten a strap. The
+man replied sadly, "I can't, Sahib." His arms and hands were useless.
+My mask was frozen to my lips. The tears extorted from my eyes were
+frozen. I was so helpless, and in such torture, that I would gladly
+have lain down to die in the snow. The mercury fell to 4°.
+
+After fighting the elements for three hours and a half, we crossed the
+crest of the pass at an altitude of 7000 feet, to look down upon a
+snow world stretched out everywhere, pure, glistering, awful;
+mountains rolling in snowy ranges, valleys without a trace of man, a
+world of horror, glittering under a mocking sun.
+
+Hadji, with many pious ejaculations, gasped out that he was dying (in
+fact, for some time all speech had been reduced to a gasp); but when
+we got over the crest there was no more wind, and all the benumbed
+limbs resumed sensation, through an experience of anguish.
+
+The road to Kangawar lies through a broad valley, which has many
+streams. Among the mountains which encompass it are the Kuh-i-Hassan,
+Boka, the Kuh-i-Paran, and the Kuh-i-Bozah. I rode on with the two
+servants, indulging in no higher thoughts than of the comfort I should
+have in lying down, when just in front of me Hadji turned a
+somersault, my alpenstock flying in one direction and the medicine
+chest in another, while he lay motionless, flat on his back with all
+his limbs stretched out, just as soldiers who have been shot lie in
+pictures. In getting to him my mule went down in a snow-drift, out of
+which I extricated him with difficulty. I induced Hadji, who said his
+back was broken, and was groaning and calling on Allah, to get up, and
+went on to secure his mule, which had the great pack-saddle under its
+body, and was kicking with all its might at my bed and "hold-all,"
+which were between its hind legs, and succeeded in catching and
+holding it till Hadji came up. I told him to unfasten the surcingle,
+for the animal was wild with the things among its legs, and he wrung
+his hands and beat his breast, exclaiming, "God is great! God knows I
+shall never see Bushire again!" and was quite helpless. Seeing a
+caravan of asses approaching, I rode on as fast as I could to the
+well-situated little town of Kangawar, expecting him to follow
+shortly. At present the entrance into Kangawar is up the bed of a
+stream.
+
+We had been promised good accommodation there, and the town could
+evidently afford it, but Abbas Khan had chosen something very
+wretched, though it was upstairs, and had an extensive snow view.
+Crumbling, difficult stairs at each end of a crumbling mud house led
+to rooms which barely afforded a shelter, with a ruinous barn between,
+where the servants, regardless of consequences, kept up a bonfire. A
+man shovelled most of the snow out of my room, and tried to make a
+fire but failed, as neither he nor I could stand the smoke produced by
+the attempt. This imperfect shelter had a window-frame, with three out
+of its four wooden panes gone, and a cracked door, which could only
+ensure partial privacy by being laid against the posts from the outer
+landing, which was a flat roof. The wall was full of cracks big enough
+for a finger, through which the night wind rioted in a temperature 5°
+below zero.
+
+There was nothing to sit upon, and I walked up and down for two hours,
+half-frozen, watching the straggling line of the caravan as it crawled
+along the valley, till the sunset flush changed into the chill
+blue-gray of twilight. Hadji arrived with it, having broken his girth
+after I left him. There was not much comfort after the severe march,
+owing to the draughts and the smoke, but one is always hungry and
+sleepy, and the hybernation of the insects makes up for any minor
+discomforts. It was so cold that some water in a cup froze before I
+could drink it, and the blanket over my face was hard frozen.
+
+Kangawar was full of mourning. The bodies of two men and a boy, who
+had perished on the plain while we were struggling up the pass, had
+been brought in. This boy of twelve was "the only son of his mother
+and she was a widow." He had started from Kangawar in the morning with
+five asses laden with chopped straw to sell for her, and had miserably
+perished. The two men were married, and had left families.
+
+Kangawar is a town of a thousand people built below a high hill, on
+some natural and artificial mounds. Some traditions regarding
+Semiramis are localised there, and it is supposed to be on the site of
+Pancobar, where she erected a temple to Anaitis or Artemis. Ruins of a
+fortress, now snow-buried, occupy the crest of a hill above the town,
+and there are other ruins, regarded by antiquaries as Grecian,
+representing a temple or palace, "a vast building constructed of
+enormous blocks of dressed stone." Of these remains I saw nothing but
+some columns and a pilaster, which are built into the miserable mud
+walls of a house near the bazar.
+
+At night the muleteers were beseeching on their knees. They said that
+they could not go on, that the caravan which had attempted to leave
+Kangawar in the morning had put back with three corpses, and that they
+and their mules would perish. In the morning it was for some time
+doubtful whether they could be induced or bribed to proceed. The day
+was fine and still, but they said that the snow was not broken. At
+last they agreed to start if we would promise to return at the first
+breath of wind!
+
+Every resource against cold was brought out and put on. One eye was
+all that was visible of the servants' faces. The _charvadars_ relied
+on their felt coats and raw sheepskins, with the fur inside, roped
+round their legs. There is danger of frost-bite even with all
+precautions. In addition to double woollen underclothing I put on a
+pair of thick Chitral socks over two pairs of woollen stockings, and
+over these a pair of long, loose Afghan boots, made of sheepskin with
+the fur inside. Over my riding dress, which is of flannel lined with
+heavy homespun, I had a long homespun jacket, an Afghan sheepskin
+coat, a heavy fur cloak over my knees, and a stout "regulation"
+waterproof to keep out the wind. Add to this a cork helmet, a
+fisherman's hood, a "six-ply" mask, two pairs of woollen gloves with
+mittens and double gauntlets, and the difficulty of mounting and
+dismounting for a person thus _swaddled_ may be imagined! The Persians
+are all in cotton clothes.
+
+However, though they have no "firesides," and no cheerful crackle and
+blaze of wood, they have an arrangement by which they can keep
+themselves warm for hours by the expenditure of a few handfuls of
+animal fuel. The fire hole or _t[=a]nd[=u]r_ in the middle of the
+floor is an institution. It is circular, narrows somewhat at the top
+and bottom, has a flue leading to the bottom from the outside, and is
+about three feet deep and two in diameter. It is smoothly lined with
+clay inside.
+
+Over this is the _karsi_ or platform, a skeleton wooden frame like an
+inverted table, from two to five feet square, covered with blankets or
+a thickly-wadded cotton quilt, which extends four or five feet beyond
+it. Cushions are placed under this, and the women huddle under it all
+day, and the whole family at night, and in this weather all day--the
+firepot in the hole giving them comfortable warmth both for sleeping
+and waking. They very rarely wash, and the _karsi_ is so favourable
+for the development of vermin that I always hurry it out of the room
+when I enter. So excellent and economical is the contrivance, that a
+_t[=a]nd[=u]r_ in which the fire has not been replenished for eighteen
+hours has still a genial heat.
+
+It was a serious start, so terribly slippery in the heaped-up alleys
+and uncovered bazars of Kangawar that several of the mules and men
+fell. Outside the town was a level expanse of deep, wrinkled, drifted,
+wavy, scintillating snow, unbroken except for a rut about a foot wide,
+a deep long "mule ladder," produced by heavily-laden mules and asses
+each stepping in its predecessor's footsteps, forming short, deep
+corrugations, in which it is painful and tedious for horses or
+lightly-laden animals to walk. For nine hours we marched through this
+corrugated rut.
+
+Leaving on the left the summer route to Tihran _viâ_ Hamadan, which is
+said to have been blocked for twenty days, we embarked upon a
+glittering plain covered with pure snow, varying in depth from two
+feet on the level to ten and fifteen in the drifts, crossed by a
+narrow and only slightly beaten track.
+
+Ere long we came on solemn traces of the struggle and defeat of the
+day before: every now and then a load of chopped straw thrown away,
+then the deep snow much trampled, then the snow dug away and piled
+round a small space, in which the _charvadars_ had tried to shelter
+themselves from the wind as the shadows of death fell, then more
+straw, and a grave under a high mound of snow; farther on some men
+busy burying one of the bodies. The air was still, and the sun shone
+as it had shone the day before on baffled struggles, exhaustion, and
+death. The trampling of the snow near the track marked the place where
+the caravan had turned, taking three out of the five bodies back to
+Kangawar. The fury with which the wind had swept over the plain was
+shown by the absolute level to which it had reduced the snow, the deep
+watercourses being filled up with the drifts.
+
+After crossing a brick bridge, and passing the nearly buried village
+of Husseinabad, we rode hour after hour along a rolling track among
+featureless hills, till in the last twilight we reached the village of
+Pharipah, a low-lying place ("low-lying" must never be understood to
+mean anything lower than 5000 feet) among some frozen irrigated lands
+and watered gardens. I arrived nearly dead from cold, fatigue, and the
+severe pains in the joints which are produced by riding nine hours at
+a foot's pace in a temperature of 20°. My mule could only be urged on
+by spurring, and all the men and animals were in a state of great
+fatigue. My room was very cold, as much of one side was open to the
+air, and a fire was an impossibility.
+
+Except for the crossing of a pass with an altitude of 7500 feet, the
+next day's route was monotonous, across plains, among mountains, all
+pure white, the only incidents being that my chair was broken by the
+fall of a mule, and that my mule and I went over our heads in a
+snow-drift. The track was very little broken, and I was four hours in
+doing ten miles.
+
+Hamilabad is a village of about sixty mud hovels, and in common with
+all these mountain hamlets has sloping covered ways leading to pens
+under the house, where cattle, sheep, and goats spend much of the
+winter in darkness and warmth.
+
+I have a house, _i.e._ a mud room, to myself. These two days I have
+had rather a severe chill, after getting in, including a shivering
+lasting about two hours, perhaps owing to the severe fatigue; and I
+was lying down with the blankets over my face and was just getting
+warm when I heard much buzzing about me, and looking up saw the room
+thronged with men, women, and children, just such a crowd as
+constantly besieged our blessed Lord when the toilsome day full of
+"the contradiction of sinners against Himself" was done, most of them
+ill of "divers diseases and torments," smallpox, rheumatism, ulcers on
+the cornea, abortive and shortened limbs, decay of the bones of the
+nose, palate, and cheek, tumours, cancers, skin maladies, ophthalmia,
+opaque films over the eyes, wounds, and many ailments too obscure for
+my elementary knowledge. Nothing is more painful than to be obliged to
+say that one cannot do anything for them.
+
+I had to get up, and for nearly two hours was hearing their tales of
+suffering, interpreted by Hadji with brutal frankness; and they
+crowded my room again this morning. All I could do was to make various
+ointments, taking tallow as the basis, drop lotion into some eyes,
+give a few simple medicines, and send the majority sadly away. The
+_sowar_, Abbas Khan, is responsible for spreading my fame as a
+_Hak[=i]m_. He is being cured of a severe cough, and comes to my room
+for medicine (in which I have no faith) every evening, a lean man with
+a lean face, lighted with a rapacious astuteness, with a _kaftan_
+streaming from his brow, except where it is roped round his shaven
+skull, a zouave jacket, a skirt something like a kilt, but which
+stands out like a ballet dancer's dress, all sorts of wrappings round
+his legs, a coarse striped red shirt, a double cartridge-belt, and a
+perfect armoury in his girdle of pistols and knives. He is a wit and a
+rogue. Dogs, deprived of their usual shelter, shook my loose door at
+intervals all night. This morning is gray, and looks like change.
+
+_Nanej, Feb. 9._--It was thawing, and the march here was very soft
+and splashy. The people are barbarous in their looks, speech, manners,
+and ways of living, and have a total disregard of cleanliness of
+person, clothing, and dwellings. Whether they are actually too poor to
+have anything warmer than cotton clothing, or whether they have buried
+hoards I do not know; but even in this severe weather the women of
+this region have nothing on their feet, and their short blue cotton
+trousers, short, loose, open jackets, short open chemises, and the
+thin blue sheet or _chadar_ over their heads, are a mere apology for
+clothing.
+
+The journey yesterday was through rolling hills, enclosing level
+plains much cultivated, with villages upon them mostly at a
+considerable distance from the road. I passed through two, one larger
+and less decayed than usual, but fearfully filthy, and bisected by a
+foul stream, from which people were drinking and drawing water. Near
+this is a lofty mound, a truncated cone, with some "Cyclopean" masonry
+on its summit, the relics of a fire temple of the Magi. Another poorer
+and yet filthier village was passed through, where a man was being
+buried; and as I left Hamilabad in the morning, a long procession was
+escorting a corpse to its icy grave, laid on its bedding on a bier,
+both these deaths being from smallpox, which, though very prevalent,
+is not usually fatal, and seldom attacks adults. Indeed, it is
+regarded as a childish malady, and is cured by a diet of melons and by
+profuse perspirations.
+
+A higher temperature had turned the path to slush, and made the
+crossing of the last plain very tedious. This is an abominable
+village, and the thaw is revealing a state of matters which the snow
+would have concealed; but it has been a severe week's journey, and I
+am glad of Sunday's rest even here. It is a disheartening place. I
+dismounted in one yard, in slush up to my knees, and from this
+splashed into another, round which are stables, cowsheds, and rooms
+which were vacated by the _ketchuda_ and his family, but only
+partially, as the women not only left all their "things" in my room,
+but had a _godown_ or storehouse through it, to which they resorted
+continually. I felt ill yesterday, and put on a blister, which
+rendered complete rest desirable; but it is not to be got. The room
+filled with women as soon as I settled myself in it.
+
+They told me at once that I could not have a fire unless I had it
+under the _karsi_, that the smoke would be unbearable. When I asked
+them to leave me to rest, they said, "There's no shame in having women
+in the house." M---- came an hour later and cleared the room, but as
+soon as he went away it filled again, and with men as well as women,
+and others unscrupulously tore out the paper panes from the windows.
+This afternoon I stayed in bed feeling rather ill, and about three
+o'clock a number of women in blue sheets, with a very definite leader,
+came in, arranged the _karsi_, filling the room with smoke, as a
+preliminary, gathered themselves under the quilt, and sat there
+talking loudly to each other. I felt myself the object of a focused
+stare, and covered my head with a blanket in despair. Then more women
+came in with tea-trays, and they all took tea and sat for another hour
+or two talking and tittering, Hadji assuring me that they were doing
+it out of kindness, because I was not well, and they thought it dull
+for me alone! The room was again cleared, and I got up at dark, and
+hearing a great deal of whispering and giggling, saw that they had
+opened the door windows, and that a crowd was outside. When I woke
+this morning a man was examining my clothes, which were hanging up.
+They feel and pull my hair, finger all my things, and have broken all
+the fine teeth out of my comb. They have the curiosity without the
+gracefulness of the Japanese.
+
+This is a house of the better sort, though the walls are not
+plastered. A carpet loom is fixed into the floor with a half-woven
+carpet upon it. Some handsome rugs are laid down. There are two
+much-decorated marriage chests, some guns and swords, a quantity of
+glass teacups and ornaments in the recesses, and coloured woodcuts of
+the Russian Imperial family, here, as in almost every house, are on
+the walls.
+
+There is great rejoicing to-night "for joy that a man is born into the
+world," the first-born of the _ketchuda's_ eldest son. In their
+extreme felicity they took me to see the mother and babe. The room was
+very hot, and crowded with relations and friends. The young mother was
+sitting up on her bed on the floor and the infant lay beside her
+dressed in swaddling clothes. She looked very happy and the young
+father very proud. I added a small offering to the many which were
+brought in for luck, and it was not rejected.
+
+A sword was brought from my room, and with it the _mamaché_ traced a
+line upon the four walls, repeating a formula which I understood to
+be, "I am making this tower for Miriam and her child."[20] I was
+warned by Hadji not to look on the child or to admire him without
+saying "Mashallah," lest I should bring on him the woe of the evil
+eye. So greatly is it feared, that precautions are invariably taken
+against it from the hour of birth, by bestowing amulets and charms
+upon the child. A paragraph of the Koran, placed in a silk bag, had
+already been tied round the infant's neck. Later, he will wear another
+bag round his arm, and turquoise or blue beads will be sewn upon his
+cap.
+
+If a visitor admires a child without uttering the word _Mashallah_,
+and the child afterwards falls sick, the visitor at once is regarded
+as answerable for the calamity, and the relations take a shred of his
+garment, and burn it in a brazier with cress seed, walking round and
+round the child as it burns.
+
+Persian mothers are regarded as convalescent on the third day, when
+they go to the _hammam_ to perform the ceremonies required by Moslem
+law. A boy is weaned at the end of twenty-six months and a girl at the
+end of twenty-four. If possible, on the weaning day the child is
+carried to the mosque, and certain devotions are performed. The
+weaning feast is an important function, and the relations and friends
+assemble, bringing presents, and the child in spite of his reluctance
+is forced to partake of the food.
+
+At the earliest possible period the _mamaché_ pronounces in the
+infant's ear the Shiah profession of faith: "God is God, there is but
+one God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God, and Ali is the Lieutenant
+of God." A child becomes a Moslem as soon as this _Kelemah Islam_ has
+been spoken into his ear; but a ceremony attends the bestowal of his
+name, which resembles that in use among the Buddhists of Tibet on
+similar occasions.
+
+Unless the father be very poor indeed, he makes a feast for his
+friends on an auspicious day, and invites the village _mollahs_.
+Sweetmeats are solemnly eaten after the guests have assembled. Then
+the infant, stiffened and mummied in its swaddling clothes, is brought
+in, and is laid on the floor by one of the _mollahs_. Five names are
+written on five slips of paper, which are placed between the leaves of
+the Koran, or under the edge of the carpet. The first chapter of the
+Koran is then read. One of the slips is then drawn at random, and a
+_mollah_ takes up the child, and pronounces in its ear the name found
+upon it, after which he places the paper on its clothes.
+
+The relations and friends give it presents according to their means,
+answering to our christening gifts, and thereafter it is called by the
+name it has received. Among men's names there is a preponderance of
+those taken from the Old Testament, among which Ibrahim, Ismail,
+Suleiman, Yusuf, and Moussa are prominent. Abdullah, Mahmoud, Hassan,
+Raouf, Baba Houssein, Imam are also common, and many names have the
+suffix of Ali among the Shiahs. Fatmeh is a woman's name, but
+girl-children usually receive the name of some flower or bird, or
+fascinating quality of disposition or person.
+
+The journey is beginning to tell on men and animals. One of the Arab
+horses has had a violent attack of pain from the cold, and several of
+the men are ailing and depressed.
+
+_Dizabad, Feb. 11._--Nanej is the last village laid down on any map on
+the route we are taking for over a hundred miles, _i.e._ until we
+reach Kûm, though it is a caravan route, and it does not appear that
+any Europeans have published any account of it. Just now it is a
+buried country, for the snow is lying from one to four feet deep. It
+is not even possible to pronounce any verdict on the roads, for they
+are simply deep ruts in the snow, with "mule ladders." The people say
+that the plains are irrigated and productive, and that the hills
+pasture their sheep and cattle; and they all complain of the exactions
+of local officials. There is no variety in costume, and very little in
+dwellings, except as to size, for they are all built of mud or
+sun-dried bricks, within cattle yards, and have subterranean pens for
+cattle and goats. The people abound in diseases, specially of the eyes
+and bones.
+
+The salient features of the hills, if they have any, are rounded off
+by snow, and though many of them rise to a great height, none are
+really impressive but Mount Elwand, close to Hamadan. The route is
+altogether hilly, but the track pursues valleys and low passes as much
+as possible, and is never really steep.
+
+Yesterday we marched twenty-four miles in eight hours without any
+incident, and the "heavy division" took thirteen hours, and did not
+come in till ten at night! There are round hills, agglomerated into
+ranges, with easy passes, the highest 7026 feet in altitude, higher
+summits here and there in view, the hills encircling level plains,
+sprinkled sparsely with villages at a distance from the road, denoted
+by scrubby poplars and willows; sometimes there is a _kanaat_ or
+underground irrigation channel with a line of pits or shafts, but
+whatever there was, or was not, it was always lonely, grim, and
+desolate. The strong winds have blown some of the hillsides bare, and
+they appear in all their deformity of shapeless mounds of black
+gravel, or black mud, with relics of last year's thistles and
+euphorbias upon them. So great is the destitution of fuel that even
+now people are out cutting the stalks of thistles which appear above
+the snow.
+
+As the hours went by, I did rather wish for the smashed _kajawehs_,
+especially when we met the ladies of a governor's _haram_, to the
+number of thirty, reclining snugly in pairs, among blankets and
+cushions, in panniers with tilts, and curtains of a thick material,
+dyed Turkey red. The cold became very severe towards evening.
+
+The geographical interest of the day was that we crossed the watershed
+of the region, and have left behind the streams which eventually reach
+the sea, all future rivers, however great their volume, or impetuous
+their flow, disappearing at last in what the Americans call "sinks,"
+but which are known in Persia as _kavirs_, usually salt swamps. Near
+sunset we crossed a bridge of seven pointed arches with abutments
+against a rapid stream, and passing a great gaunt caravanserai on an
+eminence, and a valley to the east of the bridge with a few villages
+giving an impression of fertility, hemmed in by some shapely
+mountains, we embarked on a level plain, bounded on all sides by
+hills so snowy that not a brown patch or outbreak of rock spotted
+their whiteness, and with villages and caravanserais scattered thinly
+over it. On the left, there are the extensive ruins of old Dizabad,
+and a great tract of forlorn graves clustering round a crumbling
+_imamzada_.
+
+As the sun sank the distant hills became rose-flushed, and then one by
+one the flush died off into the paleness of death, and in the
+gathering blue-grayness, in desolation without sublimity, in
+ghastliness, impressive but only by force of ghastliness, and in
+benumbing cold, we rode into this village, and into a yard encumbered
+with mighty piles of snow, on one side of which I have a wretched
+room, though the best, with two doors, which do not shut, but when
+they are closed make it quite dark--a deep, damp, cobwebby, dusty,
+musty lair like a miserable eastern cowshed.
+
+I was really half-frozen and quite benumbed, and though I had plenty
+of blankets and furs, had a long and severe chill, and another to-day.
+M---- also has had bad chills, and the Afghan orderly is ill, and
+moaning with pain in the next room. Hadji has fallen into a state of
+chronic invalidism, and is shaking with chills, his teeth chattering,
+and he is calling on Allah whenever I am within hearing.
+
+The chilly dampness and the rise in temperature again may have
+something to do with the ailments, but I think that we Europeans are
+suffering from the want of nourishing food. Meat has not been
+attainable for some days, the fowls are dry and skinny, and milk is
+very scarce and poor. I cannot eat the sour wafers which pass for
+bread, and as Hadji cannot boil rice or make flour porridge, I often
+start in the morning having only had a cup of tea. I lunch in the
+saddle on dates, the milk in the holsters having been frozen lately;
+then is the time for finding the value of a double peppermint
+lozenge!
+
+Snow fell heavily last night, and as the track has not been broken,
+and the _charvadars_ dared not face it, we are detained in this
+miserable place, four other caravans sharing our fate. The pros and
+cons about starting were many, and Abbas Khan was sent on horseback to
+reconnoitre, but he came back like Noah's dove, reporting that it was
+a trackless waste of snow outside. It is a day of rest, but as the
+door has to be open on the snow to let in light, my hands are benumbed
+with the damp cold. Still, a bowl of Edwards' desiccated soup--the
+best of all travelling soups--has been very reviving, and though I
+have had a severe chill again, I do not mean to succumb. I do not
+dwell on the hardships, but they are awful. The soldiers and servants
+all have bad coughs, and dwindle daily. The little orderly is so ill
+to-day that we could not have gone on even had the track been broken.
+
+_Saruk, Feb. 12._--Unladen asses, followed by unladen mules, were
+driven along to break the track this morning, and as two caravans
+started before us, it was tolerable, though very deep. The solitude
+and desolation were awful. At first the snow was somewhat thawed, but
+soon it became immensely deep, and we had to plunge through hollows
+from which the beasts extricated themselves with great difficulty and
+occasionally had to be unloaded and reloaded.
+
+As I mentioned in writing of an earlier march, it is difficult and
+even dangerous to pass caravans when the only road is a deep rut a
+foot wide, and we had most tedious experience of it to-day, when some
+of our men, weakened by illness, were not so patient as usual. Abbas
+Khan and the orderly could hardly sit on their horses, and Hadji
+rolled off his mule at intervals. As the _charvadars_ who give way
+have their beasts floundering in the deep snow and losing their loads,
+both attempt to keep the road, the result of which is a violent
+collision. The two animals which "collide" usually go down, and some
+of the others come on the top of them, and to-day at one time there
+were eight, struggling heels uppermost in the deep snow, all to be
+reloaded.
+
+This led to a serious _mêlée_. The rival _charvadar_, aggravated by
+Hadji, struck him on the head, and down he went into the snow, with
+his mule apparently on the top of him, and his load at some distance.
+The same _charvadar_ seized the halters of several of our mules, and
+drove them into the snow, where they all came to grief. Our
+_charvadar_, whose blue eyes, auburn hair and beard, and exceeding
+beauty, always bring to mind a sacred picture, became furious at this,
+and there was a fierce fight among the men (M---- being ahead) and
+much bad language, such epithets as "son of a dog" and "sons of burnt
+fathers" being freely bandied about. The fray at last died out,
+leaving as its result only the loss of an hour, some broken
+surcingles, and some bleeding faces. Even Hadji rose from his "gory
+bed" not much worse, though he had been hit hard.
+
+There was no more quarrelling though we passed several caravans, but
+even when the men were reasonable and good nature prevailed some of
+the mules on both sides fell in the snow and had to be reloaded. When
+the matter is not settled as this was by violence, a good deal of
+shouting and roaring culminates in an understanding that one caravan
+shall draw off into a place where the snow is shallowest, and stand
+still till the other has gone past; but to-day scarcely a shallow
+place could be found. I always give place to asses, rather to avoid a
+painful spectacle than from humanity. One step off the track and down
+they go, and they never get up without being unloaded.
+
+When we left Dizabad the mist was thick, and as it cleared it froze
+in crystallised buttons, which covered the surface of the snow, but
+lifting only partially it revealed snowy summits, sun-lit above heavy
+white clouds; then when we reached a broad plateau, the highest plain
+of the journey, 7800 feet in altitude, gray mists drifted very near
+us, and opening in rifts divulged blackness, darkness, and tempest,
+and ragged peaks exposed to the fury of a snowstorm. Snow fell in
+showers on the plain, and it was an anxious time, for had the storm
+which seemed impending burst on that wild, awful, shelterless expanse,
+with tired animals, and every landmark obliterated, some of us must
+have perished. I have done a great deal of snow travelling, and know
+how soon every trace of even the widest and deepest path is effaced by
+drift, much more the narrow rut by which we were crossing this most
+exposed plateau. There was not a village in sight the whole march, no
+birds, no animals. There was not a sound but the venomous hiss of
+snow-laden squalls. It was "the dead of winter."
+
+My admirable mule was ill of cold from having my small saddle on him
+instead of his great stuffed pack-saddle, the _charvadar_ said, and he
+gave me instead a horse that I could not ride. Such a gait I never
+felt; less than half a mile was unbearable. I felt as if my eyes would
+be shaken out of their sockets! The bit was changed, but in vain. I
+was obliged to get off, and M---- kindly put my saddle on a powerful
+Kirmanshah Arab. I soon found that my intense fatigue on this journey
+had been caused by riding mules, which have no elasticity of movement.
+I rode twenty miles to-day with ease, and could have ridden twenty
+more, and had several canters on the few places where the snow was
+well trodden.
+
+I was off the track trying to get past a caravan and overtake the
+others, when down came the horse and I in a drift fully ten feet deep.
+Somehow I was not quite detached from the saddle, and in the scrimmage
+got into it again, and a few desperate plunges brought us out, with
+the horse's breastplate broken.
+
+When we reached the great plateau above this village, a great blank
+sheet of snow, surrounded by mountains, now buried in white mists, now
+revealed, with snow flurries drifting wildly round their ghastly
+heads, I found that the Arab, the same horse which was so ill at
+Nanej, was "dead beat," and as it only looked a mile to the village I
+got off, and walked in the deep snow along the rungs of the "mule
+ladders," which are so fatiguing for horses. But the distance was
+fully three miles, with a stream to wade through, half a mile of deep
+wet soil to plunge through, and the thawed mud of a large village to
+splash through; and as I dared not mount again for fear of catching
+cold, I trailed forlornly into Saruk, following the men who were
+riding.
+
+Can it be said that they rode? They sat feebly on animals, swaddled in
+felts and furs, the _pagri_ concealing each face with the exception of
+one eye in a blue goggle; rolling from side to side, clutching at
+ropes and halters, moaning "_Ya Allah!_"--a deplorable cavalcade.
+
+Saruk has some poplars, and is surrounded by a ruinous mud wall. It is
+a village of 150 houses, and is famous for very fine velvety carpets,
+of small patterns, in vivid vegetable dyes. At an altitude of 7500
+feet, it has a severe climate, and only grows wheat and barley, sown
+in April and reaped in September. All this mountainous region that we
+are toiling through is blank on the maps, and may be a dead level so
+far as anything there is represented, though even its passes are in
+several cases over 7000 feet high.
+
+_Saruk, Feb. 13._--The circumstances generally are unfavourable, and
+we are again detained. The Afghan orderly, who is also interpreter, is
+very ill, and though he is very plucky it is impossible for him to
+move; the cook seems "all to pieces," and is overcome by cough and
+lassitude; Abbas Khan is ill, and his face has lost its comicality;
+and in the same room Hadji lies, groaning and moaning that he will not
+live through the night. Even M----'s herculean strength is not what it
+was. I have chills, but in spite of them and the fatigue am really
+much better than when I left Baghdad, so that though I exercise the
+privilege of grumbling at the hardships, I ought not to complain of
+them, though they are enough to break down the strongest men. I really
+like the journey, except when I am completely knocked up, or the smoke
+is exceptionally blinding.
+
+The snow in this yard is lying in masses twelve feet high, rising out
+of slush I do not know how many feet deep. It looks as if we had seen
+the last of the winter. The mercury is at 32° now. It is very damp and
+cold sitting in a room with one side open to the snow, and the mud
+floor all slush from the drip from the roof. The fuel is wet, and
+though a man has attempted four times to light a fire, he has only
+succeeded in making an overpowering smoke, which prefers hanging
+heavily over the floor and me to making its exit through the hole in
+the roof provided for it. The door must be kept open to let in light,
+and it also lets in fowls and many cats. My _dhurrie_ has been
+trampled into the slush, and a deadly cold strikes up through it. Last
+night a man (for Hadji was _hors de combat_) brought in some live
+embers, and heaped some gum tragacanth thorns and animal fuel upon
+them; there was no chimney, and the hole in the roof was stopped by a
+clod. The result was unbearable. I covered my head with blankets, but
+it was still blinding and stifling, and I had to extinguish the fire
+with water and bear the cold, which then was about 20°. Later, there
+was a tempest of snow and rain, with a sudden thaw, and water dripped
+with an irksome sound on my well-protected bed, no light would burn,
+and I had the mortification of knowing that the same drip was spoiling
+writing paper and stores which had been left open to dry! But a
+traveller rarely lies awake, and to-day by keeping my feet on a box,
+and living in a mackintosh, I am out of both drip and mud. Such a room
+as I am now in is the ordinary room of a Persian homestead. It is a
+cell of mud, not brick, either sun or kiln dried. Its sides are
+cracked and let in air. Its roof is mud, under which is some brushwood
+lying over the rafters. It has no light holes, but as the door has
+shrunk considerably from the door posts, it is not absolutely dark. It
+may be about twelve feet square. Every part of it is blackened by
+years of smoke. The best of it is that it is raised two feet from the
+ground to admit of a fowl-house below, and opens on a rough platform
+which runs in front of all the dwelling-rooms. With the misfitting
+door and cracked sides it is much like a sieve.
+
+I have waited to describe a Persian peasant's house till I had seen
+more of them. The yard is an almost unvarying feature, whether a small
+enclosure with a low wall and a gateway closed at night by a screen of
+reeds, or a great farmyard like this, with an arched entrance and
+dwelling-rooms for two or three generations along one or more of the
+sides.
+
+The house walls are built of mud, not sun-dried brick, and are only
+one story high. The soil near villages is mostly mud, and by leading
+water to a given spot, a pit of mortar for building material is at
+once made. This being dug up, and worked to a proper consistency by
+the feet of men, is then made into a wall, piece after piece being
+laid on by hand, till it reaches a height of four feet and a thickness
+of three--the imperative tradition of the Persian builder. This is
+allowed a few days for hardening, when another layer of similar height
+but somewhat narrower is laid upon it, _takchahs_ or recesses a foot
+deep or more being worked into the thickness of the wall, and the
+process is repeated till the desired height is attained. When the wall
+is thoroughly dry it is plastered inside and outside with a mixture of
+mud and chopped straw, and if this plastering is repeated at
+intervals, the style of construction is very durable.
+
+The oven or _t[=a]nd[=u]r_ is placed in the floor of one room, at
+least, and answers for cooking and heating. A peasant's house has no
+windows, and the roof does not project beyond the wall.
+
+All roofs are flat. Rude rafters of poplar are laid across the walls
+about two feet apart. In a _ketchuda's_ or a wealthier peasant's
+house, above these are laid in rows peeled poplar rods, two inches
+apart, then a rush mat, and then the resinous thorns of the tragacanth
+bush, which are not liable to decay; but in the poorer houses the
+owner contents himself with a coarse reed mat or a layer of brushwood
+above the rafters. On this is spread a well-trodden-down layer of mud,
+then eight or ten inches of dry earth, and the whole is thickly
+plastered with mixed straw and mud. A slight slope at the back with a
+long wooden spout carries off the water. Such a roof is impervious to
+rain except in very severe storms if kept in order, that is, if it be
+plastered once a year, and well rolled after rain. Few people are so
+poor as not to have a neatly-made stone roller on their roofs. If this
+is lacking, the roof must be well tramped after rain by bare feet, and
+in all cases the snow must be shovelled off.
+
+These roofs, among the peasantry, have no parapets. They are the
+paradise of dogs, and in hot weather the people take up their beds
+and sleep there, partly for coolness and partly because the night
+breeze gives freedom from mosquitos. In simple country life, though
+the premises of the peasants for the sake of security are contiguous,
+there are seldom even balustrades to the roofs, though in summer most
+domestic operations are carried on there. Fifty years ago Persian law
+sanctioned the stoning without trial or mercy of any one caught in the
+act of gazing into the premises of another, unless the gazer were the
+king.
+
+Upon the courtyard stables, barns, and store-rooms open, but so far I
+notice that the granary is in the house, and that the six-feet-high
+clay receptacles for grain are in the living-room.
+
+Looking from above upon a plain, the poplars which surround villages
+where there is a sufficiency of water attract the eye. At this season
+they are nothing but a brown patch on the snow. The villages
+themselves are of light brown mud, and are surrounded usually by
+square walls with towers at the corners, and all have a great gate.
+Within the houses or hovels the families are huddled irregularly, with
+all their appurtenances, and in winter the flocks and herds are in
+subterranean pens beneath. In summer the animals go forth at sunrise
+and return at sunset. The walls, which give most of the villages a
+fortified aspect, used to afford the villagers a degree of protection
+against the predatory Turkomans, and now give security to the flocks
+against Lur and other robbers.
+
+Every village has its _ketchuda_ or headman, who is answerable for the
+taxes, the safety of travellers, and other matters.
+
+_Siashan, Feb. 16._--The men being a little better, we left Saruk at
+nine on the 14th, I on a bright little Baghdadi horse, in such good
+case that he frequently threw up his heels in happy playfulness. The
+temperature had fallen considerably, there had been a fresh snowfall,
+and the day was very bright. The Arab horses are suffering badly in
+their eyes from the glare of the snow.
+
+If I had not had such a lively little horse I should have found the
+march a tedious one, for we were six hours in doing eleven and a half
+miles on a level! The head _charvadar_ had gone on early to make some
+arrangements, and the others loaded the animals so badly that Hadji
+and the cook rolled off their mules into the deep semi-frozen slush
+from the packs turning just outside the gates. We had three mules with
+us with worn-out tackle, and the loads rolled over many times, the
+riders, who were too weak to help themselves, getting bad falls. As
+each load, owing to the broken tackle, took fifteen minutes to put on
+again, and the men could do little, a great deal of hard, exasperating
+work fell on M----. After one bad fall in a snowdrift myself, I rode
+on alone with one mule with a valuable burden. This, turning for the
+fourth time, was soon under his body, and he began to kick violently,
+quite dismaying me by the bang of his hoofs against cases containing
+scientific instruments. It was a droll comedy in the snow. I wanted to
+get hold of his halter, but every time I went near him he whisked
+round and flung up his heels, till I managed to cut the ragged
+surcingle and set him free, when I caught him in deep snow, in which
+my horse was very unwilling to risk himself.
+
+Soon after leaving Saruk, which, as I mentioned before, is famous for
+very fine carpets, we descended gently upon the great plain of
+Feraghan, perhaps the largest carpet-producing district of Persia.
+These carpets are very fine and their patterns are unique, bringing a
+very high price. This plain has an altitude of about 7000 feet, is 45
+miles in length by from 8 to 15 in breadth, is officially stated to
+have 650 villages upon it, all agricultural and carpet producing, and
+is considerably irrigated by streams, which eventually lose themselves
+in a salt lake at its eastern extremity. It is surrounded by hills,
+with mountain ranges behind them, and must be, both as to
+productiveness and population, one of the most flourishing districts
+in Persia.
+
+We were to have marched to Kashgird, but on reaching the hamlet of
+Ahang Garang I found that Abbas Khan had taken quarters there, saying
+that Kashgird was in ruins.
+
+Hadji, who had allowed himself to roll off several times, was moaning
+and weeping on the floor of my room, groaning out, with many cries of
+_Ya Allah_, "Let me stay here till I'm better; I don't want any wages;
+I shall be killed, oh, killed! Oh, my family! I shall never see
+Bushire any more!" Though there was much reason to think he was
+shamming, I did the little that he calls his "work," and left him to
+smoke his opium pipe and sleep by the fire in peace.
+
+I was threatened with snow-blindness in one eye; in fact I saw nothing
+with it, and had to keep it covered up. One of the _charvadars_ lay
+moaning outside my room, poor fellow, taking chlorodyne every
+half-hour, and another had got a bad foot from frost-bite. They have
+been terribly exposed, and the soft snow at a higher temperature has
+been worse for them than the dry powdery snow at a low temperature, as
+it soaks their socks, shoes, and leggings, and then freezes. Making
+Liebig's beef tea warms one, and they like it even from a Christian
+hand. The Afghan orderly bore up bravely, but was very weak. Indeed
+the prospect of getting these men to Tihran is darkening daily.
+
+My room, though open to the snow at one end, was comfortable. The oven
+had been lighted twelve hours before, and it was delightful to hang
+one's feet into the warm hole. There were holes for light in the roof,
+and cold though it was, so long as daylight lasted these were never
+free from veiled faces looking down.
+
+In order to become thoroughly warm it was necessary to walk long and
+briskly on the roof, and this brought all the villagers below it to
+stare the stare of vacuity rather than of curiosity. A snow scene is
+always beautiful at sunset, and this was exceptionally so, as the long
+indigo shadows on the plain threw into greater definiteness the
+gleaming, glittering hills, at one time dazzling in the sunshine, at
+another flushed in the sunset. The plain of Feraghan as seen from the
+roof was one smooth expanse of pure deep snow, broken only by brown
+splashes, where mud villages were emphasised by brown poplars, the
+unbroken, unsullied snow, two feet deep on the level and any number in
+the drifts, looking like a picture of the Arctic Ocean, magnificent in
+its solitude, one difficult track, a foot wide, the solitary link with
+the larger world which then seemed so very far away.
+
+Things went better yesterday on the whole, though the mercury fell to
+zero in the night, and I was awakened several times by the cold of my
+open room, and when a number of people came at daylight for medicines
+my fingers were so benumbed that I could scarcely measure them. What a
+splendid field for a medical missionary loving his profession this
+plain with its 650 villages would be, where there are curable diseases
+by the hundred! Many of the suffering people have told me that they
+would give lodging and the best of their food to any English doctor
+who would travel among them.
+
+The loads were well balanced yesterday, and Hadji only pulled his over
+once and only rolled off once, when Abbas Khan exclaimed, "He's not a
+man; why did Allah make such a creature?" We got off at nine, the
+roofs being crowded to see us start. Fuel is very scarce at Ahang
+Garang. For the cooking and "parlour" fire, the charge was forty-five
+_krans_, or about twenty-eight shillings! Probably this included a
+large _modakel_. For a room from two to four _krans_ is expected.
+
+Through M----'s kindness I now have a good horse to ride, and the
+difference in fatigue is incredible. We embarked again on the vast
+plain of snow. It was a grim day, and most ghastly and desolate this
+end of the plain looked, where the waters having done their
+fertilising work are lost in a salt lake, the absolutely white hills
+round the plain being emphasised by the blue neutral tint of the sky.
+For the first ten miles there was little more than a breeze, for the
+last ten a pitiless, ruthless, riotous north-easterly gale, blowing up
+the snow in hissing drifts, as it swept across the plain with a
+desolate screech.
+
+The coverings with which we were swaddled were soon penetrated. The
+cold seemed to enter the bones, and to strike the head and face like a
+red-hot hammer, stunning as it struck, the tears wrung from the eyes
+were frozen, at times even the eyelids were frozen together. The
+frozen snow hit one hard. Hands and feet were by turns benumbed and in
+anguish, terrific blasts loaded with hard lumps of snow came down from
+the hills, snow was drifting from all the white ranges above us; on
+the more exposed part of the track the gusts burst with such violence
+as to force some of the mules off it to flounder in the deep snow; my
+Arab was struck so mercilessly on his sore swollen eyes that at times
+I could scarcely, with my own useless hands, induce him to face the
+swirls of frozen snow. Swifter and more resistless were the ice-laden
+squalls, more and more obliterated became the track, till after a
+fight of over three hours, and the ceaseless crossing of rolling
+hills and deep hollows, we reached the top of a wind-bared slope 7700
+feet in altitude and saw this village, looking from that distance
+quite imposing, on a hill on the other side of a stream crossed by a
+brick bridge, with a ruined fort on a height above it. It promised
+shelter--that was all. Below the village there was an expanse of snow,
+sloping up to pure white hills outlined against an indigo depth of
+ominous-looking clouds.
+
+While M---- went up a hill for some scientific work, I followed the
+orderly, who could scarcely sit on his horse from pain and weakness,
+into the most wretchedly ruinous, deserted-looking village I have yet
+seen, epitomising the disenchantment which a near view of an Eastern
+city brings, and up a steep alley to a ruinous yard heaped with
+snow-covered ruins, on one side of which were some ruinous rooms,
+their backs opening on a precipice above the river, and on the
+north-east wind. I tumbled off my horse, Abbas Khan, the least sick of
+the men, with benumbed hands breaking my fall. The severe cold had
+stiffened all my joints. We could scarcely speak; the bones of my face
+were in intense pain, and I felt as if the cold were congealing my
+heart.
+
+With Abbas Khan's help I chose the rooms, the worst we have ever had.
+The one I took for myself has an open-work door facing the wind, and
+it is impossible to have a fire, for the draught blows sticks, ashes,
+and embers over the room. The others are worse. It is an awful night,
+blowing and snowing; all the men but two are _hors de combat_. The
+poor orderly, using an Afghan phrase, said, "The wind has played the
+demon with me." He has a fearful cough, and hæmorrhage from the lungs
+or throat. The cook is threatened with pleurisy. It may truly be
+called "Hospital Sunday." The day has been chiefly spent in making
+mustard poultices, which M---- is constantly crossing the yard in
+three feet of snow to put on, and protectors for the chests and backs,
+preparing beef tea, making up medicines, etc.
+
+Surely things must have reached their worst. Out of seven men only one
+servant, and he an Indian lad with a fearful squint and eyes so badly
+inflamed that he can hardly see where he puts things down, is able to
+do anything. Two of the _charvadars_ are lying ill in the stable.
+Mustard plasters, Dover's powders, salicylate of soda, emetics,
+poultices, clinical thermometers, chlorodyne, and beef tea have been
+in requisition all day. The cook, the Afghan orderly, and Hadji seem
+really ill. At eight this morning groans at my door took me out, and
+one of the muleteers was lying there in severe pain, with the hard
+fine snow beating on him. Later I heard fresh moaning on my threshold,
+and found Hadji fallen there with my breakfast. I got him in and he
+fell again, upsetting the tea, and while I attended to him the big
+dogs ate up the _chapatties_! He had a good deal of fever, and severe
+rheumatism, and on looking at his eyes I saw that he was nearly blind.
+He lost his blue glasses some days ago. I sent him to bed in the
+"kitchen" for the whole day, where he lay groaning in comfort by the
+fire with his opium pipe and his tea. He thinks he will not survive
+the night, and has just given me his dying directions!
+
+Afterwards M---- came for the thermometer and chlorodyne, and remarked
+that my room was "unfit for a beast." The truth is I share it with
+several very big dogs. It did look grotesquely miserable last
+night--black, fireless, wet, dirty, with all my things lying on the
+dirty floor, having been tumbled about by these dogs in their search
+for my last box of Brand's meat lozenges, which they got out of a
+strong, tightly-tied-up bag, which they tore into strips. On going for
+my fur cloak to-day, these three dogs, who, I believe, would take on
+civilisation more quickly than their masters, were all found rolled up
+under it, and lying on my bed.
+
+The mercury in the "parlour" with a large fire cannot be raised above
+36°. In my room to-night the wet floor is frozen hard and the mercury
+is 20°. This is nothing after 12° and 16° below zero, but the furious
+east wind and a singular dampness in the air make it very severe.
+Yesterday, before the sky clouded over, there was a most remarkable
+ring or halo of prismatic colours round the sun, ominous of the storm
+which has followed.
+
+This place standing high without shelter is fearfully exposed; there
+is no milk and no comfort of any kind for the sick men. We have
+decided to wrap them up and move them to Kûm, where there is a Persian
+doctor with a European education; but it is a great risk, though the
+lesser of two. I have just finished four protectors for the back and
+chest, three-quarters of a yard long by sixteen inches wide, buttoning
+on the shoulders, of a very soft felt _namad_ nearly half an inch
+thick--a precaution much to be commended.
+
+I think that Hadji, though in great pain, poor fellow, is partly
+shamming. He professed this evening to have violent fever, and the
+thermometer shows that he has none. Even the few things which I
+thought he had done for me, such as making _chapatties_, I find have
+been done by others. It is a pity for himself as well as for me that
+he should be so incorrigibly lazy.
+
+_Taj Khatan, Feb. 18._--Yesterday we had a severe march, and owing
+first to the depth of the snow, and then to the depth of the mud, we
+were seven hours in doing twenty-one miles. The wind was still
+intensely cold--bitter indeed. There are few remarks to be made about
+a country buried in snow. The early miles were across the fag end of
+the dazzling plain of Feraghan, which instead of being covered with
+villages is an uninhabited desert with a salt lake. Then the road
+winds among mountains of an altitude of 8000 and 9000 feet and more,
+its highest point being 8350 feet, where we began a descent which will
+land us at Tihran at a level under 4000 feet. Snowy mountains and
+snowy plains were behind--bare brown earth was to come all too soon.
+
+Winding wearily round low hills, meeting caravans of camels to which
+we had to give way, and of asses floundering in the snow, we came in
+the evening to a broad slope with villages, poplars, walnuts, and
+irrigated lands, then to the large and picturesquely situated village
+of Givr on a steep bank above a rapid stream, and just at dusk to the
+important village of Jairud, also on high ground above the same river,
+and surrounded by gardens and an extraordinary number of fruit trees.
+The altitude is 6900 feet.[21] I had a _balakhana_, very cold, and was
+fairly benumbed for some time after the long cold march.
+
+A great many people applied for medicine, and some of the maladies,
+specially when they affect children, make one sick at heart. Hadji is
+affecting to be stone deaf, so he no longer interprets for sick
+people, which creates an additional difficulty. We left this morning
+at ten, descended 2000 feet, and suddenly left the snow behind. Vast,
+gray, and grim the snow-covered mountains looked as they receded into
+indigo gloom, with snow clouds drifting round their ghastly heads and
+across the dazzling snow plains in which we had been floundering for
+thirty days. It is strange to see mother earth once more--rocky, or
+rather stony hills, mud hills, mud plains, mud slopes, a brown world,
+with a snow world above. Two pink hills rise above the brown plain,
+and some toothed peaks, but the rest of the view is simply hills and
+slopes of mud and gravel, bearing thorns, and the relics of last
+year's thistles and wormwood. The atmospheric colouring is, however,
+very fine.
+
+  [Illustration: PERSIAN BREAD-MAKING.]
+
+This is a large village with beehive roofs in, and of, mud. A quagmire
+surrounds it and is in the centre of it, and the crumbling houses are
+thrown promiscuously down upon it. It is nearly the roughest place I
+have seen, and the worst accommodation, though Abbas Khan says it is
+the best house in the village. My room has an oven in the floor,
+neatly lined with clay, and as I write the women are making bread by a
+very simple process. The oven is well heated by the live embers of
+animal fuel. They work the flour and water dough, to which a piece of
+leaven from the last baking has been added, into a flat round cake,
+about eighteen inches in diameter and half an inch thick, place it
+quickly on a very dirty cushion, and clap it against the concave
+interior of the oven, withdrawing the cushion. In one minute it is
+baked and removed.
+
+A sloping hole in the floor leads to the fowl-house. The skin of a
+newly-killed sheep hangs up. A pack saddle and gear take up one
+corner, my bed another, and the owner's miscellaneous property fills
+up the rest of the blackened, cracked mud hovel, thick with the sooty
+cobwebs and dust of generations. The door, which can only be shut by
+means of a wooden bolt outside, is six inches from the ground, so that
+fowls and cats run in and out with impunity. Behind my bed there is a
+doorless entrance to a dark den, full of goat's hair, bones, and other
+stores. In front there is a round hole for letting in light, which I
+persistently fill up with a blanket which is as persistently
+withdrawn. There is no privacy, for though the people are glad to let
+their rooms, they only partially vacate them, and are in and out all
+the time. Outside there is mud a foot deep, then a steep slope, and a
+disgusting green pool, and the drinking water is nauseous and
+brackish. The village people here and everywhere seem of a very
+harmless sort.
+
+_Kûm, Ash Wednesday, 1890._--It was really very difficult to get away
+from Taj Khatan. The _charvadar_ came on here, leaving only two men to
+load twelve mules. M---- practically had to load them himself, and to
+reload them when the tackle broke and the loads turned. Hadji and the
+cook were quite incapable, the Afghan orderly, who seemed like a dying
+man, was left behind; in fact there were no servants and no
+interpreters, and the groom was so ill he could hardly sit on a horse.
+
+The march of twenty-five miles took fully eight hours, but on the Arab
+horse, and with an occasional gallop, I got through quite comfortably,
+and have nothing to complain of. The road lies through a country of
+mud hills, brown usually, drab sometimes, streaked with deep madder
+red, and occasionally pale green clay--stones, thistles, and thorns
+their only crop. [I passed over much of this country in the spring,
+and though there were a few flowers, chiefly bulbs, and the thorns
+were clothed with a scanty leafage, and the thistles and artemisia
+were green-gray instead of buff, the general aspect of the region was
+the same.] There was not a village on the route, only two or three
+heaps of deserted ruins and two or three ruinous mud _imamzadas_, no
+cultivation, streams, or springs, the scanty pools brackish, here and
+there the glittering whiteness of saline efflorescence, not a tree or
+even bush, nothing living except a few goats, picking up, who knows
+how, a scanty living,--a blighted, blasted region, a land without a
+_raison d'être_.
+
+Then came low mud ranges, somewhat glorified by atmosphere, higher
+hills on the left, ghastly with snow which was even then falling,
+glimpses far away to the northward of snowy mountains among heavy
+masses of sunlit clouds, an ascent, a gap in the mud hills, some low
+peaks of white, green, and red clay, a great plain partly green with
+springing wheat, and in the centre, in the glow of sunset, the golden
+dome and graceful minarets of the shrine of Fatima, the sister of
+Reza, groups of trees, and the mud houses, mud walls, and many domes
+and minarets of the sacred city of Kûm.
+
+Descending, we trotted for some miles through irrigated wheat, passed
+a walled garden or two, rode along the bank of the Abi Khonsar or Abi
+Kûm, which we had followed down from Givr, admired the gleaming domes
+and tiled minarets of the religious buildings on its bank, and the
+nine-arched brick bridge which spans it, and reached a sort of hotel
+outside the gates, a superior caravanserai with good, though terribly
+draughty guest-rooms upstairs, furnished with beds, chairs, and
+tables, suited for the upper class of pilgrims who resort to this
+famous shrine.
+
+To have arrived here in good health, and well able for the remaining
+journey of nearly a hundred miles, is nothing else than a triumph of
+race, of good feeding through successive generations, of fog-born
+_physique_, nurtured on damp east winds!
+
+There is an air of civilisation about this place. The rooms have
+windows with glass panes and doors which shut, a fountain in front,
+beyond that a garden, and then the river, and the golden shrine of
+Fatima and its exquisite minarets. My door opens on a stone-flagged
+roof with a fine view of the city and hills--an excellent place for
+taking exercise. So strong is Mohammedan fanaticism here that much as
+I should like to see the city, it would be a very great risk to walk
+through it except in disguise.
+
+M---- borrowed a _taktrawan_ from the telegraph clerk and sent it back
+with two horses to Taj Khatan for the orderly, who was left there very
+ill yesterday morning, under Abbas Khan's charge, the Khan feeling so
+ill that he lay down inside it instead of riding. Hadji gave up work
+altogether, so I unpacked and pitched my bed, glad to be warmed by
+exercise. Near 8 P.M. Abbas Khan burst into the "parlour" saying that
+the _taktrawan_ horses were stuck in the mud. He evidently desired to
+avoid the march back, but two mules have been sent to replace the
+horses, and two more are to go to-morrow. The orderly was so ill that
+I expect his corpse rather than himself.
+
+This morning Hadji, looking fearful, told me that he should die
+to-day, and he and the cook are now in bed in opposite corners of a
+room below, with a good fire, feverish and moaning. It is really a
+singular disaster, and shows what the severity of the journey has
+been. The Persian doctor, with a European medical education, on whom
+our hopes were built, when asked to come and see these poor men,
+readily promised to do so; but the Princess, the Shah's daughter,
+whose physician he is, absolutely refuses permission, on the ground
+that we have come through a region in which there is supposed to be
+cholera!
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] This custom, supposed to be an allusion to our Lord and His
+mother, is described by Morier in his _Second Journey in Persia_.
+
+[21] Jairud exports fruit to Kûm and even to Tihran, and in the autumn
+I was interested to find that the best pears and peaches in the
+Hamadan market came from its luxuriant orchards.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VII
+
+
+     KÛM, _Feb. 21_.
+
+At five yesterday afternoon Abbas Khan rode in saying that the
+_taktrawan_, with the orderly much better, was only three miles off.
+This was good news; a mattress was put down for him next the fire and
+all preparations for his comfort were made. Snow showers had been
+falling much of the day, there was a pitiless east wind, and as
+darkness came on snow fell persistently. Two hours passed, but no
+_taktrawan_ arrived. At 7.30 Abbas Khan was ordered to go in search of
+it with a good lantern; 8, 9, 10 o'clock came without any news. At
+10.30, the man whose corpse I had feared to see came in much
+exhausted, having crawled for two miles through the mire and snow. The
+_sowar_, who pretended to start with the lantern, never went farther
+than the coffee-room at the gate, where he had spent an
+unconscientious but cheery evening!
+
+In the pitch darkness the _taktrawan_ and mules had fallen off the
+road into a gap, the _taktrawan_ was smashed, and a good white mule,
+one of the "light division," was killed, her back being broken. This
+was not the only disaster. Hadji had lain down on the borrowed
+mattress and it had taken fire from the live ashes of his pipe and was
+burned, and he was a little scorched.
+
+The telegraphist was to have started for Isfahan the next morning with
+his wife and child in the litter, in order to vacate the house for
+the new official and his family, and their baggage had actually
+started, but now they are detained till this _taktrawan_ can be
+repaired. In the meantime another official has arrived with his goods
+and a large family, a most uncomfortable situation for both parties,
+but they bear it with the utmost cheerfulness and good nature.
+
+Last night I made Hadji drink a mug of hot milk with two
+tablespoonfuls of brandy in it, and it worked wonders. This morning,
+instead of a nearly blind man groping his way about with difficulty, I
+beheld a man with nothing the matter but a small speck on one eye. It
+must have been snow-blindness. He looks quite "spry." It is not only
+the alcohol which has cured him, but that we are parting by mutual
+consent; and feeling sorry for the man, I have given him more than his
+wages, and his full demand for his journey back to Bushire, with
+additional warm clothing. M---- has also given him a handsome present.
+
+I fear he has deceived me, and that the stone deafness, feebleness,
+idiocy, and the shaking, palsied gait of a man of ninety--all but the
+snow-blindness--have been assumed in order to get his return journey
+paid, when he found that the opportunities for making money were not
+what he expected. It is better to be deceived twenty times than to be
+hard on these poor fellows once, but he has been exasperating, and I
+feel somewhat aggrieved at having worked so hard to help a man who was
+"malingering." The last seen of him was an active, erect man walking
+at a good pace by the side of his mule, at least forty years thrown
+off. [He did not then leave Kûm, but being seized with pleurisy was
+treated with great kindness by Mr. Lyne the electrician, and
+afterwards by the Amin-es-Sultan (the Prime Minister), who was
+visiting Kûm, and who, thinking to oblige me, brought him up to
+Tihran in his train!] Those who had known him for years gave a very
+bad account of him, but said that if he liked he could be a good
+servant. It is the first time that I have been unfortunate in my
+travelling servant.
+
+The English telegraph line, and a post-office, open once a week, are
+the tokens of civilisation in Kûm. A telegraphic invitation from the
+British Minister in Tihran, congratulatory telegrams on our safety
+from Tihran, Bushire, and India, and an opportunity for posting
+letters, make one feel once more in the world. The weather is grim,
+bitterly cold, with a strong north-east wind, raw and damp, but while
+snow is whitening the hills only rain and sleet fall here. The sun has
+not shone since we came, but the strong cold air is invigorating like
+our own climate.
+
+Taking advantage of it being Friday, the Mohammedan day of rest, when
+most of the shops are closed and the bazars are deserted, we rode
+through a portion of them preceded by the wild figure of Abbas Khan,
+and took tea at the telegraph office, where they were most kind and
+pleasant regarding the accident which had put them to so much
+inconvenience.
+
+Kûm is on the beaten track, and has a made road to Tihran. Almost
+every book of travels in Persia has something to say upon it, but
+except that it is the second city in Persia in point of sanctity, and
+that it thrives as much by the bodies of the dead which are brought in
+thousands for burial as by the tens of thousands of pilgrims who
+annually visit the shrine of Fatima, and that it is renowned for
+fanaticism, there is not much to say about it.
+
+Situated in a great plain, the gleam of its golden dome and its
+slender minarets is seen from afar, and the deep green of its
+orchards, and the bright green of the irrigated and cultivated lands
+which surround it, are a splash of welcome fertility on the great
+brown waste. Singular toothy peaks of striated marl of brilliant
+colouring--red, blue, green, orange, and salt peaks very white--give a
+curious brilliancy to its environment, but this salt, which might be a
+source of wealth to the city, is not worked, only an ass-load or two
+at a time being brought in to supply the necessities of the market.
+
+  [Illustration: THE SHRINE OF FATIMA.]
+
+The shrine of Fatima, the sister of Reza the eighth Imam, who sleeps
+at Meshed, is better to Kûm than salt mines or aught else. Moslems,
+though they regard women with unspeakable contempt, agree to reverence
+Fatima as a very holy and almost worshipful person, and her dust
+renders Kûm a holy place, attracting tens of thousands of pilgrims
+every year, although, unlike pilgrimages to Meshed and Kerbela, Kûm
+confers no lifelong designation on those by whom it exists. Its
+estimated population is 10,000 souls, and at times this number is
+nearly doubled. Pilgrimage consists in a visit to the tomb of Fatima,
+paying a fee, and in some cases adding a votive offering. Vows of
+abstinence from some special sin are frequently made at the shrine
+and are carefully registered.
+
+The dead, however, who are annually brought in thousands to be buried
+in the sacred soil which surrounds the shrine, are the great source of
+the wealth of Kûm. These corpses travel, as to Kerbela, on mules, four
+being lashed on one animal occasionally, some fresh, some decomposing,
+others only bags of exhumed bones. The graves occupy an enormous area,
+of which the shrine is the centre. The kings of the Kajar dynasty,
+members of royal families, and 450 saints are actually buried within
+the precincts of the shrine. The price of interments varies with the
+proximity to the dust of Fatima from six _krans_ to one hundred
+_tumans_. The population may be said to be a population of
+undertakers. Death meets one everywhere. The Ab-i-Khonsar, which
+supplies the drinking water, percolates through "dead men's bones and
+all uncleanness." Vestments for the dead are found in the bazars.
+Biers full and empty traverse the streets in numbers. Stone-cutting
+for gravestones is a most lucrative business. The _charvadars_ of Kûm
+prosper on caravans of the dead. There is a legion of gravediggers.
+Kûm is a gruesome city, a vast charnel-house, yet its golden dome and
+minarets brighten the place of death.
+
+The dome of Fatima is covered with sheets of copper plated with gold
+an eighth of an inch in thickness, and the ornament at the top of the
+dome, which is of pure gold, is said to weigh 140 lbs. The slender
+minarets which front this _imamzada_ are covered with a mosaic of
+highly-glazed tiles of exquisite tints, in which an azure blue, a
+canary yellow, and an iridescent green predominate, and over all there
+is a sheen of a golden hue. The shrine is inaccessible to Christians.
+I asked a Persian doctor if I might look in for one moment at the
+threshold of the outer court, and he replied in French, "Are you then
+weary of life?"[22]
+
+My Indian servant, an educated man on whose faithful though meagre
+descriptions I can rely, visited the shrine and describes the dome as
+enriched with arabesques in mosaic and as hung with _ex votos_,
+consisting chiefly of strips of silk and cotton. The tomb itself, he
+says, is covered with a wooden ark, with certain sacred sentences cut
+upon it, and this is covered by a large brown shawl. Round this ark,
+which is under the dome, Kerman, Kashmir, and Indian shawls are laid
+down as carpets. This open space is surrounded with steel railings
+inlaid with gold after the fashion of the _niello_ work of Japan, and
+the whole is enclosed with a solid silver fence, the rails of which
+are "as thick as two thumbs, and as high as a tall man's head." This
+_imamzada_ itself is regarded as of great antiquity.
+
+Two Persian kings, who reigned in the latter part of the seventeenth
+century, are buried near the beautiful minarets, which are supposed to
+be of the same date. There are many mosques and minarets in Kûm,
+besides a quantity of conical _imamzadas_, the cones of which have
+formerly been covered with glazed blue tiles of a turquoise tint, some
+of which still remain. It was taken by the Afghans in 1772, and though
+partially rebuilt is very ruinous. It has a mud wall, disintegrating
+from neglect, surrounded occasionally by a ditch, and at other times
+by foul and stagnant ponds. The ruinousness of Kûm can scarcely be
+exaggerated.
+
+The bazars are large and very busy, and are considerably more
+picturesque than those of Kirmanshah. The town lives by pilgrims and
+corpses, and the wares displayed to attract the former are more
+attractive than usual. There are nearly 450 shops, of which
+forty-three sell Manchester goods almost exclusively. Coarse china,
+and pottery often of graceful shapes with a sky-blue glaze, and
+water-coolers are among the industries of this city, which also makes
+shoes, and tans leather with pomegranate bark.
+
+The Ab-i-Khonsar is now full and rapid, but is a mere thread in
+summer. The nine-arched bridge, with its infamously paved roadway
+eighteen feet wide, is an interesting object from all points of view,
+for while its central arch has a span of forty-five feet, the others
+have only spans of twenty. The gateway beyond the bridge is tawdrily
+ornamented with blue and green glazed tiles. After seeing several of
+the cities of Persia, I am quite inclined to give Kûm the palm for
+interest and beauty of aspect, when seen from any distant point of
+view.
+
+That it is a "holy" city, and that a pilgrimage to its shrine is
+supposed to atone for sin, are its great interests. Its population is
+composed in large proportion of _mollahs_ and _Seyyids_, or
+descendants of Mohammed, and as a whole is devoted to the reigning
+Shiah creed. It has a theological college of much repute, established
+by Fath' Ali Shah, which now has 100 students. The women are said to
+be very devout, and crowd the mosques on Friday evenings, when their
+devotions are led by an _imam_. The men are fanatically religious,
+though the fanaticism is somewhat modified. No wine may be sold in
+Kûm, and no Jew or Armenian is allowed to keep a shop.
+
+Kûm, being a trading city, manufactures a certain amount of public
+opinion in its business circles, which differs not very considerably
+from that which prevails at Kirmanshah. The traders accept it as a
+foregone conclusion that Russia will occupy Persia as far as Isfahan
+on the death of the present Shah, and regard such a destiny as
+"fate." If only their religion is not interfered with, it matters
+little, they say, whether they pay their taxes to the Shah or the
+Czar. To judge from their speech, Islam is everything to them, and
+their country very little, and the strong bond of the faith which
+rules life and thought from the Pillars of Hercules to the Chinese
+frontier far outweighs the paltry considerations of patriotism. But my
+impression is that all Orientals prefer the tyrannies and exactions,
+and the swiftness of injustice or justice of men of their own creed
+and race to good government on the part of unintelligible aliens, and
+that though Persians seem pretty comfortable in the prospect of a
+double occupation of Persia, its actual accomplishment might strike
+out a flash of patriotism.
+
+Probably this ruinous, thinly-peopled country, with little water and
+less fuel, and only two roads which deserve the name, has
+possibilities of resurrection under greatly changed circumstances. Of
+the two occupations which are regarded as certain, I think that most
+men, at least in Central and Southern Persia, would prefer an English
+occupation, but every one says, "England talks and does not act," and
+that "Russia will pour 100,000 troops into Persia while England is
+talking in London."
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[22] I spent two days at Kûm five weeks later, and saw the whole of it
+in disguise, and in order to attain some continuity of description I
+put my two letters together.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+
+     CARAVANSERAI OF ALIABAD, _Feb. 23_.
+
+Twelve hours and a half of hard riding have brought us here in two
+days. No doctor could be obtained in Kûm, and it was necessary to
+bring the sick men on as quickly as possible for medical treatment. It
+was bitterly cold on the last day, though the altitude is only 3400
+feet, and it was a tiresome day, for I had not only to look over and
+repack, but to clean the cooking utensils and other things, which had
+not been touched apparently since we left Baghdad!
+
+This is a tedious part of the journey, a "beaten track" with few
+features of interest, the great highway from Isfahan to Tihran, a road
+of dreary width; where it is a made road running usually perfectly
+straight, with a bank and a ditch on each side. The thaw is now
+complete, and travelling consists of an attempt to get on by the road
+till it becomes an abyss which threatens to prove bottomless, then
+there is a plunge and a struggle to the top of the bank, or over the
+bank to the trodden waste, but any move can be only temporary, the
+all-powerful mire regulates the march. The snow is nothing to the mud.
+Frequently carcasses of camels, mules, and asses, which have lain down
+to die under their loads, were passed, then caravans with most of the
+beasts entangled in the miry clay, unable to rise till they were
+unloaded by men up to their knees in the quagmire, and, worst of all,
+mules loaded with the dead, so loosely tied up in planks that in some
+cases when the mule flounders and falls, the miserable relics of
+humanity tumble out upon the swamp; and these scenes of falling,
+struggling, and even perishing animals are repeated continually along
+the level parts of this scarcely passable highroad.
+
+Our loads, owing to bad tackle, were always coming off, the groom's
+mule fell badly, the packs came off another, and half an hour was
+spent in catching the animal, then I was thrown from my horse into
+soft mud.
+
+Cultivation ceases a short distance from Kûm, giving place to a brown
+waste, with patches of saline efflorescence upon it, on which high
+hills covered partially with snow send down low spurs of brown mud.
+The water nearly everywhere is brackish, and only just drinkable.
+After crossing a rapid muddy river, nearly dry in summer, by a much
+decayed bridge of seven or eight low arches, we reached _terra firma_,
+and a long gradual ascent and a series of gallops brought us to the
+large caravanserai of Shashgird, an immense place with imposing
+pretensions which are fully realised within. In the outer court camels
+were lying in rows. A fine tiled archway leads to an immense
+quadrangle, with a fine stone _abambar_ or covered receptacle for
+water in the middle. All round the quadrangle are arched recesses or
+mangers, each with a room at the back, to the number of eighty. At two
+of the corners there are enclosed courtyards with fountains, several
+superior rooms with beds (much to be avoided), chairs, mirrors, and
+tables fairly clean--somewhat dreary luxury, but fortunately at this
+season free from vermin. That caravanserai can accommodate 1000 men in
+rooms, and 1500 mules.
+
+To-day's long march, which, however, has had more road suitable for
+galloping, has been over wild, weird, desolate, God-forsaken country,
+interesting from its desolation and its great wastes, forming part of
+the Kavir or Great Salt Desert of Persia, absolutely solitary, with
+scarcely a hamlet--miles of the great highway of Persia without a
+living creature, no house, no bush, nothing. Later, there were some
+vultures feasting on a dead camel, and a mule-load of two bodies down
+in the mud.
+
+Some miles from Shashgird, far from the road, there is a large salt
+lake over which some stationary mists were brooding. Beyond this an
+ascent among snow clouds along some trenched land where a few vines
+and saplings have been planted leads to a caravanserai built for the
+accommodation of state officials on their journeys, where in falling
+snow we vindicated our origin in the triumphant West by taking lunch
+on a windy verandah outside rather than in the forlorn dampness of the
+inside, and brought a look of surprise even over the impassive face of
+the _seraidar_.
+
+When we left the snow was falling in large wet flakes, and the snow
+clouds were drifting wildly among the peaks of a range which we
+skirted for a few miles and then crossed at a considerable height
+among wonderful volcanic formations, mounds of scoriæ, and outcrops of
+volcanic rock, hills of all shapes fantastically tumbled about,
+chiefly black, looking as if their fires had only just died out,
+streaked and splotched with brilliant ash--orange, carmine, and
+green--a remarkable volcanic scene, backed by higher hills looking
+ghastly in the snow.
+
+After passing over an absolutely solitary region of camel-brown plains
+and slopes at a gallop, M---- a little in front always, and Abbas
+Khan, the wildest figure imaginable, always half a length behind, the
+_thud_ of the thundering hoofs mingling with the screech of the
+cutting north wind which, coming over the snowy Elburz range, benumbed
+every joint, on the slope of a black volcanic hill we came upon the
+lofty towers and gaudy tiled front of this great caravanserai,
+imposing at a distance in the solitude and snow clouds, but shabby on
+a nearer view, and tending to disintegrate from the presence of
+saltpetre in the bricks and mortar.
+
+There are successions of terraces and tanks of water with ducks and
+geese upon them, and buildings round the topmost terrace intended to
+be imposing. The _seraidar_ is expecting the Amin-es-Sultan (the Prime
+Minister) and his train, who will occupy rather a fine though tawdry
+"suite of apartments"; but though they were at our service, I prefer
+the comparative cosiness of a small, dark, damp room, though with a
+very smoky chimney, as I find to my cost.
+
+_British Legation, Tihran, Feb. 26._--The night was very cold, and the
+reveille specially unwelcome in the morning. The people were more than
+usually vague about the length of the march, some giving the distance
+at twenty-five miles, and others making it as high as thirty-eight. As
+we did a good deal of galloping and yet took more than seven hours, I
+suppose it may be about twenty-eight. Fortunately we could desert the
+caravan, as the caravanserais are furnished and supply tea and bread.
+The baggage mules took ten hours for the march.
+
+The day was dry and sunny, and the scenery, if such a tract of
+hideousness can be called scenery, was at its best. Its one charm lies
+in the solitude and freedom of a vast unpeopled waste.
+
+The "made road" degenerates for the most part into a track "made"
+truly, but rather by the passage of thousands of animals during a long
+course of ages than by men's hands. This track winds among low ranges
+of sand and mud hills, through the "Pass of the Angel of Death,"
+crosses salt and muddy streams, gravelly stretches, and quagmires of
+mud and tenacious clay, passing through a country on the whole
+inconceivably hideous, unfinished, frothy, and saturated with
+salt--the great brown desert which extends from Tihran to Quetta in
+Beloochistan, a distance of 2000 miles.
+
+On a sunny slope we met the Prime Minister with a considerable train
+of horsemen. He stopped and spoke with extreme courtesy, through an
+interpreter, for, unlike most Persians of the higher class, he does
+not speak French. He said we had been for some time expected at
+Tihran, and that great fears were entertained for our safety, which we
+had heard at Kûm. He is a pleasant-looking man with a rather European
+expression, not more than thirty-two or thirty-three, and in spite of
+intrigues and detractors has managed to keep his hazardous position
+for some years. His mother was lately buried at Kûm, and he was going
+thither on pilgrimage. After the usual compliments he bowed his
+farewells, and the gay procession with its brilliant trappings and
+prancing horses flashed by. The social standing of a Persian is
+evidenced by the size of his retinue, and the first of the Shah's
+subjects must have been attended by fully forty well-mounted men,
+besides a number of servants who were riding with his baggage animals.
+
+Shortly after passing him a turn among the hills brought the
+revelation through snow clouds of the magnificent snow-covered chain
+of the Elburz mountains, with the huge cone of Demavend, their
+monarch, 18,600 feet[23] in height, towering high above them, gleaming
+sunlit above the lower cloud-masses. Swampy water-courses, a fordable
+river crossed by a broad bridge of five arches, more low hills, more
+rolling desert, then a plain of mud irrigated for cultivation,
+difficult ground for the horses, the ruins of a deserted village
+important enough to have possessed two _imamzadas_, and then we
+reached the Husseinabad, which has very good guest-rooms, with mirrors
+on the walls.
+
+This caravanserai is only one march from Tihran, and it seemed as if
+all difficulties were over. Abbas Khan and the sick orderly were sent
+on early, with a baggage mule loaded with evening dress and other
+necessities of civilisation; the caravan was to follow at leisure, and
+M---- and I started at ten, without attendants, expecting to reach
+Tihran early in the afternoon.
+
+It is six days since that terrible ride of ten hours and a half, and
+my bones ache as I recall it. I never wish to mount a horse again. It
+had been a very cold night, and for some time after we started it was
+doubtful whether snow or rain would gain the day, but after an hour of
+wet snow it decided on rain, and there was a steady downpour all day.
+The Elburz range, which the day before had looked so magnificent when
+fifty miles off, was blotted out. This was a great disappointment.
+
+An ascent of low, blackish volcanic hills is made by a broad road of
+gray gravel, which a torrent has at some time frequented. Thorns and
+thistles grow there, and skeletons of animals abound. Everything is
+grim and gray. From these hills we descended into the Kavir, a rolling
+expanse of friable soil, stoneless, strongly impregnated with salt,
+but only needing sufficient water to wash the salt out of it and to
+irrigate it to become as prolific as it is now barren.
+
+It is now a sea of mud crossed by a broad road indicated by dykes,
+that never-to-be-forgotten mud growing deeper as the day wore on. Hour
+after hour we plunged through it, sometimes trying the road, and on
+finding it impassable scrambling through the ditches and over the
+dykes to the plain, which after offering firmer foothold for a time
+became such a "slough of despond" that we had to scramble back to the
+road, and so on, hour after hour, meeting nothing but one ghastly
+caravan of corpses, and wretched asses falling in the mud.
+
+At mid-day, scrambling up a gravel hill with a little wormwood upon
+it, and turning my back to the heavy rain, I ate a lunch of dates and
+ginger, insufficient sustenance for such fatigue. On again!--the rain
+pouring, the mud deepening, my spine in severe pain. We turned off to
+a caravanserai, mostly a heap of ruins, the roofs having given way
+under the weight of the snow, and there I sought some relief from pain
+by lying down for the short thirty minutes which could be spared in
+the _seraidar's_ damp room. It was then growing late in the afternoon,
+all landmarks had disappeared in a brooding mist, there were no
+habitations, and no human beings of whom to ask the way.
+
+The pain returned severely as soon as I mounted, and increased till it
+became hardly bearable. Ceaseless mud, ceaseless heavy rain, a plain
+of mud, no refuge from mud and water, attempts to gallop were made
+with the risk of the horses falling into holes and even _kanaats_.
+M---- rode in front. Not a word was spoken. A gleaming dome, with
+minarets and wood, appeared below the Shimran hills. Unluckily, where
+two roads met one looked impassable and we took the other, which,
+though it eventually took us to Tihran, was a _détour_ of some miles.
+
+In the evening, when I was hoping that Tihran was at hand, we reached
+the town of Shah Abdul Azim, built among the ruins of an ancient city,
+either Rhages or Rhei. The gilded dome is the shrine of Abdul Azim,
+and is a great place of pilgrimage of the picnic order from Tihran.
+The one railroad of Persia runs from the capital to this town. As we
+floundered in darkness along wide roads planted with trees, there was
+the incongruity of a railway whistle, and with deep breathing and much
+glare an engine with some carriages passed near the road, taking away
+with its harsh Western noises that glorious freedom of the desert
+which outweighs all the hardship even of a winter journey.
+
+It was several miles from thence to the gate of Tihran. It was nearly
+pitch dark when we got out of Abdul Azim and the rain still fell
+heavily. In that thick rainy darkness no houses were visible, even if
+they exist, there were no passengers on foot or on horseback, it was a
+"darkness which might be felt."
+
+There was a causeway which gave foothold below the mud, but it was
+full of holes and broken culverts, deep in slime, and seemed to have
+water on each side not particular in keeping within bounds. It was
+necessary to get on, lest the city gates should be shut, and by
+lifting and spurring the jaded horses they were induced to trot and
+canter along that road of pitfalls. I have had many a severe ride in
+travelling, but never anything equal to that last two hours. The
+severe pain and want of food made me so faint that I was obliged to
+hold on to the saddle. I kept my tired horse up, but each flounder I
+thought would be his last. There was no guidance but an occasional
+flash from the hoofs of the horse in front, and the word "spur"
+ringing through the darkness.
+
+After an hour of riding in this desperate fashion we got into water,
+and among such dangerous holes that from that point we were obliged to
+walk our horses, who though they were half dead still feebly responded
+to bit and spur. We reached the dimly-lighted city gate just as half
+of it was shut, and found Abbas Khan waiting there. The caravan with
+the other sick men never reached Tihran till late the next morning.
+
+At the gate we learned that it was two miles farther to the British
+Legation, and that there was no way for me to get there but on
+horseback. One lives through a good deal, but I all but succumbed to
+the pain and faintness. Inside the gate there was an open sea of
+liquid mud, across which, for a time, certain lights shed their
+broken reflections. There was a railway shriek, and then the
+appearance of a station with shunting operations vaguely seen in a
+vague glare.
+
+Then a tramway track buried under several inches of slush came down a
+slope, and crowded tramway cars with great single lamps came down the
+narrow road on horses too tired to be frightened, and almost too tired
+to get out of the way. Then came a street of mean houses and meaner
+shops lighted with kerosene lamps, a region like the slums of a new
+American city, with _cafés_ and saloons, barbers' shops, and European
+enormities such as gazogenes and effervescing waters in several
+windows. Later, there were frequent foot passengers preceded by
+servants carrying huge waxed cambric lanterns of a Chinese shape, then
+a square with barracks and artillery, a causewayed road dimly lit,
+then darkness and heavier rain and worse mud, through which the
+strange spectacle of a carriage and pair incongruously flashed.
+
+By that time even the courage and stamina of an Arab horse could
+hardly keep mine on his legs, and with a swimming head and dazed brain
+I could hardly guide him, as I had done from the gate chiefly by the
+wan gleam of Abbas Khan's pale horse; and expecting to fall off every
+minute, I responded more and more feebly and dubiously to the question
+frequently repeated out of the darkness, "Are you surviving?"
+
+Just as endurance was on the point of giving way, we turned from the
+road through a large gateway into the extensive grounds which surround
+the British Legation, a large building forming three sides of a
+quadrangle, with a fine stone staircase leading up to the central
+door. Every window was lighted, light streamed from the open door,
+splashed carriages were dashing up and setting down people in evening
+dress, there were crowds of servants about, and it flashed on my
+dazed senses that it must be after eight, and that there was a dinner
+party!
+
+Arriving from the mud of the Kavir and the slush of the streets, after
+riding ten hours in ceaseless rain on a worn-out horse; caked with mud
+from head to foot, dripping, exhausted, nearly blind from fatigue,
+fresh from mud hovels and the congenial barbarism of the desert, and
+with the rags and travel-stains of a winter journey of forty-six days
+upon me, light and festivity were overwhelming.
+
+Alighting at a side door, scarcely able to stand, I sat down in a long
+corridor, and heard from an English steward that "dinner is waiting."
+His voice sounded very far off, and the once familiar announcement
+came like a memory out of the remote past. Presently a gentleman
+appeared in evening dress, wearing a star, which conveyed to my
+fast-failing senses that it was Sir H. Drummond Wolff. It was true
+that there was a large dinner party, and among the guests the Minister
+with thoughtful kindness had invited all to whom I had letters of
+introduction. But it was no longer possible to make any effort, and I
+was taken up to a room in which the comforts of English civilisation
+at first made no impression upon me, and removing only the mackintosh
+cloak, weighted with mud, which had served me so well, I lay down on the
+hearthrug before a great coal fire till four o'clock the next morning.
+And "so the tale ended," and the winter journey with its tremendous
+hardships and unbounded mercies was safely accomplished.[24]
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[23] The altitude of Demavend is variously stated.
+
+[24] I remained for three weeks as Sir H. Drummond Wolff's guest at
+the British Legation, receiving from him that courtesy and considerate
+kindness which all who have been under his roof delight to recall. I
+saw much of what is worth seeing in Tihran, including the Shah and
+several of the Persian statesmen, and left the Legation with every
+help that could be given for a long and difficult journey into the
+mountains of Luristan.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON TIHRAN[25]
+
+
+It is a matter of individual taste, but few cities in the East
+interest me in which national characteristics in architecture,
+costume, customs, and ways generally are either being obliterated or
+are undergoing a partial remodelling on Western lines. An Eastern city
+pure and simple, such as Canton, Niigata, or Baghdad, even with
+certain drawbacks, forms a harmonious whole gratifying to the eye and
+to a certain sense of fitness; while Cairo, Tokio, Lahore, and I will
+now add Tihran, produce the effect of a series of concussions.
+
+Tihran--set down on a plain, a scorched desert, the sublimity of which
+is interfered with by _kanaats_ or underground watercourses with their
+gravel mounds and ruinous shafts--has few elements of beauty or
+grandeur in its situation, even though "the triumphant barbarism of
+the desert" sweeps up to its gates, and the scored and channelled
+Shimran range, backed by the magnificent peak, or rather cone, of
+Demavend, runs to the north-east of the city within only ten miles of
+its walls.
+
+The winter with its snow and slush disappeared abruptly two days after
+I reached Tihran, and as abruptly came the spring--a too transient
+enjoyment--and in a few days to brownness and barrenness succeeded a
+tender mist of green over the trees in the watered gardens, rapidly
+thickening into dark leafage in which the _bulbul_ sang, and nature
+helped by art spread a carpet of violets and irises over the brown
+earth. But all of verdure and greenery that there is lies within the
+city walls. Outside is the unconquerable desert, rolling in endless
+shades of buff and brown up to the Elburz range, and elsewhere to the
+far horizon.
+
+Situated in the most depressed part of an uninteresting waste in Lat.
+35° 40´ N. and Long. 51° 25´ E., and at an altitude of 3800 feet, the
+climate is one of extremes, the summer extreme being the most severe.
+For some weeks the heat is nearly insupportable, and the Legations,
+and all of the four hundred Europeans who are not bound to the city by
+a fate which they execrate, betake themselves to "yailaks," or summer
+quarters on the slopes of the adjacent mountains.
+
+Entering Tihran in the darkness, it was not till I saw it coming back
+from Gulahek, the "yailak" of the British Legation, when the mud was
+drying up and the willows were in their first young green, that I
+formed any definite idea of its aspect, which is undeniably mean, and
+presents no evidences of antiquity; indeed, it has no right to present
+any, for as a capital it only came into existence a century ago, with
+the first king of the present Kajar dynasty. The walls are said to be
+eleven miles in circuit, and give the impression of being much too
+large, so many are the vacant spaces within them. They consist chiefly
+of a broad ditch, and a high sloping rampart without guns. Twelve
+well-built domed gateways give access to the city. These are decorated
+with glazed tiles of bright colours and somewhat gaudy patterns and
+designs, representing genii, lions, and combats of mythical heroes.
+
+Above the wall are seen tree-tops, some tile-covered minarets, the
+domes of two mosques, and the iron ribs of a roofless theatre in the
+Shah's garden, in which under a temporary awning the _Tazieh_ or
+Passion Play (elsewhere referred to) is acted once a year in presence
+of the Shah and several thousand spectators.
+
+Entering by a gateway over which is depicted a scene in the life of
+Rustem, the Achilles of Persia, or by the Sheikh Abdul Azim gate,
+where the custom-house is established and through which all caravans
+of goods must reach Tihran, the magnitude of the untidy vacant spaces,
+and the shabby mud hovels which fringe them, create an unfavourable
+impression. Then there are the inevitable ruinousness, the alleys with
+broken gutters in the centre, the pools of slime or the heaps of dust
+according to the weather, and the general shabbiness of blank walls of
+sun-dried bricks which give one the impression, I believe an unjust
+one, of decay and retrogression. I never went through those mean
+outskirts of Tihran which are within the city walls without being
+reminded of a man in shabby clothes preposterously too big for him.
+
+The population is variously estimated at from 60,000 to 160,000 souls.
+It varies considerably with the presence or absence of the Court. The
+streets and bazars are usually well filled with people, and I did not
+see many beggars or evidences of extreme poverty, even in the Jewish
+quarter. On the whole it impressed me as a bustling place, but the
+bustle is not picturesque. It is framed in mean surroundings, and
+there is little variety in costume, and much sober if not sad
+colouring.
+
+In "old" Tihran the alleys are crooked, dirty, and narrow, and the
+bazars chiefly frequented by the poor are very mean and untidy; but
+the better bazars, whether built as some are, round small domed open
+spaces, or in alleys roofed with low brick domes, are decidedly
+handsome, and are light, wide, clean, and in every way adapted for the
+purposes of buying and selling. European women, even though
+unattended, can walk through them quite freely without being mobbed or
+stared at.
+
+The best bazars are piled with foreign merchandise, to the _apparent_
+exclusion of native goods, which, if they are of the better quality,
+must be searched for in out-of-the-way corners. Indeed, if people want
+fine carpets, _curios_, rich embroideries, inlaid arms, and Kerman
+stuffs, they must resort to the itinerant dealers, who gauge the
+tastes and purchasing powers of every European resident and visitor,
+and who may be seen at all hours gliding in a sort of surreptitious
+fashion round the Legation compounds, conveying their beautiful
+temptations on donkeys' backs.
+
+It is chiefly in the fine lofty saddlery bazar and some small bazars
+that native manufactures are _en évidence_. All travelling is on
+horseback, and the Persian, though sober in the colours of his costly
+clothing, loves crimson and gold in leather and cloth, embroidered
+housings and headstalls, and gorgeous saddle-covers for his horse. The
+usual saddle is of plain wood, very high before and behind, and
+without stuffing. A thick soft _namad_ or piece of felt covers the
+horse's back, and over this are placed two or more saddle-cloths
+covered with a very showy and often highly ornamental cover, with
+tasselled ends, embroidered in gold and silks and occasionally with
+real gems. The saddle itself is smoothly covered with a soft
+ornamental cover made to fit it, and the crupper, breastplate, and
+headstall are frequently of crimson leather embroidered in gold, or
+stitched ingeniously with turquoise beads.
+
+The mule, whether the pacing saddle-mule worth from £60 to £80, much
+affected by rich Persians in Tihran, or the humbler beast of burden,
+is not forgotten by the traders in the great saddlery bazar. Rich
+_charvadars_ take great pride in the "outfit" of their mules, and do
+not grudge twenty _tumans_ upon it. Hence are to be seen elaborate
+headstalls, breastplates, and straps for bells, of showy embroidery,
+and leather stitched completely over with turquoise beads and
+cowries--the latter a favourite adornment--while cowried headstalls
+are also ornamented with rows of woollen tassels dyed with beautiful
+vegetable dyes. In this bazar too are found _khurjins_--the great
+leather or carpet saddle-bags without which it is inconvenient to
+travel--small leather portmanteaus for strapping behind the saddles of
+those who travel _chapar_, _i.e._ post,--cylindrical cases over two
+feet long which are attached in front of the saddle--decorated
+holsters, the multifarious gear required for the travelling
+pipe-bearers, the deep leather belts which are worn by _chapar_
+riders, the leathern water-bottles which are slung on the saddles, the
+courier bags, and a number of other articles of necessity or luxury
+which are regarded as essential by the Persian traveller.
+
+In most of the bazars the shops are packed to the ceiling with foreign
+goods. It looks as if there were cottons and woollen cloth for the
+clothing of all Persia. I saw scarcely any rough woollen goods or
+shoddy. The Persian wears superfine, smooth, costly cloth, chiefly
+black and fawn, stiff in texture, and with a dull shine upon it. The
+best comes exclusively from Austria, a slightly inferior quality from
+Germany, and such cloth fabrics as are worn by Europeans from England
+and Russia.
+
+The European cottons, which are slowly but surely displacing the heavy
+durable native goods, either undyed, or dyed at Isfahan with madder,
+saffron, and indigo, are of colours and patterns suited to native
+taste, white and canary yellow designs on a red ground predominating,
+and are both of Russian and English make, and the rivalry which
+extends from the Indian frontier, through Central Asia, is at
+fever-heat in the cotton bazars of Tihran. It does not appear that at
+present either side can claim the advantage.
+
+In a search for writing paper, thread, tapes, and what are known as
+"small wares," I never saw anything that was not Russian. The cheap
+things, such as oil lamps, _samovars_, coarse coloured prints of the
+Russian Imperial family in tawdry frames, lacquered tin boxes, fitted
+work-boxes, glass teacups, china tea-pots, tawdry lacquered trays,
+glass brooches, bead necklaces, looking-glasses, and a number of other
+things which are coming into use at least in the south-west and the
+western portions of the Empire, are almost exclusively Russian, as is
+natural, for the low price at which they are sold would leave no
+margin of profit on such imports from a more distant country.
+
+A stroll through the Tihran bazars shows the observer something of the
+extent and rapidity with which Europe is ruining the artistic taste of
+Asia. Masses of rubbish, atrocious in colouring and hideous in form,
+the principle of shoddy carried into all articles along with the
+quintessence of vulgarity which is pretence, goods of nominal utility
+which will not stand a week's wear, the refuse of European markets--in
+art Philistinism, in most else "Brummagem," without a quality of
+beauty or solidity to recommend them--are training the tastes and
+changing the habits of the people.
+
+One squarish bazar, much resorted to for glass and hardware and what
+the Americans call "assorted notions," is crammed with Austrian glass,
+kerosene lamps of all sizes in hundreds, chandeliers, etc. The amount
+of glass exhibited there for sale is extraordinary, and not less
+remarkable is the glut of cheap hardware and worthless _bijouterie_.
+It is the Lowther Arcade put down in Tihran.
+
+Kerosene and candles may be called a Russian monopoly, and Russia has
+completely driven French sugar from the markets. In the foreign town,
+as it may be called, there are two or three French shops, an American
+shop for "notions," and a German chemist.
+
+The European quarter is in the northern part of Tihran, and is close
+to vacant and airy spaces. There are the Turkish Embassy, and the
+Legations of England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Belgium,
+Austria, and America, and a Dutch Consulate-General, each with its
+Persian _gholams_ who perform escort duty. Their large and shady
+compounds, brightened by their national flags, and the stir and
+circumstance which surround them, are among the features of the city.
+The finest of all the Legation enclosures is that of England, which is
+beautifully wooded and watered. The reception-rooms and hall of the
+Minister's residence are very handsome, and a Byzantine clock tower
+gives the building a striking air of distinction. The grounds contain
+several detached houses, occupied by the secretaries and others.
+
+A very distinct part of the foreign quarter is that occupied by the
+large and handsome buildings of the American Presbyterian Mission,
+which consist of a church occupied at stated hours by a congregation
+of the Reformed Armenian Church, and in which in the afternoons of
+Sundays Dr. Potter, the senior missionary, reads the English Liturgy
+and preaches an English sermon for the benefit of the English-speaking
+residents, very fine boarding-schools for Armenian girls and boys, and
+the houses of the missionaries--three clerical, one medical, and
+several ladies, one of whom is an M.D.
+
+Outside this fine enclosure is a Medical Missionary Dispensary, and
+last year, in a good situation at a considerable distance, a very fine
+medical missionary hospital was completed. The boys' and girls'
+schools are of a very high class. To my thinking the pupils are too
+much Europeanised in dress and habits; but I understand that this is
+at the desire of the Armenian parents. The missionaries are not
+allowed to receive Moslem pupils; but besides Armenians they educate
+Jewish youths, some of whom have become Christians, and a few Guebres
+or Zoroastrians.
+
+I do not think that the capital is a hopeful place for missionary
+work. The presence of Europeans of various creeds and nationalities
+complicates matters, and the fine, perhaps too fine, mission buildings
+in proximity to the houses of wealthy foreigners are at so great a
+distance from the Moslem and Jewish quarters, that persons who might
+desire to make inquiries concerning the Christian faith must be
+deterred both by the space to be traversed and the conspicuousness of
+visiting a mission compound in such a position. The members of the
+mission church last year were altogether Armenians. The education and
+training given in the schools are admirable.
+
+Indications of the changes which we consider improvements abound in
+Tihran. There are many roads accessible to wheeled vehicles. There are
+hackney carriages. A tramway carrying thousands of passengers weekly
+has been laid down from the _Maidan_ or central square to one of the
+southern gates. There are real streets paved with cobble stones, and
+bordered with definite sidewalks, young trees, and shops. There is a
+railroad about four miles long, from the city to the village of Sheikh
+Abdul Azim. There are lamp-posts and fittings, though the light is
+somewhat of a failure. There is an organised city police, in smart
+black uniforms with violet facings, under the command of Count
+Monteforte, an Italian. Soldiers in Europeanised uniforms abound, some
+of them, the "Persian Cossacks," in full Russian uniforms; and
+military bands instructed by a French bandmaster play European airs,
+not always easily recognisable, for the pleasure of the polyglot
+public.
+
+All ordinary business can be transacted at the Imperial Bank, which,
+having acquired the branches and business of the New Oriental Bank,
+bids fair to reign supreme in the commercial world of Persia, the
+Shah, who has hitherto kept his hoards under his own eye, having set
+an example of confidence by becoming a depositor.
+
+European tailors, dressmakers, and milliners render a resort to Europe
+unnecessary. There are at least two hotels where a European may exist.
+About five hundred European carriages, many of them Russian, with
+showy Russian horses harnessed _à la Russe_, dash about the streets
+with little regard to pedestrians, though an accident, if a European
+were the offender, might lead to a riot. The carriages of the many
+Legations are recognisable by their outriders, handsomely-dressed
+_gholams_.
+
+But even the European quarter and its newish road, on which are many
+of the Legations, some of the foreign shops, and the fine compound and
+handsome buildings of the Imperial Bank, has a Persian admixture. Some
+of the stately houses of official and rich Persians are there, easily
+recognisable by their low closed gateways and general air of
+seclusion. Many of these possess exquisite gardens, with fountains and
+tanks, and all the arrangements for the out-of-doors life which
+Persians love. In the early spring afternoons the great sight of the
+road outside the British Legation is the crowd of equestrians, or
+rather of the horses they ride. However much the style of street,
+furniture, tastes, art, and costume have been influenced by Europe,
+fortunately for picturesque effect the Persian, even in the capital,
+retains the Persian saddle and equipments.
+
+From later observation I am inclined to think very highly of the
+hardiness and stamina of the Persian horse, though at the time of my
+visit to Tihran I doubted both. Such showy, magnificent-looking
+animals, broken to a carriage which shows them to the best advantage,
+fine-legged, though not at the expense of strength, small-eared,
+small-mouthed, with flowing wavy manes, "necks clothed with thunder,"
+dilated nostrils showing the carmine interior, and a look of scorn and
+high breeding, I never saw elsewhere. The tail, which in obedience to
+fashion we mutilate and abridge, is allowed in Persia its full
+development, and except in the case of the Shah's white horses, when
+it is dyed magenta, is perfectly beautiful, held far from the body
+like a flag. The arched neck, haughty bearing, and easy handling which
+Easterns love are given by very sharp bits; and a crowd of these
+beautiful animals pawing the ground, prancing, caracoling, walking
+with a gait as though the earth were too vulgar for their touch, or
+flashing past at a gallop, all groomed to perfection and superbly
+caparisoned, ridden by men who know how to ride, and who are in
+sympathy with their animals, is one of the fascinations of Tihran.
+
+Creeping along by the side-walk is often seen a handsome pacing
+saddle-mule, or large white ass, nearly always led, carrying a Persian
+lady attended by servants--a shapeless black bundle, with what one
+supposes to be the outline of a hand clutching the enshrouding black
+silk sheet tightly over her latticed white mask: so completely
+enveloped that only a yellow shoe without a heel, and a glimpse of a
+violet trouser can be seen above the short stirrups.
+
+Another piece of Orientalism unaffected by Western influence is the
+music performed daily at sunset in the upper stories of some of the
+highly-decorated tiled gateways which lead into and out of the
+principal squares. This is evoked from drums, fifes, cymbals, and huge
+horns, and as the latter overpower all the former, the effect is much
+like that of the braying of the colossal silver horns from the roofs
+of the Tibetan _lamaserais_. Many people suppose that this daily
+homage to the setting sun is a relic of the ancient fire or sun
+worship.
+
+Two great squares, one of them with a tank in the middle with a big
+gun at each corner, artillery barracks on three sides, and a number of
+smooth-bore twenty-four-pounder guns on the fourth, are among the
+features of Tihran. In this great _Maidan_ there are always soldiers
+in multifarious uniforms lounging, people waiting for the tram-cars,
+and Royal footmen, whose grotesque costumes border on the ridiculous.
+They are indeed a fitting accompaniment to the Royal horses with their
+magenta tails and spots, for they wear red coats with ballet-dancer
+skirts and green facings, green knee-breeches, white stockings, and
+tall stiff erections resembling a fool's cap on the head, topped by
+crests suggestive of nothing but a cock's comb.
+
+A gateway much ornamented leads from the artillery square, or _Maidan
+Topkhaneh_, by a short road shaded with trees to the Citadel or Ark,
+which is an immense enclosure, rather mangy and unprepossessing in its
+exterior, which contains the palace of the Shah, the arsenal, certain
+public offices, the royal colleges, etc. Over the gateway floats
+rather grandly the Royal standard, bearing the Lion and the Sun in
+yellow on a green ground.
+
+The Shah's palace is very magnificent, and the shady gardens,
+beautifully kept, with their fountains and tanks of pale blue tiles,
+through which clear water constantly moves, are worthy of a Royal
+residence. From the outside above the high wall the chief feature is a
+very lofty pavilion, brilliantly and elaborately painted, with walls
+inclining inwards, and culminating in two high towers. This striking
+structure contains the _andarun_ or _haram_ of the sovereign and his
+private apartments.
+
+This hasty sketch exhausts those features of Tihran which naturally
+arrest the stranger's attention. There is no splendour about it
+externally, but there is splendour within it, and possibly few
+European residences can exceed in taste and magnificence the palaces
+of the Minister of Justice (the _Muschir-u-Dowleh_), the
+_Naib-es-Sultan_, the _Zil-es-Sultan_, and a few others, though I
+regret that much of the furniture has been imported from Europe, as it
+vexes the eye more or less with its incongruity of form and colouring.
+The current of European influence, which is affecting externals in
+Tihran, is not likely now to be stemmed. Eastern civilisation is
+doomed, and the transition period is not beautiful, whatever the
+outcome may be.
+
+So much for what is within the walls. That which is outside deserves a
+passing notice as the environment of the capital. The sole grandeur of
+the situation lies in the near neighbourhood of the Shimran
+mountains--a huge wall, white or brown according to the season, with
+some irrigated planting near its base, which is spotted with villages
+and the _yailaks_ not only of the numerous Legations but of rich
+Europeans and Persians. Otherwise the tameless barbarism of a desert,
+which man has slashed, tunnelled, delved, and heaped, lies outside the
+city walls, deformed by the long lines of _kanaats_--some choked,
+others still serviceable--by which the city is supplied with water
+from the mountains, their shafts illustrating the Scriptural
+expression "ruinous heaps." In the glare of the summer sun, with the
+mercury ranging from 95° to 110° in the shade, and with the heated
+atmosphere quivering over the burning earth, these wastes are
+abandoned to carcasses and the vultures which fatten on them, and
+travelling is done at night, when a breeze from the Shimran range
+sends the thermometer down from 10° to 15°.
+
+Curving to the south-west of Tihran, the mountains end in a bare
+ridge, around the base of which, according to many archæologists, lie
+vestiges of the ancient city of Rhages, known in later days as Rhei.
+A tomb of brick with angular surfaces, sacred to the memory of an
+ancient and romantic attachment, remains of fortifications, and the
+Parsee cemetery on a ledge overlooking these remains, break the
+monotony of the waste in that direction.
+
+This cemetery, or "Tower of Silence," a white splash on the brown
+hillside, is visible from afar. The truncated cones which in many
+places mark seats of the ancient Zoroastrian worship have been
+mentioned here and there, but it is only in Tihran and Yezd that the
+descendants of the ancient fire-worshippers are found in such numbers
+as to be able to give prominence to their ancient rites of sepulture.
+Probably throughout Persia their number does not exceed 8000. Their
+head resides in Tihran. They bear a good character for uprightness,
+and except in Yezd, where they weave rich stuffs, they are chiefly
+agriculturists. They worship firelight and the sun on the principles
+symbolised by both, they never use tobacco, and it is impolite to
+smoke in their presence because of the sacredness of fire.
+
+Their belief has been, and is, that to bury the dead in the earth is
+to pollute it; and one among the reasons of the persecution of the
+early Christians by the Zoroastrians was their abhorrence of the
+desecration of the ground produced by the modes of Christian burial.
+
+This "Tower of Silence" near Tihran is a large round edifice of
+whitewashed mud and stone. On the top of it, a few feet below the
+circular parapet, the dead are laid to be devoured by birds and
+consumed by exposure to the elements. The destiny of the spirit is
+supposed to be indicated by the eye which is first devoured by the
+fowls of the air, the right eye signifying bliss.
+
+In a northern direction, to which the eye always turns to be refreshed
+by the purity of the icy cone of Demavend, or to watch the rosy light
+deepening into purple on the heights of Shimran, are palaces and
+country seats in numbers, with a mass of irrigated plantations
+extending for twenty miles, from Van[=e]k on the east to Kamarani[=e]h
+on the west. These are reached by passing through the Shimran gate,
+the most beautiful of the outer gates, tiled all over with yellow,
+black, blue, and green tiles in conventional designs, and with an
+immense coloured mosaic over the gateway representing Rust[=e]m,
+Persia's great mythical hero, conquering some of his enemies.
+
+On the slopes of the hills are palaces and hunting seats of the Shah,
+beginning with the imposing mass of the Kasr-i-Kaj[=a]r, on a low
+height, surrounded by majestic groves, in which are enormous tanks.
+Palaces and hunting seats of ministers and wealthy men succeed each
+other rapidly, a perfect seclusion having been obtained for each by
+the rapid growth of poplars and planes, each dwelling carrying out in
+its very marked individuality a deference to Persian custom, and each
+if possible using running water as a means of decoration. Many of
+these palaces are princely, and realise some of the descriptions in
+the _Arabian Nights_, with the beauty of their decorated architecture,
+the deep shade of their large demesnes, the cool plash of falling
+water, the songs of nightingales, and the scent of roses--sensuous
+Paradises in which the Persian finds the summer all too short.
+
+Beyond this enchanting region, and much higher up on the mountain
+slopes, are the hunting grounds of the Shah and his sons, well stocked
+with game and rigidly preserved; for the Shah is a keen sportsman, and
+is said to prefer a free life under canvas and the pleasures of the
+chase to the splendid conventionalities of the Court of Tihran.
+
+The two roads and the many tracks which centre in the capital after
+scoring the desert for many miles around it, are a feature of the
+landscape not to be overlooked, the Meshed, Resht, Bushire, and Tabriz
+roads being the most important, except the route from Baghdad by
+Kirmanshah and Hamadan, which in summer can be travelled by caravans
+in twenty-eight days, and by which many bulky articles of value, such
+as pianos, carriages, and valuable furniture, find their way to
+Tihran.[26]
+
+These are some of the features of the environments of Tihran. A
+traveller writing ten years hence may probably have to tell that the
+city has extended to its walls, that Western influence is nearly
+dominant in externals, and possibly that the _concessionaires_ who for
+years have been hanging about the Palace in alternations of hope and
+despondency have made something of their concessions, and that goods
+reach the capital in another way than on the backs of animals.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] A volume of travels in Persia would scarcely be complete without
+some slight notice of the northern capital; but for detailed modern
+accounts of it the reader should consult various other books,
+especially Dr. Wills' and Mr. Benjamin's, if he has not already done
+so.
+
+[26] There are _only_ two roads, properly so called, in Persia, though
+in the summer wheeled carriages with some assistance can get from
+place to place over several of the tracks. These two are the road from
+Kûm to the capital, formerly described, and one from Kasvin to the
+capital, both under 100 miles in length. Goods are everywhere carried
+on the backs of animals.
+
+The distance between Bushire and Tihran is 698 miles.
+
+  The summer freight per ton is          £14 1  8
+  The winter         do.                  20 2  0
+
+The distance between Tihran and Resht on the Caspian is 211 miles.
+
+  The summer freight per ton is           £4 0  5-4/5
+  The winter         do.                   8 0 11-3/5
+
+  From the Caspian to the Persian Gulf the summer
+     freight per ton is                  £18 2  3
+  The winter         do.                  28 3  4
+    inclusive of some insignificant charges.
+
+The time taken for the transit of goods between Bushire and Tihran is
+forty-two days, and between Resht and Tihran twelve days.
+
+The cost per ton by rail, if taken at Indian rates, between the Gulf
+and the Caspian, would be £3:11:10.
+
+On these figures the promoters of railway enterprise in Persia build
+their hopes.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+
+     BRITISH LEGATION, TIHRAN, _March 18_.
+
+Three weeks have passed quickly by since that terrible ride from
+Husseinabad. The snow is vanishing from the Shimran hills, the spring
+has come, and I am about to leave the unbounded kindness and
+hospitality of this house on a long and difficult journey. It is very
+pleasant to go away carrying no memories but those of kindness,
+received not only from Europeans and Americans, but from Persians,
+including the Amin-es-Sultan and the Muschir-u-Dowleh.
+
+It is impossible to bear away other than pleasant impressions of
+Tihran society. Kindness received personally always sways one's
+impressions of the people among whom one is thrown, and even if I had
+any unfavourable criticisms to make I should not make them.
+
+Society, or rather I should say the European population, is divided
+into classes and knots. There are the eleven American missionaries,
+whose duties and interests lie apart from those of the rest of the
+community, the diplomatic body, which has a monopoly of political
+interests, the large staff of the Indo-European telegraph, married and
+single, with Colonel Wells at its head, and the mercantile class, in
+which the manager and _employés_ of the Imperial Bank may be included.
+Outside of these recognised classes there is a shifting body of
+passing travellers, civil and military, and would-be _concessionaires_
+and adventurers, besides a few Europeans in Persian employment.
+
+From four to five hundred Europeans is a large foreign settlement, and
+it is a motley one, very various in its elements, "and in their
+idiosyncrasies, combinations, rivalries, and projects is to be found
+an inexhaustible fund of local gossip," writes Mr. Curzon in one of
+his recent brilliant letters to the _Times_, "as well as almost the
+sole source of non-political interest."
+
+Outside of the diplomatic circle the relations of England and Russia
+with each other and with the Shah afford a topic of ceaseless
+interest. England is just now considered to be in the ascendant, so
+far as her diplomacy is concerned, but few people doubt that Russian
+policy will eventually triumph, and that North Persia at least will be
+"absorbed."
+
+One or two specially pleasant things I must mention. Sir H. Drummond
+Wolff kindly wrote asking permission from the Shah for me to see his
+Museum, _i.e._ his treasure-house, and we, that is the Minister, the
+whole party from the Legation, and Dr. Odling of the telegraph staff
+and Mrs. Odling, went there yesterday. There was a great crowd outside
+the Palace gates, where we were received by many men in scarlet. The
+private gardens are immense, and beautifully laid out, in a more
+formal style than I have hitherto seen, with straight, hard gravel
+walks, and straight avenues of trees. The effect of the clear running
+water in the immense tanks lined with blue tiles is most agreeable and
+cool. Continuous rows of orange trees in tubs, and beds of narcissus,
+irises, and tulips, with a wealth of trellised roses just coming into
+leaf, are full of the promise of beauty. These great pleasure gardens
+are admirably kept, I doubt whether a fallen leaf would not be
+discovered and removed in five minutes.
+
+The great irregular mass of the Palace buildings on the garden front
+is very fine, the mangy and forlorn aspect being confined to the side
+seen by the public. The walls are much decorated, chiefly with glazed
+and coloured tiles geometrically arranged, and the general effect is
+striking.
+
+The "Museum," properly the audience chamber, and certainly one among
+the finest halls in the world, is approached by a broad staircase of
+cream-coloured alabaster. We were received by the Grand Vizier's two
+brothers, and were afterwards joined by himself and another high
+official.
+
+The decorations of this magnificent hall are in blue and white stucco
+of the hard fine kind, hardly distinguishable from marble, known as
+_gatch_, and much glass is introduced in the ceiling. The proportions
+of the room are perfect. The floor is of fine tiles of exquisite
+colouring arranged as mosaic. A table is overlaid with beaten gold,
+and chairs in rows are treated in the same fashion. Glass cases round
+the room and on costly tables contain the fabulous treasures of the
+Shah and many of the Crown jewels. Possibly the accumulated splendours
+of pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, basins and vessels
+of solid gold, ancient armour flashing with precious stones, shields
+studded with diamonds and rubies, scabbards and sword hilts incrusted
+with costly gems, helmets red with rubies, golden trays and vessels
+thick with diamonds, crowns of jewels, chains, ornaments (masculine
+solely) of every description, jewelled coats of mail dating back to
+the reign of Shah Ismaël, exquisite enamels of great antiquity, all in
+a profusion not to be described, have no counterpart on earth. They
+are a dream of splendour not to be forgotten.
+
+One large case contains the different orders bestowed on the Shah, all
+blazing with diamonds, a splendid display, owing to the European
+cutting of the stones, which brings out their full beauty. There are
+many glass cases from two to three feet high and twelve inches or more
+broad, nearly full of pearls, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds,
+flashing forth their many-coloured light--treasures not arranged, but
+piled like tea or rice. Among the extraordinarily lavish uses of gold
+and gems is a golden globe twenty inches in diameter, turning on a
+frame of solid gold. The stand and meridian are of solid gold set with
+rubies. The equator and elliptic are of large diamonds. The countries
+are chiefly outlined in rubies, but Persia is in diamonds. The ocean
+is represented by emeralds. As if all this were not enough, huge gold
+coins, each worth thirty-three sovereigns, are heaped round its base.
+
+At the upper end of the hall is the Persian throne. Many pages would
+be needed for a mere catalogue of some of the innumerable treasures
+which give gorgeousness to this hall. Here indeed is "Oriental
+splendour," but only a part of the possessions of the Shah; for many
+gems, including the Dar-i-nur or Sea of Light, the second most famous
+diamond in the world, are kept elsewhere in double-locked iron chests,
+and hoards of bullion saved from the revenues are locked up in vaults
+below the Palace.
+
+If such a blaze of splendour exists in this shrunken, shrivelled,
+"depopulated" empire, what must have been the magnificence of the
+courts of Darius and Xerxes, into which were brought the treasures of
+almost "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them"? Since
+seeing this treasure-house I think that many of the early descriptions
+of wealth, which I have regarded as Oriental hyperbole, were literal,
+and that there was a time in Persia, as in Judea, when "silver was not
+accounted of." And to come down from the far off-glories of Darius,
+Xerxes, and Khosroe and the Parthian kings, there have been within
+almost modern times Persian sovereigns celebrated among other things
+for their successful "looting" of foreign kingdoms--Shah Abbas the
+great, and Nadir Shah, who scarcely two hundred years ago returned
+from the sack of Delhi with gems valued at twenty millions of our
+money.
+
+After we had seen most of what was to be seen the Vizier left us, and
+we went to the room in which stands the celebrated Peacock Throne,
+brought by Nadir Shah from Delhi, and which has been valued at
+£2,500,000. This throne is a large stage, with parapets and a high fan
+back, and is reached by several steps. It is entirely of gold enamel,
+and the back is incrusted with rubies and diamonds. Its priceless
+carpet has a broad border, the white arabesque pattern of which is
+formed of pearls closely stitched. You will think that I am lapsing
+into Oriental exaggeration!
+
+While we were admiring the beautiful view of the gardens from the
+windows of this room, Hassan Ali Khan, better known as "the Nawab,"
+suggested that we should retire, as the Shah is in the habit of
+visiting and enjoying his treasures at a later hour. However, at the
+foot of the stairs on the threshold of the vestibule stood the Shah,
+the "King of Kings," the "Asylum of the Universe," and that his
+presence there was not an accident was shown by the fact that the
+Grand Vizier was with him.
+
+Sir Henry advanced, attended by "the Nawab," and presented me, lifting
+his hat to the king, who neither then nor when he left us made the
+slightest inclination of his head. Hassan Ali Khan, in answer to a
+question, mentioned some of my travels, and said that with His
+Majesty's permission I wished to visit the Bakhtiari country.[27] The
+king pushed up his big horn spectacles and focused his eyes, about
+which there is something very peculiar, upon me, with a stare which
+would have been disconcerting to a younger person, asked if I were
+going to travel alone in his dominions, and if fitting arrangements
+had been made; if I had been in Pekin, and had visited Borneo and the
+Celebes; said a few other things, and then without a bow turned round
+abruptly and walked down the garden with the Amin-es-Sultan.
+
+This accidental and informal presentation was a very pleasant
+incident. The Shah is not what I expected from his various portraits.
+His manner (though he was said to be very affable on this occasion)
+has neither Eastern nor Western polish. He is a somewhat rough-looking
+man, well on in middle life, rather dark in complexion, and wearing a
+thick dark moustache, probably dyed, as is the custom. The long
+twisted moustache conceals the expression of his mouth, and the
+spectacles with thick horn rims that of his eyes. He was very simply
+dressed. The diamond aigrette and sword with jewelled hilt with which
+pictures and descriptions have familiarised us were absent, and this
+splendid monarch, the heir of splendour, and the possessor of fabulous
+treasures, wore the ordinary Persian high cap of Astrakan lambskin
+without any ornament, close-fitting dark trousers with a line of gold
+braid, a full-skirted coat of dull-coloured Kerman silk brocade, loose
+and open, under which were huddled one or more coats. A watch-chain
+composed of large diamonds completed his costume. He did not wear
+gloves, and I noticed that his hands, though carefully attended to,
+were those of a man used to muscular exercise, strong and wiry.
+
+As the sovereign and his prime minister walked away, it was
+impossible not to speculate upon coming events: what will happen, for
+instance, when Nasr-ed-Din, possibly the ablest man in the country
+which he rules, and probably the best and most patriotic ruler among
+Oriental despots, goes "the way of all the earth"? and again, whether
+Ali Askar Khan, who has held his post for five years, and who at
+thirty-two is the foremost man in Persia after the king, will weather
+the storm of intrigue which rages round his head, and resist the
+undermining influence of Russia?
+
+I have had two interesting conversations with him, and he was good
+enough to propose success to my journey at a dinner at the Legation;
+and though, as he does not speak French, the services of an
+interpreter were necessary, he impressed me very favourably as a man
+of thought, intelligence, and patriotism.
+
+He made one remark which had a certain degree of pathos in it. After
+speaking of the severe strictures and harsh criticisms of certain
+recent writers, which he said were very painful to Persians, he added,
+"I hope if you write you will write kindly, and not crush the
+aspirations of my struggling country as some have done."
+
+This Amin-es-Sultan, the faithful or trusted one of the sovereign, the
+Grand Vizier or Prime Minister, the second person in the empire, who
+unites in his person at this time the ministries of the Treasury, the
+Interior, the Court, and Customs, is of humble antecedents, being the
+son of a man who was originally an inferior attendant on the Shah in
+his hunting expeditions, and is the grandson of an Armenian captive.
+Certain persons of importance are bent upon his overthrow, and it can
+only be by the continued favour and confidence of the Shah that he can
+sustain himself against their intrigues, combined with those of
+Russia.
+
+My visit to the Palace terminated with the sight of another
+throne-room opening upon the garden in which a few days hence, with
+surroundings of great magnificence, the Shah will receive the
+congratulations of the diplomatic corps, and afterwards give a general
+audience to the people.
+
+This is an annual ceremony at the festival of No Ruz when the Persian
+New Year begins, at the time of the spring solstice, and is probably a
+relic of the Zoroastrian worship, though the modern Persians, as
+Mohammedans, allege that it is observed to celebrate the birthday of
+the Prophet's mother.[28]
+
+Some hours after the close of a splendid ceremony in the audience
+chamber, chiefly religious, at which the Shah burns incense on a small
+brazier, he descends to the garden, and walking alone along an avenue
+of Royal Guards, with the crown of the Kaj[=a]rs, blazing with jewels,
+carried in front of him, he seats himself on an alabaster throne, the
+foreign ministers having been received previously. This throne is a
+large platform, with a very high back and parapets of bold stone
+fretwork, supported on marble lions and other figures, and is ascended
+by three or four steps.
+
+The populace, which to the number of many thousands are admitted into
+the garden, see him seated on his throne, their absolute master, the
+lord of life and death. A voice asks if they are content, and they say
+they are. A hymn of congratulation is sung, a chief of the Kaj[=a]r
+tribe offers the congratulations of the people of Persia, the Hakim of
+the people hands the king a jewelled _kalian_, which he smokes, and
+showers of gold fall among the populace.
+
+The British Minister is understood to be at this time the most
+powerful foreigner in Persia; and as we drove through the crowd which
+had assembled at the Palace gates, he was received with all Oriental
+marks of respect.
+
+All my intercourse with Persians here has been pleasant, and if I
+mention one person particularly, it is owing to a certain interest
+which attaches to himself and his possible future, and because some
+hours spent at his splendid palace were among the pleasantest of the
+many pleasant and interesting ones which I shall hereafter recall.
+
+Yahia Khan, Minister of Justice and Commerce, whose official title is
+Muschir-u-Dowleh, was formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs, but
+forfeited the confidence of the British Government in supposed
+connection with the escape of Ayoub Khan, and being suspected of
+Russian proclivities, which he denies, lost his position. He speaks
+French perfectly, is credited with very great abilities, and not only
+has courteous and charming manners, but thoroughly understands the
+customs of Europe.
+
+As the possessor of one of the most magnificent palaces in Persia,
+married to the Shah's sister, his son, a youth of eighteen, married to
+a daughter of the Vali-'ahd, the heir-apparent, and as the brother of
+Mirza Hussein Khan--for long Grand Vizier and _Sipah Salar_, or
+Commander-in-Chief, whose gorgeous mosque, scarcely finished, the
+finest mosque built in late years by any but a royal personage,
+adjoins his house, Yahia Khan is in every way an important personage.
+
+He is the fourth husband of the Shah's sister, who has had a tragic
+life and is a very accomplished woman. Her first husband, Mirza
+Taghi, when Prime Minister, attempted reforms which would have tended
+to diminish the hideous corruption which is the bane of Persian
+officialism, and consequently made many enemies, who induced the Shah,
+then a young man, to depose him. Worse than deposition was
+apprehended, and as it was not etiquette to murder a husband of a
+royal princess in her presence, his wife, who loved him, watched him
+night and day with ceaseless vigilance for some weeks. But the fatal
+day at last came, and a good and powerful man, whose loss is said to
+have been an irreparable one to Persia, was strangled by the Shah's
+messengers, it is said, in the bath.
+
+Her son, who has married the Shah's grand-daughter, is courteous like
+his father, but is apparently without his force.
+
+The Muschir-u-Dowleh invited me to breakfast, along with General
+Gordon and Hassan Ali Khan. The _dejeûner_ was altogether in European
+style, except that in the centre of the table, among lilies and
+irises, a concealed fountain sent up jets of rose-water spray. Sèvres
+and Dresden porcelain, the finest damask, and antique and exquisitely
+beautiful silver adorned the table. The cooking was French. The wines
+and liqueurs, an innovation on Moslem tables now common, but of recent
+date, were both French and Persian. The service was perfection. The
+host conversed both thoughtfully and agreeably, and expressed himself
+remarkably well in French.
+
+Afterwards we were invited to go over the palace and its grounds,
+which are remarkably beautiful, and then over the magnificent mosque.
+Shiah mosques are absolutely tabooed to Christians; but as this has
+not yet been used for worship, our entrance was not supposed to
+desecrate it. When quite finished it will be one of the most
+magnificent buildings dedicated to religious use in the world, and its
+four tile-covered minarets, its vast dome, and arches and façades in
+tiled arabesques and conventional patterns and exquisite colouring,
+show that the Persian artist when adequately encouraged has not lost
+his old feeling for beauty.
+
+Besides the mosque there is a fine building, the low roof of which is
+supported by innumerable columns, all of plain brick, resembling a
+crypt, which will be used for winter worship. In addition, a lavish
+endowment has provided on the grounds a theological college and a
+hospital, with most, if not all, of the funds needed for their
+maintenance; and on every part of the vast pile of buildings the
+architect has lavished all the resources of his art.
+
+No houses are to my thinking more beautiful and appropriate to the
+climate and mode of living than those of the upper classes of
+Persians, and the same suitability and good taste run down through the
+trading classes till one reaches the mud hovel, coarse and un-ideal,
+of the workman and peasant.
+
+My memory does not serve me for the details of the Muschir-u-Dowleh's
+palace, which, though some of the rooms are furnished with European
+lounges, tables, and chairs in _marqueterie_ and brocade, is
+throughout distinctively Persian; but the impression produced by the
+general _coup d'oeil_, and by the size, height, and perfect
+proportion of the rooms, galleries, staircases, and halls, is quite
+vivid. The rooms have dados of primrose-coloured Yezd alabaster in
+slabs four feet high by three broad, clouded and veined most
+delicately by nature. The banqueting hall is of immense size, and the
+floor is covered with a dark fawn _namad_ three-quarters of an inch
+thick, made, I understood, in one piece eighty feet long by fifty
+broad. The carpets are the most beautiful which can be turned out by
+Persian looms, and that is saying a great deal.
+
+The roofs, friezes, and even the walls of this house, like those of
+others of its class, have a peculiarity of beauty essentially Persian.
+This is the form of _gatch_ or fine stucco-work known as _ainah
+karee_. I saw it first at Baghdad, and now at Tihran wonder that such
+beautiful and costly decoration does not commend itself to some of our
+millionaires. Arches filled with honeycomb decoration, either pure
+white or tastefully coloured and gilded, are among the architectural
+adornments which the Alhambra borrowed from Persia. My impression is
+that this exquisite design was taken from snow on the hillsides, which
+is often fashioned by a strong wind into the honeycomb pattern.
+
+But the glory of this form of decoration reaches its height when,
+after the _gatch_ ceiling and cornice or deep frieze have been
+daringly moulded by the workman into distinct surfaces or facets, he
+lays on mirrors while the plaster is yet soft, which adhere, and even
+at their edges have scarcely the semblance of a joining. Sometimes,
+as in the new summer palace of the Shah's third son, the
+Naib-es-Sultaneh, the whole wall is decorated in this way; but I
+prefer the reception-rooms of Yahia Khan, in which it is only brought
+down a few feet. Immense skill and labour are required in this process
+of adornment, but it yields in splendour to none, flashing in
+bewildering light, and realising the fabled glories of the palaces of
+the _Arabian Nights_. One of the _salons_, about sixty feet by fifty,
+treated in this way is about the most beautiful room I ever saw.
+
+The Persian architect also shows great art in his windows. He masses
+them together, and by this means gives something of grandeur even to
+an insignificant room. The beauty of the designs, whether in fretwork
+of wood or stone, is remarkable, and the effect is enhanced by the
+filling in of the interstices with coloured glass, usually amber and
+pale blue. So far as I have seen, the Persian house is never
+over-decorated, and however gorgeous the mirror-work, or involved the
+arrangement of arches, or daring the dreams in _gatch_ ceilings and
+pillars, the fancy of the designer is always so far under control as
+to give the eye periods of rest.
+
+Under the palace of the Muschir-u-Dowleh, as under many others, is a
+sort of glorified _serdab_, used in hot weather, partly under ground,
+open at each end, and finished throughout with marble, the roof being
+supported on a cluster of slender pillars with capitals picked out in
+gold, and the air being cooled by a fountain in a large marble basin.
+But this _serdab_ is far eclipsed by a summer hall in the palace of
+the Shah's third son, which, as to walls and ceiling, is entirely
+composed of mirror-work, the floor of marble being arranged with
+marble settees round fountains whose cool plash even now is delicious.
+The large pleasure gardens which surround rich men's houses in the
+city are laid out somewhat in the old French style of formality, and
+are tended with scrupulous care.
+
+I did not see the _andarun_ of this or any house here, owing to the
+difficulty about an interpreter, but it is not likely that the ladies
+are less magnificently lodged than their lords. The _andarun_ has its
+own court, no one is allowed to open a window looking upon it, it is
+as secluded as a convent. No man but the master of the house may
+enter, and when he retires thither no man may disturb him. To all
+inquirers it is a sufficient answer to say that he is in the
+_andarun_. To the Shah, however, belongs the privilege of looking upon
+the unveiled face of every woman in Persia. The domestic life of a
+Moslem is always shrouded in mystery, and even in the case of the
+Shah "the fierce light that beats upon a throne" fails to reveal to
+the outer world the number of wives and women in his _andarun_, which
+is variously stated at from sixty to one hundred and ninety.
+
+It is not easy in any Eastern city to get exactly what one wants for a
+journey, especially as a European cannot buy in the bazars; and the
+servant difficulty has been a great hindrance, particularly as I have
+a strong objection to the regular interpreter-servant who has been
+accustomed to travel with Europeans.
+
+I have now got a Persian cook with sleepy eyes, a portion of a nose,
+and a grotesquely "hang-dog" look. For an interpreter and personal
+attendant I have an educated young Brahmin, for some years in British
+post-office service in the Gulf, and lately a teacher in the American
+school here. He speaks educated English, and is said to speak good
+Persian. He has never done any "menial" work, but is willing to do
+anything in order to get to England. He has a frank, independent
+manner and "no nonsense about him." Taking him is an experiment.[29]
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] Some of the Bakhtiari khans or princes, with their families, are
+kept by the Shah as hostages in and round Tihran for the loyalty of
+their tribes, the conquest of these powerful nomads not being so
+complete as it might and possibly will be.
+
+[28] On the eve of the day, the last of a festival of ten days, the
+common people kindle rows of bonfires and leap over them; and, though
+not on the same day, but on the night of the 25th of February, sacred
+in the Armenian Church as the day of the presentation of our Lord in
+the temple, large bonfires are lighted on the mud roofs of the
+Armenians of the Persian and Turkish cities, and the younger members
+of the households dance and sing and leap through the flames.
+Meanwhile the Moslems close their windows, so that the sins which the
+Christians are supposed to be burning may not enter. Whether these
+"Beltane fires" are a relic of the ancient fire worship or of still
+older rites may be a question. Among the Christians the custom is
+showing signs of passing away.
+
+[29] An experiment I never regretted. Mirza Yusuf was with me for nine
+months, and I found him faithful, truthful, and trustworthy, very
+hard-working, minimising hardships and difficulties, always cheerful,
+and with an unruffled temper, his failings being those of a desk-bred
+man transplanted into a life of rough out-doorishness.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER X
+
+
+     KÛM, _March 23_.
+
+This so far is a delightful journey. All the circumstances are
+favourable. A friend who was sending his servants, horses, and baggage
+to Isfahan has lent me a thoroughbred, and with a trustworthy young
+soldier as my escort I do not trouble myself about the caravan at all,
+and get over much of the ground at a gallop. The roads have nearly
+dried up, the country looks cheerful, travellers are numerous, living
+and dead, the sun is bright but the air is cool and bracing, and the
+insects are still hybernating, Mirza Yusuf is getting into my "ways,"
+and is very pleasant. I did not think that I could have liked Persian
+travelling so well. A good horse and a good pace make an immense
+difference. It is not the custom for European ladies to travel
+unattended by European gentlemen in Persia, but no objection to my
+doing so was made in the highest quarters, either English or Persian,
+and so far there have been no difficulties or annoyances.
+
+I left the British Legation at noon four days ago. The handsome Arab,
+with a sheepskin coat rolled on the front of the saddle, holsters, and
+Persian housings, looked like a life-guardsman's horse. I nearly came
+to grief as soon as I got out of the Legation gate; for he would not
+stand my English snaffle, and reared and threw himself about, and my
+spur touching him as he did so made him quite wild, and I endured
+much apprehension all through Tihran, expecting to find myself on the
+rough pavement; but I took off the offending spur, and rode him on the
+sharp bit he is used to, and when we were outside the gate he
+quietened down, and I had a long gallop.
+
+How different it all looks! No more floundering through mud! The trees
+of Abdul Azim are green. Caravans are moving fast and cheerily. Even
+the dead on their last journey look almost cheerful under the sunny
+skies. We did not reach Husseinabad till long after dark. It was so
+unspeakably dark that my horse and I fell off the road into deep
+water, and we passed the caravanserai without knowing that we were
+near it.
+
+The usual disorder of a first night was somewhat worse than usual. The
+loads were mixed up, and the servants and _charvadars_ were
+quarrelling, and I did not get my dinner till ten; but things are all
+right now, and have been since the following morning, when I assumed
+the reins of government and saw the mules loaded myself, an efficient
+interpreter making my necessary self-assertion intelligible.
+
+Though the spring has set in, most of the country between this and
+Tihran looks a complete desert. In February it was a muddy waste--it
+is now a dusty waste, on which sheep, goats, and camels pick up a gray
+herbage, which without search is not obvious to the human eye, and
+consists mostly of wormwood and other bitter and aromatic plants. Off
+the road a few tulips and dwarf irises coming up out of the dry ground
+show the change of season.
+
+I came for some distance on one day by a road which caravans avoid
+because of robbers. It crosses a reddish desert with a few salt
+streams and much saline efflorescence, a blasted region without a
+dwelling or patch of cultivation. Yet a four-mile gallop across one
+part of it was most inspiriting. As the two Arabs, excited by the
+pace, covering great spaces of ground with each powerful stride,
+dashed over the level gravel I thought, "They'll have fleet steeds
+that follow"; but no steed or rider or bird or beast was visible
+through all that hungry land. We passed also close to a salt lake on
+the Kavir, seen in the distance on the former journey, near which are
+now pitched a quantity of Ilyat tents, all black. The wealth of these
+nomads is in camels, sheep, and goats. Though the camps, five in
+number, were small, they had over 200 camels among them.
+
+Where four weeks ago there was deep mud there is now the glittering
+semblance of unsullied snow, and the likeness of frost crystals fills
+the holes. _Miles_ of camels loaded with cotton march with stately
+stride in single file, the noble mountain camel, with heavy black fur
+on neck, shoulder, fore-arm, and haunch, and kindly gentle eyes,
+looking, as he is, the king of baggage animals, not degraded by
+servitude, though he may carry 800 lbs.
+
+Some of the sights of the road were painful. For instance, just as I
+passed a caravan of the dead bound for Kûm a mule collided with
+another and fell, and the loosely-put-together boxes on its back gave
+way and corpses fell out in an advanced stage of decomposition. A
+camel just dead lay in a gully. On a ledge of rock above it seven
+gorged vultures (not the bald-headed) sat in a row. They had already
+feasted on him to repletion. I passed several dead camels, and one
+with a pleading pathetic face giving up the ghost on the road.
+
+Yesterday I rode in here from the magnificent caravanserai of
+Shashgird, sixteen miles in three hours before lunch, and straight
+through the crowded bazars to the telegraph office unmolested, an
+Afghan camel-driver's coat, with the wool outside, having proved so
+good a disguise that the _gholam_ who was sent to meet me returned to
+his master saying that he had not seen a lady, but that a foreign
+soldier and _sahib_ had come into Kûm.
+
+When my visit was over and I had received from Mr. Lyne the route to
+Isfahan, and such full information about rooms, water, and supplies as
+will enable me to give my own orders, and escape from the tyranny of
+the _charvadars_, having sent the horses to the caravanserai I
+disguised myself as a Persian woman of the middle class in the dress
+which Mrs. Lyne wears in the city, a thick white _crêpe_ veil with
+open stitch in front of the eyes, a black sheet covering me from head
+to foot, the ends hanging from the neck by long loops, and held with
+the left hand just below the eyes, and so, though I failed to imitate
+the totter and shuffle of a Persian lady's walk, I passed unnoticed
+through the long and crowded streets of this fanatical city, attended
+only by a _gholam_, and at the door of my own room was prevented from
+entering by the servants till my voice revealed my identity.
+
+Twice to-day I have passed safely through the city in the same
+disguise, and have even lingered in front of shops without being
+detected. Mr. and Mrs. Lyne have made the two days here very pleasant,
+by introducing me to Persians in whose houses I have seen various
+phases of Persian life. On reaching one house, where Mrs. Lyne arrived
+an hour later, I was a little surprised to be received by the host in
+uniform, speaking excellent French, but without a lady with him.
+
+He had been very kind to Hadji, who, he says, is rich and has three
+wives. The poor fellow's lungs have been affected for two years, and
+the affection was for the time aggravated by the terrible journey. He
+talked a good deal about Persian social customs, especially polygamy.
+
+He explained that he has only one wife, but that this is because he
+has been fortunate. He said that he regards polygamy as the most
+fruitful source of domestic unhappiness, but that so long as
+marriages are made for men by their mothers and sisters, a large sum
+being paid to the bride's father, a marriage is really buying "a pig
+in a poke," and constantly when the bride comes home she is ugly or
+bad-tempered or unpleasing and cannot manage the house. "This," he
+said, "makes men polygamists who would not otherwise be so.
+
+"Then a man takes another wife, and perhaps this is repeated, and then
+he tries again, and so on, and the house becomes full of turmoil.
+There are always quarrels in a polygamous household," he said, "and
+the children dispute about the property after the father's death." Had
+he not been fortunate, and had not his wife been capable of managing
+the house, he said that he must have taken another wife, "for," he
+added, "no man can bear a badly-managed house."
+
+I thought of the number of men in England who have to bear it without
+the Moslem resource.
+
+A lady of "position" must never go out except on Fridays to the
+mosque, or with her husband's permission and scrupulously veiled and
+guarded, to visit her female friends. Girl-children begin to wear the
+_chadar_ between two and three years old, and are as secluded as their
+mothers, nor must any man but father or brother see their faces. Some
+marry at twelve years old.
+
+"La vie des femmes dans la Perse est très triste," he said. The
+absence of anything like education for girls, except in Tihran, and
+the want of any reading-book but the Koran for boys and girls, he
+regards as a calamity. He may be a pessimist by nature: he certainly
+has no hope for the future of Persia, and contemplates a Russian
+occupation as a certainty in the next twenty years.
+
+After a long conversation I asked for the pleasure, not of seeing his
+wife, but the "mother of his children," and was rewarded by the sight
+of a gentle and lovely woman of twenty-one or twenty-two, graceful in
+every movement but her walk, exquisitely refined-looking, with a most
+becoming timidity of expression, mingled with gentle courtesy to a
+stranger. She was followed by three very pretty little girls. The
+husband and wife are of very good family, and the lady has an
+unmistakably well-bred look.
+
+Though I knew what to expect in the costume of a woman of the upper
+classes, I was astonished, and should have been scandalised even had
+women only been present. The costume of ladies has undergone a great
+change in the last ninety years, and the extreme of the fashion is as
+lacking in delicacy as it is in comfort. However, much travelling
+compels one to realise that the modesty of the women of one country
+must not be judged of by the rules of another, and a lady costumed as
+I shall attempt to describe would avert her eyes in horror by no means
+feigned from an English lady in a Court or evening-dress of to-day.
+
+The under garment, very much _en évidence_, is a short chemise of
+tinselled silk gauze, or gold-embroidered muslin so transparent as to
+leave nothing to the imagination. This lady wore a skirt of flowered
+silver brocade, enormously full, ten or twelve yards wide, made to
+stand nearly straight out by some frills or skirts of very stiffly
+starched cotton underneath, the whole, not even on a waistband round
+the waist, but drawn by strings, and suspended over the hips, the
+skirts coming down to within a few inches of the knee, leaving the
+white rounded limbs uncovered. The effect of this exaggerated
+_bouffante_ skirt is most singular. White socks are worn. Over the
+transparent _pirah[=a]n_, or chemise, she wore a short velvet jacket
+beautifully embroidered in gold, with its fronts about ten inches
+apart, so as to show the flowered chemise. Her eyebrows were
+artificially curved and lengthened till they appeared to meet above
+her nose, her eyelashes were marked round with _kohl_, and a band of
+blue-black paint curving downwards above the nose crossed her
+forehead, but was all but concealed by a small white square of silk
+_crêpe_, on the head and brow and fastened under the chin by a brooch.
+
+Had she been in another house she would have worn a large square of
+gold-embroidered silk, with the points in front and behind, and
+fastened under the chin. Under the _crêpe_ square there was a small
+skull-cap of gold-embroidered velvet, matching her little zouave
+jacket, with an aigrette of gems at the side. Her arms were covered
+with bracelets, and a number of valuable necklaces set off the beauty
+of her dazzlingly white neck.
+
+Persian ladies paint, or rather smear, but her young pure complexion
+needed no such aids. Her front hair, cut to the level of her mouth,
+hung down rather straight, and the remainder, which was long, was
+plaited into many small glossy plaits. Contrary to custom, it was
+undyed, and retained its jet-black colour. Most Persian ladies turn it
+blue-black with indigo, or auburn with _henna_, and with the latter
+the finger-nails and palms of the hands are always stained.
+
+Her jewellery was all of solid gold; hollow gold and silver ornaments
+being only worn by the poor. She wore a chain with four scent caskets
+attached to it exhaling attar of roses and other choice perfumes.
+
+She was a graceful and attractive creature in spite of her costume.
+She waited on her husband and on me, that is, she poured out the tea
+and moved about the room for hot water and _bonbons_ with the feeble,
+tottering gait of a woman quite unaccustomed to exercise, and to whom
+the windy wastes outside the city walls and a breezy gallop are quite
+unknown. The little girls were dressed in the style of adults, and
+wore tinselled gauze _chad[=a]rs_ or _chargats_.
+
+After seeing a good deal of home life during some months in Persia, I
+have come to the conclusion that there is no child life. Swaddled till
+they can walk, and then dressed as little men and women, with the
+adult tyrannies of etiquette binding upon them, and in the case of
+girls condemned from infancy to the seclusion of the _andarun_, there
+is not a trace of the spontaneity and nonsense which we reckon as
+among the joys of childhood, or of such a complete and beautiful child
+life as children enjoy in Japan. There does not appear to be any child
+talk. The Persian child from infancy is altogether interested in the
+topics of adults; and as the conversation of both sexes is said by
+those who know them best to be without reticence or modesty, the
+purity which is one of the greatest charms of childhood is absolutely
+unknown. Parental love is very strong in Persia, and in later days the
+devotion of the mother to the boy is amply returned by the grown-up
+son, who regards her comfort as his charge, and her wishes as law,
+even into old age.
+
+When tea was over the host retired with the remark that the ladies
+would prefer to amuse themselves alone, and then a Princess and
+another lady arrived attended by several servants. This Princess came
+in the black silk sheet with a suggestion of gold about its border
+which is the street disguise of women of the richer classes, and she
+wore huge bag-like violet trousers, into which her voluminous skirts
+were tucked.
+
+She emerged from these wrappings a "harmony" in rose colour--a comely
+but over-painted young woman in rose and silver brocade skirts, a rose
+velvet jacket embroidered in silver, a transparent white muslin
+_pirah[=a]n_ with silver stars upon it, and a _chargat_ of white
+muslin embroidered in rose silk.
+
+She and the hostess sat on a rug in front of a fire, and servants now
+and then handed them _kalians_. The three little girls and the guest's
+little girl were in the background. The doors were then fastened and a
+number of servants came in and entertained their mistresses. Two sang
+and accompanied themselves on a sort of tambourine. Tea was handed
+round at intervals. There was dancing, and finally two or three women
+acted some little scenes from a popular Persian play. By these
+amusements, I am told, the women of the upper classes get rid of time
+when they visit each other; and they spend much of their lives in
+afternoon visiting, taking care to be back before sunset. After a long
+time the gentle hostess, reading in my face that I was not enjoying
+the performances, on which indeed unaccustomed English eyes could not
+look, brought them to a close, and showed me some of her beautiful
+dresses and embroidered fabrics.
+
+Putting on my disguise and attended by a servant I walked a third time
+unrecognised and unmolested through the crowded bazars, through the
+gate and across the bridge, when a boy looked quite into my shroud,
+which I was not perhaps clutching so tightly as in the crowd, and
+exclaiming several times _Kafir_, ran back into the city. I did not
+run, but got back to the "hotel" as fast as possible.
+
+It is very noisy, and my room being on the ground floor, and having
+three doors, there is little peace either by day or night. Thirteen
+days from the _No Ruz_ or New Year, which was March 21, are kept as a
+feast before the severe fast of the Ramazan, and this city of pilgrims
+is crowded, and all people put on new clothes, the boys being chiefly
+dressed in green.
+
+To-morrow I begin my journey over new ground.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI
+
+
+     KASHAN, _March 26_.
+
+I have seen the last of Kûm and hotels and made roads for many months.
+So much the better! I had to ride the whole length of the bazars and
+the city, a mile and a half, but the camel-driver's coat served again
+as a disguise, and I heard no remarks except from two boys. Indeed I
+am delighted to find that the "foreign soldier" who rides in front of
+me attracts so much curiosity that I pass in his wake unnoticed.
+
+The ruinous condition of Kûm is fearful. Once outside the houses and
+bazars which surround the shrine of Fatima, the town is mostly rubbish
+and litter, with forlorn, miserable houses created out of the rubbish,
+grouped near festering pools; broken causeways infamously paved, full
+of holes, heaps of potsherds, bones obtruding themselves, nothing to
+please and everything to disgust the eye and sadden the spirit,
+religious intolerance, a diminished population, and desolation.
+
+The pottery bazar, abounding in blue glazed ware of graceful shapes,
+and a number of shrines of saints, are the only objects of interest.
+The domes of the latter were once covered with blue tiles, but these
+have nearly all peeled off, leaving the universal mud--a mud so
+self-asserting everywhere that Persia may be called the "Great Mud
+Land." The cherry and apricot trees are in full bloom, but as yet
+there is little greenery round Kûm, and the area of cultivation is
+very limited.
+
+I am now on the road which, with the exception of that from Tihran to
+Resht, is best known to travellers,[30] but I cannot help sketching it
+briefly, though the interests are few considering the distance
+travelled, 280 miles from Tihran to Isfahan. I now see Persia for the
+first time; for traversing a country buried in snow is not seeing it.
+It would be premature to express the opinion that the less one sees of
+it the more one is likely to admire it.
+
+I have been _en route_ for a week under the best possible
+circumstances--the nights always cool, the days never too warm, the
+accommodation tolerable, the caravan in excellent working order, no
+annoyances, and no grievances. The soldier who attends me arranges
+everything for my comfort, and is always bright and kind. I have no
+ambition to "beat the record," but long gallops on a fine Arab horse
+turn marches of from twenty-two to thirty miles into delightful
+morning rides of from three and a half to four and a half hours, with
+long pleasant afternoons following them, and sound sleep at night.
+These are my halcyon days of Persian travelling; and yet I cannot
+write that Persia is beautiful.
+
+It is early spring, and tulips and irises rise not out of a carpet of
+green but, to use the descriptive phrase of Isaiah, "as a root out of
+a dry ground," the wormwood is dressed in its gray-green, the buds of
+the wild dwarf-almond show their tender pink, the starry blossom of
+the narcissus gleams in moist places, the sky is exquisitely blue, and
+shining cloud-masses fleck the brown hillsides with violet shadows.
+Where there is irrigation carpets of young wheat cover the ground; but
+these, like the villages, occur only at long intervals, for the road
+passes mainly through a country destitute of water, or rather of
+arrangements for storing it.
+
+As to natural trees there are none, and even the bushes are few and
+unlovely, chiefly camel thorn and a rigid and thorny tamarisk. Beyond
+Kûm there is no made road. A track worn by the caravans of ages
+exists,--sometimes parallel ruts for a width of half a mile, sometimes
+not two yards wide, and now and then lapsing into illegibility. There
+are large and small caravanserais of an inferior class along the
+route, and _chapar khanas_ at intervals. Water is often bad and
+sometimes brackish. It is usually supplied from small brick
+_abambars_, or covered reservoirs. Milk is hard to obtain, often
+impossible; at some places fowls can be bought for eightpence each,
+and "flap jacks" everywhere.
+
+Except the snowy cone of Demavend, with purple ranges curtaining his
+feet, no special object of admiration exists; the plains are reddish,
+yellowish, barren, gravelly, or splotched with salt; the ranges of
+hills, which are never far off (for Persia is a land of mountains),
+are either shapeless and gravelly, or rocky, rugged, and splintered,
+their hue reddish and purplish, their sides scored by the spring rush
+of wasted torrents, their aspect one of complete desolation, yet not
+without a certain beauty at this season--rose-flushed in the early
+morning, passing through shades of cobalt and indigo through the day,
+and dying away at sunset in translucent amethyst against a sky of
+ruddy gold.
+
+But, take away the atmospheric colouring--which the advancing heat
+will abolish--and the plain English of the route is this, that in
+every direction, far as the eye can reach, the country is a salt waste
+or a gravelly waste, with a few limited oases of cultivation on the
+plains and in the folds of the hills, always treeless, except round a
+few of the villages, where there are small groves of poplars and
+willows. The villages are clusters of mud hovels, scarcely
+distinguishable from the wastes, and many of them are ruined and
+deserted, oppressive exactions or a failure of water being common
+reasons for a migration. These dismal ruins are shapeless heaps of
+mud, the square towers of the square walls alone retaining any
+semblance of form.
+
+Long lines of choked _kanaats_, denoted by their crumbling shafts,
+attest the industrious irrigation of a former day. Tracks wind wearily
+among shrunken villages, or cross ridges of mud or gravel to take
+their unlovely way over arid stony plains. Unwatered tracts of land,
+once cultivated, as the _kanaats_ show, but now deserts of sand and
+stones, send up gyrating clouds of gritty dust.
+
+Such is Persia between its two capitals; and yet I repeat that in cool
+weather, and on a good horse, the journey is a very pleasant one. Most
+European men ride _chapar_, that is, post; but from what I see of the
+_chapar_ horses, I would not do it for the sake of doubling the
+distance travelled in the day, and therefore cannot describe either
+its pleasures or tortures from experience.
+
+On certain roads, as from Tihran to Shiraz, there are post stations
+(_chapar khana_) with horses and men at distances of from twenty to
+twenty-five miles, with a charge of one _kran_ (eightpence) per
+_farsakh_ (four miles) for each horse engaged, an order having been
+previously obtained from a government official. Besides your own horse
+you have to take one for the _shasgird chapar_, or post-boy, who has
+to take the horses back, and one for the servant. The two latter carry
+the very limited kit, which includes a long cotton bag, which, being
+filled with chopped straw at night, forms the traveller's bed. The
+custom is to ride through all the hours of daylight whenever horses
+are to be got, doing from sixty to ninety miles a day, always
+inspired by the hope of "cutting the record," even by half an hour,
+and winning undying fame.
+
+The horses, which are kept going at a canter so long as they can be
+thrashed into one, are small and active, and do wonders; but from the
+strain put upon them, bad feeding, sore backs, and general
+dilapidation and exhaustion, are constantly tumbling down. Several
+times I have seen wretched animals brought into the yards, apparently
+"dead beat," and after getting some chopped straw and a little barley
+thrashed into a canter again for twenty-five miles more, because the
+traveller could not get a remount. They often fall down dead under
+their riders, urged by the heavy _chapar_ whip to the last.
+
+Riding _chapar_, journeying in a _taktrawan_ or litter, or in a
+_kajaweh_, or riding caravan pace, by which only about thirty miles a
+day can be covered, are the only modes of travelling in Persia, though
+I think that with capable assistance a carriage might make the journey
+from Tihran as far as Kashan.
+
+I lodge in the _chapar khanas_ whenever I can. They consist of mud
+walls fourteen feet high, enclosing yards deep in manure, with
+stabling for the _chapar_ horses on two sides, and recesses in their
+inner walls for mangers. The entrance is an arched gateway. There are
+usually two dark rooms at the sides, which the servants occupy and
+cook in, and over the gateway is the _balakhana_, an abortive tower,
+attained by a steep and crumbling stair, in which I encamp. The one
+room has usually two doors, half-fitting and non-shutting, and perhaps
+a window space or two, and the ashes of the last traveller's fire.
+
+Such a breezy rest just suits me, and when my camp furniture has been
+arranged and I am enjoying my "afternoon tea," I feel "monarch of all
+I survey," even of the boundless desert, over which the cloud shadows
+chase each other till it purples in the light of the sinking sun. If
+there is the desert desolation there is also the desert freedom.
+
+The first halt was delicious after the crowds and fanaticism of Kûm. A
+broad plain with irrigated patches and a ruinous village was passed;
+then came the desert, an expanse of camel-brown gravel thickly strewn
+with stones, with a range of low serrated brown hills, with curious
+stratification, on the east. A few caravans of camels, and the _haram_
+of the Governor of Yezd in closely-covered _kajawehs_, alone broke the
+monotony. Before I thought we were half-way we reached the _abambars_,
+the small brown caravanserai, and the _chapar khana_ of Passangh[=a]m,
+having ridden in three hours a distance on which I have often expended
+eight.
+
+Cool and breezy it was in my room, and cooler and breezier on the flat
+mud roof; and the lifting of some clouds in the far distance to the
+north, beyond the great sweep of the brown desert, revealed the mighty
+Elburz range, white with new-fallen snow. At Sinsin the next evening
+it was gloriously cold. There had been another heavy snowfall, and in
+the evening the Elburz range, over a hundred miles away, rose in
+unsullied whiteness like a glittering wall, and above it the colossal
+cone of Demavend, rose-flushed.
+
+The routine of the day is simple and easy. I get the caravan off at
+eight, lie on the floor for an hour, gallop and walk for about half
+the march, rest for an hour in some place, where Mahboud, the soldier,
+always contrives to bring me a glass of tea, and then gallop and walk
+to the halting-place, where I rest for another hour till the caravan
+comes in. I now know exactly what to pay, and by giving small presents
+get on very easily.
+
+There were many uncomfortable prophecies about the annoyances and
+rudenesses which a lady travelling alone would meet with, but so far
+not one has been fulfilled. How completely under such circumstances
+one has to trust one's fellow-creatures! There are no fastenings on
+the doors of these breezy rooms, and last night there was only the
+longitudinal half of a door, but I fell asleep, fearing nothing worse
+than a predatory cat.
+
+The last two days' marches have been chiefly over stony wastes, or
+among low hills of red earth, gray gravel, and brown mud, with low
+serrated ranges beyond, and farther yet high hills covered with snow,
+after which the road leaves the hills and descends upon a pink plain,
+much of the centre of which is snow-white from saline efflorescence.
+The villages Kasseinabad, Nasrabad, and Aliabad are passed on the
+plain, with small fruit trees and barley surrounding them, and great
+mud caravanserais at intervals, only remarkable for the number of
+camels lying outside of them in rows facing each other. In the fresh
+keen air of evening the cone of Demavend was painted in white on the
+faint blue sky, reddening into beauty as the purple-madder shadows
+deepened over the yellow desert.
+
+Tea made with saltish water, and salt sheep's milk, have been the only
+drawbacks of the six days' march.
+
+Not far from Kashan we entered on a great alluvial plain formed of
+fine brown earth without a single stone--a prolific soil if it had
+water, as the fruit trees and abundant crops of young wheat round the
+villages show. So level, and on the whole so smooth, is this plain
+that it possesses the prodigy of a public conveyance, an omnibus with
+four horses abreast, which makes its laborious way with the aid of
+several attendants, who lift the wheels out of holes, prevent it from
+capsizing, and temporarily fill up the small irrigation ditches which
+it has to cross. Its progress is less "by leaps and bounds" than by
+jolts and rolls, and as my Arab horse bounded past I wondered that six
+men could be found to exchange the freedom of the saddle for such a
+jerky, stuffy box.
+
+Five hundred yards from the gate of Kashan there is a telegraph
+station of the Indo-European line, where M. du Vignau and his wife
+expected me, and have received me with great kindness and hospitality.
+The electricians at these stations are allowed to receive guests in
+what is known as the "Inspectors' Room," and they exercise this
+liberty most kindly and generously. Many a weary traveller looks back
+upon the "Inspectors' Room" as upon an oasis in the desert of dirt;
+and though I cannot class myself just now with "weary travellers," I
+cordially appreciate the kindness which makes one "at home," and the
+opportunity of exchanging civilised ideas for a few hours.
+
+I must not go beyond Kashan without giving a few words to the Persian
+section of the Indo-European telegraph line, one of the greatest
+marvels of telegraph construction, considering the nature of the
+country which the line traverses. Tihran is the centre of telegraphic
+control, and the residence of Colonel Wells, R.E., the Director, with
+a staff of twenty telegraphists, who work in relays day and night, and
+a Medical Officer. Julfa is another place of importance on the line,
+and at Shiraz there is another Medical Officer.
+
+The prompt repair of the wires in cases of interruption is carefully
+arranged for. At suitable places, such as Kûm, Soh, Kashan, and other
+towns or villages from fifty to eighty miles apart, there are control
+or testing stations, each being in charge of a European telegraphist,
+who has under him two Persian horsemen, who have been well trained as
+linesmen. At stated hours the clerks place their instruments in
+circuit, and ascertain if all is right.
+
+If this testing reveals any fault, it can be localised at once, and
+horsemen are despatched from the control stations on either side of
+it, with orders to ride rapidly along the line until they meet at the
+fault and repair it. As the telegraph crosses passes such as
+Kuhr[=u]d, at an altitude of over 8000 feet, the duties of both
+inspectors and linesmen are most severe, full not only of hardship but
+of danger in terrible winter storms and great depths of snow, yet on
+their ceaseless watchfulness and fidelity the safety of our Indian
+Empire may some day depend.
+
+The skill brought to bear upon the manipulation of this Government
+line from the Gulf, and throughout the whole system of which it is a
+part, is wonderful. Messages from any part of the United Kingdom now
+reach any part of India in less than an hour and a half, and in only
+about one word in two hundred does even the most trifling mistake
+occur in transmission, a result all the more surprising when it is
+remembered that the telegrams are almost entirely either in code or
+cypher, and that over 1000 are transmitted in the course of a day.
+
+Among these are the long despatches continually passing between the
+Viceroy of India and the India Office on vitally important subjects,
+and press telegrams of every noteworthy event. The "exhaustive
+summary" of Indian news which appears weekly in the _Times_,
+accompanied by a commentary on events, is an altogether un-padded
+telegram, and is transmitted with punctuation complete, and even with
+inverted commas for quotations.[31]
+
+The English staff, numbering from fifty to sixty men, is scattered
+along a line of 1900 miles. Some of them are married, and most occupy
+isolated positions, so far as other Europeans are concerned. It is the
+universal testimony of Englishmen and Persians that the relations
+between them have been for many years of the most friendly character,
+full of good-will and mutual friendly offices, and that the continual
+contact brought about by the nature of the duties of the electricians
+has been productive not of aversion and distrust, but of cordial
+appreciation on both sides.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] It is new to me, however, and may be new to a large proportion of
+the "untravelled many" for whom I write.
+
+[31] Major-General Sir R. Murdoch Smith, K.C.M.G., late Director of
+the Persian section of the Indo-European telegraph, read a very
+interesting paper upon it before the Royal Scottish Geographical
+Society on December 13, 1888,--a _Sketch of the History of Telegraphic
+Communication between the United Kingdom and India_.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI (_Continued_)
+
+
+Kashan is one of the hottest places on the great Persian plateau, but
+has the rare luxury of a good water supply brought from a reservoir
+some distance off in the Kuhr[=u]d mountains. It has a much-diminished
+population, said now to number 30,000 souls. Much of it is in ruins,
+and much more is ruinous. It has a thriving colony of Jews. It is
+noted for its silks and velvets; but the modern productions are
+regarded by judges as degenerate. It is still famous for its work in
+copper and for its great copper bazar.
+
+Silk produced at Resht is brought here to be spun and dyed. Then it is
+sent to Sultanabad to be woven into carpets, and is brought back again
+to have the pile cut by the sharp instruments used for cutting velvet
+pile, and the finished carpets are sent to Tihran for sale. They are
+only made in small sizes, and are more suitable for _portières_ than
+for laying on the floor. The colouring is exquisite, and the metallic
+sheen and lustre are unique. Silk carpets are costly luxuries. The
+price of even a fairly good one of very small size is £50, the silk
+alone costing £20.
+
+Kashan is a great place for _curio_ buyers, who enlist the Jews in
+their service. There are some valuable antiques in this
+house--embroideries, carpet squares in silk, glass whose greenish
+colour and grace of form remind me of Venetian glass, enamels on
+porcelain, tiles, metal inlaying and damascening, pierced brasswork,
+and many other articles of _vertu_, the art of making which is either
+lost or has greatly degenerated.
+
+It is unaccountable, but it is certain that the secret of producing
+the higher types of beauty in various arts, especially the Keramic,
+died out more than one hundred and fifty years ago, and that there are
+no circumstances of that date to account for its decease, except that
+it is recorded that when the Afghan conqueror Mahmoud destroyed
+Isfahan he massacred the designers of _reflêt_ tiles and other Keramic
+beauties, because they had created works which gave great umbrage to
+the Sunni sect to which he belonged.
+
+These _reflêts_, for which collectors give fabulous sums, are
+intrinsically beautiful, both in the elegant conceptions of their
+designs and the fantastic richness of their colouring. There are
+designs in shades of brown on a lapis-lazuli ground, or in blue and
+green on a purple or umber ground, some of them star-shaped, with a
+pure white border composing the rest of the square, on which are
+inscribed phrases from the Koran. Looked at from above or frontwise,
+one exclaims, "What a beautiful tile!" but it is on turning it to the
+light that one's stereotyped phrases of admiration are exchanged for
+silence in presence of a singular iridescence which transfigures the
+tile, making it seem to gleam from within with golden purples and rosy
+gold.
+
+The mosaic tiles are also beautiful, especially where the mosaic is on
+a lapis-lazuli or canary-yellow ground, neither of them reproducible
+at this day; and this also refers to other shades of blue, and to
+various reds and browns of exceeding richness, the art of making which
+has been lost for a century. But enough of art!
+
+Possibly there may be a resurrection for Persian art; but in the
+meantime aniline dyes, tawdry European importations, and Western
+models without either grace or originality are doing their best to
+deprave it here, as elsewhere.
+
+Roads from Tihran, Gulpaigan, Yezd, and Isfahan meet here, and it is
+something of what the Americans call "a distributing point," but it is
+a most uninviting place, in situation and general aspect, and its
+unsightly mud ruins, as in other Persian cities, are eloquent of
+nothing but paralysis and retrogression.
+
+_Murcheh Khurt, Palm Sunday, March 30._--Three very pleasant marches,
+equal to seventy-six miles, have brought me here, and now Isfahan is
+only two days off, and it will end my palmy days of Persian
+travelling.
+
+The first day's march from Kashan was only seven _farsakhs_ (the
+_parasang_ of Xenophon), twenty-eight miles, but it is equivalent to
+thirty-five, owing to the roughness of the road and the long ascent.
+There was scarcely any ground for galloping, the way was lost once,
+and the march took over eight hours.
+
+The track, for only in places did it attain to the dignity of a
+bridle-road, lay for hours over a stony desert, and then entered the
+mountains, where I halted for an hour at the once magnificent
+caravanserai of Gaberabad, in a romantic situation, but falling fast
+into ruins, and deserted for no reason, so far as I could make out,
+but that people used to be robbed and have their throats cut there.
+
+Beyond it the scenery became very wild, and the rocks and mountains
+highly coloured and snow-patched, and after ascending along the side
+of a stream and up a causewayed sort of stair past the reservoir which
+supplies Kashan with water, we entered the rising valley of Kuhr[=u]d,
+where the snow came nearly down to the road, and every slope was
+terraced and every level cultivated, and young wheat was springing and
+fruit orchards flourished, with green sward under the branches, and
+great poplars in picturesque groups towered above the lower woods.
+
+We lost the way in the snow, and then took to the pebbly river as the
+safest track, and had an hour of fumbling in water and snow under
+apple and pear trees for the halting-place. The twilight of a frosty
+evening was coming on when we reached the village of Kuhr[=u]d--500
+houses in terraces on a mountain side, and clustering round a fort on
+a projecting spur.
+
+It is surrounded and interpenetrated by groves of walnut, apricot,
+cherry, peach, plum, apple, pear, poplar, and vine, with roses
+climbing over everything and planted in rows like vines, and through
+it passes a fair, bright stream of living water, a stream "whose
+waters fail not," turning the mountain valley into an oasis. But at
+that altitude of something like 7000 feet, the buds are only just
+swelling, and the crimson catkins of the hazels were the only reminder
+of spring. It is the one place that I should care to revisit.
+
+The snow was piled in great heaps in the village and against the wall
+of the very wretched, ruinous _chapar khana_ in which I sought rest
+and shelter. Mahboud went up to the loft over the gateway, and came
+down looking dejected, mustering English enough to say, "No, no, mem
+Sahib!" I actually had to occupy one of the two gateway rooms, an
+inferior stable, without the smallest window hole, and no door except
+two unconnected boards with which one could cover a part of the
+doorway. Even when these were not put up a candle was necessary. It
+was freezing hard, but one could not have a fire because there was no
+smoke-hole. The walls were slimily and inkily black from the smoke of
+the fires of people who were less particular than I am. The dust and
+rubbish of the floor were swept into one corner. If one wanted a
+place to store boxes in, and looked into that room, one would exclaim
+dubiously, "Well, it _might_ do for glass and china!"
+
+Mahboud put a rug on the floor and brought a bowl of delicious milk,
+and with an inverted saddle for a pillow I rested quite comfortably,
+being too tired to be impatient, till Mirza Yusuf arrived with my
+luxuries, and the news that the caravan could not get in for another
+hour, for that several of the mules had fallen and the loads were
+slipping round constantly. Indeed it was ten before I had dinner. It
+is very fortunate to have an attendant always cheerful, never fussy,
+caring nothing for personal comfort, and always ready to interpret.
+
+The _ketchuda_ called with the usual proffer of service, "I am your
+sacrifice," etc., and induced me to buy some of the specialties of
+Kuhr[=u]d, rose-water in bottles without corks, and a paste made of
+rose-water, pounded walnuts, and sugar. The rose-water is not very
+clear, but it has much of the overpowering, lingering odour of attar
+of roses.
+
+Kuhr[=u]d seems prosperous. Besides exporting large quantities of
+rose-water and walnut paste formed into blocks and done up in white
+skins, it sends wheat and fruit in abundance to Kashan.
+
+Freedom, good sleep, and satisfactory travelling make up for all
+annoyances but vermin, and these are still hybernating. In that
+precarious privacy I slept soundly, and got the caravan off at eight
+the next morning--a glorious winter morning, the icy roads and the
+snow-covered valley glittering with frost crystals. We lost the way
+again among the pretty orchards, then got into a valley between high
+mud mountains, whose shapelessness is now judiciously concealed by
+snow from one to three feet deep, through which a track has been
+broken a foot wide. It is six miles from Kuhr[=u]d to the summit of
+the Kuhr[=u]d Pass, which is over 8000 feet, and it grew very cold
+and gray, and ragged masses of cloud swept angrily round the
+mountain-tops.
+
+On the steepest part of the ascent it was extremely slippery, and the
+horses not being roughed slipped badly, and I was just fearing an
+accident to my borrowed horse and planning some method of dismounting
+when down he came on his nose and then on the side of his head, and
+fell several times again in his struggles to get up, his feet slipping
+from under him. When he did succeed in getting on his legs I was
+convinced that he had cut his knees, and slipped off him somehow to
+examine them; but my fears were groundless, and I had great difficulty
+in getting out of the drift into which I had descended, which was
+nearly up to my shoulders. His nose was bleeding a little, but that
+was all.
+
+There was no way of remounting on a path a foot wide between walls of
+snow, and besides I was afraid of another accident, so I slipped the
+snaffle rein over his head and led him. It was horribly slippery, and
+having nails in my boots I fell several times just under his feet, but
+the sweet creature always stopped when I fell.
+
+From the top there was a truly fearful view of "blackness, darkness,
+and tempest," inky mists, white mountain-tops showing momentarily
+through them to be lost again, and great sheets of very deep snow.
+Soon the gathering storm burst, a "blizzard" in which the snow was
+quite blinding, snow drifting and hissing as it went by, the wind
+tempestuous, mountains, valleys, path obliterated, even the soldier in
+front of me constantly lost to sight. An hour of this and I could walk
+no more, and somehow scrambled into the saddle.
+
+At the foot of the descent the sky cleared, the sun shone, and we
+picked up the caravan, which had had rather a hard time. The
+succeeding route was through an absolutely uninhabited and
+uninhabitable country, clay and mud hills, purple, red, gray, pink,
+brown, an utter desolation, till we came in sight of the good-sized
+and at a distance imposing-looking village of Soh in a keen wind with
+frequent snow showers. Soh is a telegraph testing station.
+
+The electrician was absent, but had kindly left directions that I was
+to be received, and I found a most comfortable guest-room quite ready.
+A little later an Englishman riding _chapar_ to Isfahan threw a packet
+of English letters in at my door--a delightful surprise, which made
+havoc of the rest of the evening.
+
+The desolation of this part of the route may be judged of from the
+fact that except the village of Kuhr[=u]d there is not an inhabited
+house for forty-six miles. The country traversed reminds me much of
+the least interesting part of the route from Lesser Tibet into Kulu.
+
+Yesterday morning there was ice, and the roads were very slippery on
+the gradual descent from the plain which opens out after passing
+Bideshk, the _chapar_ station, an hour from Soh. The twenty-four
+miles' ride over this gravelly waste, quite uninhabited, was very
+pleasant, as it was possible to gallop much of the way, and besides
+the beauty of the atmospheric colouring the mirage occurring in most
+remarkable forms rendered monotony impossible.
+
+There were no caravans on the road, but I met several dervishes, and
+there is one here to whom I have given what he demanded--a night's
+lodging. He carries a large carved almsholder; and the panther skin on
+his shoulders, the knotted club, and his lean, hungry, fanatical face
+give him a dangerous look. All I have seen on this march have worn
+long matted bushy hair, often covering their shoulders, an axe in the
+girdle, and peculiar turbans decorated with phrases from the Koran.
+They are the "mendicant friars" of Persia, and are under vows of
+poverty. Some are said to be learned; but they object to discussing
+religious matters with infidels, and almost nothing is known as to
+their beliefs. They hold universally the sanctity of idleness, and the
+duty of being supported by the community. The lower classes hold them
+in reverence, and the upper, though they are apt to loathe them, treat
+them with great respect, for fear of laying themselves open to the
+charge of laxity in religious matters.
+
+  [Illustration: A DERVISH.]
+
+Many of them deal in charms, and are consulted as astrologers. Some
+are professed tellers of stories, to which I am told no European could
+degrade himself by listening, but which are most palatable to a
+village audience; and at this moment this unwelcome guest of mine has
+a crowd listening to a narrative partly told and partly acted.
+
+They are credited with many vices, among the least of which are hazy
+ideas as to mine and thine, opium and bhang smoking to excess, and
+drunkenness.
+
+They have recognised heads or chiefs, to whom they show great
+deference. One of their vows is that of obedience; and besides paying
+to the chief a part of the alms they receive, he gives them orders as
+to the houses they are to infest, and though the nuisance is not so
+common as formerly, a dervish at the door is still a sign of being
+great or rich, or both. Their cries, and their rude blasts on the
+buffalo horn, which is a usual part of their equipment, are most
+obnoxious. In the larger towns, such as Kûm and Kirmanshah, there are
+shops for the sale of their outfit--the tiger and panther skins, the
+axes, the knotted clubs, the almsbowls, etc.
+
+Some are respectable, and enjoy much consideration, and I hope that
+many even of those whom a careful writer has called "disgusting
+vagabonds" are not humbugs; but the presumption is so much the other
+way that I am always glad when the ground admits of galloping past
+them, otherwise the dervish comes forward, with his knotted club much
+_en évidence_, with many compliments and good wishes, or else silently
+extends his almsholder, ejaculating _Huk_ ("my right"). I usually have
+the means of appeasing, if not of satisfying him, but on the rare
+occasions when I have had no money the yells and maledictions have
+been awful.
+
+The light and profane use of the Divine name is universal. The
+dervishes curse, but every one uses the name _Allah_ wherever they can
+bring it in. The _Ya Allah_, as an expression of fatigue, or
+discontent, or interest, or nothing, is heard all day, and the boy who
+drives a cow, or a team, or a mule in a caravan, cries _Ya Allah_
+incessantly as an equivalent of "go along," and the gardener pushing
+his spade into the ground, the chopper with every blow of the axe, the
+labourer throwing up bricks, ejaculates the same. _Mashallah_,
+_Inshallah_, interlard all conversation. When men are building, the
+perpetual sing-song of phrases such as these is heard, "Brother, in
+God's name toss me a brick," the other replying, "Brother, in God's
+name here is a brick."
+
+The vocabulary of abuse is also very large, and often involves serious
+reflections on the female relatives of the person abused. I hear such
+harmless phrases as "son of a burnt father," "son of a dog,"
+"offspring of a pig," etc., on all occasions.
+
+Murcheh Khurt is a large village with a good deal of cultivation about
+it, a mosque or more, a _hammam_, a _chapar khana_, and a
+caravanserai. Here again I found that the smart foreign soldier
+attracted all the notice, and that before the people ceased to wonder
+at him I had passed them. The _chapar khana_ was full of men, so I
+have had to sink to the level of a recessed den with a manger in front
+in a ruinous caravanserai crowded with Persian travellers, muleteers,
+mules, horses, and asses, and the courtyard half-choked with ruins. I
+had not seen the inside of one of these dens before. Travellers have
+exhausted the vocabulary of abuse upon them; possibly they deserve it
+in the "vermin season"; but there is nothing worse than a square and
+perfectly dark room, with unplastered walls blackened by the smoke and
+cobwebs of ages, and a door which will not fasten.
+
+The air is cool and the sky blue, and sitting at the open door is very
+pleasant. Mahboud and two of the servants caught cold at Kuhr[=u]d and
+are ill, and my Arab has a chill too. He is a very stupid horse. His
+gentle eyes never change their expression, and his small ears rarely
+move. He has little sense or affection, but when he is patted his
+proud neck takes on a loftier arch. Gentle as he is to people he is a
+brute to other horses. He would like to fight every one of them, to
+stand on his hind-legs and grapple them round the shoulders with his
+fore-feet and bite their necks, roaring and squealing all the time. He
+and Mahboud's horse are inveterate enemies, and one of the few
+difficulties of the journey is the keeping them from a regular
+stand-up fight.
+
+This village is an oasis in the desert. I have been through its gates,
+barely wide enough to admit an ass loaded with brushwood, with the
+_seraidar_ and Mirza, walked through its narrow alleys, and
+inadvertently stumbled into a mosque where a great crowd of women were
+listening to a story of one of the twelve Imams told by a _mollah_,
+looked down upon it and over the adjacent country from a house roof,
+visited several houses, in which some of the inmates were ill and
+desired "Feringhi medicine," had a long conversation with the
+_ketchuda_, who came to see me to ask for eye lotion, and with the
+_seraidar_, and altogether have had quite a pleasant day.
+
+_Chapar Khana, Gez._--I am sitting in one of the three doorless
+doorways of my loft, grieving that the journey is just over, and that
+this is the last night of the exhilarating freedom of the desert. I
+rode twenty-four miles before one o'clock to-day, over a level
+uncultivated plain, bordered as usual by ranges of mountains. In fact,
+while I write of levels and plains it must be understood that Persia
+is chiefly a land of hills rising from a table-land from 3400 feet to
+6000 feet in altitude, and that the traveller is rarely, if ever, more
+than fourteen or fifteen miles from mountains from 2000 to 6000 feet
+above the plain from which they rise, crowned by Demavend, whose
+imposing summit is 18,600 feet above the sea. The hills beyond Isfahan
+have assumed lofty proportions, and some of the snowy mountains of
+Luristan are to be seen in the far distance.
+
+It is nearly an unmitigated waste between Murcheh Khurt and Gez,
+destitute even of tufts of wormwood; but the latter part of the march
+is through a stoneless alluvial desert of dry friable soil, soft
+springy galloping ground which water would turn into a paradise of
+fertility; and water there has once been, for not far from the road
+are the remains of some _kanaats_.
+
+The questions naturally arise in a traveller's mind, first, what
+becomes of the enormous amount of snow which falls on the mountains;
+and next, how in a country so arid as the plateaus of Central Asia
+water for irrigation, and for the basins and fountains which abound in
+rich men's houses, is obtained.
+
+Wells, unless the artesian borings shortly to be begun in the Tihran
+desert should be successful, are all but unknown, except for supplying
+drinking water, and there are scarcely any reservoirs, but ingenuity
+has devised a plan of subterranean water-channels, which besides their
+other advantages prevent loss by evaporation. Tihran has thirty-five
+of them, and the water which they distribute is naturally expensive,
+as the cost of making them is great.
+
+It is on the slope of a hill that the spring is found which is the
+original source of supply; this is tapped at some depth, and its
+waters are led along a tunnel about four feet high by two feet wide
+lined with baked pottery where the ground is soft, and having a slight
+fall to the next spring or well, which may be from twenty-five to even
+sixty yards off.
+
+As the labourers dig they draw up the earth and arrange it in a circle
+round the shaft, and as they come to water they draw up the mud and
+pour it on the top of the earth, where it dries and hardens, and
+below, the water is conducted as a running underground stream across
+great plains, its progress marked by mounds which have been compared
+to ant-hills and craters, but to my thinking are more like the shafts
+of disused mines.
+
+Hundreds of these _kanaats_ are seen, ruined and dry, and are the
+resort of porcupines and jackals. To construct a _kanaat_ may call a
+village or series of villages into being. The letting it fall to ruin
+is one cause of deserted villages. Those which are not lined require
+annual repairs, which are now going on, but frequently the complete
+fall of the roof destroys the fall of the water, and the tunnel
+becomes irreparable.
+
+The peasants are obliged to buy the water, for they cannot steal it,
+and the making of a _kanaat_ is often a lucrative speculation. Pigeons
+live in them, and many of them are full of fish, which foreigners
+amuse themselves by poisoning by throwing a mixture of _cocculus
+indicus_ with dough down the wells, when the poisoned but wholesome
+fish rise to the surface. They usually recover when they are left in
+the water. Dr. Wills describes them as having a muddy taste. The
+_kanaats_ are a feature of Persia.
+
+Ever since leaving Kûm all the dry and hard parts of the road have
+been covered with the industrious "road beetle," which works, like the
+ant, in concert, and carries on its activities at all seasons,
+removing from the road to its nest all the excreta of animals, except
+in regions where even animal fuel is so exceptionally scarce that boys
+with asses and ponies follow caravans for the same purpose. These
+beetles hover over the road on the wing, and on alighting proceed to
+roll the ball towards the nest, four or five of them standing on their
+hind-legs and working it forwards, or else rolling it with their heads
+close to the ground. Their instinct is wonderful, and they attract the
+attention of all travellers. They are about the size of a small
+walnut. Otherwise there is little of animated life to be seen on this
+route.
+
+No day has had fewer noticeable objects. Two or three _abambars_,
+several caravanserais in absolute ruins, and a magnificent one in
+partial ruins are its record.
+
+Gez consists of this post-house and a decaying caravanserai. From the
+roof as I write I watch the grooming of a whole row of _chapar_
+horses. As each pad is removed there is a horrid revelation of wounds,
+deep ulcers, sores often a foot long, and in some cases the white
+vertebræ of the spine are exposed. These are the wretched animals
+which often carry men from fourteen to seventeen stone who ride fifty
+miles in a day. It is hard enough even with extreme carefulness to
+keep the back of a horse all right on a continuous journey, but I
+never before saw animals ridden in such a state. They wince pitifully
+when their pads are put on again.
+
+The desert is all around, purpling in the sunset, sweeping up to low
+broken ridges, and to some higher hills in the north-west covered with
+new-fallen snow. That the waste only requires water to make it
+prolific is apparent, for below these walls wheat is growing
+luxuriantly in some deep pits, irrigated from a dirty ditch out of
+which the drinking water comes. Nothing can be got, except by sending
+to a village a mile away.
+
+Four of the men are ill, one with inflammation of the eyes, another
+with an abscess, and a third, a very strong man, with something like
+bilious fever, and a _charvadar_ with malarial fever. The strong man's
+moans often become howls. He insists that he shall die to-night. These
+two afternoons have been much taken up with making poultices and
+medicines, and I shall be glad for the poor fellows to reach Isfahan
+and the care of a competent doctor.
+
+_Julfa, April 2._--I daresay this journey seems longer to you than it
+did to me. It was very pleasant, and its goal is pleasant, and a most
+kind welcome and the refinement of cultured English people go far to
+compensate for the loss of the desert freedom and the easy stride of
+the Arab horse.
+
+I started the caravan at nine yesterday, with two men with bandaged
+eyes, and other two hardly able to sit on their mules; Mahboud, who is
+really more seriously ill than any of them, keeping up his pluck and
+capableness to the last. The man who threatened to die at Gez was
+very much better the next morning.
+
+Soon after leaving Gez the country changes its aspect, the road
+becomes very bad, and passes through nine miles of rich
+cultivation--wheat, barley, opium, and vegetables growing abundantly;
+orchards are numerous, villages with trees and gardens succeed each
+other rapidly, water abounds, and before the gate of Isfahan is
+reached, domes and minarets rising among cypresses, planes, and
+poplars indicate the remains of the former capital of Persia.
+
+Inside the shabby gateway the road to Julfa lies among rows of mean
+mud houses, heaps of ruins, and shabby provision bazars; and that mile
+or more of Isfahan was the one disagreeable part of the journey.
+
+It was about the last day of the holidays, and the bazars, alleys, and
+open spaces were full of men in gay attire, and companies of shrouded
+women were moving along the quieter roads. It was too warm for the
+sheepskin coat which had served me so well at Kûm, and I had dressed
+with some regard to European sensibilities. The boys began to shout "A
+Feringhi woman! a Nazarene woman!" and then to call bad names; then
+men began to make up fiendish laughs,[32] and the howls and outcries
+gathered strength as I went on at the inevitable foot's pace, spitting
+being quite common, poor Mahboud constantly turning to me a perturbed
+wretched face, full of annoyance at the insults of his co-religionists,
+which it would have been dangerous to resent. It was a bad half-hour.
+
+Before passing the residence of the Amir-i-Panj (the commander of
+5000) near the Julfa gate the uproar died away, and once through the
+gate and in the _Chahar Bagh_ (four gardens) there was peace. A bad
+road of cobble stones, with a double avenue of once magnificent
+planes, some once ornamental tanks, very high walls, pierced by
+storied gates, ornamented with wild designs on plaster in flaring
+colours, above which a blue dome is a conspicuous object, leads to a
+handsome bridge of thirty-three arches, with a broad level roadway,
+and corridors for foot passengers on either side, over the Zainderud,
+then came fields with springing wheat, a few houses, a narrow alley,
+and two or three miles from Isfahan the gate of its Armenian suburb,
+Julfa.
+
+At once on crossing the bridge there was a change. Ruddy,
+cheery-looking unveiled women in red gowns, and pure white _chadars_
+completely enveloping their persons, moved freely about, and the men
+wore neither the becoming turban nor the ominous scowl of Islam. In
+the quaint narrow streets were churches with open vestibules, through
+which pictures of the thorn-crowned Christ and of sweet-faced Madonnas
+were visible; priests in black robes and women in white glided along
+the narrow roads. There was the fresher, purer air of Christianity,
+however debased and corrupted. In the low-browed churches divine
+honours are paid to a crowned and risen Christ, and the white-robed
+women have been baptized into His name. Never again will the Julfa
+alleys be so peaceful and lovable as yesterday, when they offered a
+haven from the howling bigots of Isfahan.
+
+Dr. Bruce has not returned from Baghdad, but Mrs. and Miss Bruce
+welcomed me very kindly, and I am already forgetting my unpleasant
+reception. I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[32] I can imagine now what a hellish laugh that was with which "they
+laughed Him to scorn."
+
+I was a month in Julfa, but never saw anything more of Isfahan, which
+is such a fanatical city that I believe even so lately as last year
+none of the ladies of the European community had visited it, except
+one or two disguised as Persian women.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XII
+
+
+     JULFA, _April 17_.
+
+Mr. George Curzon wrote of Julfa: "The younger Julfa is a place wholly
+destitute of superficial attractions, consisting as it does of a
+labyrinth of narrow alleys closed by doors and plentifully perforated
+with open sewers. Life there is 'cabined, cribbed, confined' to an
+intolerable degree, and it is a relief to escape from its squalid
+precincts."
+
+I dare not write thus if I would! It is now the early spring. The
+"sewers" are clear rapid streams, margined by grass and dandelions,
+and shaded by ash trees and pollard willows in their first flush of
+green. The "narrow alleys" are scrupulously clean, and there is
+neither mud nor dust. If I go up on the roof I see a cultivated oasis,
+gardens prolonged indefinitely concealing the desert which lies
+between them and the bold mountain ranges which surround this lofty
+and breezy plain. Every breeze is laden with the delicious odour of
+the bean blossom. A rapid river spanned by noble bridges hurries
+through the oasis it has helped to create, and on its other side the
+domes and minarets of Isfahan rise out of masses of fine trees, and
+bridges and mosques, minarets and mountains, are all seen through a
+most exquisite pink mist, for hundreds of standard peach trees are in
+full bloom, and look where one may everything is _couleur de rose_.
+
+I quite admit that Julfa consists of a "labyrinth of alleys." I can
+never find my way about it. One alley with its shady central stream
+(or "sewer"), its roughly paved paths on either side, its mud walls
+pierced by low doors, is very much like another, and however lucky one
+may be in "happening on" the right road, it is always a weary time
+before one escapes from between mud walls into the gardens and
+wheatfields, to the blossoming beans, and the exquisite wild-flowers
+among the wheat.
+
+As to the "cabined, cribbed, confined" life, I can give no testimony
+from personal knowledge. All life in European settlements in the East
+appears to me "cabined, cribbed, confined," and greatly devoid of
+external interests. Perhaps Julfa is deficient in the latter in an
+eminent degree, and in a very small foreign community people are
+interested chiefly in each other's affairs, sayings, and doings. Lawn
+tennis, picnics, and dinner parties are prevalent, the ordinary
+etiquette of European society prevails, and in all cases of need the
+residents are kind to each other both in life and death.
+
+The European society is divided into three circles--the missionaries,
+the mercantile community, and the telegraph staff. The British agent,
+Mr. Aganoor, is an Armenian.[33] No Christians, Armenian or European,
+live in Isfahan, and it is practically _défendu_ to European women.
+This transpontine restriction undoubtedly narrows the life and
+interests of Julfa. It is aggravating and tantalising to be for ever
+looking at a city of 60,000 or 70,000 people, the fallen capital of
+the Sufari dynasty, and never be able to enter it.
+
+This Christian town of Julfa has a certain accessible historic
+interest. Shah Abbas, justly surnamed the Great, conceived the
+sagacious project of introducing among his Persian subjects at
+Isfahan--then, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, a
+magnificent capital--the Christian habits of trading, sagacity, and
+thrift, for then as now the Armenians had commercial dealings with
+China, India, and Europe, and had imported several arts into Persia.
+
+This project he carried out in truly despotic fashion by moving almost
+the whole population of Julfa on the Araxes, on the modern
+Russo-Persian frontier, to the banks of the Zainderud, making over to
+it the best lands in the neighbourhood of Isfahan. Many years later
+the new Julfa was a place with twenty-four churches, great prosperity,
+and an estimated population of 40,000. Its agriculturists were
+prosperous market-gardeners for the huge city of Isfahan, and it had
+likewise a great trading community, and was renowned for the making of
+jewellery and watches.
+
+It has now a dwindling population of about 3000, chiefly elderly men,
+women, and girls, the young men, after receiving a good education in
+the Church Mission and other schools, flying from its stagnation to
+India, Java, and even Europe. The twenty-four churches are reduced to
+twelve, and these with the vast cemetery in the desert at the base of
+Kuh Sufi are its chief objects of interest, apart from those which are
+human and living.
+
+_April 22._--The peach blossoms have long since fallen, but perhaps I
+still see Julfa _couleur de rose_, even after three weeks, so very
+great is the kindness under this roof, and so fully is my time
+occupied with various interests, and the preparations for a difficult
+journey.
+
+This, as you know, is the Church Mission House. Dr. Bruce has been
+here for twenty years, and until lately, when the Archbishop of
+Canterbury's mission to the Assyrian Christians began its work at
+Urmi, near the Turkish frontier in the north-west, this was the only
+English mission in the Empire. It was contemplated as a mission to the
+Mohammedans, but in this respect has been an apparent failure. It is
+true that much prejudice has been disarmed, and, as I have heard from
+some leading Mohammedans, Dr. Bruce's zeal and good works have won
+their respect. A large part of the Bible has been translated into
+Persian and very widely circulated through the adjacent country by
+means of colporteurs of the British and Foreign Bible Society. His
+preaching of Christianity is listened to respectfully, and even with
+interest, wherever he itinerates, and Moslems daily call on him, and
+show much friendliness, but the results, as results are usually
+estimated, are _nil_--that is, no Mohammedans openly profess
+Christianity.
+
+There is actual though not legal toleration, but Moslem children may
+not attend a mission school, and a Moslem who becomes a Christian
+loses his means of living, and probably his life is sacrificed to
+fanaticism.
+
+In consequence of these difficulties, and certain encouragements in
+another direction, the _ostensible_ work of the mission is among
+Armenians. Dr. Bruce has not been afraid of incurring the stigma of
+being a proselytiser, and has a large congregation of Armenians
+worshipping after the English form, ninety-four being communicants of
+the Church of England. On Easter Eve there was an evening Communion,
+and the great row of women kneeling at the rail in the pure white
+robes which cover them from head to foot, and then moving back to
+their places in the dim light, was very picturesque and beautiful.
+
+Good works have been added one after another, till the mission is now
+a very large establishment. The C.M.S. has been liberal to this, its
+only Persian agency, and Dr. Bruce, having private means, has
+generously expended them largely on missionary work in Julfa.
+
+The chief features of the compounds are the church, which is both
+simple and ecclesiastical in its exterior and interior, and the
+library adjoining it, where Dr. Bruce works at the translation of the
+Old Testament into Persian and the revision of the New, aided by a
+_munshi_, and where through much of the day he is receiving Moslems,
+some of whom come to inquire into Christianity, others for religious
+disputations, and a third and numerous class out of mere friendliness.
+The latter are generally invited into the Mission House, and are
+regaled with coffee and _kalians_, in orthodox Persian fashion. Among
+the latter visitors has been the Amir-i-Panj, who came to ask me to
+call on his wife, accompanied by a general of cavalry, whose name I
+cannot spell, and who speaks French remarkably well.
+
+Among the other buildings are those of the Medical Mission, which
+include a roomy courtyard, where the animals which carry the patients
+are tethered, rooms for the doctor, a well-arranged dispensary and
+consulting-room, with waiting-rooms for both sexes, and rooms above in
+which serious surgical cases are received for treatment, and where at
+present there are eleven patients, although just now there is no
+European doctor, and they are being treated by the native assistants,
+most kindly helped by Dr. Scully of the telegraph staff. This hospital
+and dispensary are largely taken advantage of by Moslems, who highly
+appreciate this form of Christian benevolence.
+
+The boys' school, with 205 pupils, has been a great benefit to Julfa.
+The head-master, Mr. Johannes, was educated in England and was
+formerly a master of the Nassik School in India. This school provides
+the education of one of our best middle-class schools, and the
+teaching is thorough. _Smattering_ would be infinitely despised by
+teachers and pupils. In this thorough fashion Latin, French, the first
+four books of Euclid, and algebra are taught to the young men of the
+upper form. The boys have a large playground, with a great tank for
+bathing, and some of the equipments of a gymnasium, a vaulting pole,
+parallel bars, etc.
+
+The girls' schools, containing 100 girls, have their own courtyard,
+and they need enlarging, though the process has been more than once
+repeated. Mrs. Aidin, an English teacher, is at their head, and
+exercises that strong influence which love and firmness give. The
+girls are a mass of red, a cool red, without yellow, and when they
+disperse they enliven the Julfa alleys with their carnation dresses
+and pure white _chadars_. The education is solid and suitable, and
+special attention is given to needlework.
+
+Besides these there is an orphanage, begun for the benefit of those
+whose parents died in the famine, in which are twenty boys. Outside
+are many other works, a Bible House, from which colporteurs at
+intervals proceed on journeys, a Young Men's Christian Association, or
+something like it, etc. etc.
+
+Now as to the Mission House itself, which has to accommodate Dr.,
+Mrs., and Miss Bruce, Mr. Carless, a clerical missionary, and two
+English lady missionaries. So much has been written lately about the
+"style of living" of missionaries, their large houses, and somewhat
+unnecessary comfort in general, that I am everywhere specially
+interested in investigating the subject, having formed no definite
+opinion on the question whether living as natives or living as
+Europeans is the more likely mode of producing a salutary impression.
+
+The Mission House here is a native building, its walls and ceilings
+simply decorated with pale brown arabesques on a white ground. There
+are a bedroom and parlour, with an ante-room between giving access to
+both from the courtyard, a storeroom, and a kitchen. Across the court
+are servants' quarters and a guest-room for natives. Above these,
+reached by an outside stair, are a good room, occupied by Mr. Carless
+as study and bedroom, and one small guest-room. Another stair leads to
+two rooms above some of the girls' school premises, having enclosed
+alcoves used as sleeping and dressing rooms. These are occupied by two
+ladies. One room serves as eating-room for the whole mission party, at
+present six in number, and as drawing-room and workroom. Books, a
+harmonium, Persian rugs on the floor, and just enough furniture for
+use constitute its "luxury."
+
+There are two servants, both of course men, and all the ladies do some
+housework. At present the only horse is the dispensary horse, a beast
+of such rough and uneven paces that it is a penance to ride him. The
+food is abundant, well cooked, and very simple.
+
+The life, all round, is a very busy one. Visitors are never refused at
+any hour. The long flat mud roofs from which one can see the gardens
+and the hills are used for exercise, otherwise some of the party would
+never have anything better than mud walls for their horizon, and life
+in courtyards is rather depressing for Europeans. I have told facts,
+and make no comments, and it must be remembered that both Dr. Bruce
+and Miss V----, a lady of rare devotion who has lately arrived,[34] are
+to a certain extent "honorary" missionaries, and have the means, if
+they had the desire, of surrounding themselves with comforts.
+
+This is about the twenty-third mission circle with which I have become
+acquainted during the last eight months, and I see in nearly all the
+same difficulties, many of them of a nature which we can hardly
+realise at home.
+
+Women coming to the East as missionaries are by far the greatest
+sufferers, especially if they are young, for Eastern custom, which in
+their position cannot be defied with advantage, limits free action and
+abridges all the comforts of independence. Thus a woman cannot take a
+walk or a ride or go to a house without a trusty man-servant in
+attendance on her, and this is often inconvenient, so she does not go
+out at all, contenting herself with a walk on the roof or in the
+courtyard.
+
+The wave of enthusiasm on which a lady leaves her own country soon
+spends its force. The interest which has centred round her for weeks
+or even months is left behind. The enthusiastic addresses and farewell
+meetings, the journey "up the country" with its excitement and
+novelties, and the cordial welcome from the mission circle to which
+she is introduced, soon become things of the past. The circle, however
+kind, has its own interests and work, and having provided her with a
+_munshi_, necessarily goes on its own way more or less, and she is
+left to face the fearful difficulties of languages with which ours has
+no affinity, in a loneliness which is all the more severely felt
+because she is usually, for a time at least, one nominally of a family
+circle.
+
+Unless she is a doctor or nurse she can do nothing till she has
+learned the language, and the difficulty of learning is increased by
+the loss of the flexible mind and retentive memory which are the
+heritage of extreme youth. The temptation is to "go at it" violently.
+Then come the aching head, the loss of sleep, the general lassitude
+and nervousness, and the self-questionings as to whether she was right
+in leaving her fruitful work in England.
+
+Then, instead of realising the truth of the phrases used at
+home--"multitudes flocking as the doves to their windows"--"fields
+white unto the harvest," etc.--she finds that the work instead of
+seeking her has to be made by her most laboriously, and oftentimes
+the glowing hope of telling of the Redeemer's love and death to
+throngs of eager and receptive listeners is fulfilled in the drudgery
+of teaching sewing and the rudiments of English during the first year.
+
+It is just this first year under which many women succumb. Then how
+many of the failings and weaknesses of the larger world must be
+epitomised in a mission group exposed, as Mr. Heyde of Kyelang
+feelingly said, "to the lowering influence of daily contact with a
+courteous and non-repulsive Heathenism and Mohammedanism"!
+Missionaries are not likely to possess, as they certainly are the last
+to claim, superior sanctity, and the new-comer, dreaming of a circle
+in all respects consecrated, finds herself among frictions, strong
+differences as to methods of working, not always gently expressed, and
+possible jealousies and criticisms, and an exaggeration of the
+importance of trifles, natural where large events are rare. A
+venerable American missionary in Turkey said, "Believe me, the
+greatest trial of missionaries is missionaries."
+
+The small group is frequently destitute of social resources outside
+itself, it is cut off from friendly visits, services, lectures, music,
+new books, news, and the many recreative influences which all men
+regard as innocent. The life-work seems at times thrown away, the
+heat, the flies, and the mosquitos are depressing and exhausting, and
+in the case of young women, especially till they can use the language
+colloquially, there is little if any outside movement. Is it wonderful
+that supposed slights, tiffs, criticisms which would be utterly
+brushed away if a good walk in the open or a good gallop were
+possible, should be brooded over till they attain a magnitude which
+embitters and depresses life?
+
+A man constantly finds the first year or two very trying till he has
+his tools--the language--at command, and even men at times rub each
+other the wrong way, but a man can take a good walk or a solitary
+gallop, or better still, a week of itinerating among the villages.
+People speak of the dangers and privations of missionary life. I think
+that these are singularly over-estimated. But the trials which I have
+alluded to, and which, with the hot climates and insufficient
+exercise, undermine the health of very many female missionaries,
+cannot be exaggerated, and demand our deep sympathy.
+
+I do not think that the ordinary pious woman, the successful and
+patient worker in district visiting, Bible classes, mothers' meetings,
+etc., is necessarily suited to be a foreign missionary, but that a
+heart which is a well-spring of human love, and a natural "enthusiasm
+of humanity" are required, as well as love to the Master, the last
+permeating and sanctifying the others, and giving them a perennial
+freshness. Fancy G. G---- grumbling and discontented and magnifying
+unpropitious trifles, when her heart goes out to every Chinawoman she
+sees in a perfect passion of love![35]
+
+With the _medical_ missionary, whether man or woman, the case is
+different. The work seeks the worker even before he is ready for it,
+claims him, pursues him, absorbs him, and he is powerful to heal even
+where he is impotent to convert.
+
+I have been to the hospital to see a woman from the Kuhr[=u]d
+mountains, who was brought here to undergo an operation. She had spent
+all her living on native physicians without result, and her husband
+has actually sold his house to get money to give his wife a last
+chance of recovery. Fifteen years ago this man nearly took Dr. Bruce's
+life. Now, he says, "The fruits of Christianity are good."
+
+Daily the "labyrinth of alleys" becomes denser with leafage, and the
+sun is hot enough to make the shade very pleasant, while occasional
+showers keep the greenery fresh. Indeed it is warm enough in my room
+to make the cool draught from the _b[=a]dg[=i]r_ very pleasant. These
+wind-towers are a feature of all Persian cities, breaking the monotony
+of the flat roofs.
+
+Letters can be sent once a week from Isfahan, and there is another
+opportunity very safe and much taken advantage of, the "Telegraph
+_chapar_," a British official messenger, who rides up and down between
+Bushire and Tihran at stated intervals. The Persian post is a wretched
+institution, partaking of the general corruption of Persian
+officialism, and nowhere, unless _registered_, are letters less safe
+than in Tihran.[36] I shall send this, scrappy as it is, as I may not
+be here for another week's mail.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] Since my visit Mr. Preece, then, and for many previous years, the
+superintending electrician of this section of the Indo-European
+telegraph, has been appointed Consul, the increasing dimensions of
+English interests and the increasing number of resident British
+subjects rendering the creation of a Consulate at Isfahan a very
+desirable step.
+
+[34] A few weeks later she died, her life sacrificed, I think, to
+over-study of a difficult language, and the neglect of fresh air and
+exercise.
+
+[35] These sentences were written nearly a year ago, but many
+subsequent visits to missions have only confirmed my strong view of
+the very trying nature of at least the early period of a lady
+missionary's life in the East, and of the constant failure of health
+which it produces; of the great necessity there is for mission boards
+to lay down some general rules of hygiene, which shall include the
+duty of riding on horseback, for more rigorous requirements of
+vigorous _physique_ in those sent out, and above all, that the
+_natural characteristics_ of those who are chosen to be "epistles of
+Christ" in the East shall be such as will not only naturally and
+specially commend the Gospel, but will stand the wear and strain of
+difficult circumstances.
+
+[36] Nearly all my non-registered letters to England failed to reach
+their destination.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+
+     JULFA, _April 29_.
+
+Each day has been completely filled up since I wrote, and this is
+probably the last here. My dear old Cabul tent, a _shuldari_, also
+Indian, and a servants' tent made here on a plan of my own, are
+pitched in one of the compounds to exercise the servants in the art,
+and it really looks like going after many delays.
+
+A few festivities have broken the pleasant monotony of life in this
+kindly and hospitable house--dinner parties, European and Armenian; a
+picnic on the Kuh Sufi, from which there is a very fine panoramic view
+of the vast plain and its surrounding mountains, and of the immense
+ruins of Isfahan and Julfa, with the shrunken remains of both; and a
+"church picnic."
+
+From Kuh Sufi is seen how completely, and with a sharp line of
+definition, the arid desert bounds the green oasis of cultivated and
+irrigated gardens which surround the city, and which are famous for
+the size and lusciousness of their fruit. From a confusion of ruinous
+or ragged walls of mud, of ruined and modern houses standing
+complacently among heaps of rubbish, and from amidst a greenery which
+redeems the scene, the blue tiled dome of the Masjid-i-Shah, a few
+minarets, and the great dome of the Medresseh, denuded of half its
+tiles, rise conspicuously. Long lines of mud streets and
+caravanserais, gaunt in their ruin, stretch into the desert, and the
+city once boasting of 650,000 inhabitants and a splendid court
+survives with a population of less than 80,000 at the highest
+estimate.
+
+The "church picnic" was held in a scene of decay, but 260 people, with
+all the women but three in red, enlivened it. It was in the grounds of
+the old palace of Haft Dast, in which Fatteh Ali Shah died, close to
+one of the three remarkable bridges of Isfahan, the Pul-i-Kaj[=u].
+These bridges are magnificent. Their construction is most peculiar,
+and their roadways being flat they are almost unique in Persia.
+
+The Pul-i-Kaj[=u], though of brick, has stone piers of immense size,
+which are arched over so as to form a level causeway. On this massive
+structure the upper bridge is built, comprising a double series of
+rooms at each pier with doorways overlooking the river, and there are
+staircases and rooms also in the upper piers.
+
+The Chahar Bagh bridge is also quaint and magnificent, with its
+thirty-three arches, some of them very large, its corridors for foot
+passengers, and chambers above each pier, each chamber having three
+openings to the river. These bridges have a many-storied look, from
+their innumerable windows at irregular altitudes, and form a grand
+approach to the city.
+
+As at first, so now at last the most impressive thing to me about the
+Zainderud next to its bridges is the extent to which rinsing, one of
+the processes of dyeing, is carried on upon its shingle flats. Isfahan
+dyed fabrics are famous and beautiful, heavy cottons of village make
+and unbleached cottons of Manchester make being brought here to be
+dyed and printed.
+
+There is quite a population of dyers, and now that the river is fairly
+low, many of them have camped for the season in little shelters of
+brushwood erected on the gravel banks. For fully half-a-mile these
+banks are covered with the rinsers of dyed and printed calicoes, and
+with mighty heaps of their cottons. Hundreds of pieces after the
+rinsing are laid closely together to dry, indigo and turquoise blue,
+brown and purple madder, Turkey red and saffron predominating, a vile
+aniline colour showing itself here and there. Some of the smaller
+dyers have their colour vats by the river, but most of the cotton is
+brought from Isfahan, ready dyed, on donkeys' backs, with the rinsers
+in attendance.
+
+Along the channels among the shingle banks are rows of old millstones,
+and during much of the day a rinser stands in front of each up to his
+knees in water. His methods are rough, and the cotton must be good
+which stands his treatment. Taking in his hands a piece of soaked
+half-wrung cotton, from fifteen to twenty yards long, he folds it into
+five feet and bangs it on the millstone with all his might, roaring a
+tuneless song all the time, till he fails from fatigue. The noise is
+tremendous, and there will be more yet, for the river is not nearly at
+its lowest point. When the piece has had the water beaten out of it a
+boy spreads it out on the gravel, and keeps it wet by dashing water
+over it, and then the process of beating is repeated. The coloured
+spray rising from each millstone in the bright sunshine is very
+pretty. Each rinser has his watchdog to guard the cottons on the bank,
+and between the banging, splashing, and singing, the barking of the
+dogs and the shouts of the boys, it is a noisy and cheery scene.
+
+I have heard that certain unscrupulous English makers were in the
+habit of sending "loaded" cottons here, but that the calico printers
+have been a match for them, for the calico printer weighs his cloth
+before he buys it, washes and dries it, and then weighs it again. A
+man must "get up very early" if he means to cheat a Persian.
+
+The patterns and colours are beautiful. Quilts, "table-cloths" (for
+use on the floor), and _chadars_ are often things of exquisite beauty.
+Indeed I have yielded to temptation, and to gratify my own tastes have
+bought some beautiful "table-cloths" for Bakhtiari women, printed
+chiefly in indigo and brown madder on a white ground.
+
+The temptations are great. I really need many things both for my own
+outfit and for presents to the Bakhtiaris, and pedlars come every day
+and unpack their tempting bundles in the small verandah. No Europeans
+and no women of the upper classes can enjoy the delights of shopping
+in Persia, consequently the pedlar is a necessary institution.
+
+Here they are of the humbler sort. They have learned that it is
+useless to display rich Turkestan and Feraghan carpets, gold and
+silver jewellery, inlaid arms, stuffs worked with gold thread, or any
+of the things which tempt the travelling Feringhi, so they bring all
+sorts of common fabrics, printed cambrics, worthless woollen stuffs,
+and the stout piece cottons and exquisitely-printed cotton squares of
+Isfahan.
+
+At almost any hour of the day a salaaming creature squatting at the
+door is seen, caressing a big bundle, which on seeing you he pats in a
+deprecating manner, looks up appealingly, declares that he is your
+"sacrifice," and that with great trouble and loss he has got just the
+thing the _khanum_ wants. If you hesitate for one moment the bundle is
+opened, and on his first visit he invariably shows flaring Manchester
+cottons first; but if you look and profess disgust, he produces
+cottons printed here, strokes them lovingly, and asks double their
+value for them. You offer something about half. He recedes and you
+advance till a compromise is arrived at representing the fair price.
+
+But occasionally, as about a table-cloth, if they see that you admire
+it very much but will not give the price asked, they swear by Allah
+that they will not abate a fraction, pack up their bundle, and move
+off in well-simulated indignation, probably to return the next day to
+offer the article on your own terms. Mrs. Bruce has done the
+bargaining, and I have been only an amused looker-on. I should prefer
+doing without things to the worry and tedium of the process of buying
+them.
+
+The higher class of pedlars, such as those who visit the _andaruns_ of
+the rich, go in couples, with a donkey or servant to carry their
+bundles.
+
+I mentioned that the Amir-i-Panj had called and had asked me to visit
+his wife. I sent a message to say that my entrance into Isfahan had
+been so disagreeable that I should be afraid to pass through its gates
+again, to which he replied that he would take care that I met with no
+incivility. So an afternoon visit was arranged, and he sent a splendid
+charger for me, one of the finest horses I have seen in Persia, a
+horse for Mirza Yusuf, and an escort of six cavalry soldiers, which
+was increased to twelve at the city gate. The horse I rode answered
+the description--"a neck clothed with thunder,"--he was perfectly
+gentle, but his gait was that of a creature too proud to touch the
+earth. It was exhilarating to be upon such an animal.
+
+The cavalry men rode dashing animals, and wore white Astrakan high
+caps, and the _cortège_ quite filled up the narrow alley where it
+waited, and as it passed through the Chahar Bagh and the city gate,
+with much prancing and clatter, no "tongue wagged" either of dervish
+or urchin.
+
+At the entrance to the Amir's house I was received by an
+_aide-de-camp_ and a number of soldier-servants, and was "conducted"
+into a long room opening by many windows upon a beautiful garden full
+of peach blossom, violets, and irises; the table was covered with
+very pretty confectionery, including piles of _gaz_, a favourite
+sweetmeat, made of manna which is chiefly collected within eighty
+miles of Isfahan. Coffee was served in little cups in filigree gold
+receptacles, and then the Amir-i-Panj appeared in a white uniform,
+with a white lambskin cap, and asked "permission to have the honour of
+accompanying me to the _andarun_."
+
+Persian politeness is great, and the Amir, though I think he is a Turk
+and not a Persian, is not deficient in it. Such phrases as "My house
+is purified by your presence, I live a thousand years in this visit,"
+etc., were freely used.
+
+This man, who receives from all a very high character, and whom
+Moslems speak of as a "saint," is the most interesting Moslem I have
+met. In one sense a thoroughly religious man, he practises all the
+virtues which he knows, almsgiving to the extent of self-denial,
+without distinction of creed, charity in word and deed, truth, purity,
+and justice.
+
+I had been much prepossessed in his favour not only from Dr. Bruce's
+high opinion of him but by the unbounded love and reverence which my
+interpreter has for him. Mirza Yusuf marched on foot from Bushire to
+Isfahan, without credentials, an alien, and penniless, and this good
+man hearing of him took him into his house, and treated him as a
+welcome guest till a friend of his, a Moslem, a general in the Persian
+army, also good and generous, took him to Tihran, where he remained as
+his guest for some months, and was introduced into the best Persian
+society. From him I learned how beautiful and pure a life may be even
+in a corrupt nation. When he bowed to kiss the Amir's hand, with
+grateful affection in his face, his "benefactor," as he always calls
+him, turned to me and said, "He is to me as a dear son, God will be
+with him."
+
+The garden is well laid out, and will soon be full of flowers. The
+Amir seemed to love them passionately. He said that they gave rest and
+joy, and are "the fringes of the garment of God." He could not cut
+them, he said, "Their beauty is in their completeness from root to
+petals, and cutting destroys it."
+
+A curtained doorway in the high garden wall, where the curtains were
+held aside by servants, leads into the court of the _andarun_, where
+flowers again were in the ascendant, and vines concealed the walls.
+The son, a small boy, met us and kissed my hand. Mirza had told me
+that he had never passed through this wall, and had never seen the
+ladies, but when I proposed to leave him outside, the Amir said he
+would be welcome, that he wished for much conversation, and for his
+wife to hear about the position and education of women in England.
+
+The beautiful reception-room looked something like home. The pure
+white walls and honeycombed ceiling are touched and decorated with a
+pale shade of blue, and the ground of the patterns of the rich carpets
+on the floor is in the same delicate colour, which is repeated in the
+brocaded stuffs with which the divans are covered. A half-length
+portrait of the Amir in a sky-blue uniform, with his breast covered
+with orders, harmonises with the general "scheme" of colour. The
+_takchahs_ in the walls are utilised for vases and other objects in
+alabaster, jade, and bronze. A tea-table covered with sweetmeats, a
+tea equipage on the floor, and some chairs completed the furnishing.
+
+The Amir stood till his wife came in, and then asked permission to sit
+down, placing Mirza, who discreetly lowered his eyes when the lady
+entered, and never raised them again, on the floor.
+
+She is young, tall, and somewhat stout. She was much rouged, and her
+eyes, to which the arts of the toilet could add no additional beauty,
+were treated with _kohl_, and the eyebrows artificially extended. She
+wore fine gray socks, white skin-fitting tights, a black satin skirt,
+or rather flounce, embroidered in gold, so _bouffante_ with flounces
+of starched crinoline under it that when she sat down it stood out
+straight, not even touching the chair. A chemise of spangled gauze,
+and a pale blue gold-embroidered zouave jacket completed a costume
+which is dress, not clothing. The somewhat startling effect was toned
+down by a beautiful Constantinople silk gauze veil, sprigged in pale
+pink and gold, absolutely transparent, which draped her from head to
+foot.
+
+I did not get away in less than two hours. The Amir and Mirza, used to
+each other's modes of expression, found no difficulties, and Mirza
+being a man of education as well as intelligence, thought was conveyed
+as easily as fact. The lady kept her fine eyes lowered except when her
+husband spoke to her.
+
+The chief topics were the education and position of women in England,
+religion, politics, and the future of Persia, and on all the Amir
+expressed himself with a breadth and boldness which were astonishing.
+How far the Amir has gone in the knowledge of the Christian faith I
+cannot say, nor do I feel at liberty to repeat his most interesting
+thoughts. A Sunni, a liberal, desiring complete religious liberty,
+absolutely tolerant to the _B[=a]bis_, grateful for the kindness shown
+to some of them by the British Legation, and for the protection still
+given to them at the C.M.S. house, admiring Dr. Bruce's persevering
+work, and above all the Medical Mission, which he regards as "the
+crown of beneficence" and "the true imitation of the life of the Great
+Prophet, Jesus," all he said showed a strongly religious nature, and a
+philosophical mind much given to religious thought. "All true
+religions aim at one thing," he said, "to make the heart and life
+pure."
+
+He asked a good deal about my travels, and special objects of interest
+in travelling, and was surprised when I told him that I nearly always
+travel alone; but after a moment's pause he said, "I do not understand
+that you were for a moment alone, for you had everywhere the love,
+companionship, and protection of God."
+
+He regards as the needs of Persia education, religious liberty (the
+law which punishes a Moslem with death for embracing Christianity is
+still on the statute-book), roads, and railroads, and asked me if I
+had formed any opinion on the subject. I said that it appeared to me
+that security for the earnings of labour, and equal laws for rich and
+poor, administered by incorruptible judges, should accompany
+education. I much fear that he thinks incorruptible judges a vision of
+a dim future!
+
+The subject of the position of women in England and the height to
+which female education is now carried interested him extremely. He
+wished his wife to understand everything I told him. The success of
+women in examinations in art, literature, music, and other things, and
+the political wisdom and absolutely constitutional rule of Queen
+Victoria, all interested him greatly. He asked if the women who took
+these positions were equally good as wives and mothers? I could only
+refer again to Queen Victoria. An Oriental cannot understand the
+position of unmarried women with us, or dissociate it from religious
+vows, and the Amir heard with surprise that a very large part of the
+philanthropic work which is done in England is done by women who
+either from accident or design have neither the happiness nor the
+duties of married life. He hopes to see women in Persia educated and
+emancipated from the trammels of certain customs, "but," he added,
+"all reform in this direction must come slowly, and grow naturally out
+of a wider education, if it is to be good and not hurtful."
+
+He asked me what I should like to see in Isfahan, but when I mentioned
+the prison he said he should be ashamed to show it, and that except
+for political offences imprisonment is not much resorted to, that
+Persian justice is swift and severe--the bastinado, etc., not
+incarceration.
+
+Afterwards I paid a similar visit to the house of Mirza Yusuf's other
+"benefactor," also a good and charitable man, who, as he speaks French
+well, acted as interpreter in the _andarun_.
+
+A few days later the Amir-i-Panj, accompanied by General Faisarallah
+Khan, called on Dr. Bruce and on me, and showed how very agreeable a
+morning visit might be made, and the following day the Amir sent the
+same charger and escort for me, and meeting him and Dr. Bruce in the
+Chahar Bagh, we visited the _Medresseh_, a combined mosque and
+college, and the armoury, where we were joined by two generals and
+were afterwards entertained at tea in the Standard Room, while a
+military band played outside. The Amir had ordered some artificers
+skilled in the brass-work for which Isfahan is famous to exhibit their
+wares in one of the rooms at the armoury, and in every way tried to
+make the visit more agreeable than an inspection of the jail! He
+advises me not to wear a veil in the Bakhtiari country, and to be "as
+European as possible."
+
+The armoury, of which he has had the organising, does not fall within
+my province. There are many large rooms with all the appliances of war
+in apparently perfect order for the equipment of 5000 men.
+
+With equal brevity I pass over the _Medresseh_, whose silver gates and
+exquisite tiles have been constantly described. Decay will leave
+little of this beautiful building in a few years. The tiles of the
+dome, which can be seen for miles, are falling off, and even in the
+halls of instruction and in the grand mosque under the dome, which are
+completely lined and roofed by tiles, the making of some of which is a
+lost art, one may augur the approach of ruin from the loss or breakage
+here and there. In the rooms or cells occupied by the students, who
+study either theology or law, there are some very fine windows
+executed in the beautiful tracery common to Persia and Kashmir, but
+the effect of beauty passing into preventible decay is very mournful.
+
+Isfahan too I barely notice, for the best of all reasons, that I have
+not seen it! Though a fourth part of it is in ruins, and its
+population is not an eighth of what it was in the days of Shah Abbas,
+it is a fairly thriving commercial emporium with an increasing British
+trade. Indeed here Russian commercial influence may be said to cease,
+and that of England to become paramount. It is the paradise of
+Manchester and Glasgow cottons: woollen goods come from Austria and
+Germany, glass from Austria, crockery from England, candles and
+kerosene represent Russia. Our commercial supremacy in Isfahan cannot
+be disputed. I am almost tired of hearing of it. Opium, tobacco,
+carpets from the different provinces, and cotton and rice for native
+consumption, are the chief exports. Opium is increasingly grown round
+the city, and up the course of the Zainderud. Of the 4500 cases
+exported, worth £90 a case, three-fourths go to China. Its cultivation
+is so profitable and has increased so rapidly to the neglect of food
+crops that the Prince Governor has issued an order that one part of
+cereals shall be sown for every four of the opium poppy.
+
+The cotton in the bazars, through which one can walk under cover for
+between two and three miles, is of the best quality, owing to the
+successful measures taken by the calico printers to defeat the roguery
+of the cheating manufacturers. All the European necessaries and many
+of the luxuries of life are obtainable, and the Isfahan bazars are the
+busiest in Persia except those of Tabriz.
+
+It is only fair to this southern capital to say that if one can walk
+over two miles under the roofs of its fine bazars, one can ride for
+many miles among its ruins, which have desolation without stateliness,
+and are chiefly known for the production of the excellent wild
+asparagus which is used lavishly on European tables at this season.
+
+The "Persian Versailles," the Palace of Forty Pillars, each pillar
+formed of shafts enriched with colour and intricate work, and resting
+on a marble lion, the shaking Minarets, the Masjid-i-Shah with its
+fine dome of peacock-blue tiles, all falling into premature decay,
+remain to attest its former greatness; the other noble palaces,
+mosques, caravanserais, and _Medressehs_ are ruinous, the superb
+pleasure gardens are overgrown with weeds or are used for vetches and
+barley, the tanks are foul or filled up, the splendid plane trees have
+been cut down for fuel, or are dragging out a hollow existence--every
+one, as elsewhere in Persia, destroys, no one restores. The armoury is
+the one exception to the general law of decay.
+
+Yet Isfahan covered an area of twenty-four miles in circumference, and
+with its population of 650,000 souls was until the seventeenth century
+one of the most magnificent cities of the East. Its destruction last
+century by an Afghan conqueror, who perpetrated a fifteen days'
+massacre, and the removal of the court to Tihran, have reduced it to a
+mere commercial centre, a "distributing point," and as such, its
+remains may take a new lease of life. It has a newspaper called the
+_Farhang_, which prints little bits of news, chiefly personal. Its
+editor moves on European lines so far as to have "interviewed" me!
+
+There are manufactures in Isfahan other than the successful printing
+and dyeing of cottons; viz., earthenware, china, brass-work, velvet,
+satin, tents, coarse cottons, glass, swords, guns, pistols, jewellery,
+writing paper and envelopes, silk brocades, satins, gunpowder,
+bookbinding, gold thread, etc.
+
+The plateau on which Isfahan stands, about seventy miles from east to
+west and twenty from north to south, and enclosed by high mountains
+with a striking outline, lies 5400 feet above the sea. The city has a
+most salubrious climate, and is free from great extremes both of heat
+and cold. The Zainderud, on whose left bank it is situated, endows
+much of the plain with fertility on its way to its undeserved doom in
+a partially-explored swamp.
+
+This Christian town, called a suburb, though it is really two and a
+half miles from Isfahan, is a well-built and well-peopled nucleus. It
+is not mixed up with ruins as Isfahan is. They have a region to
+themselves chiefly in the direction of the Kuh Sufi. My impression of
+it after a month is that it is clean and comfortable-looking, Mr.
+Curzon's is that it is "squalid." I prefer mine!
+
+It is a "city of waters." Streams taken from a higher level of the
+Zainderud glide down nearly all its lanes, shaded by pollard
+mulberries, ash, elm, and the "sparrow-tongue" willow, which makes the
+best firewood, and being "planted by the rivers of water," grows so
+fast that it bears lopping annually, and besides affording fuel
+supplies the twigs which are used for roofing such rooms as are not
+arched.
+
+The houses, some of which are more than three centuries old, are built
+of mud bricks, the roofs are usually arched, and the walls are from
+three to five feet thick. All possess planted courtyards and
+vineyards, and gardens into which channels are led from the streams in
+the streets. These streams serve other purposes: continually a group
+of Armenian women may be seen washing their clothes in them, while
+others are drinking or drawing water just below. The lanes are about
+twenty feet wide and have narrow rough causeways on both sides of the
+water-channel. It is difficult on horseback to pass a foot passenger
+without touching him in some of them.
+
+Great picturesqueness is given to these leafy lanes by the companies
+of Armenian women in bright red dresses and pure white robes, slowly
+walking through them at all hours of daylight, visions of bright eyes
+and rosy cheeks. I have never yet seen a soiled white robe! Long blank
+mud walls, low gateways, an occasional row of mean shops, open porches
+of churches, dim and cool, and an occasional European on foot or
+horseback, and groups of male Armenians, whose dress so closely
+approaches the European as to be without interest, and black-robed
+priests gliding to the churches are all that is usually to be seen. It
+sounds dull, perhaps.
+
+Many of the houses of the rich Armenians, some of which are now let to
+Europeans, are extremely beautiful inside, and even those occupied by
+the poorer classes, in which a single lofty room can be rented for
+twopence a week, are very pretty and appropriate. But no evidence of
+wealth is permitted to be seen from the outside. It is only a few
+years since the Armenians were subject to many disabilities, and they
+have even now need to walk warily lest they give offence. As, for
+instance, an Armenian was compelled to ride an ass instead of a horse,
+and when that restriction was relaxed, he had to show his inferiority
+by dismounting from his horse before entering the gates of Isfahan.
+
+They were not allowed to have bells on their churches, (at Easter I
+wished they had none still), but now the _Egglesiah Wang_ (the great
+church) has a fine campanile over 100 feet high in its inner court.
+The ancient mode of announcing the hours of worship is still
+affectionately adhered to, however. It consists of drumming with a
+mallet on a board hanging from two posts, and successfully breaks the
+sleep of the neighbourhood for the daily service which begins before
+daylight.
+
+The Armenians, like the rich Persians, prudently keep to the low
+gateways, which, with the absence of windows and all exterior
+ornament, give the lanes so mean an aspect, and tend to make one
+regard the beauty and even magnificence within with considerable
+surprise.
+
+In England a rich man, partly for his own delectation, and partly, if
+he be "the architect of his own fortune," to impose his position
+ocularly on his poorer neighbours, displays his wealth in all ways and
+on most occasions. In Persia his chief pleasure must be to hoard it
+and contemplate it, for any unusual display of it in equipages or
+furnishings is certain to bring down upon him a "squeeze," at Tihran
+in the shape of a visit from the Shah with its inevitable
+consequences, and in the Provinces in that of a requisition from the
+governor.
+
+For a man to "enlarge his gates" is to court destruction. Poor men
+have low gates, which involve stooping, to prevent rich men's servants
+from entering their houses on horseback on disagreeable errands.
+Christian churches have remarkably low doors elsewhere than in Julfa,
+to prevent the Moslems from stabling their cattle in them. Rich men
+affect mean entrances in order not to excite the rapacity of
+officialism, according to the ancient proverb, "He that exalteth his
+gate seeketh destruction" (Proverbs xvii. 19). Only Royal gates and
+the gates of officials who represent Royalty are high.
+
+The Armenian merchants have, like the Europeans, their offices in
+Isfahan. The rest of the people get their living by the making and
+selling of wine, keeping small shops, making watches and jewellery,
+carpentering, in which they are very skilful, and market-gardening;
+they are thrifty and industrious, and there is very little real
+poverty.
+
+The selling of wine does not conduce to the peace of Julfa. A mixture
+of sour wine and _arak_, a coarse spirit, is very intoxicating, and
+Persians, when they do drink, drink till they are drunk, and the
+abominable concealed traffic in liquor with the Moslems of the town is
+apt to produce disgraceful brawls.
+
+Wine can be bought for fourpence a quart, but the upper classes make
+their own, and it costs less than this. Wines are both red and white,
+and one red wine is said to be like good Chianti. The Armenians tipple
+and also get drunk, priests included. It is said that some of the jars
+used in fermenting are between 200 and 300 years old.
+
+The excellent education given in the C.M.S. schools has had the effect
+of stimulating the Armenian schools, and of producing among the young
+men a large emigration to India, Batavia, Constantinople, and even
+England. Only the dullards as a rule remain in Julfa. Some rise high
+in Persian and even in Turkish employment.
+
+The Armenian women are capital housewives and very industrious. In
+these warm evenings the poorer women sit outside their houses in
+groups knitting. The knitting of socks is a great industry, and a
+woman can earn 4s. a month by it, which is enough to live upon.
+
+In Julfa, and it may be partly owing to the presence of a European
+community, the Christians have nothing to complain of, and, so far as
+I can see, they are on terms of equality with the Persians.
+
+However, Isfahan is full of religious intolerance which can easily be
+excited to frenzy, and the arrogance of the _mollahs_ has increased
+since the fall from almost regal state of the Zil-i-Sultan, the Shah's
+eldest son, into the position of a provincial governor, for he curbed
+them somewhat, and now the restraint is removed. However, it is
+against the Jews and the _B[=a]bis_, rather than the Christians, that
+their hostility is directed.
+
+A few weeks ago some _B[=a]bis_ were peaceably returning to a
+neighbouring village, when they were attacked, and seven of their
+number were massacred under atrocious circumstances, the remainder
+taking refuge for a time in the British Telegraph office. Several of
+both sexes who escaped are in concealment here in a room in the
+Hospital compound, one of them with a broken jaw.
+
+The hiding of these _B[=a]bis_ has given great umbrage to the bigots
+of Isfahan, though the Amir-i-Panj justified it on all grounds, and
+about the time I arrived it was said that a thousand city fanatics
+purposed to attack the mission premises. But at one of the mosques
+there is a _mollah_, who with Gamaliel-like wisdom urged upon them
+"that if 300 Moslems were killed nothing would happen, but if a single
+European were killed, what then?"[37]
+
+I cannot close this letter without a few words on the Armenian
+churches, some of which I visited with Mr. and Dr. Aganoor, and others
+with Dr. Bruce. The ceremony representing the washing of the
+disciples' feet on the Armenian Holy Thursday was a most magnificent
+one as regards the antique splendour and extreme beauty of the
+vestments and jewels of the officiating bishop, but the feet, which
+are washed in rose-water and anointed, are not, as in Rome, those of
+beggars, but of neophytes costumed in pure white. Incense,
+embroideries, crowds of white-robed women, and other accessories made
+the function an imposing one.
+
+The Cathedral, a part of the Monastery, has a narrow winding approach
+and a thick door, for ecclesiastics were not always as safe as they
+are now. In the outer court is the campanile before mentioned. The
+floor is paved with monumental slabs, and among the graves are those
+of several Europeans. Piles of logs look as if the Julfa carpenters
+seasoned their wood in this court!
+
+The church is divided by a rail into two compartments. The dome is
+rich with beaten gold, and the dado is of very fine tiles, which
+produce a striking effect. The embroideries and the carpets, some of
+which are worth fabulous sums, are between two and three centuries
+old. The vestments and ornaments of the priests are very fine, and
+suggest the attire of the Aaronic priesthood.
+
+It is a striking building, and the amount of gold and colour, toned
+into a certain harmony by time, produces a gorgeous effect. The outer
+compartment has a singular interest, for 230 years ago its walls were
+decorated with religious paintings, on a large scale, of events in
+Bible history, from the creation downwards. Some are copies, others
+original, and they are attributed to Italian artists. They are well
+worth careful study as representing the conceptions which found favour
+among the Armenian Christians of that day. They are terribly
+realistic, but are certainly instructive, especially the illustrations
+of the miracles and parables.
+
+In one of the latter a man with a huge beam sticking out of one eye is
+represented as looking superciliously with the other at a man with an
+insignificant spike projecting. The death of Dives is a horrible
+representation. His soul, in the likeness of a very small nude
+figure, is represented as escaping from the top of his head, and is
+being escorted to the entrance of the lower regions by a flight of
+small black devils. The idea of the soul emerging from the top of the
+head is evidently borrowed from the Moslems.
+
+Our Lord is, I think, everywhere depicted as short, dark, and
+dark-haired, with eyebrows much curved, and a very long upper lip,
+without beauty or dignity, an ordinary Oriental workman.
+
+_The_ picture of the Cathedral is an enormous canvas, representing the
+day when "before Him shall be gathered all nations." The three persons
+of the Trinity are there, and saints and angels are portrayed as
+worshipping, or as enjoying somewhat earthly but perfectly innocent
+delights.
+
+In this the conception is analogous to those celebrated circular
+pictures in which the Buddhistic future is unrolled, and which I last
+saw in the monasteries of Lesser Tibet. The upper or heavenly part is
+insignificant and very small, while the torments of the lost in the
+lower part are on a very large scale, and both the devils and the nude
+human sufferers in every phase of anguish have the appearance of life
+size. The ingenuity of torment, however, is not nearly so great, nor
+are the scenes so revolting as those which Oriental imagination has
+depicted in the Buddhist hells. A huge mythical monster represents the
+mouth of hell, and into his flaming and smoking jaws the impenitent
+are falling. Does any modern Armenian believe that any of those whose
+bones lie under the huge blocks of stone in the cemetery in the red
+desert at the foot of Kuh Sufi have passed into "this place of
+torment"?
+
+The other church which claims one's interest, though not used for
+worship, is that of St. George, the hero of the fraudulent contract
+in bacon, as well as of the dragon fight, to whom the Armenians as
+well as ourselves render singular honour.
+
+This church is a great place for "miracles" of healing, and cells for
+the sick who come from a distance are freely provided. In a covered
+court are some large stones in a group, one of them evidently the
+capital of a column. Two of them have cavities at the top, and the
+sick kneel before them, and as the voluble women who were there told
+us, "they first pray to God and then to the stones," and finally pour
+water into these cavities and drink it. The cure is either
+instantaneous or occurs at any time within fifteen days, and in every
+case the patient hears the voice of St. George telling him to go home
+when it is complete.
+
+These stones, according to the legend told by the women and popularly
+believed by the uneducated, took it into their heads to come from
+Etchmiadzin in Armenia, the residence of the _Catholicos_, in one
+night, and deposited themselves where the church now stands. Seven
+times they were taken into Faraidan, eighty miles from Julfa, and as
+often returned, and their manifest predilection was at last rewarded
+by a rest of centuries. There were a number of sick people waiting for
+healing, for which of course fees are bestowed.
+
+The Armenians, especially the women, pay great attention to the
+externals of their religion. Some of its claims are very severe, such
+as the daily service before daylight, winter and summer, and the long
+fasts, which they keep with surprising loyalty, _i.e._ among the poor
+in towns and in the villages. For at least one-sixth of the year they
+are debarred from the use of meat or even eggs, and are permitted only
+vegetable oils, fruits, vegetables, and grain. Spirits and wine,
+however, are not prohibited.
+
+I really believe that their passionate attachment to their venerable
+church, the oldest of all national churches, is fostered by those
+among them who have ceased to believe its doctrines, as a necessity of
+national existence. I doubt very much whether the "Reformed"
+congregations, which have been gathered out here and elsewhere, would
+survive the withdrawal of foreign aid. Rather, I think, they would
+revert to the original type.
+
+Superstitions without number are mixed up with their beliefs, and are
+countenanced by the priests. The _meron_ or holy oil used in baptism
+and for other purposes has the stamp of charlatanism upon it. It is
+made in Etchmiadzin.
+
+Rose leaves are collected in an immense vat, which is filled with
+water, and at a set time the monks and nuns form a circle round it,
+and repeat prayers till "fermentation" begins. They claim that the
+so-called fermentation is a miracle due to the prayers offered. Oil,
+probably attar of roses, rises to the surface, and this precious
+_meron_ is sent to the Armenian churches throughout the world about
+once in four or five years. In Persia those who bear it are received
+with an _istikbal_ or procession of welcome.
+
+It is used not only in baptism and other rites but at the annual
+ceremony of washing the Cross at Christmas, when some of it is poured
+into the water and is drunk by the worshippers. In the villages they
+make a paste by mixing this water and oil with earth, which is made
+into balls and kept in the houses for "luck." If a dog licks a bowl or
+other vessel, and thus renders it unclean, rubbing it round with one
+of these balls restores it to purity.
+
+At a village in Faraidan there is an ancient New Testament, reputed to
+be of the sixth century. To this MS. people come on pilgrimage from
+all quarters, even from Fars, Tihran, and Armenia, to be healed of
+their diseases, and they make offerings to it, and practically render
+it worship.
+
+To go and pray on a newly-made grave is a remedy for childlessness
+much resorted to by childless wives. When two boys fight, and one of
+them is hurt, or when any one is injured by a dog or by a tree
+falling, they wash the damaged person in water, and then throw the
+water over the boy, dog, or tree which has been the cause of the
+injury, believing that in this way the mischief is transferred.
+
+When any one is ill of fright and the cause is not known, the nuns
+come to the house, and pour wax into a basin of boiling water, noting
+the form it takes, such as a snake, a dog, or a frog. In a case lately
+they went out and killed a snake, for the thing whose form the wax
+takes ought to be killed; but as this might often be difficult or
+unsuitable, they compromise the matter by throwing the water (not
+boiling, I hope) over the nearest dog or toad, or anything else which
+is supposed to be the culprit.
+
+On the first Monday in Lent the women wash their knitting needles for
+luck in a stream which runs through Julfa. The children educated in
+the Mission schools laugh at these and many other superstitions.
+
+The dress of the Armenian women is very showy, but too much of a
+_huddle_. Red is the dominant colour, a carnation red with white
+patterns sprawling over it, They wear coloured trousers concealed by a
+long skirt. The visible under-garment is a long, "shaped" dress of
+Turkey red. Over this is worn a somewhat scanty gown of red and white
+cotton, open in front, and very short-waisted, and over this a plain
+red pelisse or outer garment, often quilted, open in front, gashed up
+the sides, and falling below the knees. Of course this costume is
+liable to many modifications in the way of material, and embroidered
+jackets, heavily trimmed with jewellery and the like. As fashion is
+unchanging the acquisition and hoarding of garments are carried to a
+great extent.
+
+There are two marked features of Armenian dress, one, the massive
+silver girdle made of heavy chased-silver links four inches long by
+two deep, often antique and always of antique design, which falls much
+below the waist in front, and is used to confine the ends of the white
+sheet which envelops an Armenian woman out of doors, so that it may
+hang evenly all round. The other is a skull-cap of embroidered silk or
+cloth, placed well back on the head above the many hanging plaits in
+which the hair is worn, with a black velvet coronet in front, from
+which among the richer women rows of coins depend. This, which is very
+becoming to the brilliant complexion and comely face below it, is in
+its turn covered by a half handkerchief, and over this is gracefully
+worn, when not gracelessly clutched, a _chadar_ or drapery of printed
+cambric or muslin. A white band bound across the chin up to the lips
+suggests a broken jaw, and the _tout ensemble_ of the various
+wrappings of the head a perennial toothache.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[37] I have written nothing about this fast-increasing sect of the
+_B[=a]bis_, partly because being a secret sect, I doubt whether the
+doctrines which are suffered to leak out form really any part of its
+esoteric teaching, and partly because those Europeans who have studied
+the _B[=a]bis_ most candidly are diametrically opposed in their views
+of their tenets and practice, some holding that their aspirations are
+after a purer life, while others, and I think a majority, believe that
+their teachings are subversive of morality and of the purity of
+domestic life.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+
+     JULFA, _April 30_.
+
+You will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully expected to have
+left it a fortnight ago, but unavoidable delays have occurred. My
+caravan and servants started this morning, and I leave myself in a few
+hours.
+
+Upon my horse I have bestowed the suggestive name of _Screw_. He is
+fairly well-bred, big-headed, big-eared, small-bodied, bright bay,
+fine-coated, slightly flat-footed, and with his fore hoofs split in
+several places from the coronet nearly to the shoe. He is an undoubted
+_yabu_, and has carried loads for many a day. He has a long stride,
+shies badly, walks very fast, canters easily, and at present shows no
+tendency to tumble down.[38]
+
+I have had pleasant rides alone, crossing the definite dividing line
+between the desert and the oasis of cultivation and irrigation,
+watching the daily development of the various crops and the brief life
+of the wild flowers, creeping through the green fields on the narrow
+margins of irrigating ditches, down to the Pul-i-Kaj[=u], and
+returning to the green lanes of Julfa by the bright waters of the
+Zainderud crimsoning in the setting sun.
+
+For in the late cool and breezy weather, not altogether free from
+clouds and showers, there have been some gorgeous sunsets, and
+magnificent colouring of the depth and richness which people call
+tropical, has blazed extravagantly; and from the violet desert to the
+indigo storm-clouds on the still snow-patched Kuhr[=u]d mountains,
+from the vivid green of the oasis to the purple crags in dark relief
+against a sky of flame, all things have been new.
+
+Two Sundays witnessed two incidents, one the baptism of a young Moslem
+in a semi-private fashion, who shortly afterwards renounced
+Christianity, and the other that of a respectable Mohammedan merchant
+in Isfahan, who has long pleaded for baptism, presenting himself at
+the altar rails at the Holy Communion, resolved that if he were not
+permitted to confess Christ as Divine in one way he would in another.
+He was passed over, to my great regret, if he be sincere, but I
+suppose the Rubric leaves no choice.[39]
+
+I have written little about my prospective journey because there has
+been a prolonged uncertainty about it, and even now I cannot give any
+definite account of the project, except that the route lies through an
+altogether mountainous region, in that part of the province of
+Luristan known in Persia colloquially as the "Bakhtiari country," from
+being inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, chiefly nomads. The pros and
+cons as to my going have been innumerable, and the two people in
+Persia who know the earlier part of the route say that the character
+of the people makes it impossible for a lady to travel among them. On
+the other hand, I have the consent and help of the highest
+authorities, Persian and English, and shall not go too far, but shall
+return to Isfahan in case things should turn out as is feared. The
+exploration of a previously unexplored region will be in itself
+interesting, but whether there will be sufficient of the human
+interests, which I chiefly care for, I doubt; in that case the journey
+will be dull.
+
+At all events I shall probably have to return here in two months,[40]
+but such a journey for myself and two servants in such a region
+requires extensive preparations, and I have brought all my own
+travelling "dodges" into requisition, with a selection of those of
+other people.
+
+It is considered desirable to carry stores from Isfahan for forty
+days, except flour and rice, which can be obtained a week's march from
+here. At the British Legation I was kindly supplied with many tins of
+preserved meat, and milk, and jam, and besides these I am only taking
+a quantity of Edwards' Desiccated Soup, portable and excellent, twelve
+pounds of tea, and ten pounds of candles. The great thing in planning
+is to think of what one can do without. Two small bottles of saccharin
+supply the place of forty pounds of sugar.
+
+Two _yekdans_ contain my stores, cooking and table utensils and
+personal luggage, a waterproof bag my bedding, and a divided
+packing-case, now empty, goes for the flour and rice. Everything in
+the _yekdans_ is put up in bags made of the coarse cotton of the
+country. The tents and tent-poles, which have been socketed for easier
+transport on crooked mountain paths, and a camp-bed made from a
+Kashmiri pattern in Tihran, are all packed in covers made from the
+gunny bags in which sugar is imported, and so are double sets of
+large and small iron tent-pegs.
+
+Presents for the "savages" are also essential, and I have succeeded in
+getting 100 thimbles, many gross of small china buttons which, it is
+said, they like to sew on children's caps, 1000 needles, a quantity of
+Russian thread, a number of boxes with mirror tops, two dozen
+double-bladed knives, and the same number of strong scissors, Kashmir
+_kamarbands_, gay handkerchiefs for women's heads, Isfahan printed
+"table-cloths," dozens of bead bracelets and necklaces, leather purses
+and tobacco pouches, and many other things.
+
+I take three tents, including a _shuldari_, five feet square, and only
+weighing ten pounds. My kit is reduced to very simple elements, a
+kettle, two copper pots which fit into each other, a frying pan,
+cooking knife and spoon, a tray instead of a table, a chair, two
+plates, a teacup and saucer, a soup plate, mug, and teapot, all of
+course in enamelled iron, a knife, fork, and two spoons. This is ample
+for one person for any length of time in camp.
+
+For this amount of baggage and for the sacks of flour and rice,
+weighing 160 lbs., which will hereafter be carried, I have four mules,
+none heavily laden, and two with such light loads that they can be
+ridden by my servants. These mules, two _charvadars_, and a horse are
+engaged for the journey at two _krans_ (16d.) a day each, the owner
+stipulating for a _bakhsheesh_ of fifty _krans_, if at the end I am
+satisfied. This sum is to cover food and all risks.
+
+The animals are hired from a well-known _charvadar_, who has made a
+large fortune and is regarded as very trustworthy; Dr. Bruce calls him
+the "prince of _charvadars_." He and his son are going on the "trip."
+He has a quiet, superior manner, and when he came to judge of the
+weight of my loads, he said they were "very good--very right," a more
+agreeable verdict than muleteers are wont to pass upon baggage.[41]
+
+The making of the contract with Hadji involved two important
+processes, the writing of it by a scribe and the sealing of it. The
+scribe is one of the most important persons in Persia. Every great man
+has one or more, and every little man has occasion for a scribe's
+services in the course of a year. He is the trusted depositary of an
+infinity of secrets. He moves with dignity and deliberation, his
+"writer's inkhorn" pendent from his girdle, and his physiognomy has
+been trained to that reticent, semi-mysterious expression common to
+successful solicitors in England.
+
+Writing is a fine art in Persia. The characters are in themselves
+graceful, and lend themselves readily to decoration. The old
+illuminated MSS. are things of beauty; even my contract is ornamental.
+The scribe holds the paper in his left hand, and uses a reed pen with
+the nib cut obliquely, writing from right to left. The ink is thick,
+and is carried with the pens in a _papier-maché_ inkhorn.
+
+Hadji tells me with much pride that his son, Abbas Ali, can write "and
+will be very useful."
+
+Sealing is instead of signing. As in Japan, every adult male has his
+seal, of agate or cornelian among the rich, and of brass or silver
+among the poor. The name is carefully engraved on the seal at a cost
+of from a half-penny to 18s. a letter. Tihran is celebrated for its
+seal-cutters. No document is authentic without a seal as its
+signature.
+
+Hadji took the contract and applied it to his forehead in token of
+respect, touched the paper with his tongue to make it moist and
+receptive, waved it in the air to rid it of superfluous moisture,
+wetted his fingers on a spongy ball of silk full of Indian ink in the
+scribe's inkstand, rubbed the ink on the seal, breathed on it, and
+pressed it firmly down on the paper, which he held over the forefinger
+of his left hand. The smallest acts in Persia are regulated by rigid
+custom.
+
+The remaining portion of my outfit, but not the least important,
+consists of a beautiful medicine chest of the most compact and
+portable make, most kindly given to me by Messrs. Burroughes and
+Wellcome, containing fifty small bottles of their invaluable
+"tabloids," a hypodermic syringe, and surgical instruments for simple
+cases. To these I have added a quantity of quinine, and Dr. Odling at
+Tihran gave me some valuable remedies. A quantity of bandages, lint,
+absorbent cotton, etc., completes this essential equipment. Among the
+many uncertainties of the future this appears certain, that the
+Bakhtiaris will be clamorous for European medicine.
+
+I have written of my servants. Mirza Yusuf pleases me very much,
+Hassan the cook seems quiet, but not active, and I picture to myself
+the confusion of to-night in camp, with two men who know nothing about
+camp life and its makeshifts!
+
+Whatever the summer brings, this is probably my last letter written
+from under a roof till next winter. I am sorry to leave Julfa and
+these kind friends, but the prospect of the unknown has its charms.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] _Screw_ never became a friend or companion, scarcely a comrade,
+but showed plenty of pluck and endurance, climbed and descended
+horrible rock ladders over which a horse with a rider had never passed
+before, was steady in fords, and at the end of three and a half months
+of severe travelling and occasional scarcity of food was in better
+condition than when he left Julfa.
+
+[39] He has since been baptized, but for safety had to relinquish his
+business and go to India, where he is supporting himself, and his
+conduct is satisfactory.
+
+[40] I never returned, and only at the end of three and a half months
+emerged from the "Bakhtiari country" at Burujird after a journey of
+700 miles.
+
+[41] Hadji Hussein deserves a passing recommendation. I fear that he
+is still increasing his fortune and has not retired. The journey was a
+very severe one, full of peril to his mules from robbers and dangerous
+roads, and not without risk to himself. With the exception of a few
+Orientalisms, which are hardly worth recalling, he was faithful and
+upright, made no attempt to overreach, kept to his bargain, was
+punctual and careful, and at Burujird we parted good friends. He was
+always most respectful to me, and I owe him gratitude for many
+kindnesses which increased my comfort. It is right to acknowledge that
+a part of the success of the journey was owing to the efficiency of
+the transport.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON THE "BAKHTIARI COUNTRY" OR LURI-BUZURG
+
+
+In introducing the following journal of a summer spent in Luri-Buzurg
+or Greater Luristan by a few explanatory notes, I desire to
+acknowledge the labours of those travellers who have preceded me over
+some of the earlier portions of the route, and my obligations to those
+careful explorers of half a century ago, who turned the light of
+modern research upon the antiquities of Lower Elam and the condition
+of its modern inhabitants, and whose earnestness and accuracy the
+traveller in Upper Elam and the Bakhtiari country may well desire to
+emulate.[42]
+
+For the correction of those portions of my letters which attempt to
+describe a part of mountainous Luristan previously unexplored, I am
+deeply indebted to a recent unpublished Geographical Report, to which
+any geographical interest which they may possess is altogether due.
+For the customs and beliefs of the Bakhtiaris I have had to depend
+entirely on my own investigations, made through an intelligent and
+faithful interpreter, whose desire for accuracy was scarcely exceeded
+by my own.
+
+The accompanying sketch map represents an area of 15,000 square miles,
+lying, roughly speaking, between Lat. 31° and 34° N., and between
+Long. 48° and 51° E., and covering a distance of 300 miles from the
+Khana Mirza to Khuramabad.
+
+The itinerary covers a distance of about 700 miles, a journey of three
+and a half months, chiefly in the region of the Upper Karun and its
+affluents, among which must be included the head-waters of the
+Ab-i-Diz.
+
+During this time the Karun was traced, wherever the nature of its bed
+admitted of it, from the gorge of Dupulan, below which several
+travellers have investigated and reported its extraordinary windings,
+up to the Sar-Cheshmeh-i-Kurang, its reputed source, a vigorous
+fountain spring with an altitude of 8000 feet in the steep limestone
+face of the north-eastern side of the Zard Kuh range, and upwards to
+its real source in the Kuh-i-Rang or "variegated mountain."
+
+The Ab-i-Diz was found to carry off the water of a larger area than
+had been supposed; the north-west branches, the Ab-i-Burujird and the
+Kamandab, which drain the well-watered plain of Silakhor, almost
+yielding in importance to the Guwa and Gokun, which, uniting to form
+what, for convenience' sake, was termed the Ab-i-Basnoi, receive the
+drainage of the upper part of Faraidan, an important district of
+Persia proper.
+
+A lake of marvellously coloured water, two and a half miles long by
+one mile wide, very deep, and with a persistent level, was found to
+occupy a hollow at the inner foot of the grand mountain Shuturun, and
+this, having no native name, was marked on the map as Lake Irene.
+
+The Bakhtiari mountains are chains of precipitous parallel ranges,
+generally running north-west and south-east, the valleys which divide
+them and carry off their waters taking the same directions as far as
+the Kuh-i-Rang, where a remarkable change takes place, noticed in
+Letter XVII. This great mountain region, lying between the lofty
+plateau of Central Persia and the plains of Khuzistan, has continuous
+ranges of singular steepness, but rarely broken up into prominent
+peaks, the Kuh-i-Rang, the Kuh-i-Shahan, the Shuturun Kuh, and Dalonak
+being detached mountains.
+
+The great ranges of the Kuh-i-Sukhta, the Kuh-i-Gerra, the Sabz Kuh,
+the Kala Kuh, and the Zard Kuh were crossed and recrossed by passes
+from 8000 to 11,000 feet in altitude; many of the summits were
+ascended, and the deep valleys between them, with their full-watered,
+peacock-green streams, were followed up wherever it was possible to do
+so. The magnificent mountain Kuh-i-Rang was ascertained to be not only
+a notable water-parting, but to indicate in a very marked manner two
+distinct mountain systems with remarkable peculiarities of drainage,
+as well as to form a colossal barrier between two regions which, for
+the sake of intelligible description, were called "Upper Elam" and
+the "Bakhtiari country."
+
+The same authority, for the same purpose, designated the two main and
+highest chains of mountains by the terms "Outer" and "Inner" ranges,
+the former being the one nearest the great Persian plateau, the latter
+the chain nearest to the Khuzistan plains. The conjectural altitudes
+of the peaks in this hitherto unexplored region have been brought down
+by some thousands of feet, and the "eternal snow" with which rumour
+had crested them has turned out a myth, the altitude of the highest
+summit being estimated at only a trifle over 13,000 feet.
+
+The nearly continuous ranges south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang are pierced
+for the passage of water by a few remarkable rifts or _tangs_--the
+Outer range by the Tang-i-Ghezi, the outlet of the Zainderud towards
+Isfahan, and the Tang-i-Darkash Warkash, by which the drainage of the
+important districts of the Chahar Mahals passes to the Karun, the
+Inner range being pierced at the Tang-i-Dupulan by the Karun itself.
+North-west of the Kuh-i-Rang the rivers which carry the drainage of
+certain districts of south-west Persia to the sea pierce the main
+mountain ranges at right angles, passing through magnificent gorges
+and chasms from 3000 to 5000 feet in depth.
+
+Among the mountains, but especially in the formation south-east of the
+Kuh-i-Rang, there are many alpine valleys at altitudes of from 7000 to
+8500 feet, rich summer pastures, such as Gurab, Chigakhor, Shorab, and
+Cheshmeh Zarin.
+
+Some of the valleys are of considerable width, many only afford room
+for narrow tracks above the streams by which they are usually watered,
+while others are mere rifts for torrents and are inaccessible. Among
+the limestone ranges fountain springs are of frequent occurrence,
+gushing out of the mountain sides with great volume and
+impetuosity--the perennial sources of perennial streams.
+
+Much of the country is absolutely without wood, producing nothing fit
+even for fuel but the _Astragalus verus_ and the _Astragalus
+tragacantha_. This is especially the case on the outer slopes of the
+Outer range, which are formed of rocky ribs with a covering of gravel,
+and are "barren, treeless, waterless, and grassless." From the same
+crest to the outer slopes of the Inner range, which descend on
+Khuzistan, there are splendid pasturage, abundant water, and extensive
+forests in the deep valleys and on the hill slopes.[43]
+
+The trees, however, can rarely be defined as "forest trees." They are
+small in girth and are usually stunted and wizened in aspect, as if
+the conditions of their existence were not kindly.
+
+Flowers are innumerable in the months of May and June, beginning with
+the tulip, the iris, the narcissus, and a small purple gladiolus, and
+a little later many of the hillsides above an altitude of 7000 feet
+are aflame with a crimson and terra-cotta _Fritillaria imperialis_,
+and a carnation-red anemone, while the margins of the snow-fields are
+gay with pink patches of an exquisite alpine primula. Chicory, the
+dark blue centaurea, a large orange and yellow snapdragon, and the
+scarlet poppy attend upon grain crops there as elsewhere, and the
+slopes above the upper Karun are brilliant with pink, mauve, and
+white hollyhocks. But it must be admitted that the chief interest of
+many of the flowers is botanical only. They are leathery, woolly,
+thorny, and sticky, adapted rather for arid circumstances than to
+rejoice the eye.
+
+Among the economic plants observed were the _Centaurea alata_, which
+grows in singular abundance at a height of from 5500 to 7000 feet, and
+is cut and stacked for fodder; a species of celery of very strong
+flavour, which is an important article of food for man and beast, and
+the flower-stalks of which, six feet high, are woven into booths by
+some of the tribes; the blue linum, red madder, the _Eryngium
+cæruleum_, which is cut and stacked for fodder; a purple garlic, the
+bulbs of which are eaten; liquorice, and the _Ferula asafetida_ in
+small quantities.
+
+It is a surprise to the traveller to find that a large area is under
+cultivation, and that the crops of wheat and barley are clean, and up
+to the Persian average, and that the removal of stones and a laborious
+irrigation system are the work of nomads who only occupy their
+_yailaks_ for five months of the year. It may be said that nearly
+every valley and hill-slope where water is procurable is turned to
+account for grain crops.
+
+No part of the world in this latitude is fuller of streams and
+torrents, but three only attain to any geographical dignity--the
+Zainderud, or river of Isfahan, which after a course full of promise
+loses itself ignominiously in a partially-explored swamp; the Karun,
+with its Bakhtiari tributaries of the Ab-i-Bazuft, the Darkash
+Warkash, the Ab-i-Sabzu, and the Dinarud; and the Ab-i-Diz, which has
+an important course of its own before its junction with the Karun at
+Bandakir. None of these rivers are navigable during their course
+through the Bakhtiari mountains. They are occasionally spanned by
+bridges of stone or wickerwork, or of yet simpler construction.
+
+With the exception of the small area of the Outer range, which
+contains the head-waters of the Zainderud, the Bakhtiari country
+proper consists of the valleys of the upper Karun and its tributaries.
+
+The tracks naturally follow the valleys, and are fairly easy in their
+gradients to the south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang. To the north-west,
+however, being compelled to cross rivers which pierce the ranges at
+right angles to their directions, ascents and descents of several
+thousand feet are involved at short intervals, formed of rock ladders,
+which may be regarded as "impassable for laden animals."
+
+The so-called roads are nothing better than tracks worn in the course
+of centuries by the annual passage of the nomads and their flocks to
+and from their summer pastures. In addition to the tracks which follow
+the lie of the valleys, footpaths cross the main ranges where foothold
+can be obtained.
+
+There are but two bridle tracks which deserve mention as being
+possible for caravan traffic between Isfahan and Shuster, one crossing
+the God-i-Murda at a height of 7050 feet and the Karun at Dupulan, the
+other, which considerably diminishes the distance between the two
+commercial points, crossing the Zard Kuh by the Cherri Pass at an
+altitude of 9550 feet and dropping down a steep descent of over 4000
+feet to the Bazuft river. These, the Gurab, and the Gil-i-Shah, and
+Pambakal Passes, which cross the Zard Kuh range at elevations of over
+11,000 feet, are reported as closed by snow for several months in
+winter. In view of the cart-road from Ahwaz to Tihran, which will pass
+through the gap of Khuramabad, the possible importance of any one of
+these routes fades completely away.
+
+The climate, though one of extremes, is healthy. Maladies of locality
+are unknown, the water is usually pure, and malarious swamps do not
+exist. Salt springs produce a sufficiency of salt for wholesome use,
+and medicinal plants abound. The heat begins in early June and is
+steady till the end of August, the mercury rising to 102° in the shade
+at altitudes of 7000 feet, but it is rarely oppressive; the nights are
+cool, and greenery and abounding waters are a delightful contrast to
+the arid hills and burning plains of Persia. The rainfall is scarcely
+measurable, the snowfall is reported as heavy, and the winter
+temperatures are presumably low.
+
+There are few traces of a past history, and the legends connected with
+the few are too hazy to be of any value, but there are remains of
+bridges of dressed stone, and of at least one ancient road, which must
+have been trodden by the soldiers of Alexander the Great and Valerian,
+and it is not impossible that the rude forts here and there which the
+tribesmen attribute to mythical heroes of their own race may have been
+built to guard Greek or Roman communications.
+
+The geology, entomology, and zoology of the Bakhtiari country have yet
+to be investigated. In a journey of three months and a half the only
+animals seen were a bear and cubs, a boar, some small ibex, a blue
+hare, and some jackals. Francolin are common, and storks were seen,
+but scarcely any other birds, and bees and butterflies are rare. It is
+the noxious forms of animated life which are abundant. There are
+snakes, some of them venomous, a venomous spider, and a stinging
+beetle, and legions of black flies, mosquitos, and sand-flies infest
+many localities.
+
+This area of lofty ranges, valleys, gorges, and alpine pasturages is
+inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, classed with the savage or
+semi-savage races, who, though they descend to the warmer plains in
+the winter, invariably speak of these mountains as "their country." On
+this journey nearly all the tribes were visited in their own
+encampments, and their arrangements, modes of living, customs, and
+beliefs were subjects of daily investigation, the results of which are
+given in the letters which follow.
+
+Their own very hazy traditions, which are swift to lose themselves in
+the fabulous, represent that they came from Syria, under one chief,
+and took possession of the country which they now inhabit. A later
+tradition states that a descendant of this chief had two wives equally
+beloved, one of whom had four sons, and the other seven; and that
+after their father's death the young men quarrelled, separated, and
+bequeathed their quarrel to posterity, the seven brothers forming the
+Haft Lang division of the Bakhtiaris, and the four the Chahar
+Lang.[44]
+
+The Haft Lang, though originally far superior in numbers, weakened
+their power by their unending internal conflicts, and in 1840, when
+Sir A. H. Layard visited a part of Luristan not embraced in this
+route, and sojourned at Kala-i-Tul, the power and headship of Mehemet
+Taki Khan, the great chief of their rivals the Chahar Lang, were
+recognised throughout the region.
+
+The misfortunes which came upon him overthrew the supremacy of his
+clan, and now (as for some years past) the Haft Lang supply the ruling
+dynasty, the Chahar Lang being, however, still strong enough to decide
+any battles for the chieftainship which may be fought among their
+rivals. Time, and a stronger assertion of the sovereignty of Persia,
+have toned the feud down into a general enmity and aversion, but the
+tribes of the two septs rarely intermarry, and seldom encamp near each
+other without bloodshed.
+
+The great divisions of the Bakhtiaris, the Haft Lang, the Chahar Lang,
+and the Dinarunis, with the dependencies of the Janiki Garmsir, the
+Janiki Sardsir, and the Afshar tribe of Gunduzlu, remain as they were
+half a century ago, when they were the subject of careful
+investigation by Sir A. H. Layard and Sir H. Rawlinson.
+
+The tribes (as enumerated by several of the Khans without any
+divergence in their statements) number 29,100 families, an increase in
+the last half-century. Taking eight to a household, which I believe to
+be a fair estimate, a population of 232,800 would be the result.[45]
+
+A few small villages of mud hovels at low altitudes are tenanted by a
+part of their inhabitants throughout the winter, the other part
+migrating with the bulk of the flocks; and 3000 families of the two
+great Janiki divisions are _deh-nishins_ or "dwellers in cities,"
+_i.e._ they do not migrate at all; but the rest are nomads, that is,
+they have winter camping-grounds in the warm plains of Khuzistan and
+elsewhere, and summer pastures in the region of the Upper Karun and
+its affluents, making two annual migrations between their _garmsirs_
+and _sardsirs_ (hot and cold quarters).
+
+Though a pastoral people, they have (as has been referred to
+previously) of late years irrigated, stoned, and cultivated a number
+of their valleys, sowing in the early autumn, leaving the crops for
+the winter and early spring, and on their return weeding them very
+carefully till harvest-time in July.
+
+They live on the produce of their flocks and herds, on leavened cakes
+made of wheat and barley flour, and on a paste made of acorn flour.
+
+In religion they are fanatical Moslems of the Shiah sect, but combine
+relics of nature worship with the tenets of Islam.
+
+The tribes, which were to a great extent united under the judicious
+and ambitious policy of Mehemet Taki Khan and Hussein Kuli Khan,
+nominally acknowledge one feudal head, the Ilkhani, who is associated
+in power with another chief called the Ilbegi. The Ilkhani, who is
+appointed by the Shah for a given period, capable of indefinite
+extension, is responsible for the tribute, which amounts to about two
+_tumans_ a household, and for the good order of Luri-Buzurg.
+
+The Bakhtiaris are good horsemen and marksmen. Possibly in
+inter-tribal war from 10,000 to 12,000 men might take the field, but
+it is doubtful whether more than from 6000 to 8000 could be relied on
+in an external quarrel.
+
+The Khan of each tribe is practically its despotic ruler, and every
+tribesman is bound to hold himself at his disposal.
+
+As concerns tribute, they are under the government of Isfahan, with
+the exception of three tribes and a half, which are under the
+government of Burujird.
+
+They are a warlike people, and though more peaceable than formerly,
+they cherish blood-feuds and are always fighting among themselves.
+Their habits are predatory by inclination and tradition, but they have
+certain notions of honour and of regard to pledges when voluntarily
+given.[46]
+
+They deny Persian origin, but speak a dialect of Persian. Conquered
+by Nadir Shah, who took many of them into his service, they became
+independent after his death, until the reign of Mohammed Shah. Though
+tributary, they still possess a sort of _quasi_ independence, though
+Persia of late years has tightened her grip upon them, and the Shah
+keeps many of their influential families in Tihran and its
+neighbourhood as hostages for the good behaviour of their clans.
+
+Of the Feili Lurs, the nomads of Luri-Kushak or the Lesser Luristan,
+the region lying between the Ab-i-Diz and the Assyrian plains, with
+the province of Kirmanshah to the north and Susiana to the south,
+little was seen. These tribes are numerically superior to the
+Bakhtiaris. Fifty years ago, according to Sir H. Rawlinson, they
+numbered 56,000 families.
+
+They have no single feudal chieftain like their neighbours, nor are
+their subdivisions ruled, as among them, by powerful Khans. They are
+governed by _Tushmals_ (lit. "master of a house") and four or five of
+these are associated in the rule of every tribal subdivision. On such
+occasions as involve tribal well-being or the reverse, these
+_Tushmals_ consult as equals.
+
+Sir H. Rawlinson considered that the Feili Lur form of government is
+very rare among the clan nations of Asia, and that it approaches
+tolerably near to the spirit of a confederated republic. Their
+language, according to the same authority, differs little from that of
+the Kurds of Kirmanshah.
+
+Unlike the Bakhtiaris, they neglect agriculture, but they breed and
+export mules, and trade in carpets, charcoal, horse-furniture, and
+sheep.
+
+In faith they are Ali Ilahis, but are grossly ignorant and religiously
+indifferent; they show scarcely any respect to Mohammed and the Koran,
+and combine a number of ancient superstitions and curious sacrificial
+rites with a deep reverence for Sultan Ibrahim, who under the name of
+_B[=a]b[=a] Buzurg_ (the great father) is worshipped throughout
+Luri-Kushak.
+
+For the tribute payable to Persia no single individual is responsible.
+The sum to be levied is distributed among the tribes by a general
+council, after which each subdivision apportions the amount to be paid
+by the different camps, and the _Rish-Sefid_ (lit. gray-beard) or head
+of each encampment collects from the different families according to
+their means.
+
+The task of the Persian tax-collector is a difficult one, for the
+tribes are in a state of chronic turbulence, and fail even in
+obedience to their own general council, and the collection frequently
+ends in an incursion of Persian soldiers and a Government raid on the
+flocks and herds. Many of these people are miserably poor, and they
+are annually growing poorer under Persian maladministration.
+
+The Feili Lurs are important to England commercially, because the
+cart-road from Ahwaz to Tihran, to be completed within two years,
+passes partly through their country,[47] and its success as the future
+trade route from the Gulf depends upon their good-will, or rather
+upon their successful coercion by the Persian Government.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] The writers who have dealt with some of the earlier portions of
+my route are as follows: Henry Blosse Lynch, Esq., _Across Luristan to
+Ispahan--Proceedings of the R.G.S._, September 1890. Colonel M. S.
+Bell, V.C., _A Visit to the Karun River and Kûm--Blackwood's
+Magazine_, April 1889. Colonel J. A. Bateman Champain, R.E., _On the
+Various Means of Communication between Central Persia and the
+Sea--Proceedings of the R.G.S._, March 1883. Colonel H. L. Wells,
+R.E., _Surveying Tours in South-Western Persia--Proceedings of
+R.G.S._, March 1883. Mr. Stack, _Six Months in Persia_, London, 1884.
+Mr. Mackenzie, _Speech--Proceedings of R.G.S._, March 1883. The
+following among other writers have dealt with the condition of the
+Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs, and with the geography of the region to the
+west and south-west of the continuation of the great Zagros chain,
+termed in these notes the "Outer" and "Inner" ranges of the Bakhtiari
+mountains, their routes touching those of the present writer at
+Khuramabad: Sir H. Rawlinson, _Notes of a March from Zohab to
+Khuzistan in 1836--Journal of the R.G.S._, vol. ix., 1839. Sir A. H.
+Layard, _Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, including
+a residence among the Bakhtiari and other wild tribes_, 2 vols.,
+London, 1887. Baron C. A. de Bode, _Travels in Luristan and
+Arabistan_, 2 vols., London, 1845. W. F. Ainsworth (Surgeon and
+Geologist to the Euphrates Expedition), _The River Karun_, London,
+1890. General Schindler travelled over and described the Isfahan and
+Shuster route, and published a map of the country in 1884.
+
+[43] Among the trees and shrubs to be met with are an oak (_Quercus
+ballota_), which supplies the people with acorn flour, the _Platanus_
+and _Tamariscus orientalis_, the jujube tree, two species of elm, a
+dwarf tamarisk, poplar, four species of willow, the apple, pear,
+cherry, plum, walnut, gooseberry, almond, dogwood, hawthorn, ash,
+lilac, alder, _Paliurus aculeatus_, rose, bramble, honeysuckle, hop
+vine, grape vine, _Clematis orientalis_, _Juniperus excelsa_, and
+hornbeam.
+
+[44] In Persian _haft_ is seven, and _chakar_ four.
+
+[45] This computation is subject to correction. Various considerations
+dispose the Ilkhani and the other Khans to minimise or magnify the
+population. It has been stated at from 107,000 to 275,000 souls, and
+by a "high authority" to different persons as 107,000 and 211,000
+souls!
+
+[46] Sir. H. Rawlinson sums up Bakhtiari character in these very
+severe words: "I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel
+and savage character; they pursue their blood-feuds with the most
+inveterate and exterminating spirit, and they consider no oath or
+obligation in any way binding when it interferes with their thirst for
+revenge; indeed, the dreadful stories of domestic tragedy that are
+related, in which whole families have fallen by each other's hands (a
+son, for instance, having slain his father to obtain the
+chiefship--another brother having avenged the murder, and so on, till
+only one individual was left), are enough to freeze the blood with
+horror.
+
+"It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiaris have been obliged to
+forego altogether the reading of the _F[=a]htihah_ or prayer for the
+dead, for otherwise they would have no other occupation. They are also
+most dexterous and notorious thieves. Altogether they may be
+considered the most wild and barbarous of all the inhabitants of
+Persia."--"Notes on a March from Zohab to Khuzistan," _Journal of the
+R.G.S._, vol. ix. Probably there is an improvement since this verdict
+was pronounced. At all events I am inclined to take a much more
+favourable view of the Bakhtiaris than has been given in the very
+interesting paper from which this quotation is made.
+
+[47] A report to the Foreign Office (No. 207) made by an officer who
+travelled from Khuramabad to Dizful in December 1890, contains the
+following remarks on this route.
+
+"As to the danger to caravans in passing through these hills, I am
+inclined to believe that the Lurs are now content to abandon robbery
+with violence in favour of payments and contributions from timid
+traders and travellers. They hang upon the rear of a caravan; an
+accident, a fallen or strayed pack animal, or stragglers in difficulty
+bring them to the spot, and, on the pretence of assistance given, a
+demand is made for money, in lieu of which, on fear or hesitation
+being shown, they obtain such articles as they take a fancy to.
+
+"The tribes through whose limits the road runs have annual allowances
+for protecting it, but it is a question whether these are regularly
+paid. It can hardly be expected that the same system of deferred and
+reduced payments, which unfortunately prevails in the Persian public
+service, should be accepted patiently by a starving people, who have
+long been given to predatory habits, and this may account for
+occasional disturbance. They probably find it difficult to understand
+why payment of taxes should be mercilessly exacted upon them, while
+their allowances remain unpaid. It is generally believed that they
+would take readily to work if fairly treated and honestly paid, and I
+was told that for the construction of the proposed cart-road there
+would be no difficulty in getting labourers from the neighbouring Lur
+tribes."
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+
+     KAHVA RUKH, CHAHAR MAHALS, _May 4._
+
+I left Julfa on the afternoon of April 30, with Miss Bruce as my guest
+and Mr. Douglas as our escort for the first three or four days. The
+caravan was sent forward early, that my inexperienced servants might
+have time to pitch the tents before our arrival.
+
+Green and pleasant looked the narrow streets and walled gardens of
+Julfa under a blue sky, on which black clouds were heavily massed here
+and there; but greenery was soon exchanged for long lines of mud
+ruins, and the great gravelly slopes in which the mountains descend
+upon the vast expanse of plain which surrounds Isfahan, on which the
+villages of low mud houses are marked by dark belts of poplars,
+willows, fruit-trees, and great patches of irrigated and cultivated
+land, shortly to take on the yellow hue of the surrounding waste, but
+now beautifully green.
+
+Passing through Pul-i-Wargun, a large and much wooded village on the
+Zainderud, there a very powerful stream, affording abundant water
+power, scarcely used, we crossed a bridge 450 feet long by twelve feet
+broad, of eighteen brick arches resting on stone piers, and found the
+camps pitched on some ploughed land by a stream, and afternoon tea
+ready for the friends who had come to give us what Persians call "a
+throw on the road." I examined my equipments, found that nothing
+essential was lacking, initiated my servants into their evening
+duties, especially that of tightening tent ropes and driving tent pegs
+well in, and enjoyed a social evening in the adjacent camp.
+
+The next day's journey, made under an unclouded sky, was mainly along
+the Zainderud, from which all the channels and rills which nourish the
+vegetation far and near are taken. A fine, strong, full river it is
+there and at Isfahan in spring, so prolific in good works that one
+regrets that it should be lost sixty miles east of Isfahan in the
+Gas-Khana, an unwholesome marsh, the whole of its waters disappearing
+in the _Kavir_. Many large villages with imposing pigeon-towers lie
+along this part of its course, surrounded with apricot and walnut
+orchards, wheat and poppy fields, every village an oasis, and every
+oasis a paradise, as seen in the first flush of spring. On a slope of
+gravel is the Bagh-i-Washi, with the remains of an immense enclosure,
+where the renowned Shah Abbas is said to have had a menagerie. Were it
+not for the beautiful fringe of fertility on both margins of the
+Zainderud the country would be a complete waste. The opium poppy is in
+bloom now. The use of opium in Persia and its exportation are always
+increasing, and as it is a very profitable crop, both to the
+cultivators and to the Government, it is to some extent superseding
+wheat.
+
+Leaving the greenery we turned into a desert of gravel, crossed some
+low hills, and in the late afternoon came down upon the irrigated
+lands which surround the large and prosperous village of Riz, the
+handsome and lofty pigeon-towers of which give it quite a fine
+appearance from a distance.
+
+These pigeon-towers are numerous, both near Isfahan and in the
+villages along the Zainderud, and are everywhere far more imposing
+than the houses of the people. Since the great famine, which made a
+complete end of pigeon-keeping for the time, the industry has never
+assumed its former proportions, and near Julfa many of the towers are
+falling into ruin.
+
+The Riz towers, however, are in good repair. They are all built in the
+same way, varying only in size and height, from twenty to fifty feet
+in diameter, and from twenty-five to eighty feet from base to summit.
+They are "round towers," narrowing towards the top. They are built of
+sun-dried bricks of local origin, costing about two _krans_ or 16d. a
+thousand, and are decorated with rings of yellowish plaster, with
+coarse arabesques in red ochre upon them. For a door there is an
+opening half-way up, plastered over like the rest of the wall.
+
+Two walls, cutting each other across at right angles, divide the
+interior. I am describing from a ruined tower which was easy of
+ingress. The sides of these walls, and the whole of the inner surface
+of the tower, are occupied by pigeon cells, the open ends of which are
+about twelve inches square. According to its size a pigeon-tower may
+contain from 2000 to 7000, or even 8000, pairs of pigeons. These birds
+are gray-blue in colour.
+
+A pigeon-tower is a nuisance to the neighbourhood, for its occupants,
+being totally unprovided for by their proprietor, live upon their
+neighbours' fields. In former days it must have been a grand sight
+when they returned to their tower after the day's depredations. "Who
+are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"
+probably referred to a similar arrangement in Palestine.
+
+The object of the towers is the preservation and collection of "pigeon
+guano," which is highly prized for the raising of early melons. The
+door is opened once a year for the collection of this valuable manure.
+A large pigeon-tower used to bring its owner from £60 to £75 per
+annum, but a cessation of the great demand for early melons in the
+neighbourhood of Isfahan has prevented the re-stocking of the towers
+since the famine.
+
+Our experiences of Riz were not pleasant. One of the party during a
+short absence from his tent was robbed of a very valuable scientific
+instrument. After that there was the shuffling sound of a multitude
+outside the tent in which Miss Bruce and I were resting, and women
+concealed from head to foot in blue and white checked sheets,
+revealing but one eye, kept lifting the tent curtain, and when that
+was laced, applying the one eye to the spaces between the lace-holes,
+whispering and tittering all the time. Hot though it was, their
+persevering curiosity prevented any ventilation, and the steady gaze
+of single eyes here, there, and everywhere was most exasperating. It
+was impossible to use the dressing tent, for crowds of boys assembled,
+and rows of open mouths and staring eyes appeared between the _fly_
+and the ground. Vainly Miss Bruce, who speaks Persian well and
+courteously, told the women that this intrusion on our privacy when we
+were very tired was both rude and unkind. "We're only women," they
+said, "_we_ shouldn't mind it, we've never seen so many Europeans
+before." Sunset ended the nuisance, for then the whole crowd, having
+fasted since sunrise, hurried home for food.
+
+The great fast of the month of Ramazan began before we left Julfa.
+Moslems are not at their best while it lasts. They are apt to be
+crabbed and irritable; and everything that can be postponed is put off
+"till after Ramazan."
+
+Much ostentation comes out in the keeping of it; very pious people
+begin to fast before the month sets in. A really ascetic Moslem does
+not even swallow his saliva during the fast, and none but very old or
+sick people, children, and travellers, are exempt from the obligation
+to taste neither food nor water, and not even to smoke during
+daylight, for a whole month. The penance is a fearful one, and as the
+night is the only time for feasting, the Persians get through as much
+of the day as possible in sleep.
+
+Welcome indeed is the sunset. With joy men fill their pipes and drink
+tea as a prelude to the meal eaten an hour afterwards. Hateful is the
+dawn and the cry an hour before it, "Water! oh, water and opium!"--the
+warning to the faithful to drink largely and swallow an opium pill
+before sunrise. The thirst even in weather like this, and the
+abstention from smoking, are severer trials than the fasting from
+food. The Persian either lives to smoke, or smokes to live.
+
+Although travellers are nominally exempt from the fast from water at
+least, pious Moslems do not avail themselves of the liberty. Hadji
+Hussein, for instance, is keeping it as rigidly as any one, and, like
+some others, marches with the end of his _pagri_ tucked over his mouth
+and nose, a religious affectation, supposed to prevent the breaking of
+the fast by swallowing the animalculæ which are believed to infest the
+air!
+
+Beyond Riz, everywhere there are arid yellow mountains and yellow
+gravelly plains, except along the Zainderud, where fruit-trees, wheat,
+and the opium poppy relieve the eyes from the glare. We took leave of
+the Zainderud at Pul-i-Kala, where it is crossed by a dilapidated but
+passable and very picturesque stone bridge of eight arches, and the
+view from the high right bank of wood, bridge, and the vigorous green
+river is very pretty.
+
+Little enough of trees or greenery have we seen since. This country,
+like much of the great Iranian plateau, consists of high mountains with
+broad valleys or large or small plateaux between them, absolutely
+treeless, and even now nearly verdureless, with scattered oases wherever
+a possibility of procuring water by means of laboriously-constructed
+irrigation canals renders cultivation possible.
+
+Water is scarce and precious; its value may be gathered from the
+allusions made by the Persian poets to fountains, cascades, shady
+pools, running streams, and bubbling springs. Such expressions as
+those in Scripture, "rivers of waters," "a spring of water whose
+waters fail not," convey a fulness of meaning to Persian ears of which
+we are quite ignorant. The first inquiry of a Persian about any part
+of his own country is, "Is there water?" the second, "Is the water
+good?" and if he wishes to extol any particular region he says "the
+water is abundant all the year, and is sweet, there is no such water
+anywhere."
+
+The position of a village is always determined by the water supply,
+for the people have not only to think of water for domestic purposes,
+but for irrigating their crops, and this accounts for the packing of
+hamlets on steep mountain sides where land for cultivation can only be
+obtained by laborious terracing, but where some perennial stream can
+be relied on for filling the small canals. The fight for water is one
+of the hardest necessities of the Persian peasant. A water famine of
+greater or less degree is a constant peril.
+
+Land in Persia is of three grades, the wholly irrigated, the partially
+irrigated, and the "rain-lands," usually uplands, chiefly suited for
+pasturage. The wholly irrigated land is the most productive. The
+assessments for taxes appear to leave altogether out of account the
+relative fertility of the land, and to be calculated solely on the
+supply of water. A winter like the last, of heavy snow, means a
+plenteous harvest, _i.e._ "twelve or fourteen grains for one," as the
+peasants put it; a scanty snowfall means famine, for the little rain
+which falls is practically of scarcely any use.
+
+The plan for the distribution of water seems to be far less
+provocative of quarrels than that of some other regions dependent on
+irrigation, such as Ladak and Nubra. Where it is at all abundant, as
+it is in this Zainderud valley, it is only in the great heats of
+summer that it is necessary to apportion it with any rigidity. It is
+then placed in the hands of a _mirab_ or water officer, who allows it
+to each village in turn for so many days, during which time the
+villages above get none, or the _ketchudas_ manage it among themselves
+without the aid of a _mirab_, for the sad truth, which is applicable
+to all Persian officialism, applies in the _mirab's_ case, that if a
+village be rich enough to bribe him it can get water out of its turn.
+
+The blessedness of the Zainderud valley is exceptional, and the
+general rule in the majority of districts is that the water must be
+carefully divided and be measured by "_tashts_," each _tasht_ being
+equivalent to the use of the water supply for eleven minutes.
+
+"This space of time is estimated in a very ancient fashion by floating
+a copper bowl with a needle hole in the bottom in a large vessel of
+water. The _tasht_ comes to an end as the bowl sinks. The distribution
+is regulated by the number of _tashts_ that each man has a right to.
+If he has a right to twenty he will receive water for three and
+three-quarter hours of the day or night every tenth day." Land without
+water in Persia is about as valuable as the "south lands" were which
+were given to Caleb's daughter.
+
+So far as I can learn, the Persian peasant enjoys a tolerable security
+of tenure so long as he pays his rent. A common rate of rent is
+two-thirds of the produce, but on lands where the snow lies for many
+months, even when they are "wet lands," it is only one-third; but this
+system is subject to many modifications specially arising out of the
+finding or non-finding of the seed by the owner, and there is no
+uniformity in the manner of holding land or in assessing the taxes or
+in anything else, though the system established 1400 years ago is
+still the basis of the whole.[48]
+
+The line between the oasis and the desert is always strongly marked
+and definite. There is no shading away between the deep green of the
+growing wheat and the yellow or red gravel beyond. The general
+impression is one of complete nakedness. The flowers which in this
+month bloom on the slopes are mostly stiff, leathery, and thorny. The
+mountains themselves viewed from below are without any indication of
+green. The usual colouring is grayish-yellow or a feeble red,
+intensifying at sunset, but rarely glorified owing to the absence of
+"atmosphere."
+
+It is a very solitary route from Pul-i-Kala, without villages, and we
+met neither caravans nor foot passengers. The others rode on, and I
+followed with two of the Bakhtiari escort, who with Rustem Khan, a
+minor chief, had accompanied us from Julfa. These men were most
+inconsequent in their proceedings, wheeling round me at a gallop,
+singing, or rather howling, firing their long guns, throwing
+themselves into one stirrup and nearly off their horses, and one who
+rides without a bridle came up behind me with his horse bolting and
+nearly knocked me out of the saddle with the long barrel of his gun.
+When the village of Charmi came in sight I signed to them to go on,
+and we all rode at a gallop, the horsemen uttering wild cries and
+going through the pantomime of firing over the left shoulders and
+right flanks of their horses.
+
+The camps were pitched on what might be called the village green.
+Charmi, like many Persian villages, is walled, the wall, which is
+much jagged by rain and frost, having round towers at intervals, and a
+large gateway. Such walls are no real protection, but serve to keep
+the flocks and herds from nocturnal depredators. Within the gate is a
+house called the Fort, with a very fine room fully thirty feet long by
+fifteen high, decorated with a mingled splendour and simplicity
+surprising in a rural district. The wall next the courtyard is
+entirely of very beautiful fretwork, filled in with amber and pale
+blue glass. The six doors are the same, and the walls and the
+elaborate roof and cornices are pure white, the projections being
+"picked out" in a pale shade of brown, hardly darker than amber.
+
+The following morning Miss Bruce left on her return home, and Mr.
+Douglas and I rode fourteen miles to the large village of Kahva Rukh,
+where we parted company. It is an uninteresting march over formless
+gravelly hills and small plains thinly grassed, until the
+Gardan-i-Rukh, one of the high passes on the Isfahan and Shuster
+route, is reached, with its extensive view of brown mountains and
+yellow wastes. This pass, 7960 feet in altitude, crossing the
+unshapely Kuh-i-Rukh, is the watershed of the country, all the streams
+on its southern side falling into the Karun. It is also the entrance
+to the Chahar Mahals or four districts, Lar, Khya, Mizak, and
+Gandaman, which consist chiefly of great plains surrounded by
+mountains, and somewhat broken up by their gravelly spurs.
+
+Beyond, and usually in sight, is the snow-slashed Kuh-i-Sukhta range,
+which runs south-east, and throws out a spur to Chigakhor, the summer
+resort of the Bakhtiari chiefs. The Chahar Mahals, for Persia, are
+populous, and in some parts large villages, many of which are Armenian
+and Georgian, occur at frequent intervals, most of them treeless, but
+all surrounded by cultivated lands. The Armenian villages possess
+so-called relics and ancient copies of the Gospels, which are
+credited with the power of working miracles.[49]
+
+The Chahar Mahals have been farmed to the Ilkhani of the Bakhtiaris
+for about 20,000 _tumans_ (£6000) a year, and his brother, Reza Kuli
+Khan, has been appointed their governor. Thus on crossing the Kahva
+Rukh pass we entered upon the sway of the feudal head of the great
+Bakhtiari tribes.
+
+We camped outside the village, my tents being pitched in a ruinous
+enclosure. The servants are in the habit of calling me the _Hak[=i]m_,
+and the report of a Frank _Hak[=i]m_ having arrived soon brought a
+crowd of sick people, who were introduced and their ailments described
+by a blue horseman, one of the escort.
+
+His own child was so dangerously ill of pneumonia that I went with him
+to his house, put on a mustard poultice, and administered some Dover's
+powder. The house was crammed and the little suffering creature had
+hardly air to breathe. The courtyard was also crowded, so that one
+could scarcely move, all the people being quite pleasant and friendly.
+I saw several sick people, and was surprised to find the village
+houses so roomy and comfortable, and so full of "plenishings." It was
+in vain that I explained to them that I am not a doctor, scarcely even
+a nurse. The fame of Burroughes and Wellcome's medicine chest has
+spread far and wide, and they think its possessor _must_ be a
+_Hak[=i]m_. The horseman said that medicine out of that chest would
+certainly cure his child.[50] I was unable to go back to the tea which
+had been prepared in the horseman's house, on which he expressed great
+dismay, and said I must be "enraged with him."
+
+Persians always use round numbers, and the _ketchuda_ says that the
+village has 300 Persian houses, and 100 more, inhabited during the
+winter by Ilyats. It has mud walls with towers at intervals, two
+mosques, a clear stream of water in the principal street, some very
+good houses with _balakhanas_, and narrow alleys between high mud
+walls, in which are entrances into courtyards occupied by animals, and
+surrounded by living-rooms. The only trees are a few spindly willows,
+but wheat comes up to the walls, and at sunset great herds of cattle
+and myriads of brown sheep converge to what seems quite a prosperous
+village.
+
+_May 5._--Yesterday, Sunday, was intended to be a day of rest, but
+turned out very far from it. After the last relay of "patients" left
+on Saturday evening, and the last medicines had been "dispensed," my
+tent was neatly arranged with one _yekdan_ for a table, and the other
+for a washstand and medicine stand. The latter trunk contained some
+English gold in a case along with some valuable letters, and some
+bags, in which were 1000 _krans_, for four months' travelling. This
+_yekdan_ was padlocked. It was a full moon, the other camps were quite
+near, all looked very safe, and I slept until awakened by the
+sharpness of the morning air.
+
+Then I saw but one _yekdan_ where there had been two! Opening the
+tent curtain I found my washing apparatus and medicine bottles neatly
+arranged on the ground outside, and the trunk without its padlock
+among some ruins a short distance off. The money bags were all gone,
+leaving me literally penniless. Most of my store of tea was taken, but
+nothing else. Two men must have entered my tent and have carried the
+trunk out. Of what use are any precautions when one sleeps so
+disgracefully soundly? When the robbery was made known horsemen were
+sent off to the Ilkhani, whose guest I have been since I entered his
+territory, and at night a Khan arrived with a message that "the money
+would be repaid, and that the village would be levelled with the
+ground!" Kahva Rukh will, I hope, stand for many years to come, but
+the stolen sum will be levied upon it, according to custom.
+
+The people are extremely vexed at this occurrence, and I would rather
+have lost half the sum than that it should have happened to a guest.
+In addition to an escort of a Khan and four men, the Ilkhani has given
+orders that we are not to be allowed to pay for anything while in the
+country. This order, after several battles, I successfully disobey.
+This morning, before any steps were taken to find the thief, and after
+all the loads were ready, officials came to the camps, and, by our
+wish, every man's baggage was unrolled and searched. Our servants and
+_charvadars_ are all Moslems, and each of them took an oath on the
+Koran, administered by a _mollah_, that he was innocent of the theft.
+
+_Ardal, May 9._--I left rather late, and with the blue horseman, to
+whom suspicion generally pointed, rode to Shamsabad, partly over
+gravelly wastes, passing two mixed Moslem and Armenian villages on a
+plain, on which ninety ploughs were at work on a stiff whitish soil.
+
+Shamsabad is a most wretched mud village without supplies, standing
+bare on a gravelly slope, above a clear quiet stream, an affluent of
+the Karun. This country has not reached that stage of civilisation in
+which a river bears the same name from mouth to source, and as these
+streams usually take as many names as there are villages on their
+course, I do not burden my memory with them. There is a charming
+camping-ground of level velvety green sward on the right bank of the
+river, with the towering mass of Jehanbin (sight of the world), 12,000
+feet high, not far off. This lawn is 6735 feet above the sea, and the
+air keen and pleasant. The near mountain views are grand, and that
+evening the rare glory of a fine sunset lingered till it was merged in
+the beauty of a perfect moonlight.
+
+After leaving Shamsabad the road passes through a rather fine defile,
+crosses the Shamsabad stream by a ten-arched bridge between the
+Kuh-i-Zangun and the Kuh-i-Jehanbin, and proceeds down a narrow valley
+now full of wild flowers and young wheat to Khariji, a village of
+fifty houses, famous for the excellent quality of its opium. From
+Khariji we proceeded through low grassy hills, much like the South
+Downs, and over the low but very rough Pasbandi Pass into an irrigated
+valley in which is the village of Shalamzar. I rode through it alone
+quite unmolested, but two days later the Sahib, passing through it
+with his servants, was insulted and pelted, and the people said,
+"Here's another of the dog party." These villagers are afflicted with
+"divers diseases and torments," and the crowd round my tent was
+unusually large and importunate. In this village of less than fifty
+houses nearly all the people had one or both eyes more or less
+affected, and fourteen had only one eye.
+
+Between Shalamzar and Ardal lies the lofty Gardan-i-Zirreh, by which
+the Kuh-i-Sukhta is crossed at a height of 8300 feet. The ascent
+begins soon after leaving the village, and is long and steep--a nasty
+climb. The upper part at this date is encumbered with snow, below
+which primulas are blooming in great profusion, and lower down
+leathery flowers devoid of beauty cover without adorning the hillside.
+Two peasants went up with me, and from time to time kindly handed me
+clusters of small raisins taken from the breasts of dirty felt
+clothing. On reaching the snow I found Rustem Khan's horse half-buried
+in a drift, so I made the rest of the ascent on foot. The snow was
+three feet deep, but for the most part presented no difficulties, even
+to the baggage animals.
+
+At the summit there were no green things except some plants of
+_artemisia_, not even a blade of grass, but among the crevices
+appeared small fragile snow-white tulips with yellow centres, mixed
+with scarlet and mauve blossoms of a more vigorous make. At that great
+height the air was keen and bracing, and to eyes for months accustomed
+to regions buried in dazzling snow and to glaring gravelly wastes,
+there was something perfectly entrancing about the view on the
+Bakhtiari side. Though treeless, it looked like Paradise. Lying at the
+foot of the pass is the deep valley of Seligun, 8000 feet high, with
+the range of the Kuh-i-Nassar to the south, and of the Kuh-Shah-Purnar
+to the north--green, full of springs and streams, with two lakes
+bringing down the blue of heaven to earth, with slopes aflame with the
+crimson and terra-cotta _Fritillaria imperialis_, and levels one
+golden glory with a yellow ranunculus. Rich and dark was the green of
+the grass, tall and deep on the plain, but when creeping up the
+ravines to meet the snows, short green sward enamelled with tulips.
+Great masses of naked rock, snow-slashed, and ranges of snow-topped
+masses behind and above, walled in that picture of cool serenity, its
+loneliness only broken by three black tents of Ilyats far away. So I
+saw Seligun, but those who see it a month hence will find only a brown
+and dusty plain!
+
+The range we crossed divides the Chahar Mahals from the true Bakhtiari
+country, a land of mountains which rumour crests with eternal snow, of
+unexplored valleys and streams, of feudal chiefs, of blood feuds, and
+of nomad tribes moving with vast flocks and herds.
+
+Mehemet Ali, a new and undesirable acquisition, was loaded with my
+_shuldari_, and we clambered down the hillside, leading our horses
+amidst tamarisk scrub and a glory of tulips, till we reached the
+level, when a gallop brought us to the camps, pitched near a vigorous
+spring in the green flower-enamelled grass.
+
+That halt was luxury for man and beast. Later the air was cool and
+moist. The sun-lit white fleeces which had been rolling among the
+higher hills darkened and thickened into rain-clouds, drifting
+stormily, and only revealing here and there through their rifts
+glimpses of blue. A few flocks of sheep on the mountains, and the
+mules and horses revelling knee-deep in the juicy grass, were the sole
+representatives of animated life. It was a real refreshment to be away
+from the dust of mud villages, and to escape from the pressure of
+noisy and curious crowds, and the sight of sore eyes.
+
+Towards evening, a gallop on the Arabs with the Bakhtiari escort took
+us to the camp of the lately-arrived Ilyats. Orientals spend much of
+their time in the quiet contemplation of cooking pots, and these
+nomads were not an exception, for they were all sitting round a
+brushwood fire, on which the evening meal of meat broth with herbs was
+being prepared. The women were unveiled. Both men and women are of
+quite a different type from the Persians. They are completely clothed
+and in appearance are certainly only semi-savages. These tents
+consisted of stones rudely laid to a height of two feet at the back,
+over which there is a canopy with an open front and sides, of woven
+goat's-hair supported on poles. Such tents are barely a shelter from
+wind and rain, but in them generations of Ilyats are born and die,
+despising those of their race who settle in villages.
+
+There were great neutral-tint masses of rolling clouds, great banks of
+glistering white clouds, a cold roystering wind, a lurid glow, and
+then a cloudy twilight. _Hak[=i]m_ threw up his heels and galloped
+over the moist grass, the Bakhtiaris, two on one horse, laughed and
+yelled--there was the desert freedom without the desert. It was the
+most inspiriting evening I have spent in Persia. Truth compels me to
+add that there were legions of black flies.
+
+In the early morning, after riding round the south-east end of the
+valley, we passed by the lake Seligun or Albolaki, banked up by a
+revetment of rude masonry. The wind was strong, and drove the
+foam-flecked water in a long line of foam on the shore. Red-legged
+storks were standing in a row fishing. Cool scuds of rain made the
+morning homelike. Then there was a hill ascent, from which the view of
+snowy mountains, gashed by deep ravines and backed by neutral-tint
+clouds, was magnificent, and then a steep and rocky defile, which
+involved walking, its sides gaudy with the _Fritillaria imperialis_,
+which here attains a size and a depth of colouring of which we have no
+conception.
+
+In this pass we met a large number of Ilyat families going up to their
+summer quarters, with their brown flocks of sheep and their black
+flocks of goats. Their tents with all their other goods were packed in
+convenient parcels on small cows, and the women with babies and big
+wooden cradles were on asses. The women without babies, the elder
+children, and the men walked.
+
+Whatever beauty these women possessed was in the Meg Merrilees style,
+with a certain weirdness about it. They had large, dark, long eyes,
+with well-marked eyebrows, artificially prolonged, straight prominent
+noses, wide mouths with thin lips, long straight chins, and masses of
+black hair falling on each side of the face. Their dress consisted of
+enormously full dark blue cotton trousers, drawn in at the ankles, and
+suspended over the hips, not from the waist (the invariable custom in
+Persia), and loose sleeved vests, open in front. The adult women all
+wear a piece of cotton pinned on the head, and falling over the back
+and shoulders. The men had their hair in many long plaits, hanging
+from under felt skull-caps, and wore wide blue cotton trousers, white
+or printed cotton shirts over these, and girdles in which they carried
+knives, pipes, and other indispensables. All wore shoes or sandals of
+some kind. These men were very swarthy, but the younger women had rich
+brunette complexions, and were unveiled.
+
+Some bad horse-fights worried the remainder of the march, which
+included the ascent of an anemone-covered hill, 7700 feet high, from
+which we got the first view of the Ardal valley, much cultivated, till
+it narrows and is lost among mountains, now partly covered with snow.
+In the centre is a large building with a tower, the spring residence
+of the Ilkhani, whose goodwill it is necessary to secure. Through a
+magnificent gorge in the mountains passes the now famous Karun. A
+clatter of rain and a strong wind greeted our entrance into the
+valley, where we were met by some horsemen from the Ilkhani.
+
+The great Ardal plateau is itself treeless, though the lower spurs of
+the Kuh-i-Sabz on the south side are well wooded with the _belut_, a
+species of oak. There is much cultivation, and at this season the
+uncultivated ground is covered with the great green leaves of a fodder
+plant, the _Centaurea alata_, which a little later are cut, dried,
+and stacked. The rivers of the plateau are the Karun and Sabzu on the
+south side, and the river of Shamsabad, which brings to the Karun the
+drainage of the Chahar Mahals, and enters the valley through a
+magnificent _tang_ or chasm on its north side, called Darkash Warkash.
+The village of Ardal is eighty-five miles from Isfahan, on the Shuster
+caravan route, and is about 200 from Shuster. Its altitude is 5970
+feet, its Long. 50° 50´ E. and its Lat. 32° N.
+
+On arriving here the grandeur of the Ilkhani's house faded away.
+Except for the fortified tower it looks like a second-rate
+caravanserai. The village, such as there is of it, is crowded on a
+steep slope outside the "Palace." It is a miserable hamlet of low
+windowless mud hovels, with uneven mud floors, one or two feet lower
+than the ground outside, built in yards with ruinous walls, and full
+of heaps and holes. It is an _olla podrida_ of dark, poor, smoky mud
+huts; narrow dirt-heaped alleys, with bones and offal lying about;
+gaunt yelping dogs; bottle-green slimy pools, and ruins. The people
+are as dirty as the houses, but they are fine in physique and face, as
+if only the fittest survive. There is an _imamzada_, much visited on
+Fridays, on an adjacent slope. The snow lies here five feet deep in
+winter, it is said.
+
+When we arrived the roofs and balconies of the Ilkhani's house were
+crowded with people looking out for us. The Agha called at once, and I
+sent my letter of introduction from the Amin-es-Sultan. Presents
+arrived, formal visits were paid, the Ilkhani's principal wife
+appointed an hour at which to receive me, and a number of dismounted
+horsemen came and escorted me to the palace. The chief feature of the
+house is a large audience-chamber over the entrance, in which the
+chief holds a daily _durbar_, the deep balcony outside being usually
+thronged by crowds of tribesmen, all having free access to him. The
+coming and going are incessant.
+
+  [Illustration: CASTLE OF ARDAL.]
+
+The palace or castle is like a two-storied caravanserai, enclosing a
+large untidy courtyard, round which are stables and cow-houses, and
+dens for soldiers and servants. In the outer front of the building are
+deep recessed arches, with rooms opening upon them, in which the
+Isfahan traders, who come here for a month, expose their wares.
+Passing under the Ilkhani's audience-chamber by a broad arched passage
+with deep recesses on both sides, and through the forlorn uneven
+courtyard, a long, dark arched passage leads into a second courtyard,
+where there is an attempt at ornament by means of tanks and willows.
+Round this are a number of living-rooms for the Ilkhani's sons and
+their families, and here is the _andarun_, or house of the women. On
+the far side is the Fort, a tall square tower with loopholes and
+embrasures.
+
+A Cerberus guards the entrance to the _andarun_, but he allowed Mirza
+to accompany me. A few steps lead up from the courtyard into a lofty
+oblong room, with a deep cushioned recess containing a fireplace. The
+roof rests on wooden pillars. The front of the room facing the
+courtyard is entirely of fretwork filled in with pale blue and amber
+glass. The recess and part of the floor were covered with very
+beautiful blue and white grounded carpets, made by the women. The
+principal wife, a comely wide-mouthed woman of forty, advanced to meet
+me, kissed my hand, raised it to her brow, and sat down on a large
+carpet squab, while the other wives led me into the recess, and seated
+me on a pile of cushions, taking their places in a row on the floor
+opposite, but scarcely raising their eyes, and never speaking one
+word. The rest of the room was full of women and children standing,
+and many more blocked up the doorways, all crowding forward in spite
+of objurgations and smart slaps frequently administered by the
+principal wife.
+
+The three young wives are Bakhtiaris, and their style of beauty is
+novel to me--straight noses, wide mouths, thin lips, and long chins.
+Each has three stars tattooed on her chin, one in the centre of the
+forehead, and several on the back of the hands. The eyebrows are not
+only elongated with indigo, but are made to meet across the nose. The
+finger-nails, and inside of the hands, are stained with henna. The
+hair hangs round their wild, handsome faces, down to their
+collar-bones, in loose, heavy, but not uncleanly masses.
+
+Among the "well-to-do" Bakhtiari women, as among the Persians, the
+hair receives very great attention, although it is seldom exhibited.
+It is naturally jet black, and very abundant. It is washed at least
+once a week with a thin paste of a yellowish clay found among the
+Zard-Kuh mountains, which has a very cleansing effect.
+
+But the women are not content with their hair as it is, and alter its
+tinge by elaborate arts. They make a thick paste of henna, leave it on
+for two hours, and then wash it off. The result is a rich auburn tint.
+A similar paste, made of powdered indigo leaves, is then plastered
+over the hair for two hours. On its removal the locks are dark green,
+but in twenty-four hours more they become a rich blue-black. The
+process needs repeating about every twenty days, but it helps to fill
+up the infinite leisure of life. It is performed by the bath
+attendants.
+
+In justice to my sex I must add that the men dye their hair to an
+equal extent with the women, from the shining blue-black of the Shah's
+moustache to the brilliant orange of the beard of Hadji Hussein, by
+which he forfeits, though not in Persian estimation, the respect due
+to age.
+
+Some of the Ilkhani's children and grand-children have the hair dyed
+with henna alone to a rich auburn tint, which is very becoming to the
+auburn eyes and delicate paleness of some of them.
+
+The wives wore enormously full black silk trousers, drawn tight at the
+ankles, with an interregnum between them and short black vests, loose
+and open in front; and black silk sheets attached to a band fixed on
+the head enveloped their persons. They have, as is usual among these
+people, small and beautiful hands, with taper fingers and nails
+carefully kept. The chief wife, who rules the others, rumour says, was
+also dressed in black. She has a certain degree of comely dignity
+about her, and having seen something of the outer world in a
+pilgrimage to Mecca viâ Baghdad, returning by Egypt and Persia, and
+having also lived in Tihran, her intelligence has been somewhat
+awakened. The Bakhtiari women generally are neither veiled nor
+secluded, but the higher chiefs who have been at the capital think it
+_chic_ to adopt the Persian customs regarding women, and the inferior
+chiefs, when they have houses, follow their example.
+
+My conversation with the "queen" consisted chiefly of question and
+answer, varied by an occasional divergence on her part into an
+animated talk with Mirza Yusuf. Among the many questions asked were
+these: at what age our women marry? how many wives the Agha has? how
+long our women are allowed to keep their boys with them? why I do not
+dye my hair? if I know of anything to take away wrinkles? to whiten
+teeth? etc., if our men divorce their wives when they are forty? why
+Mr. ---- had refused a Bakhtiari wife? if I am travelling to collect
+herbs? if I am looking for the plant which if found would turn the
+base metals into gold? etc.
+
+She said they had very dull lives, and knew nothing of any customs but
+their own; that they would like to see the Agha, who, they heard, was
+a head taller than their tallest men; that they hoped I should be at
+Chigakhor when they were there, as it would be less dull, and she
+apologised for not offering tea or sweetmeats, as it is the fast of
+the Ramazan, which they observe very strictly. I told them that the
+Agha wished to take their photographs, and the Hadji Ilkhani along
+with them. They were quite delighted, but it occurred to them that
+they must first get the Ilkhani's consent. This was refused, and one
+of his sons, whose wife is very handsome, said, "We cannot allow
+pictures to be made of our women. It is not our custom. We cannot
+allow pictures of our women to be in strange hands. No good women have
+their pictures taken. Among the tribes you may find women base enough
+to be photographed." The chief wife offered to make me a present of
+her grandson, to whom I am giving a tonic, if I can make him strong
+and cure his deafness. He is a pale precocious child of ten, with
+hazel eyes and hair made artificially auburn.
+
+When the remarkably frivolous conversation flagged, they brought
+children afflicted with such maladies as ophthalmia, scabies, and sore
+eyes to be cured, but rejected my dictum that a copious use of soap
+and water must precede all remedies. Among the adults headaches, loss
+of appetite, and dyspepsia seem the prevailing ailments. Love potions
+were asked for, and charms to bring back lost love, with special
+earnestness, and the woful looks assumed when I told the applicants
+that I could do nothing for them were sadly suggestive. There could
+not have been fewer than sixty women and children in the room, many,
+indeed most of them, fearfully dirty in dress and person. Among them
+were several negro and mulatto slaves. When I came away the balconies
+and arches of the Ilkhani's house were full of men, anxious to have a
+good view of the Feringhi woman, but there was no rudeness there, or
+in the village, which I walked through afterwards with a courtesy
+escort of several dismounted horsemen.
+
+After this the Ilkhani asked me to go to see a man who is very ill,
+and sent two of his retainers with me. It must be understood that
+Mirza Yusuf goes with me everywhere as attendant and interpreter. The
+house was a dark room, with a shed outside, in a filthy yard, in which
+children, goats, and dogs were rolling over each other in a foot of
+powdered mud. Crowds of men were standing in and about the shed. I
+made my way through them, moving them to right and left with my hands,
+with the recognised supremacy of a _Hak[=i]m_! There were some wadded
+quilts on the ground, and another covered a form of which nothing was
+visible but two feet, deadly cold. The only account that the
+bystanders could give of the illness was, that four days ago the man
+fainted, and that since he had not been able to eat, speak, or move.
+The face was covered with several folds of a very dirty _chadar_. On
+removing it I was startled by seeing, not a sick man, but the open
+mouth, gasping respiration, and glassy eyes of a dying man. His
+nostrils had been stuffed with moist mud and a chopped aromatic herb.
+The feet were uncovered, and the limbs were quite cold. There was no
+cruelty in this. The men about him were most kind, but _absolutely
+ignorant_.
+
+I told them that he could hardly survive the night, and that all I
+could do was to help him to die comfortably. They said with one
+clamorous voice that they would do whatever I told them, and in the
+remaining hours they kept their word. I bade them cleanse the mud from
+his nostrils, wrap the feet and legs in warm cloths, give him air, and
+not crowd round him. Under less solemn circumstances I should have
+been amused with the absolute docility with which these big
+savage-looking men obeyed me. I cut up a blanket, and when they had
+heated some water in their poor fashion, showed them how to prepare
+fomentations, put on the first myself, and bathed his face and hands.
+
+He was clothed in rags of felt and cotton, evidently never changed
+since the day they were put on, though he was what they call
+"rich,"--a great owner of mares, flocks, and herds,--and the skin was
+scaly with decades of dirt. I ventured to pour a little sal-volatile
+and water down his throat, and the glassy eyeballs moved a little. I
+asked the bystanders if, as Moslems, they would object to his taking
+some spirits medicinally? They were willing, but said there was no
+_arak_ in the Bakhtiari country, a happy exemption! The Agha's
+kindness supplied some whisky, of which from that time the dying man
+took a teaspoonful, much diluted, every two hours, tossed down his
+throat with a spoon, Allah being always invoked. There was no woman's
+gentleness to soothe his last hours. A wife in the dark den inside was
+weaving, and once came out and looked carelessly at him, but men did
+for him all that he required with a tenderness and kindness which were
+very pleasing. Before I left they asked for directions over again, and
+one of the Ilkhani's retainers wrote them down.
+
+At night the Ilkhani sent to say that the man was much better and he
+hoped I would go and see him. The scene was yet more weird than in the
+daytime. A crowd of men were sitting and standing round a fire outside
+the shed, and four were watching the dying man. The whisky had revived
+him, his pulse was better, the fomentation had relieved the pain, and
+when it was reapplied he had uttered the word "good." I tried to make
+them understand it was only a last flicker of life, but they thought
+he would recover, and the Ilkhani sent to know what food he should
+have.
+
+At dawn "death music," wild and sweet, rang out on the still air; he
+died painlessly at midnight, and was carried to the grave twelve hours
+later.
+
+When people are very ill their friends give them food and medicine (if
+a _Hak[=i]m_ be attainable), till, in their judgment, the case is
+hopeless. Then they send for a _mollah_; who reads the Koran in a very
+loud sing-song tone till death ensues, the last thirst being
+alleviated meantime by _sharbat_ dropped into the mouth. Camphor and
+other sweet spices are burned at the grave. If they burn well and all
+is pure afterwards, they say that the deceased person has gone to
+heaven; if they burn feebly and smokily, and there is any
+unpleasantness from the grave, they say that the spirit is in
+perdition. A Bakhtiari grave is a very shallow trench.
+
+The watchers were kind, and carried out my directions faithfully. I
+give these minute details to show how much even simple nursing can do
+to mitigate suffering among a people so extremely ignorant as the
+Bakhtiaris are not only of the way to tend the sick, but of the
+virtues of the medicinal plants which grow in abundance around them. A
+medical man itinerating among their camps with a light hospital tent
+and some simple instruments and medicines could do a great deal of
+healing, and much also to break down the strong prejudice which exists
+against Christianity. Here, as elsewhere, the _Hak[=i]m_ is respected.
+Going in that capacity I found the people docile, respectful, and even
+grateful. Had I gone among them in any other, a Christian Feringhi
+woman would certainly have encountered rudeness and worse.
+
+The Ilkhani, who has not been in a hurry to call, made a formal visit
+to-day with his brother, Reza Kuli Khan, his eldest son Lutf, another
+son, Ghulam, with bad eyes, and a crowd of retainers. The Hadji
+Ilkhani,--Imam Kuli Khan, the great feudal chief of the Bakhtiari
+tribes, is a quiet-looking middle-aged man with a short black beard, a
+parchment-coloured complexion, and a face somewhat lined, with a
+slightly sinister expression at times. He wore a white felt cap, a
+blue full-skirted coat lined with green, another of fine buff
+kerseymere under it, with a girdle, and very wide black silk trousers.
+
+He is a man of some dignity of deportment, and his usual expression is
+somewhat kindly and courteous. He is a devout Moslem, and has a
+finely-illuminated copy of the Koran, which he spends much time in
+reading. He is not generally regarded as a very capable or powerful
+man, and is at variance with the Ilbegi, who, though nominally second
+chief, practically shares his power. In fact, at this time serious
+intrigues are going on, and some say that the adherents of the two
+chiefs would not be unwilling to come to open war.
+
+  [Illustration: IMAM KULI KHAN.]
+
+The greatest men who in this century have filled the office of Ilkhani
+both perished miserably. The fate of Sir H. Layard's friend, Mehemet
+Taki Khan, is well known to all readers of the _Early Recollections_,
+but it was possibly less unexpected than that of Hussein Kuli Khan,
+brother of the present Ilkhani, and father of the Ilbegi Isfandyar
+Khan. This man was evidently an enlightened and able ruler; he
+suppressed brigandage with a firm hand, and desired to see the
+Mohammerah-Shuster-Isfahan route fairly opened to trade. He went so
+far as to promise Mr. Mackenzie, of one of the leading Persian Gulf
+firms, in writing, that he would hold himself personally responsible
+for the safety of caravans in their passage through his territory, and
+would repay any losses by robbery. He agreed to take a third share of
+the cost of the necessary steamers on the Karun, and to furnish 100
+mules for land transport between Shuster and Isfahan.[51]
+
+It appears that Persian jealousy was excited by his enterprising
+spirit; he fell under the displeasure of the Zil-es-Sultan, and in
+1882 was put to death by poison while on his annual visit of homage.
+The present Ilkhani, who succeeded him, warned possibly by his
+brother's fate, is said to show little, if any, interest in commercial
+enterprise, and to have made the somewhat shrewd remark that the
+English "under the dress of the merchant often conceal the uniform of
+the soldier."
+
+In 1888 the Shah relented towards Hussein Kuli Khan's sons, the eldest
+of whom, Isfandyar Khan, had been in prison for seven years, and they
+with their uncle, Reza Kuli Khan, descended with their followers and a
+small Persian army upon the plain of Chigakhor, where they surprised
+and defeated the Hadji Ilkhani. His brother, Reza, was thereupon
+recognised by the Shah as Ilkhani, and Isfandyar as Ilbegi, with the
+substance of power. Another turn of the wheel of fortune, and the
+brothers became respectively Ilkhani and Governor of the Chahar
+Mahals, and their nephew is reinstated as Ilbegi.[52]
+
+The Ilkhani's word is law, within broad limits, among the numerous
+tribes of Bakhtiari Lurs who have consented to recognise him as their
+feudal head, and it has been estimated that in a popular quarrel he
+could bring from 8000 to 10,000 armed horsemen into the field. He is
+judge as well as ruler, but in certain cases there is a possible
+appeal to Tihran from his decisions. He is appointed by the Shah, with
+a salary of 1000 _tumans_ a year, but a strong man in his position
+could be practically independent.
+
+It can scarcely be supposed that the present Ilkhani will long retain
+his uneasy seat against the intrigues at the Persian court, and with a
+powerful and popular rival close at hand. It is manifestly the
+interest of the Shah's government to weaken the tribal power, and
+extinguish the authority and independence of the principal chiefs, and
+the Oriental method of attaining this end is by plots and intrigues at
+the capital, by creating and fomenting local quarrels, and by
+oppressive taxation. It is not wonderful, therefore, that many of the
+principal Khans, whose immemorial freedom has been encroached upon in
+many recent years by the Tihran Government, should look forward to a
+day when one of the Western powers will occupy south-west Persia, and
+give them security.
+
+The _Hadji_ Ilkhani, for the people always prefix the religious title,
+discussed the proposed journey, promised me an escort of a horseman
+and a _tufangchi_, or foot-soldier, begged us to consider ourselves
+here and everywhere as his guests, and to ask for all we want, here
+and elsewhere. His brother, Reza Kuli Khan, who has played an
+important part in tribal affairs, resembles him, but the sinister look
+is more persistent on his face. He was much depressed by the fear that
+he was going blind, but on trying my glasses he found he could see.
+The surprise of the old-sighted people when they find that spectacles
+renew their youth is most interesting.
+
+Another visitor has been the Ilbegi, Isfandyar Khan. Though not tall,
+he is very good-looking, and has beautiful hands and feet. He is able,
+powerful, and ambitious, inspires his adherents with great personal
+devotion, and is regarded by many as the "coming man." He was in
+Tihran when I was in Julfa, and hearing from one of the Ministers that
+I was about to visit the Bakhtiari country, he wrote to a general of
+cavalry in Isfahan, asking him to provide me with an escort if I
+needed it. I was glad to thank him for his courtesy in this matter,
+and for more substantial help. Before his visit, his retainer, Mansur,
+brought me the money of which I had been robbed in Kahva Rukh! This
+man absolutely refused a present, saying that his liege lord would
+nearly kill him if he took one. Isfandyar Khan welcomed me kindly,
+regretting much that my first night under Bakhtiari rule should have
+been marked by a robbery. He said that before his day the tribesmen
+not only robbed, but killed, and that he had reduced them to such
+order that he was surprised as well as shocked at this occurrence. I
+replied that it occurred in a Persian village, and that in many
+countries one might be robbed, but in none that I knew of would such
+quick restitution be made.
+
+In cases of robbery, the Ilkhani sends round to the _ketchudas_ or
+headmen of the camps or villages of the offending district, to replace
+the money, as in my case, or the value of the thing taken, after which
+the thief must be caught if possible. When caught, the headmen consult
+as to his punishment, which may be the cutting off of a hand or nose,
+or to be severely branded. In any case he must be for the future a
+marked man. I gather that the most severe penalties are rarely
+inflicted. I hope the fine of 800 _krans_ levied on Kahva Rukh may
+stimulate the people to surrender the thief. I agreed to forego 200
+_krans_, as Isfandyar Khan says that his men raised all they could,
+and the remaining sum would have to be paid by himself.
+
+After a good deal of earnest conversation he became frivolous! He
+asked the Agha his age, and guessed it at thirty-five. On being
+enlightened he asked if he dyed his hair, and if his teeth were his
+own. Then he said that he dyed his own hair, and wore artificial
+teeth. He also asked my age. He and Lutf and Ghulam, the Ilkhani's
+sons, who accompanied him, possess superb watches, with two dials, and
+an arrangement for showing the phases of the moon.
+
+Having accepted an invitation from the Ilbegi to visit him at Naghun,
+a village ten miles from Ardal, accompanied by Lutf and Ghulam, we
+were ready at seven, the hour appointed, as the day promised to be
+very hot. Eight o'clock came, nine o'clock, half-past nine, and on
+sending to see if the young Khans were coming, the servants replied
+that they had "no orders to wake them." So we Europeans broiled three
+hours in the sun at the pleasure of "barbarians"!
+
+During the Ramazan these people revel from sunset to sunrise, with
+feasting, music, singing, and merriment, and then they lie in bed till
+noon or later, to abridge the long hours of the fast. "Is it such a
+fast that I have chosen?" may well be asked.
+
+The noise during the night in the Ilkhani's palace is tremendous. The
+festivities begin soon after sunset and go on till an hour before
+dawn. Odours agreeable to Bakhtiari noses are wafted down to my tent,
+but I do not find them appetising. An eatable called _zalabi_ is in
+great request during the Ramazan. It is made by mixing sugar and
+starch with oil of sesamum, and is poured on ready heated copper
+trays, and frizzled into fritters. Masses of eggs mixed with rice,
+clarified butter, and jams, concealing balls of highly-spiced
+mincemeat, _kabobs_, and mutton stewed with preserved lemon juice and
+onions are favourite dishes at the Ilkhani's.
+
+Besides the music and singing, the "Court" entertains itself nightly
+with performing monkeys and dancing men, besides story-tellers, and
+reciters of the poetry of Hafiz. It is satisfactory to know that the
+uproarious merriment which drifts down to my tent along with odours of
+perpetual frying, owes none of its inspiration to alcohol, coffee and
+_sharbat_ being the drinks consumed.
+
+We rode without a guide down the Ardal valley, took the worst road
+through some deep and blazing gulches, found the sun fierce, and the
+treelessness irksome, saw much ploughing, made a long ascent, and
+stopped short of the village of Naghun at a large walled garden on the
+arid hillside, which irrigation has turned into a shady paradise of
+pear, apricot, and walnut trees, with a luxurious undergrowth of roses
+and pomegranates. The young Khans galloped up just as we did, laughing
+heartily at having slept so late. All the village men were gathered to
+see the Feringhis, and the Ilbegi and his brothers received us at the
+garden gate, all shaking hands. Certainly this Khan has much power in
+his face, and his dignified and easy manner is that of a leader of
+men. His dress was becoming, a handsome dark blue cloak lined with
+scarlet, and with a deep fur collar, over his ordinary costume.
+
+So much has been said and written about the Bakhtiaris being "savages"
+or "semi-savages," that the entertainment which followed was quite a
+surprise to me. Two fine canopy tents were pitched in the shade, and
+handsome carpets were laid in them, and under a spreading walnut tree
+a _karsi_, or fire cover, covered with a rug, served as a table, and
+cigarettes, a bowl of ice, a glass jug of _sharbat_, and some tumblers
+were neatly arranged upon it. Iron chairs were provided for the
+European guests, and the Ilbegi, his brothers, the Ilkhani's sons, and
+others sat round the border of the carpet on which they were placed.
+There were fully fifty attendants. Into the midst of this masculine
+crowd, a male nurse brought the Ilbegi's youngest child, a dark,
+quiet, pale, wistful little girl of four years old, a daintily-dressed
+little creature, with a crimson velvet cap, and a green and crimson
+velvet frock. She was gentle and confiding, and liked to remain with
+me.
+
+After a long conversation on subjects more or less worth speaking
+upon, our hosts retired, to sleep under the trees, leaving us to eat,
+and a number of servants brought in a large _karsi_ covered with food.
+Several yards of blanket bread, or "flapjacks," served as a
+table-cloth, and another for the dish-cover of a huge _pillau_ in the
+centre. Cruets, plates, knives and forks, iced water, Russian
+lemonade, and tumblers were all provided. The dinner consisted of
+_pillau_, lamb cutlets, a curried fowl, celery with sour sauce,
+clotted cream, and sour milk. The food was well cooked and clean, and
+the servants, rough as they looked, were dexterous and attentive.
+
+After dinner, by the Ilbegi's wish, I paid a visit to the ladies of
+his _haram_. Naghun rivals the other villages of the tribes in
+containing the meanest and worst permanent habitations I have ever
+seen. Isfandyar Khan's house is a mud building surrounding a
+courtyard, through which the visitor passes into another, round which
+are the women's apartments. Both yards were forlorn, uneven, and
+malodorous, from the heaps of offal and rubbish lying under the hot
+sun. I was received by fifteen ladies in a pleasant, clean,
+whitewashed apartment, with bright rugs and silk-covered pillows on
+the floor, and glass bottles and other ornaments in the _takchahs_.
+
+At the top of the room I was welcomed, not by the principal wife, but
+by a portly middle-aged woman, the Khan's sister, and evidently the
+duenna of the _haram_, as not one of the other women ventured to
+speak, or to offer any courtesies. A chair was provided for me with a
+_karsi_ in front of it, covered with trays of _gaz_ and other
+sweetmeats. Mirza and a male attendant stood in the doorway, and
+outside shoals of women and children on tip-toe were struggling for a
+glance into the room. Several slaves were present, coal-black,
+woolly-headed, huge-mouthed negresses. The fifteen ladies held their
+gay _chadars_ to their faces so as to show only one eye, so I sent
+Mirza behind a curtain and asked for the pleasure of seeing their
+faces, when they all unveiled with shrieks of laughter.
+
+The result was disappointing. The women were all young, or youngish,
+but only one was really handsome. The wives are brunettes with long
+chins. They wore gay _chadars_ of muslin, short gold-embroidered
+jackets, gauze chemises, and bright-coloured balloon trousers. Three
+of the others wore black satin balloon trousers, black silk jackets,
+yellow gauze vests, and black _chadars_ spotted with white. These
+three were literally moon-faced, like the representations of the moon
+on old clocks, a type I have not yet seen. All wear the hair brought
+to the front, where it hangs in wavy masses on each side of the face.
+They wore black silk gold-embroidered skull-caps, set back on their
+heads, and long chains of gold coins from the back to the ear, with
+two, three, or four long necklaces of the same in which the coins were
+very large and handsome. One wife, a young creature, was poorly
+dressed, very dejected-looking, and destitute of ornaments. Her mother
+has since pleaded for something "to bring back her husband's love."
+The eyebrows were painted with indigo and were made to meet in a point
+on the bridge of the nose. Each had one stained or tattooed star on
+her forehead, three on her chin, and a galaxy on the back of each
+hand.
+
+Before Mirza reappeared they huddled themselves up in their _chadars_
+and sat motionless against the wall as before. After tea I had quite a
+lively conversation with the Khan's sister, who has been to Basrah,
+Baghdad, and Mecca.
+
+Besides the usual questions as to my age, dyeing my hair, painting my
+face, etc., with suggestions on the improvement which their methods
+would make on my eyes and eyebrows, she asked a little about my
+journeys, about the marriage customs of England, about divorce, the
+position of women with us, their freedom, horsemanship, and
+amusements. She said, "We don't ride, we sit on horses." Dancing for
+amusement she could not understand. "Our servants dance for us," she
+said. The dancing of men and women together, and the evening dress of
+Englishwomen, she thought contrary to the elementary principles of
+morality. I wanted them to have their photographs taken, but they
+said, "It is not the custom of our country; no good women have their
+pictures taken, we should have many things said against us if we were
+made into pictures."
+
+They wanted to give me presents, but I made my usual excuse, that I
+have made a rule not to receive presents in travelling; then they said
+that they would go and see me in my tent at Chigakhor, their summer
+quarters, and that I could not refuse what they took in their own
+hands. They greatly desired to see the Agha, of whose imposing
+_physique_ they had heard, but they said that the Khan would not like
+them to go to the garden, and that their wish must remain ungratified.
+"We lead such dull lives," the Khan's sister exclaimed; "we never see
+any one or go anywhere." It seems that the slightest development of
+intellect awakens them to the consciousness of this deplorable
+dulness, of which, fortunately, the unawakened intelligence is
+unaware. As a fact, two of the ladies have not been out of the Ardal
+valley, and are looking forward to the migration to the Chigakhor
+valley as to a great gaiety.
+
+They asked me if I could read, and if I made carpets? They invariably
+ask if I have a husband and children, and when I tell them that I am a
+widow and childless, they simulate weeping for one or two minutes, a
+hypocrisy which, though it proceeds from a kindly feeling, has a very
+painful effect. Their occupation in the winter is a little
+carpet-weaving, which takes the place of our "fancy-work." They also
+make a species of _nougat_, from the manna found on the oaks on some
+of their mountains, mixed with chopped almonds and rose-water. When I
+concluded my visit they sent a servant with me with a tray of this and
+other sweetmeats of their own making.
+
+The party in the garden was a very merry one. The Bakhtiaris love fun,
+and shrieked with laughter at many things. This jollity, however, did
+not exclude topics of interesting talk. During this time _Karun_, a
+handsome chestnut Arab, and my horse _Screw_ had a fierce fight, and
+Karim, a Beloochi, in separating them had his arm severely crunched
+and torn, the large muscles being exposed and lacerated. He was
+brought in faint and bleeding and in great pain, and will not be of
+any use for some time. The Agha asked the Ilbegi for two lads to go
+with him to help his servants. The answer was, "We are a wandering
+people, Bakhtiaris cannot be servants, but some of our young men will
+go with you,"--and three brothers joined us there, absolute savages in
+their ways. A cow was offered for the march, and on the Agha jocularly
+saying that he should have all the milk, the Ilbegi said that I should
+have one to myself, and sent two. He complained that I did not ask for
+anything, and said that I was their guest so long as I was in their
+country, and must treat them as brothers and ask for all I need.
+"Don't feel as if you were in a foreign land" he said; "we love the
+English."
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[48] The readers interested in such matters will find much
+carefully-acquired information on water distribution, assessments, and
+tenure of land in the second volume of the late Mr. Stack's _Six
+Months in Persia_.
+
+[49] Some of the legends connected with these objects are grossly
+superstitious. At Shurishghan there is a "Holy Testament," regarding
+which the story runs that it was once stolen by the Lurs, who buried
+it under a tree by the bank of a stream. Long afterwards a man began
+to cut down the tree, but when the axe was laid to its root blood
+gushed forth. On searching for the cause of this miracle the Gospels
+were found uninjured beneath. It is believed that if any one were to
+take the Testament away it would return of its own accord. It has the
+reputation of working miracles of healing, and many resort to it
+either for themselves or for their sick friends, from Northern Persia
+and even from Shiraz, as well as from the vicinity, and vows are made
+before it. The gifts presented to it become the property of its
+owners.
+
+[50] And so it did, though it was then so ill that it seemed unlikely
+that it would live through the night, and I told them so before I gave
+the medicine, lest they should think that I had killed it.
+
+[51] _Proceedings of R.G.S._, vol. v. No. 3, New Series.
+
+[52] I am indebted for the information given above to a valuable paper
+by Mr. H. Blosse Lynch, given in the _Proceedings of the R.G.S._ for
+September 1890.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XV
+
+
+     ARDAL, _May 14_.
+
+The week spent here has passed rapidly. There is much coming and
+going. My camp is by the side of a frequented pathway, close to a
+delicious spring, much resorted to by Ilyat women, who draw water in
+_mussocks_ and copper pots, and gossip there. The Ilyats are on the
+march to their summer quarters, and the steady tramp of their flocks
+and herds and the bleating of their sheep is heard at intervals
+throughout the nights. Sometimes one of their horses or cows stumbles
+over the tent ropes and nearly brings the tent down. Servants of the
+Ilkhani with messages and presents of curds, celery pickled in sour
+cream, and apricots, go to and fro. Sick people come at intervals all
+day long, and the medicine chest is in hourly requisition.
+
+The sick are not always satisfied with occasional visits to the
+_Hak[=i]m's_ tent: a man, who has a little daughter ill of jaundice,
+after coming twice for medicine, has brought a tent, and has
+established himself in it with his child close to me, and a woman with
+bad eyes has also pitched a tent near mine; at present thirteen people
+come twice daily to have zinc lotion dropped into their eyes. The fame
+of the "tabloids" has been widely spread, and if I take common powders
+out of papers, or liquids out of bottles, the people shake their heads
+and say they do not want those, but "the fine medicines out of the
+leather box." To such an extent is this preference carried that they
+reject decoctions of a species of _artemisia_, a powerful tonic,
+unless I put tabloids of permanganate of potash (Condy's fluid) into
+the bottle before their eyes.
+
+They have no idea of the difference between curable and incurable
+maladies. Many people, stone blind, have come long distances for
+eye-lotion, and to-night a man nearly blind came in, leading a man
+totally blind for eight years, asking me to restore his sight. The
+blind had led the blind from a camp twenty-four miles off!
+Octogenarians believe that I can give them back their hearing, and men
+with crippled or paralysed limbs think that if I would give them some
+"Feringhi ointment," of which they have heard, they would be restored.
+Some come to stare at a Feringhi lady, others to see my tent, which
+they occasionally say is "fit for Allah," and the general result is
+that I have very little time to myself.
+
+The Ardal plateau is really pretty at this season, and I have had many
+pleasant evening gallops over soft green grass and soft red earth. The
+view from the tent is pleasant: on the one side the green slopes which
+fall down to the precipices which overhang the Karun, with the snowy
+mountains, deeply cleft, of the region which is still a geographical
+mystery beyond them; on the other, mountains of naked rock with grass
+running up into their ravines, and between them and me billows of
+grass and wild flowers. A barley slope comes down to my tent. The
+stalks are only six inches long, and the ears, though ripe, contain
+almost nothing. Every evening a servant of the Ilkhani brings three
+little wild boars to feed on the grain. Farther down the path are the
+servants' and muleteers' camps, surrounded by packing-cases,
+_yekdans_, mule-bags, nose-bags, gear of all kinds, and the usual
+litter of an encampment.
+
+The men, whether Indian, Persian, Beloochi, or Bakhtiari, are all
+quiet and well-behaved. The motto of the camps is "Silence is golden."
+Hadji Hussein is quiet in manner and speech, and though he has seven
+muleteers, yells and shouts are unknown.
+
+There is something exciting in the prospect of travelling through a
+region much of which is unknown and unmapped, and overlooked hitherto
+by both geographical and commercial enterprise; and in the prospective
+good fortune of learning the manners and customs of tribes untouched
+by European influence, and about whose reception of a Feringhi woman
+doleful prophecies have been made.
+
+_Tur, May 18._--The last day at Ardal was a busy one. Several of the
+Khans called to take leave. I made a farewell visit to the Ilkhani's
+_haram_; people came for medicines at intervals from 5 A.M. till 9
+P.M.; numberless eye-lotions had to be prepared; stores, straps,
+ropes, and equipments had to be looked to; presents to be given to the
+Ilkhani's servants; native shoes, with webbing tops and rag soles, to
+be hunted for to replace boots which could not be mended, and it was
+late before the preparations were completed. During the night some of
+my tent ropes were snapped by a stampede of mules, and a heavy
+thunderstorm coming on with wind and rain, the tent flapped about my
+ears till dawn.
+
+It was very hot when we left the next morning. The promised escort was
+not forthcoming. The details of each day's march have been much alike.
+I start early, taking Mirza with me with the _shuldari_, halt usually
+half-way, and have a frugal lunch of milk and biscuits, read till the
+caravan has passed, rest in my tent for an hour, and ride on till I
+reach the spot chosen for the camp. Occasionally on arriving it is
+found that the place selected on local evidence is unsuitable, or the
+water is scanty or bad, and we march farther. The greatest luxury is
+to find the tent pitched, the camp bed put up, and the kettle boiling
+for afternoon tea. I rest, write, and work till near sunset, when I
+dine on mutton and rice, and go to bed soon after dark, as I breakfast
+at four. An hour or two is taken up daily with giving medicines to
+sick people.
+
+There are no villages, but camps occur frequently. The three young
+savages brought from Naghun are very amusing from the savage freedom
+of their ways, but they exasperate the servants by quizzing and
+mimicking them. The cows are useless. Between them they give at most a
+teacupful of milk, and generally none. Either the calves or the boys
+take it, or the marches are too much for them. In the Ilyat camps
+there is plenty, but as it is customary to mix the milk of sheep,
+goats, and cows, and to milk the animals with dirty hands into dirty
+copper pots, and almost at once to turn the milk into a sour mass,
+like whipped cream in appearance, by shaking it with some "leaven" in
+a dirty goat-skin, a European cannot always drink it. Indeed, it goes
+through every variety of bad taste.
+
+The camps halt on Sundays, and the men highly appreciate the rest.
+They sleep, smoke, wash and mend their clothes, and are in good humour
+and excellent trim on Monday morning, and the mules show their
+unconscious appreciation of a holiday by coming into camp kicking and
+frolicking.
+
+The baggage animals are fine, powerful mules and horses, with not a
+sore back among them. The pack saddles and tackle are all in good
+order. The caravan is led by a horse caparisoned with many bells and
+tassels, a splendid little gray fellow, full of pluck and fire, called
+Cock o' the Walk. He comes in at the end of a long march, arching his
+neck, shaking his magnificent mane, and occasionally kicking off his
+load. Sometimes he knocks down two or three men, dashes off with his
+load at a gallop, and even when hobbled manages to hop up to the two
+Arabs and challenge them to a fight. These handsome horses have some
+of the qualities for which their breed is famous, and are as
+surefooted as goats, but they are very noisy, and they hate each other
+and disturb the peace of the camp by their constant attempts to fight.
+My horse, _Screw_, can go wherever a mule can find foothold. He is
+ugly, morose, a great fighter, and most uninteresting. The donkeys and
+a fat retriever are destitute of "salient points."
+
+Hadji Hussein, the _charvadar_, has elevated his profession into an
+art. On reaching camp, after unloading, each muleteer takes away the
+five animals for which he is responsible, and liberates them, with the
+saddles on, to graze. After a time they drive them into camp, remove
+the saddles, and groom them thoroughly, while the saddler goes over
+the equipments, and does any repairs that are needed. After the
+grooming each muleteer, having examined the feet of his animals,
+reports upon them, and Hadji replaces all lost shoes and nails. The
+saddles and the _juls_ or blankets are then put on, the mules are
+watered in batches of five, and are turned loose for the night to
+feed, with two muleteers to watch them by turns. Hadji, whose soft
+voice and courteous manners make all dealings with him agreeable,
+receives his orders for the morrow, and he with his young son, Abbas
+Ali, and the rest of the muleteers, camp near my tent, cook their
+supper of blanket bread with _mast_ or curds, roll their heads and
+persons in blankets, put their feet to the fire, and are soon asleep,
+but Hadji gets up two or three times in the night to look after his
+valuable property.
+
+At 4 A.M. or earlier, the mules are driven into camp, and are made
+fast to ropes, which are arranged the previous night by pegging them
+down in an oblong forty feet by twenty. Nose-bags with grain are put
+on; and as the loads are got ready the mules are loaded, with Hadji's
+help and supervision. No noise is allowed during this operation.
+
+After an hour or more the caravan moves, led by Cock o' the Walk,
+usually with two men at his head to moderate his impetuosity for a
+time, with a guide; and Hadji on his fine-looking saddle mule looks
+after the safety of everything. He is punctual, drives fast and
+steadily, and always reaches the camping-ground in good time. When he
+gets near it he dismounts, and putting on the air of "your most
+obedient servant," leads in Cock o' the Walk. He is really a very
+gentlemanly man for his position, but is unfortunately avaricious, and
+though he has amassed what is, for Persia, a very large fortune, he
+wears very poor clothes, and eats sparingly of the poorest food. He is
+a big man of fifty, wears blue cotton clothing and a red turban, is
+very florid, and having a white or very gray beard, has dyed it an
+orange red with henna.
+
+My servants have fallen fairly well into their work, but are
+frightfully slow. All pitch the tents, and Hassan cooks, washes, packs
+the cooking and table equipments, and saddles my horse. Mirza Yusuf
+interprets, waits on me, packs the tent furnishings, rides with me,
+and is always within hearing of my whistle. He is good, truthful, and
+intelligent, sketches with some talent, is always cheerful, never
+grumbles, is quite indifferent to personal comfort, gets on well with
+the people, is obliging to every one, is always ready to interpret,
+and though well educated has the good sense not to regard any work as
+"menial." Mehemet Ali, the "superfluity," is a scamp, and, I fear,
+dishonest. The servants feed themselves on a _kran_ (8d.) a day,
+allowed as "road money." Sheep are driven with us, and are turned into
+mutton as required. Really, they follow us, attaching themselves to
+the gray horses, and feeding almost among their feet. My food
+consists of roast mutton, rice, _chapatties_, tea, and milk, without
+luxuries or variety. Life is very simple and very free from
+purposeless bothers. The days are becoming very hot, but the nights
+are cool. The black flies and the sand-flies are the chief tormentors.
+
+On leaving Ardal we passed very shortly into a region little traversed
+by Europeans, embracing remarkable gorges and singularly abrupt turns
+in ravines, through which the Karun, here a deep and powerful stream,
+finds its way. A deep descent over grassy hills to a rude village in a
+valley and a steep ascent took us to the four booths, which are the
+summer quarters of our former escort, Rustem Khan, who received us
+with courteous hospitality, and regaled us with fresh cow's milk in a
+copper basin. He introduced me to twelve women and a number of
+children, nearly all with sore eyes. There is not a shadow of privacy
+in these tents, with open fronts and sides. The carpets, which are
+made by the women, serve as chairs, tables, and beds, and the low wall
+of roughly-heaped stones at the back for trunks and wardrobe, for on
+it they keep their "things" in immense saddle-bags made of handsome
+rugs. The visible furniture consists of a big copper bowl for food, a
+small one for milk, a huge copper pot for clarifying butter, and a
+goat-skin suspended from three poles, which is jerked by two women
+seated on the ground, and is used for churning butter and making
+curds.
+
+A steep ascent gives a superb view of a confused sea of mountains, and
+of a precipitous and tremendous gorge, the Tang-i-Ardal, through which
+the Karun passes, making a singularly abrupt turn after leaving a
+narrow and apparently inaccessible cañon or rift on the south side of
+the Ardal valley. A steep zigzag descent of 600 feet in less than
+three-quarters of a mile brings the path down to the Karun, a deep
+bottle-green river, now swirling in drifts of foam, now resting
+momentarily in quiet depths, but always giving an impression of volume
+and power. Large and small land turtles abound in that fiercely hot
+gorge of from 1000 to 2000 feet deep. The narrow road crosses the
+river on a bridge of two arches, and proceeds for some distance at a
+considerable height on its right bank. There I saw natural wood for
+the first time since crossing the Zagros mountains in January, and
+though the oak, ash, and maple are poor and stunted, their slender
+shade was delicious. Roses, irises, St. John's wort, and other flowers
+were abundant.
+
+The path ascends past a clear spring, up steep zigzags to a graveyard
+in which are several stone lions, rudely carved, of natural size,
+facing Mecca-wards, with pistols, swords, and daggers carved in relief
+on their sides, marking the graves of fighting men. On this
+magnificent point above the Karun a few hovels, deserted in summer,
+surrounded by apricot trees form the village of Duashda Imams, which
+has a superb view of the extraordinary and sinuous chasm through which
+the Karun passes for many miles, thundering on its jagged and fretted
+course between gigantic and nearly perpendicular cliffs of limestone
+and conglomerate. Near this village the pistachio is abundant, and
+planes, willows, and a large-leaved clematis vary the foliage.
+
+Leaving the river at this point, a somewhat illegible path leads
+through "park-like" scenery, fair slopes of grass and flowers
+sprinkled with oaks singly or in clumps, glades among trees in their
+first fresh green, and evermore as a background gray mountains slashed
+with snow.
+
+In the midst of these pretty uplands is the Ilyat encampment of
+Martaza, with its black tents, donkeys, sheep, goats, and big fierce
+dogs, which vociferously rushed upon _Downie_, the retriever, and were
+themselves rushed upon and gripped by a number of women. The people,
+having been informed of our intended arrival by Reza Kuli Khan, had
+arranged a large tent with carpets and cushions, but we pitched the
+camps eventually on an oak-covered slope, out of the way of the noise,
+curiosity, and evil odours of Martaza. Water is very scarce there,
+three wells or pools, fouled by the feet of animals, being the only
+supply.
+
+I rested on my _dhurrie_ under an oak till the caravan came up. It was
+a sweet place, but was soon invaded, and for the rest of the day quiet
+and privacy were out of the question, for presently appeared a fine,
+florid, buxom dame, loud of speech, followed by a number of women and
+children, all as dirty as it is possible to be, and all crowded round
+me and sat down on my carpet. This _Khanum Shirin_ is married to the
+chief or headman, but being an heiress she "bosses" the tribe. She
+brought up bolsters and quilts, and begged us to consider themselves,
+the whole region, and all they had as _pishkash_ (a present from an
+inferior to a superior), but when she was asked if it included
+herself, she blushed and covered her face. After two hours of somewhat
+flagging conversation she led her train back again, but after my tent
+was pitched she reappeared with a much larger number of women,
+including two betrothed girls of sixteen and seventeen years old, who
+are really beautiful.
+
+These maidens were dressed in clean cotton costumes, and white veils
+of figured silk gauze enveloped them from head to foot. They unveiled
+in my tent, and looked more like _houris_ than any women I have seen
+in the East; and their beauty was enhanced by the sweetness and
+maidenly modesty of their expression. I wished them to be
+photographed, and they were quite willing, but when I took them
+outside some men joined the crowd and said it should not be, and that
+when their betrothed husbands came home they would tell them how bold
+and bad they had been, and would have them beaten. Although these
+beauties had been most modest and maidenly in their behaviour, they
+were sent back with blows, and were told not to come near us again.
+The Agha entertained the _Khanum Shirin_ for a long time, and the
+conversation was very animated, but when he set a very fine musical
+box going for their amusement the lady and the rest of the crowd
+became quite listless and apathetic, and said they much preferred to
+talk. When their prolonged visit came to an end the _Khanum_ led her
+train away, with a bow which really had something of graceful dignity
+in it.
+
+The next morning her husband, the _Mollah-i-Martaza_, and his son,
+mounted on one horse, came with us as guides, and when we halted at
+their camp the _Khanum_ took the whip out of my hand and whipped the
+women all round with it, except the offending beauties, who were not
+to be seen. The _mollah_ is a grave, quiet, and most respectable-looking
+man, more like a thriving merchant than a nomad chief, though he does
+carry arms. He is a devout Moslem, and is learned, _i.e._ he can read
+the Koran.
+
+In a short time the woodland beauty is exchanged for weedy hills and
+slopes strewn with boulders. Getting other guides at an Ilyat camp, we
+ascended Sanginak, a mountain 8200 feet high, from the top of which a
+good idea of the local topography is gained. The most striking
+features are the absence of definite peaks and the tremendous gorges
+and abrupt turns of the Karun, which swallows in its passage all minor
+streams. Precipitous ranges of great altitude hemmed in by ranges yet
+loftier, snow-covered or snow-patched, with deep valleys between them,
+well grassed and often well wooded, great clefts, through which at
+some seasons streams reach the Karun; mountain meadows spotted with
+the black tents of Ilyats, and deserted hovels far below, with patches
+of wheat and barley, make up the landscape.
+
+These hills are covered with celery of immense size. The leaves are
+dried and stacked for fodder, and the underground stalks, which are
+very white, are a great article of food, both fresh and steeped for a
+length of time in sour milk. After resting in some Ilyat tents, where
+the people were friendly and dirty, we had a most tiresome march over
+treeless hills covered with herbs, and down a steep descent into the
+Gurab plain, on which a great wall of rocky mountains of definite and
+impressive shapes descends in broken spurs. My guide, who had never
+been certain about the way, led me wrong. No tents were visible, the
+nomads I met had seen neither tents nor caravan. Two hours went by in
+toiling round the bases of green hills, and then there was the joyful
+surprise of coming upon my tent pitched, the kettle boiling, the mules
+knee-deep in food, close by the Chesmeh-i-Gurab, a copious spring of
+good water, of which one could safely drink.
+
+This Gurab plain, one of very many lying high up among these Luristan
+mountains, is green and pretty now--a sea of bulbs and grass, but is
+brown and dusty from early in June onwards. It is about four miles
+long by nine or ten broad, and is watered by a clear and wonderfully
+winding stream, which dwindles to a thread later on. The nomads are
+already coming up.
+
+The rest was much broken by the critical state of Karim's arm, which
+was swelled, throbbing, and inflamed all round the wound inflicted by
+_Karun_ on May 13, and he had high fever. It was a helpless
+predicament, the symptoms were so like those of gangrene. I thought he
+would most likely die of the hot marches. It was a very anxious night,
+as all our methods of healing were exhausted, and the singular
+improvement which set in and has continued must have been the work of
+the Great Physician, to whom an appeal for help was earnestly made.
+The wound is daily syringed with Condy's fluid, the only antiseptic
+available, and has a drainage tube. To-day I have begun to use
+eucalyptus oil, with which the man is delighted, possibly because he
+has heard that it is very expensive, and that I have hardly any left!
+
+Yesterday I had the amusement of shifting the camps to another place,
+and Hadji was somewhat doubtful of my leadership. On arriving at the
+beautiful crystal spring which the guide had indicated as the
+halting-place for Sunday, I found that it issued from under a mound of
+grass-grown graves, was in the full sun blaze, and at the lowest part
+of the plain. The guide asserted that it was the only spring, but
+having seen a dark stain of vegetation high among the hills, I halted
+the caravan and rode off alone in search of the water I hoped it
+indicated, disregarding the suppressed but unmistakably sneering
+laughter of the guide and _charvadars_. In less than a mile I came
+upon the dry bed of a rivulet, a little higher up on a scanty,
+intermittent trickle, higher still on a gurgling streamlet fringed by
+masses of blue scilla, and still higher on a small circular spring of
+very cold water, with two flowery plateaux below it just large enough
+for the camps, in a green quiet corrie, with the mountains close
+behind. Hadji laughed, and the guide insisted that the spring was not
+always there. A delightful place it is in which to spend Sunday
+quietly, with its musical ripple of water, its sky-blue carpet of
+scilla, its beds of white and purple irises, its slopes ablaze with
+the _Fritillaria imperialis_, and its sweet, calm view of the green
+Gurab plain and the silver windings of the Dinarud.
+
+Above the spring is the precipitous hill of Tur, with the remains of
+a rude fort on its shattered rocky summit. Two similar ruins are
+visible from Tur, one on a rocky ledge of an offshoot of the
+Kuh-i-Gerra, on the other side of the Dinarud valley, the other on the
+crest of a noble headland of the Sanganaki range, which is visible
+throughout the whole region. The local legend concerning them is that
+long before the days of the Parthian kings, and when bows and arrows
+were the only weapons known, iron being undiscovered, there was in the
+neighbourhood of Gurab a king called Faruk Padishah, who had three
+sons, Salmon, Tur, and Iraj. It does not appear to be usual among the
+Bakhtiaris for sons to "get on" together after their father's death,
+and the three youths quarrelled and built these three impregnable
+forts--Killa Tur, the one I examined, Killa Iraj, and Killa Salmon.
+
+The beautiful valley was evidently too narrow for their ambition, and
+leaving their uncomfortable fastnesses they went northwards, and
+founded three empires, Salmon to the Golden Horn, where he founded
+Stamboul, Tur to Turkistan, and Iraj became the founder of the Iranian
+Empire.
+
+Killa Tur is a stone building mostly below the surface of the
+hill-top, of rough hewn stone cemented with lime mortar of the
+hardness of concrete. The inner space of the fort is not more than
+eighty square yards. The walls are from three to six feet thick.
+
+_Chigakhor, May 31._--The last twelve days have been spent in marching
+through a country which has not been traversed by Europeans, only
+crossed along the main track. On leaving the pleasant camp of Tur we
+descended to the Gurab plain, purple in patches with a showy species
+of garlic, skirted the base of the Tur spur, and rode for some miles
+along the left bank of the Dinarud, which, after watering the plain of
+Gurab, sparkles and rushes down a grassy valley bright with roses and
+lilies, and well wooded with oak, elm, and hawthorn. This river,
+gaining continually in volume, makes a turbulent descent to the Karun
+a few miles from the point where we left it. This was the finest day's
+march of the journey. The mountain forms were grander and more
+definite, the vegetation richer, the scenery more varied, and a
+kindlier atmosphere pervaded it. In the midst of a wood of fine walnut
+trees, ash, and hawthorn, laced together by the tendrils of vines, a
+copious stream tumbles over rocks fringed with maiden-hair, and
+sparkles through grass purple with orchises. This is the only time
+that I have seen the one or the other in Persia, and it was like an
+unexpected meeting with dear friends.
+
+Crossing the Dinarud on a twig bridge, fording a turbulent affluent,
+which bursts full fledged from the mountain side, and ascending for
+some hours through grassy glades wooded with oak and elm, we camped
+for two days on the alpine meadow of Arjul, scantily watered but now
+very green. Oak woods come down upon it, the vines are magnificent,
+and there is some cultivation of wheat, which is sown by the nomads
+before their departure in the late autumn, and is reaped during their
+summer sojourn. There are no tents there at present, yet from camps
+near and far, on horseback and on foot, people came for eye-lotions,
+and remained at night to have them dropped into their eyes.
+
+The next morning I was awakened at dawn by Mirza's voice calling to
+me, "Madam, Hadji wants you to come down and sew up a mule that's been
+gored by a wild boar." Awfully gored it was. A piece of skin about ten
+inches square was hanging down between its forelegs, and a broad wound
+the depth of my hand and fully a foot long extended right into its
+chest, with a great piece taken out. I did what I could, but the
+animal had to be left behind to be cured by the Mollah-i-Martaza, who
+left us there. Another misfortune to Hadji was the loss of the fiery
+leader of the caravan, Cock o' the Walk, but late at night he was
+brought into camp at Dupulan quite crestfallen, having gone back to
+the rich pastures which surround the Chesmeh-i-Gurab. The muleteer who
+went in search of him was attacked by some Lurs and stripped of his
+clothing, but on some men coming up who said his master was under the
+protection of the Ilkhani, his clothes and horse were returned to him.
+
+The parallel ranges with deep valleys between them, which are such a
+feature of this country, are seen in perfection near Arjul. Some of
+the torrents of this mountain region are already dry, but their broad
+stony beds, full of monstrous boulders, arrest the fury with which at
+times they seek the Karun. One of these, the Imamzada, passes through
+the most precipitous and narrow gorge which it is possible to travel,
+even with unloaded mules. The narrow path is chiefly rude rock
+ladders, threading a gorge or chasm on a gigantic scale, with a
+compressed body of water thundering below, concealed mainly by gnarled
+and contorted trees, which find root-hold in every rift. Where the
+chasm widens for a space before narrowing to a throat we forded it,
+and through glades and wooded uplands reached Arjul, descending and
+crossing the torrent by the same ford on the march to Dupulan the next
+day.
+
+Owing to the loss of two baggage animals and the necessary
+re-adjustment of the loads, I was late in starting from Arjul, and the
+heat as we descended to the lower levels was very great, the
+atmosphere being misty as well as sultry. Passing upwards, through
+glades wooded with oaks, the path emerges on high gravelly uplands
+above the tremendous gorge of the Karun, the manifold windings of
+which it follows at a great height. From the first sight of this river
+in the Ardal valley to its emergence at Dupulan, just below these
+heights, it has come down with abrupt elbow-like turns and singular
+sinuosities--a full, rapid, powerful glass-green volume of water,
+through a ravine or gorge or chasm from 1000 to 2000 feet in depth,
+now narrowing, now widening, but always _the_ feature of the
+landscape. It would be natural to use the usual phrase, and write of
+the Karun having "carved" this passage for itself, but I am more and
+more convinced that this is not the case, but that its waters found
+their way into channels already riven by some of those mighty
+operations of nature which have made of this country a region of walls
+and clefts.
+
+  [Illustration: THE KARUN AT DUPULAN.]
+
+A long, very steep gravelly descent leads from these high lands down
+to the Karun, and to one of the routes--little used, however--from
+Isfahan to Shuster. It is reported as being closed by snow four months
+of the year. The scenery changed its aspect here, and for walls and
+parapets of splintered rock there are rounded gravelly hills and
+stretching uplands.
+
+The three groups of most wretched mud hovels which form the village of
+Dupulan ("Two Bridge Place") are on an eminence on the left bank of
+the Karun, which emerges from its long imprisonment in a gorge in the
+mountains by a narrow passage between two lofty walls of rock so
+smooth and regular in their slope and so perfect a gateway as to
+suggest art rather than nature. This river, the volume of which is
+rapidly augmenting on its downward course, is here compressed into a
+width of about twenty yards.
+
+At this point a stone bridge, built by Hussein Kuli Khan, of one large
+pointed arch with a smaller one for the flood, and a rough roadway
+corresponding to the arch in the steepness of its pitch, spans the
+stream, which passes onwards gently and smoothly, its waters a deep
+cool green. Below Dupulan the Karun, which in that direction has been
+explored by several travellers, turns to the south-west, and after a
+considerable bend enters the levels above Shuster by a north-westerly
+course. Near the bridge the Karun is joined by the Sabzu, a very
+vigorous torrent from the Ardal plain, which is crossed by a twig
+bridge, safer than it looks.
+
+The camps were pitched in apricot orchards in the Sabzu ravine, near
+some _elægnus_ trees, which are now bearing their sweet gray and
+yellow blossoms, which will be succeeded by auburn tresses of a woolly
+but very pleasant fruit. Dupulan has an altitude of only 4950 feet,
+and in its course from the Kuh-i-Rang to this point the Karun has
+descended about 4000 feet. Though there was a breeze, and both ends of
+my tent and the _kanats_ were open, the mercury was at 86° inside, and
+at 5 A.M. at 72° outside (on May 21). There were no supplies, and even
+milk was unattainable.
+
+The road we followed ascends the Dupulan Pass, which it crosses at a
+height of 6380 feet. The path is very bad, hardly to be called a path.
+The valley which it ascends is packed with large and small boulders,
+with round water-worn stones among them, and such track as there is
+makes sharp zigzags over and among these rocks. _Screw_ was very
+unwilling to face the difficulties, which took two hours to surmount.
+The ascent was hampered by coming upon a tribe of Ilyats on the move,
+who at times blocked up the pass with their innumerable sheep and
+goats and their herds of cattle. Once entangled in this migration, it
+was only possible to move on a few feet at a time. It straggled along
+for more than a mile,--loaded cows and bullocks, innumerable sheep,
+goats, lambs, and kids; big dogs; asses loaded with black tents and
+short tent-poles on the loads; weakly sheep tied on donkeys' backs,
+and weakly lambs carried in shepherds' bosoms; handsome mares, each
+with her foal, running loose or ridden by women with babies seated on
+the tops of loaded saddle-bags made of gay rugs; tribesmen on foot
+with long guns slung behind their shoulders, and big two-edged knives
+in their girdles; sheep bleating, dogs barking, mares neighing, men
+shouting and occasionally firing off their guns, the whole ravine
+choked up with the ascending tribal movement.
+
+Half-way up the ascent there is a most striking view of mountain
+ranges cleft by the great chasm of the Karun. The descent is into the
+eastern part of the Ardal valley, over arid treeless hillsides
+partially ploughed, to the village of Dehnau, not yet deserted for the
+summer. Fattiallah Khan expected us, and rooms were prepared for me in
+the women's house, which I excused myself from occupying by saying
+that I cannot sleep under a roof. I managed also to escape partaking
+of a huge garlicky dinner which was being cooked for me.
+
+The Khan's house or fort, built like all else of mud, has a somewhat
+imposing gateway, over which are the men's apartments. The roof is
+decorated with a number of ibex horns. Within is a rude courtyard with
+an uneven surface, on which servants and negro slaves were skinning
+sheep, winnowing wheat, clarifying butter, carding wool, cooking, and
+making cheese. The women's apartments are round the courtyard, and
+include the usual feature of these houses, an _atrium_, or room
+without a front, and a darkish room within. The floor of the _atrium_
+was covered with brown felts, and there was a mattress for me to sit
+upon. The ruling spirit of the _haram_ is the Khan's mother, a comely
+matron of enormous size, who occasionally slapped her son's four young
+and comely wives when they were too "forward." She wore a short
+jacket, balloon-like trousers of violet silk, and a black coronet, to
+which was attached a black _chadar_ which completely enveloped her.
+
+The wives wore figured white _chadars_, print trousers, and strings
+of coins. Children much afflicted with cutaneous maladies crawled on
+the floor. Heaps of servants, negro slaves, old hags, and young girls
+crowded behind and around, all talking at once and at the top of their
+voices, and at the open front the village people constantly assembled,
+to be driven away at intervals by a man with a stick. A bowl of cow's
+milk and some barley bread were given to me, and though a remarkably
+dirty negress kept the flies away by flapping the milk bowl with a
+dirty sleeve, I was very grateful for the meal, for I was really
+suffering from the heat and fatigue.
+
+A visit to a _haram_ is not productive of mutual elevation. The women
+seem exceedingly frivolous, and are almost exclusively interested in
+the adornment of their persons, the dress and ailments of their
+children, and in the frightful jealousies and intrigues inseparable
+from the system of polygamy, and which are fostered by the servants
+and discarded wives. The servile deference paid by the other women to
+the reigning favourite before her face, and the merciless persistency
+of the attempts made behind her back to oust her from her position,
+and the requests made on the one hand for charms or potions to win or
+bring back the love of a husband, and on the other for something which
+shall make the favourite hateful to him, are evidences of the misery
+of heart which underlies the outward frivolity.
+
+The tone of Fattiallah Khan's _haram_ was not higher than usual. The
+ladies took off my hat, untwisted my hair, felt my hands, and shrieked
+when they found that my gloves came off; laughed immoderately at my
+Bakhtiari shoes, which, it seems, are only worn by men; put their
+rings on my fingers, put my hat on their own heads, asked if I could
+give them better hair dyes than their own, and cosmetics to make their
+skins fair; paid the usual compliments, told me to regard everything
+as _pishkash_, asked for medicines and charms, and regretted that I
+would not sleep in their house, because, as they said, they "never
+went anywhere or saw anything."
+
+They have no occupation, except occasionally a little embroidery. They
+amuse themselves, they said, by watching the servants at work, and by
+having girls to dance before them. They find the winter, though spent
+in a warm climate, very long and wearisome, and after dark employ
+female professional story-tellers to entertain them with love stories.
+At night the elder lady sent three times for a charm which should give
+her daughter the love of her husband. She is married to another Khan,
+and I recalled her as the forlorn-looking girl without any jewels who
+excited my sympathies in his house.
+
+Marriages are early among these people. They are arranged by the
+parents of both bride and bridegroom. The betrothal feast is a great
+formality. The "settlements" having been made by the bridegroom's
+father and mother, they distribute sweetmeats among the members of the
+bride's family, and some respectable men who are present tie a
+handkerchief round the head of the bride, and kiss the hands of her
+parents as a sign of the betrothal. The engagement must be fulfilled
+by the bride's parents under pain of severe penalties, from which the
+bridegroom's parents are usually exempt. But, should he prove
+faithless, he is a marked man. It appears that "breach of promise of
+marriage" is very rare. The betrothal may take place at the tenderest
+age, but the marriage is usually delayed till the bride is twelve
+years old, or even older, and the bridegroom is from fifteen to
+eighteen.
+
+The "settlements" made at the betrothal are paid at the time of
+marriage, and consist of a sum of money or cattle, mares, or sheep,
+according to the circumstances of the bridegroom's parents. It is
+essential among all classes that a number of costumes be presented to
+the bride. After the marriage is over her parents bestow a suit of
+clothes on her husband, but these are usually of an inferior, or, as
+my interpreter calls them, of a "trivial" description.
+
+A Bakhtiari marriage is a very noisy performance. For three days or
+more, in fact as long as the festivities can be afforded, the
+relations and friends of both parties are assembled at the tents of
+the bride's parents, feasting and dancing (men and women on this
+occasion dancing together), performing feats of horsemanship, and
+shooting at a mark. The noise at this time is ceaseless. Drums,
+tom-toms, reeds, whistles, and a sort of bagpipe are all in
+requisition, and songs of love and war are chanted. At this time also
+is danced the national dance, the _chapi_, of which on no other
+occasion (except a burial) can a stranger procure a sight for love or
+money. It is said to resemble the _arnaoutika_ of the modern Greeks;
+any number of men can join in it. The dancers form in a close row,
+holding each other by their _kamarbands_, and swinging along sidewise.
+They mark the time by alternately stamping the heel of the right and
+left foot. The dancers are led by a man who dances apart, waving a
+handkerchief rhythmically above his head, and either singing a war
+song or playing on a reed pipe. After the marriage feast the bride
+follows her husband to his father's tent, where she becomes subject to
+her mother-in-law.
+
+The messenger, after looking round to see that there were no
+bystanders, very mysteriously produced from his girdle a black,
+flattish oval stone of very close texture, weighing about a pound,
+almost polished by long handling. He told me that it was believed that
+this stone, if kept in one family for fifty years and steadily worn
+by father and son, would then not only turn to gold, but have the
+power of transmuting any metal laid beside it for five years, and he
+wanted to know what the wisdom of the Feringhis knew about it.
+
+I went up to my camp above the village and tried to rest there, but
+the buzz of a crowd outside and the ceaseless lifting of curtains and
+_kanats_ made this quite impossible. When I opened the tent I found
+the crowd seated in a semicircle five rows deep, waiting for
+medicines, chiefly eye-lotion, quinine, and cough mixtures. These
+daily assemblages of "patients" are most fatiguing. The satisfaction
+is that some "lame dogs" are "helped over stiles," and that some
+prejudice against Christians is removed.
+
+After this Fattiallah Khan, with a number of retainers, paid a formal
+visit to the Agha, who kindly sent for me, as I do not receive any but
+lady visitors in my tent. The Khan is a very good-looking and
+well-dressed man of twenty-eight, very amusing, and ready to be
+amused. He was very anxious to be doctored, but looked the opposite of
+a sick man. He and Isfandyar Khan were in arms against the Ilkhani two
+years ago, and a few men were shot. He looked as if he were very sorry
+not to have killed him.
+
+The Bakhtiaris have an enormous conceit of themselves and their
+country. It comes out in all ways and on all occasions, and their war
+stories and songs abound in legends of singular prowess, one Bakhtiari
+killing twenty Persians, and the like. They represent the power of the
+Shah over them as merely nominal, a convenient fiction for the time
+being, although it is apparent that Persia, which for years has been
+aiming at the extinction of the authority of the principal chiefs, has
+had at least a partial success.
+
+At such interviews a private conversation is impossible. The manners
+are those of a feudal _régime_. Heaps of retainers crowd round, and
+even join in the conversation. A servant brought the Khan a handsome
+_kalian_ to smoke three times. He also took tea. A great quantity of
+opium for exportation is grown about Dehnau, and the Khan said that
+the cultivation of it is always increasing.
+
+From Dehnau the path I took leads over gravelly treeless hills,
+through many treeless gulches, to the top of a great gorge, through
+which the Sabzu passes as an impetuous torrent. The descent to a very
+primitive bridge is long and difficult, a succession of rocky zigzags.
+Picturesqueness is not a usual attribute of mud villages, but the view
+from every point of Chiraz, the village on the lofty cliffs on the
+other side of the stream, is strikingly so. They are irregularly
+covered with houses, partly built on them and partly excavated out of
+them, and behind is a cool mass of greenery, apricot orchards,
+magnificent walnut and mulberry trees, great standard hawthorns loaded
+with masses of blossom, wheat coming into ear, and clumps and banks of
+canary-yellow roses measuring three inches across their petals. Groups
+of women, in whose attire Turkey red predominated, were on the house
+roofs. Wild flowers abounded, and the sides of the craggy path by
+which I descended were crowded with leguminous and umbelliferous
+plants, with the white and pink dianthus, and with the thorny
+_tussocks_ of the gum tragacanth, largely used for kindling, now in
+full bloom.
+
+As I dragged my unwilling horse down the steep descent, his bridle was
+taken out of my hands, and I was welcomed by the brother of Fattiallah
+Khan, who, with a number of village men escorted me over the twig
+bridge, and up to an exquisite halting-place under a large mulberry
+tree, where the next two hours were spent in receiving visitors. It
+is evident that these fine orchards must have been the pleasure-ground
+of some powerful ruler, and the immense yellow roses are such as grow
+in one or two places in Kashmir, where they are attributed to
+Jehangir.
+
+The track from Chiraz for many miles follows up the right bank of the
+Sabzu at a great height, descends occasionally into deep gulches,
+crosses the spurs of mountains whose rifts give root-hold to contorted
+"pencil cedars," and winds among small ash trees and hawthorns, or
+among rich grass and young wheat, which is grown to a considerable
+extent on the irrigated slopes above the river. It is a great surprise
+to find so much land under cultivation, and so much labour spent on
+irrigation channels. Some of these canals are several miles in length,
+and the water always runs in them swiftly, and the right way, although
+the "savages" who make them have no levels or any tools but spades.
+
+Mountains, much scored and cañoned by streams, very grand in form, and
+with much snow still upon them, rise to a great height above the
+ranges which form the Sabzu valley. From Chaharta, an uninteresting
+camping-ground by the river, I proceeded by an elevated and rather
+illegible track in a easterly direction to the meeting of two streams,
+forded the Sabzu, and camped for two days on the green slope of Sabz
+Kuh, at a height of 8100 feet, close to a vigorous spring whose waters
+form many streamlets, fringed by an abundance of pink primulas, purple
+and white orchises, white tulips, and small fragrant blue irises.
+
+Lahdaraz is in the very heart of mountain ranges, and as the Ilyats
+have not yet come up so high, there were no crowds round my tent for
+medicine, but one sick woman was carried thither eleven miles on the
+back of her husband, who seemed tenderly solicitous about her.
+
+On Monday I spent most of the day 1000 feet higher, in most
+magnificent scenery on an imposing scale of grandeur. The guide took
+us from the camp through herbage, snow, and alpine flowers, up a
+valley with fine mountains on either side, terminating on the brink of
+a gigantic precipice, a cloven ledge between the Kuh-i-Kaller and a
+stupendous cliff or headland, Sultan Ibrahim, over 12,000 feet, which
+descends in shelving masses to an abyss of tremendous depth, where
+water thunders in a narrow rift. The Sabz Kuh, or "green mountain"
+range, famous for the pasturage of its higher slopes, terminates in
+Sultan Ibrahim, and unites at its eastern end with the Kuh-i-Kaller, a
+range somewhat higher. On the east side of this huge chasm rises
+another range of peaks, with green shelves, dark rifts, and red
+precipices, behind which rise another, and yet another, whose blue,
+snow-patched summits blended with the pure cool blue of the sky. In
+the far distance, in a blue veil, lies the green-tinted plain of Khana
+Mirza, set as an emerald in this savage scenery, with two ranges
+beyond, and above them the great mountain mass of the Riji, whose
+snowy peaks were painted faintly on a faint blue heaven.
+
+That misty valley, irrigated and cultivated, with 100 villages of the
+Janiki tribe upon it, is the only fair spot in the savage landscape.
+Elsewhere only a few wild flowers and a gnarled juniper here and there
+relieve the fierce, blazing verdurelessness of these stupendous
+precipices. Never, not even among the Himalayas, have I seen anything
+so superlatively grand, though I have always imagined that such scenes
+must exist somewhere on the earth. A pair of wild sheep on a ledge, a
+serpent or two, and an eagle soaring sunwards represented animate
+nature, otherwise the tremendous heights above, the awful depths
+below, the snowy mountains, and the valley with its smile, were given
+over to solitude and silence, except for the dull roar of the torrent
+hurrying down to vivify the Khana Mirza plain.
+
+After leaving Lahdaraz the path followed the course of the Sabzu
+through grass and barley for a few miles. Then there is an abrupt and
+disagreeable change to yellow mud slopes and high mud mountains deeply
+fissured, the scanty herbage already eaten down by Ilyat flocks--a
+desolate land, without springs, streams, or even Ilyat tents. Then
+comes a precipice at an altitude of 7500 feet, through a cleft in
+which, the Tang-i-Wastagun, the road passes, and descends to the plain
+of Gandaman as something little better than a sheep track on a steep
+hillside above a stream. The heat was fierce. A pair of stout
+gardening gloves does not preserve the hands from blistering.
+Spectacles with wire gauze sides have to be abandoned as they threaten
+to roast the eyes. In this latitude, 32°, the heat of the sun at noon
+is tremendous. At the precipice top I crept into a hole at the base of
+a rock, for "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," till the
+caravan staggered up. It was difficult to brave the sun's direct rays.
+He looked like a ball of magnesium light, white and scintillating, in
+the unclouded sky.
+
+On crossing the Tang-i-Wastagun we left behind the Bakhtiari country
+proper for a time, and re-entered the Chahar Mahals, with their mixed
+village population of Persians and Armenians. The descent from the
+Tang-i-Wastagun is upon a ruined Armenian village with a large
+graveyard. The tombstones are of great size, ten feet long by three
+feet broad and three feet high, sarcophagus-shaped, and on each stone
+are an Armenian epitaph and a finely-engraved cross. The plain of
+Gandaman or Wastagun is a very large one, over 7000 feet in altitude,
+and is surrounded mainly by high mountains still snow-patched, but to
+the north by low rocky hills. Much of it is irrigated and under
+cultivation, and grows heavy crops of wheat and barley. The pasturage
+is fine and abundant, and the people breed cattle and horses. The
+uncultivated slopes are now covered with red tulips and a purple
+_allium_, and even the dry gravel added largely to the daily
+increasing botanical collection.
+
+  [Illustration: ALI JAN.]
+
+The camps were pitched on green turf near three springs, a quiet
+place, but there was little rest. We were hardly settled before there
+was a severe fight among the horses, my sour-tempered _Screw_ being
+the aggressor. This was hardly quieted when there was a sharp
+"scrimmage" between the _charvadars_ and the Agha's three young
+savages, in which one of them, Ali Jan, was badly beaten, and came to
+me to have a bleeding face and head dressed. After that the people
+began to come in from the villages for eye-washes and medicines. They
+have no bottles, nor have I, and the better-off bring great copper
+jugs and basins for an ounce or two of lotion! A very poor old woman
+much afflicted with ophthalmia said she had three sisters all blind,
+that she had nothing for lotion, nothing in the world but a copper
+cooking pot, and she cried piteously. I had nothing to give her, and
+eventually she returned with an egg-shell, with the top neatly chipped
+off. It is the custom to raise the hands to heaven and invoke
+blessings on the _Hak[=i]m's_ head, but I never received so many as
+from this poor creature.
+
+The ride to the village of Gandaman, where we halted for two days, was
+an agreeable one. After being shut up among mountains and precipices,
+space and level ground to gallop over are an agreeable change, and in
+the early morning the heat was not excessive. The great plain was a
+truly pastoral scene. Wild-looking shepherds with long guns led great
+brown flocks to the hills; innumerable yokes of black oxen, ploughing
+with the usual iron-shod, pointed wooden share, turned over the rich
+black soil, making straight furrows, and crossing them diagonally;
+mares in herds fed with their foals; and shepherds busily separated
+the sheep from the goats.
+
+Close to the filthy walled Armenian village of Kunak there is a
+conical hill with a large fort, in ruinous condition, upon it, and not
+far off are the remains of an Armenian village, enclosed by a square
+wall with a round tower at each corner. This must have been until
+recently a place of some local importance, as it is approached by a
+paved causeway, and had an aqueduct, now ruinous, carried over the
+river on three arches. Not only the plain but the hill-slopes up to a
+great height are cultivated, and though the latter have the
+precariousness of rain-lands, the crops already in ear promise well.
+
+Crossing a spur which descends upon the north side of the plain, we
+reached Gandaman, a good-looking walled Moslem village of 196 houses,
+much planted, chiefly with willows, and rejoicing in eight springs,
+close together, the overflow of which makes quite a piece of water. It
+has an _imamzada_ on an eminence and is fairly prosperous, for besides
+pastoral wealth it weaves and exports carpets, and dyes cotton and
+woollen yarn with madder and other vegetable dyes. The mountain view
+to the south-west is very fine.
+
+I was in my tent early, but there was little rest, for crowds of
+people with bad eyes and woful maladies besieged it until the evening.
+At noon a gay procession crossed the green camping-ground, four mares
+caparisoned in red trappings, each carrying two women in bright
+dresses, but shrouded in pure white sheets bound round their heads
+with silver chains. The _ketchuda_ of the Armenian village of
+Libasgun, two miles off, accompanied them, and said that they came to
+invite me to their village, for they are Christians. Then they all
+made the sign of the Cross, which is welcome in this land as a bond of
+brotherhood.
+
+Cleanly, comely, large-eyed, bright-cheeked, and wholesome they
+looked, in their pure white _chadars_, gay red dresses, and
+embroidered under-vests. They had massive silver girdles, weighing
+several pounds, worn there only by married women, red coronets, heavy
+tiaras of silver, huge necklaces of coins, and large filigree silver
+drops attached down the edges of their too open vests. Their heavy
+hair was plaited, but not fastened up. Each wore a stiff
+diamond-shaped piece of white cotton over her mouth and the tip of her
+nose. They said it was their custom to wear it, and they would not
+remove it even to eat English biscuits! They managed to drink tea by
+veiling their faces with their _chadars_ and passing the cup
+underneath, but they turned their faces quite away as they did it.
+They had come for the day, and had brought large hanks of wool to
+wind, but the headman had the tact to take them away after arranging
+for me to return the visit in the evening.
+
+He seemed an intelligent man. Libasgun, with its 120 houses, is,
+according to his account, a prosperous village, paying its tax of 300
+_tumans_ (£100) a year to the Amin-ud-Daulat, and making a present
+only to the Ilkhani. It has 2000 sheep and goats, besides mares and
+cattle. It has an oil mill, and exports oil to Isfahan. The women
+weave carpets, and embroider beautifully on coarse cotton woven by
+themselves, and dyed indigo blue and madder red by their Gandaman
+neighbours. This man is proud of being a Christian. Among the
+Armenians Christianity is as much a national characteristic as pride
+of race and strict monogamy. He remarked that there are no sore eyes
+in Libasgun, and attributed it to the greater cleanliness of the
+people and to the cross signed in holy oil upon their brows in
+baptism!
+
+I rode to this village in the late afternoon, and was received with
+much distinction in the _balakhana_ of the _ketchuda's_ house, where I
+was handed to the seat of honour, a bolster at the head of the
+handsomely-carpeted room. It soon filled with buxom women in red, with
+jackets displaying their figures, or want of figures, down to their
+waists. From the red velvet coronets on their heads hung two graduated
+rows of silver coins, and their muslin _chadars_ were attached to
+their hair with large silver pins and chains. Magnificent necklaces of
+gold coins were also worn.
+
+  [Illustration: ARMENIAN WOMEN OF LIBASGUN.]
+
+Forty women sat on the floor in rows against the wall. Each had rosy
+cheeks, big black eyes, and a diamond-shaped white cloth over her
+mouth. The uniformity was shocking. They stared, not at me, but at
+nothing. They looked listless and soulless, only fit to be what they
+are--the servants of their husbands. When they had asked me my age,
+and why I do not dye my hair, the conversation flagged, for I could
+not get any information from them even on the simplest topics. Hotter
+and hotter grew the room, more stolid the vacancy of the eyes, more
+grotesque the rows of white diamonds over the mouths, when the happy
+thought occurred to me to ask to see the embroidered aprons, which
+every girl receives from her mother on her marriage. Two mountains of
+flesh obligingly rolled out of the room, and rolled in again bringing
+some beautiful specimens of needlework. This is really what is known
+as "Russian embroidery," cross stitch in artistic colours on coarse
+red or blue cotton. The stomachers are most beautifully worked. The
+aprons cover the whole of the front and the sides of the dress. The
+mothers begin to embroider them when their daughters are ten. The
+diamond-shaped cloth is put on by girls at eight or nine. The women
+would not remove it for a moment even to oblige a guest. The perpetual
+wearing of it is one of their religious customs, only prevailing,
+however, in some localities. They say that when our Lord was born His
+mother in token of reverence took a cloth and covered her mouth, hence
+their habit.
+
+When the _ketchuda_ arrived he found the heat of the room unbearable
+and proposed an adjournment to the lower roof, which was speedily
+swept, watered, and carpeted.
+
+An elaborate banquet had been prepared in the hope that the Agha would
+pay them a visit, and they were much mortified at his non-appearance.
+The great copper basins containing the food were heaped together in
+the middle of the carpets, and the guests, fifty in number, sat down,
+the men on one side, and the women on the other, the wives of the
+_ketchuda_ and his brothers serving. There were several _samovars_
+with tea, but only three cups. A long bolster was the place of honour,
+and I occupied it alone till the village priests arrived,--reverend
+men with long beards, high black head-dresses, and full black cassocks
+with flowing sleeves. All the guests rose, and remained standing till
+they had been ceremoniously conducted to seats. I found them very
+agreeable and cultured men, acquainted with the varying "streams of
+tendency" in the Church of England, and very anxious to claim our
+Church as a sister of their own. This banquet was rather a gay scene,
+and on a higher roof fully one hundred women and children dressed in
+bright red stood watching the proceedings below.
+
+I proposed to see the church, and with the priests, most of the
+guests, and a considerable following of the onlookers, walked to it
+through filthy alleys. This ancient building, in a dirty and
+malodorous yard, differs externally from the mud houses which surround
+it only in having two bells on a beam. The interior consists of four
+domed vaults, and requires artificial light. A vault with a raised
+floor contains the altar and a badly-painted altar-piece representing
+the B. V.; a rail separates the men, who stand in front, from the
+women, who stand behind. A Liturgy and an illuminated medieval copy of
+the Gospels, of which they are very proud, are their only treasures.
+They have no needlework, and the altar cloth is only a piece of
+printed cotton. Nothing could well look poorer than this small, dark,
+vacant building, with a few tallow candles without candlesticks giving
+a smoky light.
+
+They have two daily services lasting from one to two hours each, and
+Mass on Sunday is protracted to seven hours! The priests said that all
+the men, except two who watch the flocks, and nearly all the women are
+at both services on Sunday, and that many of the men and most of the
+women are at both daily services, one of which, as is usual, begins
+before daylight. There is no school. The fathers teach their boys to
+read and write, and the mothers instruct their girls in needlework.
+
+After visits to the priests' houses, a number of villagers on
+horseback escorted me back to Gandaman. The heat of those two days was
+very great for May, the mercury marking 83° in the shade at 10 A.M.
+One hundred and thirteen people came for medicines, and in their
+eagerness they swarmed round both ends of the tent, blocking out all
+air. The ailments were much more varied and serious than among the
+Bakhtiaris.
+
+  [Illustration: WALL AND GATE OF LIBASGUN.]
+
+The last march was a hot and tedious one of eighteen miles, along an
+uninteresting open valley, much ploughed, bounded by sloping
+herbage-covered hills, surmounted by parapets of perpendicular rock.
+After passing the large Moslem village of Baldiji, we re-entered the
+Bakhtiari country, ascended to the Bakhtiari village of Dastgird,
+descended to the plain of Chigakhor, skirted its southern margin, and
+on its western side, on two spurs of the great Kuh-i-Kaller range,
+with a ravine between them, the camps were pitched. In two days most
+of the tents were blown down, and were moved into two ravines with a
+hill between them, on which the Sahib on his arrival pitched his camp.
+
+My ravine has a spring, with exactly space for my tent beside it, and
+a platform higher up with just room enough for the servants. A strong
+stream, rudely brawling, issuing from the spring, disturbs sleep.
+There is no possibility of changing one's position by even a six-feet
+stroll, so rough and steep is the ground. Mirza bringing my meals from
+the cooking tent has a stick to steady himself. At first there was
+nothing to see but scorched mountains opposite, and the green plain on
+which the ravine opens, but the _Hak[=i]m's_ tent was soon discovered,
+and I have had 278 "patients"! Before I am up in the morning they are
+sitting in rows one behind another on the steep ground, their horses
+and asses grazing near them, and all day they come. One of the chiefs
+of the Janiki tribe came with several saddle and baggage horses and
+even a tent, to ask me to go with him to the great plain of Khana
+Mirza, three days' march from here, to cure his wife's eyes, and was
+grieved to the heart when I told him they were beyond my skill. He
+stayed while a great number of sick people got eye-lotions and
+medicines, and then asked me why I gave these medicines and took so
+much trouble. I replied that our Master and Lord not only commanded us
+to do good to all men as we have opportunity, but Himself healed the
+sick. "You call Him Master and Lord," he said; "He was a great
+Prophet. _Send a Hak[=i]m to us in His likeness._"
+
+I have heard so much of Chigakhor that I am disappointed with the
+reality. There are no trees, most of the snow has melted, the
+mountains are not very bold in their features, the plain has a sort of
+lowland look about it, and though its altitude is 7500 feet, the days
+and even nights are very hot. The interest of it lies in it being the
+summer resort of the Ilkhani and Ilbegi, a fact which makes it the
+great centre of Bakhtiari life. As many as 400 tents are pitched here
+in the height of the season, and the coming and going of Khans and
+headmen with tribute and on other business is ceaseless.
+
+The plain, which is about seven miles long by three broad, is quite
+level. Near the south-east end is a shallow reedy mere, fringed by a
+fertile swampiness, which produces extraordinary crops of grass far
+out into the middle of the level.
+
+Near the same end is a rocky eminence or island, on which is the
+fortress castle of the Ilkhani. The "season" begins in early June,
+when the tribes come up from the warm pastures of Dizful and Shuster,
+to which they return with their pastoral wealth in the autumn, after
+which the plain is flooded and frozen for the winter. At the north end
+are the villages of Dastgird and Aurugun and a great deal of irrigated
+land producing wheat. Except at that end the plain is surrounded by
+mountains; on its southern side, where a part of the Sukhta range
+rises into the lofty peak of Challeh Kuh, with its snow-slashes and
+snow-fields, they attain an altitude of 12,000 or 13,000 feet.
+
+It is not easy, perhaps not possible, to pass through the part of the
+Bakhtiari country for which we are bound, without some sort of
+assistance from its feudal lords, a responsible man, for instance, who
+can obtain supplies from the people. Therefore we have been detained
+here for many days waiting for the expected arrival of the Ilkhani. A
+few days ago a rumour arrived, since unhappily continued, that things
+were in confusion below, owing to the discovery of a plot on the part
+of the Ilkhani to murder the Ilbegi. Stories are current of the number
+of persons "put out of the way" before he attained his present rank
+for the second time, and it is not "Bakhtiari custom" to be
+over-scrupulous about human life. No doubt his nephew, the Ilbegi, is
+a very dangerous rival, and that his retainers are bent on seeing him
+in a yet higher position than he now occupies.
+
+A truce has been patched up, however, and yesterday the Ilkhani and
+Isfandyar Khan arrived together, with their great trains of armed
+horsemen, their _harams_, their splendid studs, their crowds of
+unmounted retainers, their strings of baggage mules and asses laden
+with firewood, and all the "rag, tag, and bobtail" in attendance on
+Oriental rulers. Following them in endless nocturnal procession come
+up the tribes, and day breaks on an ever-increasing number of brown
+flocks and herds, of mares, asses, dogs, black tents, and household
+goods. When we arrived there were only three tents, now the green
+bases of the mountains and all the platforms and ravines where there
+are springs are spotted with them, in rows or semicircles, and at
+night the camp fires of the multitude look like the lights of a city.
+Each clan has a prescriptive right to its camping-ground and pasture
+(though both are a fruitful source of quarrels), and arrives with its
+_ketchuda_ and complete social organisation, taking up its position
+like a division of an army.
+
+When in the early morning or afternoon the tribe reaches the
+camping-ground, everything is done in the most orderly way. The
+infants are put into their cradles, the men clear the ground if
+necessary, drive the pegs and put up the poles, and if there be
+wood--of which there is not a stick here--they make a fence of loose
+branches to contain the camp, but the women do the really hard work.
+Their lords, easily satisfied with their modicum of labour, soon
+retire to enjoy their pipes and the endless gossip of Bakhtiari life.
+
+  [Illustration: A PERSO-BAKHTIARI CRADLE.]
+
+After the ground has been arranged the tents occupy invariably the
+same relative position, whether the camp is in a row, a semicircle, a
+circle, or streets, so that the cattle and flocks may easily find
+their owners' abodes without being driven. The tents, which are of
+black goats' hair cloth, are laid out and beaten, and the women spread
+them over the poles and arrange the rest, after which the inside is
+brushed to remove the soot. In a good tent, reed screens are put up to
+divide the space into two or more portions, and some of the tribes
+fence round the whole camp with these screens, leaving one opening,
+and use the interior for a sheepfold. The small bushes are grubbed up
+for fuel. The women also draw the water, and the boys attend to the
+flocks. Many of the camps, however, have neither fences nor environing
+screens, and their inmates dwell without any attempt at privacy, and
+rely for the safety of their flocks on big and trustworthy dogs, of
+which every camp has a number.
+
+When they move the bulk of the labour again falls on the women. They
+first make the baggage into neat small packages suited for the backs
+of oxen; then they take up the tent pegs, throw down the tents, and
+roll them up in the reed screens, all that the men undertake being to
+help in loading the oxen. It is only when a division halts for at
+least some days that this process is gone through. In fine weather, if
+a tribe is marching daily to its summer or winter camping-grounds, the
+families frequently sleep in the open.
+
+The chief's tent is always recognisable by its size, and is
+occasionally white. I have seen a tent of a wealthy Khan fully sixty
+feet long. A row of poles not more than ten feet high supported the
+roof, which was of brown haircloth, the widths united by a coarse open
+stitch. On the windward side the roof was pinned down nearly to the
+top of a loosely-laid wall of stones about three feet high. The
+leeward side was quite open, and the roof, which could be lowered if
+necessary, was elevated and extended by poles six feet high. If the
+tent was sixty feet long, it was made by this arrangement twenty feet
+broad. At the lower end was a great fire-hole in the earth, and the
+floor of the upper end was covered with rugs, quilts, and pillows, the
+household stuff being arranged chiefly on and against the rude stone
+wall.
+
+The process of encamping for a camp of seventy tents takes about two
+hours, and many interruptions occur, especially the clamorous demands
+of unweaned infants of mature years. De-camping the same number of
+tents takes about an hour. A free, wild life these nomads lead, full
+of frays and plots, but probably happier than the average lot.
+
+Below the castle is the great encampment of the chiefs, brown tents
+and white bell tents, among which the tall white pavilion of the
+Ilkhani towers conspicuously. The Ilkhani and Ilbegi called on me, and
+as they sat outside my tent it was odd to look back two years to the
+time when they were fighting each other, and barely two weeks to the
+discovery of the plot of the dark-browed Ilkhani to murder his nephew.
+The Ilkhani's face had a very uncomfortable expression. Intrigues
+against him at Tihran and nearer home, the rumoured enmity of the
+Prime Minister, the turbulence of some of the tribes, the growing
+power of the adherents of Isfandyar Khan, and his own baffled plot to
+destroy him must make things unpleasant. Several of the small Khans
+who have been to see me expect fighting here before the end of the
+summer. The Ilkhani had previously availed himself of the resources of
+my medicine chest, and with so much benefit that I was obliged to
+grant a request which deprived me of a whole bottle of "tabloids."
+
+In the evening I visited the ladies who are in the castle leading the
+usual dull life of the _haram_, high above the bustle which centres
+round the Ilkhani's pavilion, with its crowds of tribesmen, mares and
+foals feeding, tethered saddle horses neighing, cows being milked,
+horsemen galloping here and there, firing at a mark, asses bearing
+wood and flour from Ardal being unloaded--a bustle masculine solely.
+
+Isfandyar Khan, with whose look of capacity I am more and more
+impressed, and Lutf received us and led us to the great pavilion,
+which is decorated very handsomely throughout with red and blue
+_appliqué_ arabesques, and much resembles an Indian _durbar_ tent. A
+brown felt carpet occupied the centre. The Ilkhani, who rose and shook
+hands, sat on one side and the Ilbegi on the other, and sons, Khans,
+and attendants to the number of 200, I daresay, stood around. We made
+some fine speeches, rendered finer, doubtless, by Mirza; repeated an
+offer to send a doctor to itinerate in the country for some months in
+1891, took the inevitable tea, and while the escorts were being
+arranged for I went to the fort.
+
+It is the fortress of the Haft Lang, one great division of the
+Bakhtiari Lurs, which supplies the ruling dynasty. The building is a
+parallelogram, flanked by four round towers, with large casemates and
+a keep on its southern side. It has two courtyards, surrounded by
+stables and barracks, but there is no water within the gates, and
+earthquakes and neglect have reduced much of it to a semi-ruinous
+condition. Over the gateway and along the front is a handsome suite of
+well-arranged balconied rooms, richly decorated in Persian style, the
+front and doors of the large reception-room being of fretwork filled
+in with amber and pale blue glass, and the roof and walls are covered
+with small mirrors set so as to resemble facets, with medallion
+pictures of beauties and of the chase let in at intervals. The effect
+of the mirrors is striking, and even beautiful. There were very
+handsome rugs on the floor, and divans covered with Kashan velvet; but
+rugs, divans, and squabs were heaped to the depth of some inches with
+rose petals which were being prepared for rose-water, and the
+principal wife rose out of a perfect bed of them.
+
+These ladies have no conversation, and relapse into apathy after
+asking a few personal questions. Again they said they wished to see
+the Agha, of whose height and prowess many rumours had reached them,
+but when I suggested that they might see him from the roof or balcony
+they said they were afraid. Again they said they had such dull lives,
+and regretted my departure, as they thought they might come and see my
+tent. I felt sorry for them, sorrier than I can say, as I realised
+more fully the unspeakable degradation and dulness of their lives. A
+perfect rabble of dirty women and children filled the passages and
+staircase.
+
+On one of my last evenings I rode, attended only by Mirza, to the
+village of Dastgird to see two women whose husband desired medicines
+for them. This village is piled upon the hillside at the north end of
+the valley and a traveller can be seen afar off. I had never visited
+any of the camps so slenderly escorted, and when I saw the roofs
+covered with men and numbers more running to the stream with long guns
+slung behind their backs and big knives in their girdles, I was much
+afraid that they might be rude in the absence of a European man, and
+that I should get into trouble. At the stream the _ketchuda_, whose
+wives were ill, and several of the principal inhabitants met me. They
+salaamed, touched their hearts and brows, two held my stirrups, others
+walked alongside, and an ever-increasing escort took me up the steep
+rude alley of the village to the low arch by which the headman's
+courtyard--all rocks, holes, and heaps--is entered.
+
+Dismounting was a difficulty. Several men got hold of _Screw_, one
+made a step of his back, another of his knee, one grasped my foot, two
+got hold of my arms, all shouting and disputing as to how to proceed,
+but somehow I was hauled off, and lifted by strong arms up into the
+_atrium_, the floor of which was covered with their woven rugs, across
+which they led me to an improvised place of honour, a _karsi_ covered
+with a red blanket. A brass _samovar_ was steaming hospitably on the
+floor, surrounded by tea-glasses, trays, and sugar. The chief paid me
+the usual Persian compliment, "Your presence purifies the house;" men
+crowded in, shrouded women peeped through doorways; they served me on
+bended knees with tea _à la Russe_, and though they shouted very loud,
+and often all together, they made me very cordially welcome. They send
+their flocks with some of their people to warmer regions for the
+winter, but the chief and many families remain, though the snow is
+from seven to nine feet deep, according to their marks on a post.
+
+I rode to the camp where the wives were, with the Khan and a number of
+men on foot and on horseback, a messenger having been sent in advance.
+In the village the great sheep-dogs, as usual, showed extreme
+hostility, and one, madder than the rest, a powerful savage, attacked
+me, fixing his teeth in my stirrup guard, and hanging on. The Khan
+drew a revolver and shot him through the back, killing him at once,
+and threatened to beat the owner. _Screw_ was quite undisturbed by the
+incident.
+
+The power of the _ketchuda_ or headman of a group of families is not
+absolute even in this small area. His duties are to arrange the annual
+migrations, punish small crimes summarily, to report larger crimes to
+the Khan, to collect the tribute, conjointly with the Khan, and to
+carry out his orders among the families of his group. Private
+oppression appears to be much practised among the _ketchudas_, and
+under the feeble rule of Imam Kuli Khan to be seldom exposed. The
+_ketchuda's_ office, originally elective, has a great tendency to
+become hereditary, but at any moment the Ilkhani may declare it
+elective in a special case.
+
+Though the offices of Ilkhani and Ilbegi are held only annually at the
+pleasure of the Shah, and the _ketchudas_ are properly elective, the
+office of Khan or chief is strictly hereditary, though it does not
+necessarily fall to the eldest son. This element of permanence gives
+the Khan almost supreme authority in his tribe, and when the Ilkhani
+is a weak man and a Khan is a strong one, he is practically
+independent, except in the matter of the tribute to the Shah.
+
+It was in curbing the power of these Khans by steering a shrewd and
+even course among their feuds and conflicts, by justice and
+consideration in the collection of the revenues, and by rendering it a
+matter of self-interest for them to seek his protection and
+acknowledge his headship, that Sir A. H. Layard's friend, Mohammed
+Taki Khan, succeeded in reducing these wild tribes to something like
+order, and Hussein Kuli Khan, "the last real ruler of the Bakhtiaris,"
+pursued the same methods with nearly equal success.
+
+But things have changed, and a fresh era of broils and rivalries has
+set in, and in addition to tribal feuds and jealousies, the
+universally-erected line of partisanship between the adherents of the
+Ilkhani and Ilbegi produces anything but a pacific prospect. These
+broils, and the prospects of fighting, are the subjects discussed at
+my tent door in the evenings.
+
+  [Illustration: A DASTGIRD TENT.]
+
+The Dastgird encampment that evening was the romance of camp life. On
+the velvety green grass there were four high black canopies, open at
+the front and sides, looking across the green flowery plain, on which
+the Ilkhani's castle stood out, a violet mass against the sunset gold,
+between the snow-streaked mountains. There were handsome carpets,
+mattresses, and bolsters; _samovars_ steaming on big brass trays, an
+abundance of curds, milk, and whey, and at one end of the largest tent
+there were two very fine mares, untethered, with young foals, and
+children rolling about among their feet. I was placed, as usual, on
+a bolster, and the tent filled with people, all shouting, and
+clamouring together, bringing rheumatism ("wind in the bones"), sore
+eyes, headaches ("wind in the head"), and old age to be cured. The
+Khan's wife, a handsome, pathetic-looking girl, had become an
+epileptic a fortnight ago. This malady is sadly common. Of the 278
+people who have come for medicines here thirteen per cent have had
+epileptic fits. They call them "faintings," and have no horror of
+them. Eye diseases, including such severe forms as cataract and
+glaucoma, rheumatism, headaches, and dyspepsia are their most severe
+ailments. No people have been seen with chest complaints, bone
+diseases, or cancer.
+
+In the largest tent there was a young mother with an infant less than
+twenty-four hours old, and already its eyebrows, or at all events the
+place where eyebrows will be, were deeply stained and curved. At seven
+or eight years old girls are tattooed on hands, arms, neck, and chest,
+and the face is decorated with stars on the forehead and chin.
+
+Though children of both sexes are dearly loved among these people, it
+is only at the birth of a son that there is anything like festivity,
+and most of the people are too poor to do more even then than
+distribute sweetmeats among their friends and relations. The
+"wealthier" families celebrate the birth of a firstborn son with
+music, feasting, and dancing.
+
+At the age of five or six days the child is named, by whispering the
+Divine name in its ear, along with that chosen by the parents.
+
+After a long visit the people all kissed my hand, raising it to their
+foreheads afterwards, and the Khan made a mounting block of his back,
+and rode with me to the main path. It was all savage, but the
+intention was throughout courteous, according to their notions. It
+became pitch dark, and I lost my way, and should have pulled _Screw_
+over a precipice but for his sagacious self-will. One of the finest
+sights I have seen was my own camp in a thunderstorm, with its white
+tents revealed by a flash of lightning, which lighted for a second the
+black darkness of the ravine.
+
+The next morning the Khan of Dastgird's servants brought fifteen
+bottles and pipkins for eye-lotions and medicines. In spite of the
+directions in Persian which Mirza put upon the bottles, I doubt not
+that some of the eye-lotions will be swallowed, and that some of the
+medicines will be put into the eyes!
+
+_June 8._--The last evening has come after a busy day. The
+difficulties in the way of getting ready for the start to-morrow have
+been great. The iron socket of my tent-pole broke, there was no smith
+in the valley, and when one arrived with the Ilkhani, the Ilkhani's
+direct order had to be obtained before he would finish the work he had
+undertaken. I supplied the iron, but then there was no charcoal. I
+have been tentless for the whole day. Provisions for forty days have
+to be taken from Chigakhor, and two cwts. of rice and flour have been
+promised over and over again, but have only partially arrived
+to-night. Hassan has bought a horse and a cow, and they have both
+strayed, and he has gone in search of them, and Mirza in search of
+him, and both have been away for hours.
+
+Of the escorts promised by the Ilkhani not one man has arrived, though
+it was considered that the letter to him given me by the
+Amin-es-Sultan would have obviated any difficulty on this score. An
+armed sentry was to have slept in front of my tent, and a _tufangchi_
+was to have been my constant attendant, and I have nobody. Of the
+escort promised to the Agha not one man has appeared. In this case we
+are left to do what General Schindler and others in Tihran and
+Isfahan declared to be impossible, viz. to get through the country
+without an escort and without the moral support of a retainer high in
+the Ilkhani's service. Whether there have been crooked dealings; or
+whether the Ilkhani, in spite of his promises, regards the presence of
+travellers in his country with disfavour; or whether, apprehending a
+collision, both the Ilkhani and Ilbegi are unwilling to part with any
+of their horsemen, it is impossible to decide.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I
+
+
+
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan,
+Volume I (of 2), by Isabella L. Bird
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I
+(of 2), by Isabella L. Bird
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I (of 2)
+       Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit
+              to the Nestorian Rayahs
+
+Author: Isabella L. Bird
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2012 [EBook #38827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNEYS IN PERSIA, KURDISTAN, VOL I ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tnbox">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p>
+<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original
+document have been preserved.</p>
+
+<p>This text includes vowels with macrons ("long" mark):
+&#257;, &#275;, &#299;, &#333;, and &#363; which require a
+Unicode (UTF-8) file encoding.
+If any of these characters do not display properly,
+you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts.
+First, make sure that the browser's "character set" or
+"file encoding" is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need
+to change your browser's default font.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1 class="p6">JOURNEYS<br />
+IN<br />
+PERSIA AND KURDISTAN<br />
+</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter p6"><a name="fp" id="fp"></a>
+<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="470" height="651" alt="MRS. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. BIRD)" title="" />
+<p class="caption">MRS. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. BIRD).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p6">
+<span class="b20">JOURNEYS</span><br /><br />
+IN<br /><br />
+<span class="b20">PERSIA AND KURDISTAN</span></p>
+
+<p class="center p2">INCLUDING A SUMMER IN THE UPPER KARUN<br />
+REGION AND A VISIT TO THE<br />
+NESTORIAN RAYAHS</p>
+
+<p class="center p4"><span class="b13"><span class="smcap">By</span> MRS. BISHOP</span><br />
+(ISABELLA L. BIRD)</p>
+<p class="center s07">HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY<br />
+AUTHOR OF 'SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS'<br />
+'UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN,' ETC.</p>
+
+<p class="center p4">IN TWO VOLUMES&mdash;VOL. I.</p>
+
+<p class="center p4 s07">WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
+
+<p class="center p4">LONDON<br />
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET<br />
+1891</p>
+
+<p class="center p6">
+TO<br />
+The Untravelled Many,<br />
+THESE VOLUMES<br />
+ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED</p>
+
+<p class="center p6">WORKS BY MRS. BISHOP.</p>
+<hr />
+
+<p class="s09">
+"Miss Bird's fascinating and instructive work on Japan fully maintains
+her well-earned reputation as a traveller of the first order, and a graphic
+and picturesque writer. Miss Bird is a born traveller, fearless, enthusiastic,
+patient, instructed, knowing as well what as how to describe. No peril
+daunts her, no prospect of fatigue or discomfort disheartens or repels
+her."&mdash;<i>Quarterly Review.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">I. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN, Including Visits to the<br />
+Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko and Is&eacute;.<br />
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.<br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">II. A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.<br />
+
+With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="center">III. THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO: Six Months Among<br />
+the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands.<br />
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="center">IV. THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE AND THE WAY THITHER.<br />
+
+With Map and Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 14s.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.</p>
+
+<p class="center b15 p6">PREFACE</p>
+
+<p class="p2">The letters of which these volumes are composed embrace
+the second half of journeys in the East extending over
+a period of two years.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> They attempt to be a faithful
+record of facts and impressions, but were necessarily
+written in haste at the conclusion of fatiguing marches,
+and often in circumstances of great discomfort and difficulty,
+and I relied for their correction in the event of
+publication on notes made with much care. Unfortunately
+I was robbed of nearly the whole of these, partly
+on my last journey in Persia and partly on the Turkish
+frontier,&mdash;a serious loss, which must be my apology to the
+reader for errors which, without this misfortune, would
+not have occurred.</p>
+
+<p>The bibliography of Persia is a very extensive one,
+and it may well be that I have little that is new to
+communicate, except on a part of Luristan previously
+untraversed by Europeans; but each traveller receives
+a different impression from those made upon his predecessors,
+and I hope that my book may be accepted as
+an honest attempt to make a popular contribution to the
+sum of knowledge of a country and people with which
+we are likely to be brought into closer relations.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As these volumes are simply travels in Persia and
+Eastern Asia Minor, and are <i>not a book on either country</i>,
+the references to such subjects as were not within the
+sphere of my observation are brief and incidental. The
+administration of government, the religious and legal
+systems, the tenure of land, and the mode of taxation
+are dismissed in a few lines, and social customs are only
+described when I came in contact with them. The
+Ilyats, or nomadic tribes, form a very remarkable element
+of the population of Persia, but I have only noticed two
+of their divisions&mdash;the Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs. The
+antiquities of Persia are also passed over with hardly a
+remark, as well as many other subjects, which have been
+"threshed out" by previous writers with more or less of
+accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>I make these omissions with all the more satisfaction,
+because most that is "knowable" concerning Persia will
+be accessible on the publication of a work now in the
+Press, <i>Persia and the Persian Question</i>, by the Hon. George
+N. Curzon, M.P., who has not only travelled extensively
+in the country, but has bestowed such enormous labour
+and research upon it, and has had such exceptional
+opportunities of acquiring the latest and best official
+information, that his volumes may fairly be described as
+"exhaustive."</p>
+
+<p>It is always a pleasant duty to acknowledge kindness,
+and I am deeply grateful to several friends for the help
+which they have given me in many ways, and for the
+trouble which some of them have taken to recover facts
+which were lost with my notes, as well as for the careful
+revision of a portion of my letters in MS. I am indebted
+to the Indian authorities for the materials for a sketch
+map, for photographs from which many of the illustrations
+are taken, and for the use of a valuable geographical
+report, and to Mr. Thistleton Dyer, Director of the Royal
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span>
+Botanic Gardens at Kew, for the identification of a few
+of my botanical specimens.</p>
+
+<p>In justice to the many kind friends who received me
+into their homes, I am anxious to disclaim having either
+echoed or divulged their views on Persian or Turkish
+subjects, and to claim and accept the fullest responsibility
+for the opinions expressed in these pages, which, whether
+right or wrong, are wholly my own. It is from those
+who know Persia and Kurdistan the best that I am sure
+of receiving the most kindly allowance wherever, in spite
+of an honest desire to be accurate, I have fallen into
+mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>The retention, not only of the form, but of the reality
+of diary letters, is not altogether satisfactory either to
+author or reader, for the author sacrifices the literary
+and artistic arrangement of his materials, and however
+ruthlessly omissions are made, the reader is apt to find
+himself involved in a multiplicity of minor details, treated
+in a fashion which he is inclined to term "slipshod," and
+to resent the egotism which persistently clings to familiar
+correspondence. Still, even with all the disadvantages of
+this form of narrative, I think that letters are the best
+mode of placing the reader in the position of the traveller,
+and of enabling him to share, not only first impressions
+in their original vividness, and the interests and enjoyments
+of travelling, but the hardships, difficulties, and
+tedium which are their frequent accompaniments!</p>
+
+<p>For the lack of vivacity which, to my thinking, pervades
+the following letters, I ask the reader's indulgence.
+They were originally written, and have since been edited,
+under the heavy and abiding shadow, not only of the loss
+of the beloved and only sister who was the inspiration
+of my former books of travel, and to whose completely
+sympathetic interest they owed whatever of brightness
+they possessed, but of my beloved husband, whose able
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span>
+and careful revision accompanied my last volume through
+the Press.</p>
+
+<p>Believing that these letters faithfully reflect what I
+saw of the regions of which they treat, I venture to
+ask for them the same kindly and lenient criticism with
+which my travels in the Far East and elsewhere were
+received in bygone years, and to express the hope that
+they may help to lead towards that goal to which all
+increase of knowledge of races and beliefs tends&mdash;a truer
+and kindlier recognition of the brotherhood of man, as
+seen in the light of the Fatherhood of God.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+ISABELLA L. BISHOP.<br />
+<i>November 12, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center b15 p6">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</p>
+<p class="center b12">IN VOLUME I.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span></p>
+
+<table class="p2" summary="Table of Contents">
+<col width="300" />
+<col width="150" />
+<tr>
+<td>Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i><a href="#fp">Frontispiece</a></i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>A Gopher</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i>Page</i> <a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>A Turkish Frontier Fort</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i>To face page</i> <a href="#i078">78</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Lodgings for Travellers</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i082">82</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Persian Bread-making</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i159">159</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Shrine of Fatima</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i167">167</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>A Dervish</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i237">237</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Castle of Ardal</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i318">318</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Imam Kuli Khan</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i326">326</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The Karun at Dupulan</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i>To face page</i> <a href="#i351">351</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Ali Jan</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i362">362</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Armenian Women of Libasgun</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i366">366</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Wall and Gate of Libasgun</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i>To face page</i> <a href="#i368">368</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>A Perso-Bakhtiari Cradle</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#i372">372</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>A Dastgird Tent</td>
+<td class="tdr"><i>To face page</i> <a href="#i378">378</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="center p6 b15">GLOSSARY</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="glossary">
+<p class="p2"><i>Abambar</i>, a covered reservoir.</p>
+<p><i>Agha</i>, a master.</p>
+<p><i>Andarun</i>, women's quarters, a <i>haram</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Arak</i>, a coarse spirit.</p>
+<p><i>Badg&#299;r</i>, wind-tower.</p>
+<p><i>Badragah</i>, a parting escort.</p>
+<p><i>Balakhana</i>, an upper room.</p>
+<p><i>Bringals</i>, egg plants.</p>
+<p><i>Chapar</i>, post.</p>
+<p><i>Chapar Khana</i>, post-house.</p>
+<p><i>Chapi</i>, the Bakhtiari national dance.</p>
+<p><i>Charvadar</i>, a muleteer.</p>
+<p><i>Far&#257;sh</i>, <i>lit.</i> a carpet-spreader.</p>
+<p><i>Farsakh</i>, from three and a half to
+four miles.</p>
+<p><i>Gardan</i>, a pass.</p>
+<p><i>Gaz</i>, a sweetmeat made from manna.</p>
+<p><i>Gelims</i>, thin carpets, drugget.</p>
+<p><i>Gheva</i>, a summer shoe.</p>
+<p><i>Gholam</i>, an official messenger or
+attendant.</p>
+<p><i>H&#257;kim</i>, a governor.</p>
+<p><i>Hak&#299;m</i>, a physician.</p>
+<p><i>Hammam</i>, a Turkish or hot bath.</p>
+<p><i>Ilyats</i>, the nomadic tribes of Persia.</p>
+<p><i>Imam</i>, a saint, a religious teacher.</p>
+<p><i>Imamzada</i>, a saint's shrine.</p>
+<p><i>Istikbal</i>, a procession of welcome.</p>
+<p><i>Jul</i>, a horse's outer blanket.</p>
+<p><i>Kabob</i>, pieces of skewered meat
+seasoned and toasted.</p>
+<p><i>Kafir</i>, an infidel, a Christian.</p>
+<p><i>Kah</i>, chopped straw.</p>
+<p><i>Kajawehs</i>, horse-panniers.</p>
+<p><i>Kalian</i>, a "hubble-bubble" or water-pipe
+for tobacco.</p>
+<p><i>Kamarband</i>, a girdle.</p>
+<p><i>Kanaat</i>, an underground water-channel.</p>
+<p><i>Kanat</i>, the upright side of a tent.</p>
+<p><i>Karsi</i>, a wooden frame for covering a
+fire-hole.</p>
+<p><i>Katirgi</i> (Turkish), a muleteer.</p>
+<p><i>Ketchuda</i>, a headman of a village.</p>
+<p><i>Khan</i>, lord or prince; a designation
+as common as esquire.</p>
+<p><i>Khan</i> (Turkish), an inn.</p>
+<p><i>Khanjar</i>, a curved dagger.</p>
+<p><i>Khanji</i> (Turkish), the keeper of a
+<i>khan</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Khanum</i>, a lady of rank.</p>
+<p><i>Khurjins</i>, saddle bags.</p>
+<p><i>Kizik</i>, a slab of animal fuel.</p>
+<p><i>Kotal</i>, <i>lit.</i> a ladder, a pass.</p>
+<p><i>Kourbana</i> (Syriac), the Holy Communion.</p>
+<p><i>Kran</i>, eightpence.</p>
+<p><i>Kuh</i>, mountain.</p>
+<p><i>Lira</i> (Turkish), about &pound;1.</p>
+<p><i>Malek</i> (Syriac, <i>lit.</i> king), a chief or
+headman.</p>
+<p><i>Mamachi</i>, midwife.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">xiv</a></span></p>
+<p><i>Mangel</i>, a brazier.</p>
+<p><i>Mast</i>, curdled milk.</p>
+<p><i>Medresseh</i>, a college.</p>
+<p><i>Mirza</i>, a scribe, secretary, or gentleman.
+An educated man.</p>
+<p><i>Modakel</i>, illicit percentage.</p>
+<p><i>Mollah</i>, a religious teacher.</p>
+<p><i>Munshi</i>, a clerk, a teacher of languages.</p>
+<p><i>Namad</i>, felt.</p>
+<p><i>Nasr</i>, steward.</p>
+<p><i>Odah</i> (Turkish), a room occupied by
+human beings and animals.</p>
+<p><i>Piastre</i>, a Turkish coin worth two-pence-halfpenny.</p>
+<p><i>Pirahan</i>, a chemise or shirt.</p>
+<p><i>Pish-kash</i>, a nominal present.</p>
+<p><i>Qasha</i> (Syriac), a priest.</p>
+<p><i>Rayahs</i>, subject Syrians.</p>
+<p><i>Roghan</i>, clarified butter.</p>
+<p><i>Samovar</i>, a Russian tea-urn.</p>
+<p><i>Sartip</i>, a general.</p>
+<p><i>Seraidar</i>, the keeper of a caravanserai.</p>
+<p><i>Sharbat</i>, a fruit syrup.</p>
+<p><i>Shroff</i>, a money-changer.</p>
+<p><i>Shuldari</i> (<i>Shooldarry</i>), a small tent
+with two poles and a ridge pole,
+but without <i>kanats</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Shulwars</i>, wide trousers.</p>
+<p><i>Sowar</i>, a horseman, a horse soldier.</p>
+<p><i>Takch&#257;h</i>, a recess in a wall.</p>
+<p><i>Taktrawan</i>, a mule litter.</p>
+<p><i>Tand&#363;r</i>, an oven in a floor.</p>
+<p><i>Tang</i>, a rift or defile.</p>
+<p><i>Tufangchi</i>, a foot soldier, an armed
+footman.</p>
+<p><i>Tuman</i>, seven shillings and sixpence.</p>
+<p><i>Vakil</i>, an authorised representative.</p>
+<p><i>Vakil-u-Dowleh</i>, agent of Government.</p>
+<p><i>Yabu</i>, a pony or inferior horse.</p>
+<p><i>Yailaks</i>, summer quarters.</p>
+<p><i>Yekdan</i>, a mule or camel trunk, made
+of leather.</p>
+<p><i>Yohoort</i> (Turkish), curdled milk.</p>
+<p><i>Zaptieh</i> (Turkish), a <i>gendarme</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER I</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Basrah, Asiatic Turkey</span>, <i>Jan. 1, 1890</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>shamal</i> or N.W. wind following on the sirocco which
+had accompanied us up "the Gulf" was lashing the shallow
+waters of the roadstead into reddish yeast as we let go
+the anchor opposite the sea front of Bushire, the most
+important seaport in Persia. <i>The</i> Persian man-of-war
+<i>Persepolis</i>, officered by Germans, H.M. ship <i>Sphinx</i>, two big
+steamers owned in London, a British-built three-masted
+clipper, owned and navigated by Arabs, and a few Arab
+native vessels tugged at their anchors between two and
+three miles from the shore. Native <i>buggalows</i> clustered
+and bumped round the trading vessels, hanging on with
+difficulty, or thumped and smashed through the short
+waves, close on the wind, easily handled and sailing
+magnificently, while the Residency steam-launch, puffing
+and toiling, was scarcely holding her own against a heavy
+head sea.</p>
+
+<p>Bushire, though it has a number of two-storied
+houses and a population of 15,000, has a most insignificant
+appearance, and lies so low that from the <i>Assyria's</i>
+deck it gave the impression of being below the sea-level.
+The <i>shamal</i> was raising a sand storm in the desert beyond;
+the sand was drifting over it in yellow clouds, the mountains
+which at a greater or less distance give a wild
+sublimity to the eastern shores of the Gulf were blotted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span>
+out, and a blurred and windy shore harmonised with a
+blurred and windy sea.</p>
+
+<p>The steam-launch, which after several baffled attempts
+succeeded in reaching the steamer's side, brought letters
+of welcome from Colonel Ross, who for eighteen years has
+filled the office of British Resident in the Persian Gulf
+with so much ability, judgment, and tact as to have earned
+the respect and cordial esteem of Persians, Arabs, the
+mixed races, and Europeans alike. Of his kindness and
+hospitality there is no occasion to write, for every stranger
+who visits the Gulf has large experience of both.</p>
+
+<p>The little launch, though going shorewards with the
+wind, was tossed about like a cork, shipping deluges of
+spray, and it was so cold and generally tumultuous, that
+it was a relief to exchange the shallow, wind-lashed
+waters of the roadstead for the shelter of a projecting
+sea-wall below the governor's house. A curricle, with
+two fiery little Arab horses, took us over the low windy
+stretch of road which lies behind Bushire, through a part
+of the town and round again to the sea-shore, on which
+long yellow surges were breaking thunderously in drifts
+of creamy foam. The Residency, a large Persian house,
+with that sort of semi-fortified look which the larger
+Eastern houses are apt to have, is built round courtyards,
+and has a fine entrance, which was lined with well-set-up
+men of a Bombay marine battalion. As is usual
+in Persia and Turkey, the reception rooms, living rooms,
+and guest rooms are upstairs, opening on balconies, the
+lower part being occupied by the servants and as domestic
+offices. Good fires were a welcome adjunct to the genial
+hospitality of Colonel Ross and his family, for the mercury,
+which for the previous week had ranged from 84&deg;
+to 93&deg;, since the sunrise of that day had dropped to 45&deg;,
+and the cold, damp wind suggested an English February.
+Even the Residency, thick as its walls are, was invaded
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span>
+by sea sand, and penetrated by the howlings and shriekings
+of the <i>shamal</i> and the low hiss at intervals of wind-blown
+spray.</p>
+
+<p>This miserable roadstead does a large trade,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> though
+every bale and chest destined for the cities of the interior
+must be packed on mules' backs for carriage over the
+horrible and perilous <i>kotals</i> or rock ladders of the intervening
+mountain ranges. The chief caravan route in
+Persia starts from Bushire <i>vi&acirc;</i> Shiraz, Isfahan, Kashan,
+and K&ucirc;m, to Tihran. A loaded mule takes from thirty
+to thirty-five days to Isfahan, and from Isfahan to
+Tihran from twelve to sixteen days, according to the
+state of the roads.</p>
+
+<p>Bushire does not differ in appearance from an ordinary
+eastern town. Irregular and uncleanly alleys, dead
+mud walls, with here and there a low doorway, bazars
+in which the requirements of caravans are largely considered,
+and in which most of the manufactured goods
+are English, a great variety in male attire, some small
+mosques, a marked predominance of the Arab physiognomy
+and costume, and ceaseless strings of asses bringing skins
+of water from wells a mile from the town, are my impressions
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span>
+of the first Persian city that I have ever seen. The
+Persian element, however, except in officialism and the
+style of building, is not strong, the population being
+chiefly composed of "Gulf Arabs." There are nearly
+fifty European residents, including the telegraph staff
+and the representatives of firms doing a very large business
+with England, the Persian Gulf Trading Company,
+Messrs. Hotz and Company, Messrs. Gray, Paul, and
+Company, and the British India Steam Navigation Company,
+which has enormously developed the trade of the
+Gulf.</p>
+
+<p>Bushire is the great starting-point of travellers from
+India who desire "to go home through Persia" by Shiraz
+and Persepolis. <i>Charvadars</i> (muleteers) and the necessary
+outfit are obtainable, but even the kindness of the
+Resident fails to overcome the standing difficulty of
+obtaining a Persian servant who is both capable and
+trustworthy. Having been forewarned by him not to
+trust to Bushire for this indispensable article, I had
+brought from India a Persian of good antecedents and
+character, who, desiring to return to his own country, was
+willing to act as my interpreter, courier, and sole attendant.
+Grave doubts of his ability to act in the two
+latter capacities occurred to me before I left Karachi,
+grew graver on the voyage, and were quite confirmed as
+we tossed about in the Residency launch, where the
+"young Persian gentleman," as he styled himself, sat
+bolt upright with a despairing countenance, dressed in a
+tall hat, a beautifully made European suit, faultless tan
+boots, and snowy collar and cuffs, a man of truly refined
+feeling and manners, but hopelessly out of place. I
+pictured him helpless among the <i>d&eacute;shabill&eacute;</i> and roughnesses
+of a camp, and anticipated my insurmountable reluctance
+to ask of him menial service, and was glad to find that
+the same doubts had occurred to himself.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I lost no time in interviewing Hadji,&mdash;a Gulf Arab,
+who has served various travellers, has been ten times to
+Mecca, went to Windsor with the horses presented to the
+Queen by the Sultan of Muscat, speaks more or less of
+six languages, knows English fairly, has some recommendations,
+and professes that he is "up to" all the
+requirements of camp life. The next morning I engaged
+him as "man of all work," and though a big, wild-looking
+Arab in a rough <i>abba</i> and a big turban, with a long
+knife and a revolver in his girdle, scarcely looks like a
+lady's servant, I hope he may suit me, though with these
+antecedents he is more likely to be a scamp than a
+treasure.</p>
+
+<p>The continuance of the <i>shamal</i> prevented the steamer
+from unloading in the exposed roadstead, and knocked
+the launch about as we rejoined her. We called at
+the telegraph station at Fao, and brought off Dr. Bruce,
+the head of the Church Missionary Society's Mission at
+Julfa, whose long and intimate acquaintance with the
+country and people will make him a great acquisition on
+the Tigris.</p>
+
+<p>"About sixty miles above the bar outside the Shat-el-Arab"
+(the united Tigris and Euphrates), "forty miles
+above the entrance to that estuary at Fao, and twenty
+miles below the Turkish port of Basrah, the present
+main exit of the Karun river flows into the Shat-el-Arab
+from the north-east by an artificial channel, whose
+etymology testifies to its origin, the Haffar" (dug-out)
+"canal. When this canal was cut, no one knows....
+Where it flows into the Shat-el-Arab it is about a
+quarter of a mile in width, with a depth of from twenty
+to thirty feet.</p>
+
+<p>"The town of Mohammerah is situated a little more
+than a mile up the canal on its right bank, and is a
+filthy place, with about 2000 inhabitants, and consists
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
+mainly of mud huts and hovels, backed by a superb
+fringe of date palms."<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In the rose flush of a winter
+morning we steamed slowly past this diplomatically
+famous confluence of the Haffar and Shat-el-Arab, at
+the angle of which the Persians have lately built a
+quay, a governor's house, and a large warehouse, in
+expectation of a trade which shows few signs of development.</p>
+
+<p>A winter morning it was indeed, splendid and invigorating
+after the ferocious heat of the Gulf. To-day
+there has been frost!</p>
+
+<p>The Shat-el-Arab is a noble river or estuary. From
+both its Persian and Turkish shores, however, mountains
+have disappeared, and dark forests of date palms intersected
+by canals fringe its margin heavily, and extend
+to some distance inland. The tide is strong, and such
+native boats as <i>belems</i>, <i>buggalows</i>, and dug-outs, loaded
+with natives and goods, add a cheerful element of busy
+life.</p>
+
+<p>We anchored near Basrah, below the foreign settlement,
+and had the ignominy of being placed for twenty-four
+hours in quarantine, flying the degrading yellow
+flag. Basrah has just been grievously ravaged by the
+cholera, which has not only carried off three hundred of
+the native population daily for some time, but the British
+Vice-Consul and his children. Cholera still exists in
+Turkey while it is extinct in Bombay, and the imposition
+of quarantine on a ship with a "clean bill of health"
+seems devised for no other purpose than to extract fees,
+to annoy, and to produce a harassing impression of
+Turkish officialism.</p>
+
+<p>After this detention we steamed up to the anchorage,
+which is in front of a few large bungalows which lie
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
+between the belt of palms and the river, and form the
+European settlement of Margil. A fever-haunted swamp,
+with no outlet but the river; canals exposing at low
+water deep, impassable, and malodorous slime separating
+the bungalows; a climate which is damp, hot, malarious,
+and prostrating except for a few weeks in winter, and a
+total absence of all the resources and amenities of civilisation,
+make Basrah one of the least desirable places to
+which Europeans are exiled by the exigencies of commerce.
+It is scarcely necessary to say that the few
+residents exercise unbounded hospitality, which is the
+most grateful memory which the stranger retains of the
+brief halt by the "River of Arabia."</p>
+
+<p>This is the dead season in the "city of dates." An
+unused river steamer, a large English trader, two Turkish
+ships-of-war painted white, the <i>Mejidieh</i>, one of two
+English-owned steamers which are allowed to ply on the
+Tigris, and the <i>Assyria</i> of the B.I.S.N. Co., constitute the
+fleet at anchor. As at Bushire, all cargo must be loaded and
+unloaded by boats, and crowds of native craft hanging
+on to the trading vessels give a little but not much
+vivacity.</p>
+
+<p>October, after the ingathering of the date harvest, is
+the busiest month here. The magnitude of the date
+industry may be gathered from the fact that in 1890,
+60,000 tons of dates were exported from Basrah, 20,000
+in boxes, and the remainder in palm-leaf mats, one
+vessel taking 1800 tons. The quantity of wood imported
+for the boxes was 7000 tons in cut lengths, with iron
+hooping, nails, and oiled paper for inside wrapping,
+brought chiefly from England.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred trees can be grown on an acre of ground.
+The mature tree gives a profit of 4s., making the profit
+on an acre &pound;20 annually. The Governor of Mohammerah
+has lately planted 30,000 trees, and date palms to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+the number of 60,000 have been recently planted on
+Persian soil.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that there are 160 varieties of dates, but
+only a few are known to commerce. These great sombre
+date forests or "date gardens," which no sunshine can
+enliven, are of course artificial, and depend upon
+irrigation. The palms are propagated by means of
+suckers taken from the female date. The young trees
+begin to bear when they are about five years old, reach
+maturity at nine, and may be prolific for two centuries.
+Mohammed said wisely, "Honour the palm, it is your
+paternal aunt." One soon learns here that it not only
+provides the people with nutritious food, but with building
+materials, as well as with fuel, carpets, ropes, and
+mats. But it is the least beautiful of the palms, and
+the dark monotonous masses along the river contrast
+with my memories of the graceful coco palm fringing the
+coral islands of the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>I left the <i>Assyria</i> with regret. The captain and
+officers had done all that intelligence and kindness could
+do to make the voyage an agreeable one, and were
+altogether successful. On shore a hospitable reception,
+a good fire, and New Year's Day come together appropriately.
+The sky is clear and cloudless, and the air
+keen. The bungalows belonging to the European firms
+are dwelling-houses above and offices below, and are
+surrounded by packing-yards and sheds for goods. In
+line with them are the Consulates.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient commercial glories of Basrah are too well
+known to need recapitulation. Circumstances are doing
+much to give it something of renewed importance. The
+modern Basrah, a town which has risen from a state of
+decay till it has an estimated population of 25,000, is
+on the right bank of the river, at some distance up a
+picturesque palm-fringed canal. Founded by Omar soon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span>
+after the death of Mohammed, and tossed like a shuttlecock
+between Turk and Persian, it is now definitely Turkish,
+and the great southern outlet of Chald&aelig;a and Mesopotamia,
+as well as the port at which the goods passing to
+and from Baghdad "break bulk." A population more
+thoroughly polyglot could scarcely be found, Turks, Arabs,
+Sabeans, Syrians, Greeks, Hindus, Armenians, Frenchmen,
+Wahabees, Britons, Jews, Persians, Italians, and Africans,
+and there are even more creeds than races.</p>
+
+<p><i>S.S. Mejidieh, River Tigris, Jan. 4.</i>&mdash;Leaving Basrah
+at 4 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> on Tuesday we have been stemming the strong
+flood of the Tigris for three bright winter days, in which
+to sit by a red-hot stove and sleep under a pile of
+blankets have been real luxuries after the torrid heat of
+the "Gulf." The party on board consists of Dr. Bruce,
+Mr. Hammond, who has been for some months pushing
+British trade at Shuster, the Assistant Quartermaster-General
+for India, a French-speaking Jewish merchant,
+the Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., and Mr. Swabadi, a Hungarian
+gentleman in the employment of the Tigris and Euphrates
+Steam Navigation Company, a very scholarly man, who in
+the course of a long residence in Southern Turkey has
+acquainted himself intimately with the country and its
+peoples, and is ever ready to place his own stores of
+information at our disposal. Mr. Curzon has been
+"prospecting" the Karun river, and came on board from
+the <i>Shushan</i>, a small stern-wheel steamer with a carrying
+capacity of 30 tons, a draught when empty of 18 inches,
+and when laden of from 24 to 36. She belongs to the
+Messrs. Lynch Brothers, of the Tigris and Euphrates
+S.N. Co. They run her once a fortnight at a considerable
+loss between Mohammerah and Ahwaz. Her isolated
+position and diminutive size are a curious commentary
+on the flourish of trumpets and <i>blether</i> of exultation with
+which the English newspapers announced the very poor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
+concession of leave to run steamers on the Karun between
+the Shat-el-Arab and Ahwaz.</p>
+
+<p>[Since this letter was written, things have taken rather
+a singular turn, and the development of trade on the
+Karun has partly fallen into the hands of a trading corporation
+of Persians, the <i>Nasiri</i> Company. By them, and
+under their representative partner, Haja Mahomad, a man
+of great energy, the formidable rapids at Ahwaz are being
+circumvented by the construction of a tramway 2400
+yards long, which is proceeding steadily. A merchants'
+caravanserai has already been built on the river bank
+at the lower landing-place and commencement of the
+tramway, and a bakery, butchery, and carpentry, along
+with a <i>caf&eacute;</i> and a grocery and general goods stores, have
+already been opened by men brought to Ahwaz by
+H. Mahomad.</p>
+
+<p>A river face wall, where native craft are to lie, is
+being constructed of hewn stone blocks and sections of
+circular pillars, remains of the ancient city.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Nasiri</i> Company has a small steamer, the <i>Nasiri</i>,
+plying on the lower Karun, chiefly as a tug, taking up
+two Arab boats of twenty-seven tons each, lashed
+alongside of her. On her transference at the spring
+floods of this year to the river above Ahwaz, the <i>Karun</i>,
+a steam launch of about sixty tons, belonging to the
+Governor of Mohammerah, takes her place below, and
+a second steamer belonging to the same company is
+now running on the lower stream. Poles from
+Zanzibar have been distributed for a telegraph line
+from Mohammerah to Ahwaz. The Messrs. Lynch
+have placed a fine river steamer of 300 tons on the
+route; but this enterprising firm, and English capitalists
+generally, are being partially "cut out" by the singular
+"go" of this Persian company, which not only appears to
+have strong support from Government quarters, but has
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
+gained the co-operation of the well-known and wealthy
+Sheikh Mizal, whose personal influence in Arabistan is
+very great, and who has hitherto been an obstacle to the
+opening of trade on the Karun.</p>
+
+<p>A great change for the better has taken place in the
+circumstances of the population, and villages, attracted by
+trade, are springing up, which the <i>Nasiri</i> Company is
+doing its best to encourage. The land-tax is very light,
+and the cultivators are receiving every encouragement.
+Much wheat was exported last year, and there is a brisk
+demand for river lands on leases of sixty years for the
+cultivation of cotton, cereals, sugar-cane, and date palms.</p>
+
+<p>Persian soldiers all have their donkeys, and at Ahwaz
+a brisk and amusing competition is going on between the
+soldiers of a fine regiment stationed there and the Arabs
+for the transport of goods past the rapids, and for the
+conveyance of tramway and building materials. This
+competition is enabling goods to pass the rapids cheaply
+and expeditiously.</p>
+
+<p>One interesting feature connected with these works is
+the rapidly increased well-being of the Arabs. In less
+than a year labour at 1 <i>kran</i> (8d.) a day has put quite a
+number of them in possession of a pair of donkeys and
+a plough, and seed-corn wherewith to cultivate Government
+lands on their own account, besides leaving a small
+balance in hand on which to live without having to
+borrow on the coming crop at frightfully usurious rates.</p>
+
+<p>Until now the sheikhs have been able to command
+labour for little more than the poorest food; and now
+many of the very poor who depended on them have started
+as small farmers, and things are rapidly changing.</p>
+
+<p>The careful observer, from whose report on Persia to
+the Foreign Office, No. 207, I have transferred the foregoing
+facts, wrote in January 1891: "It was a sight to
+see the whole Arab population on the river banks hard
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
+at work taking advantage of the copious rain which
+had just fallen; every available animal fit for draught
+was yoked to the plough&mdash;horses, mules, bullocks, and
+donkeys, and even mares, with their foals following them
+up the furrows."</p>
+
+<p>This, which is practically a Persian opening of the
+trade of the Karun, is not what was expected, however
+much it was to be desired. After a journey of nine
+months through Persia, I am strongly of opinion that if
+the Empire is to have a solid and permanent resurrection,
+it must be through the enterprise of Persians, aided it
+may be by foreign skill and capital, though the less of
+the latter that is employed the more hopefully I should
+regard the Persian future. The <i>Nasiri</i> Company and the
+Messrs. Lynch may possibly unite, and the New Road
+Company may join with them in making a regular transport
+service by river and road to Tihran, by which
+England may pour her manufactured goods even into
+Northern Persia, as this route would compete successfully
+both with the Baghdad and Trebizond routes.</p>
+
+<p>Already, owing to the improved circumstances of the
+people, the import of English and Indian cotton goods
+and of sugar has increased; the latter, which is French,
+from its low price, only 2&frac12;d. a pound in the Gulf, pushing
+its way as far north as Sultanabad. Unfortunately the
+shadow of Russia hangs over the future of Persia.]</p>
+
+<p>At present two English and four Turkish boats run
+on the Tigris. They are necessarily of light draught, as
+the river is shallow at certain seasons and is full of
+shifting sand-banks. The <i>Mejidieh</i> is a comfortable boat,
+with a superabundance of excellent food. Her saloon,
+state-rooms, and engines are on the main deck, which is
+open fore and aft, and has above it a fine hurricane deck,
+on the fore part of which the deck passengers, a motley
+crowd, encamp. She is fully loaded with British goods.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first object of passing interest was Kornah,
+reputed among the Arabs to be the site of the Garden of
+Eden, a tongue of land at the junction of the Tigris and
+Euphrates. The "Garden of Eden" contains a village,
+and bright fires burned in front of the mat-and-mud
+houses. Women in red and white, and turbaned men in
+brown, flitted across the firelight; there was a mass of
+vegetation, chiefly palms with a number of native vessels
+moored to their stems, and a leaning minaret. A frosty
+moonlight glorified the broad, turbid waters, Kornah and
+the Euphrates were left in shadow, and we turned up the
+glittering waterway of the Tigris. The night was too
+keenly frosty for any dreams of Paradise, even in this
+classic Chald&aelig;a, and under a sky blazing down to the
+level horizon with the countless stars which were not to
+outnumber the children of "Faithful Abraham."</p>
+
+<p>Four hours after leaving Kornah we passed the
+reputed tomb of Ezra the prophet. At a distance and
+in the moonlight it looked handsome. There is a buttressed
+river wall, and above it some long flat-roofed
+buildings, the centre one surmounted by a tiled dome.
+The Tigris is so fierce and rapid, and swallows its alluvial
+banks so greedily, that it is probable that some of the
+buildings described by the Hebrew traveller Benjamin of
+Tudela as existing in the twelfth century were long since
+carried away. The tomb is held in great veneration not
+only by Jews and Moslems but also by Oriental Christians.
+It is a great place of Jewish pilgrimage, and is so
+venerated by the Arabs that it needs no guard.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hadji brought my breakfast, or as he called it, "the
+grub," the next morning, and I contemplated the Son of
+Abraham with some astonishment. He had discarded
+his turban and <i>abba</i>, and looked a regular uncivilised
+desert Ishmaelite, with knives and rosaries in his belt,
+and his head muffled in a <i>kiffiyeh</i>, a yellow silk shawl
+striped with red, with one point and tassels half a yard
+long hanging down his back, and fastened round his head
+by three coils of camel's-hair rope. A loose coat with a
+gay girdle, "breeks" of some kind, loose boots turned up
+at the toes and reaching to the knees, and a striped under-garment
+showing here and there, completed his costume.</p>
+
+<p>The view from the hurricane deck, though there are
+no striking varieties, is too novel to be monotonous. The
+level plains of Chald&aelig;a, only a few feet higher than the
+Tigris, stretch away to the distant horizon, unbroken
+until to-day, when low hills, white with the first snows
+of winter, are softly painted on a pure blue sky, very far
+away. The plains are buff and brown, with an occasional
+splash, near villages as buff and brown as the soil out of
+which they rise, of the dark-green of date gardens, or the
+vivid green of winter wheat. With the exception of these
+gardens, which are rarely seen, the vast expanse is unbroken
+by a tree. A few miserable shrubs there are,
+the <i>mimosa agrestis</i> or St. John's bread, and a scrubby
+tamarisk, while liquorice, wormwood, capers, and some
+alkaline plants which camels love, are recognisable even
+in their withered condition.</p>
+
+<p>There are a few villages of low mud hovels enclosed
+by square mud walls, and hamlets of mat huts, the mats
+being made of woven sedges and flags, strengthened by
+palm fronds, but oftener by the tall, tough stems of
+growing reeds bent into arches, and woven together by
+the long leaves of aquatic plants, chiefly rushes. The
+hovels, so ingeniously constructed, are shared indiscriminately
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
+by the Arabs and their animals, and crowds
+of women and children emerged from them as we passed.
+Each village has its arrangement for raising water from
+the river.</p>
+
+<p>Boats under sail, usually a fleet at a time, hurry downstream,
+owing more to the strong current than to the
+breeze, or are hauled up laboriously against both by their
+Arab crews.</p>
+
+<p>The more distant plain is sparsely sprinkled with
+clusters of brown tents, long and low, and is dotted over
+with flocks of large brown sheep, shepherded by Arabs in
+<i>kiffiyehs</i>, each shepherd armed with a long gun slung over
+his shoulder. Herds of cattle and strings of camels move
+slowly over the brown plain, and companies of men on
+horseback, with long guns and lances, gallop up to the
+river bank, throw their fiery horses on their haunches,
+and after a moment of gratified curiosity wheel round
+and gallop back to the desert from which they came.
+Occasionally a stretch of arable land is being ploughed
+up by small buffaloes with most primitive ploughs, but
+the plains are pastoral chiefly, tents and flocks are their
+chief features&mdash;features which have changed little since
+the great Sheikh Abraham, whose descendants now people
+them, left his "kindred" in the not distant Ur of the
+Chaldees, and started on the long march to Canaan.</p>
+
+<p>Reedy marshes, alive with water-fowl, arable lands,
+bare buff plains, brown tents, brown flocks, mat huts,
+mud and brick villages, groups of women and children,
+flights of armed horsemen, alternate rapidly,&mdash;the
+unchanging features are the posts and wires of the
+telegraph.</p>
+
+<p>The Tigris in parts is wonderfully tortuous, and at
+one great bend, "The Devil's Elbow," a man on foot can
+walk the distance in less than an hour which takes the
+steamer four hours to accomplish. The current is very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+strong, and the slow progress is rendered slower at this
+season of low water by the frequent occurrence of sand-banks,
+of which one is usually made aware by a jolt, a
+grinding sound, a cessation of motion, some turns astern,
+and then full speed ahead, which often overcomes the
+obstacle. Some hours' delay and the floats of one paddle-wheel
+injured were the most serious disasters brought
+about; and in spite of the shallows at this season, the
+Tigris is a noble river, and the voyage is truly fascinating.
+Not that there are many remarkable objects, but the
+desert atmosphere and the desert freedom are in themselves
+delightful, the dust and <i>d&eacute;bris</i> are the dust and
+<i>d&eacute;bris</i> of mighty empires, and there are countless
+associations with the earliest past of which we have any
+records.</p>
+
+<p>Aimarah, a rising Turkish town of about 7000 people,
+built at a point where the river turns at a sharp angle
+to the left, is interesting as showing what commerce can
+create even here, in less than twenty years. A caravan
+route into Persia was opened and Aimarah does a somewhat
+busy trade. Flat-faced brick buildings, with projecting
+lattice windows, run a good way along the left
+bank of the river, which is so steep and irregular that
+the crowd which thronged it when the steamer made
+fast was shown to great advantage&mdash;Osmanlis, Greeks,
+Persians, Sabeans, Jews of great height and superb
+<i>physique</i>, known by much-tasselled turbans, and a predominating
+Arab element.</p>
+
+<p>We walked down the long, broad, covered bazar,
+with a broken water channel in the middle, where there
+were crowds, solely of men, meat, game, bread, fruit,
+grain, lentils, horse-shoes, pack saddles, Manchester
+cottons, money-changers, silversmiths, and scribes, and
+heard the roar of business, and the thin shouts of boys
+unaccustomed to the sight of European women. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
+crowds pressed and followed, picking at my clothes, and
+singing snatches of songs which were not complimentary.
+It had not occurred to me that I was violating rigid
+custom in appearing in a hat and gauze veil rather than
+in a <i>chadar</i> and face cloth, but the mistake was made
+unpleasantly apparent. In Moslem towns women go
+about in companies and never walk with men.</p>
+
+<p>We visited an enclosed square, where there are
+barracks for <i>zaptiehs</i> (gendarmes), the Kadi's court, and
+the prison, which consists of an open grating like that
+of a menagerie, a covered space behind, and dark cells
+or dens opening upon it, all better than the hovels of
+the peasantry. There were a number of prisoners well
+clothed, and apparently well fed, to whom we were an
+obvious diversion, but the guards gesticulated, shouted,
+and brandished their side-arms, making us at last
+understand that our presence in front of the grating was
+forbidden. After seeing a large barrack yard, and
+walking, still pursued by a crowd, round the forlorn outskirts
+of Aimarah, which include a Sabean village, we
+visited the gold and silversmiths' shops where the Sabeans
+were working at their craft, of which in this region they
+have nearly a monopoly, not only settling temporarily
+in the towns, but visiting the Arab encampments on the
+plains, where they are always welcome as the makers and
+repairers of the ornaments with which the women are
+loaded. These craftsmen and others of the race whom
+I have seen differ greatly from the Arabs in appearance,
+being white rather than brown, very white, <i>i.e.</i> very pale,
+with jet-black hair; large, gentle, intelligent eyes; small,
+straight noses, and small, well-formed mouths. The
+handsome faces of these "Christians of St. John" are
+very pleasing in their expression, and there was a
+dainty cleanliness about their persons and white clothing
+significant of those frequent ablutions of both which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>
+are so remarkable a part of their religion. The children
+at Aimarah, and generally in the riparian villages, wear
+very handsome chased, convex silver links, each as large
+as the top of a breakfast cup, to fasten their girdles.</p>
+
+<p>The reedy marshes, the haunts of pelicans and pigs,
+are left behind at Aimarah, and tamarisk scrub and
+liquorice appear on the banks. At Kut-al-Aimarah, a
+small military post and an Arab town of sun-dried
+bricks on the verge of a high bank above the Tigris,
+we landed again, and ragamuffin boys pressed very
+much upon us, and ragamuffin <i>zaptiehs</i>,<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> grotesquely
+dressed in clothes of different European nationalities,
+pelted them with stones. To take up stones and throw
+them at unwelcome visitors is a frequent way of getting
+rid of them in the less civilised parts of the East.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>zaptieh</i> station, barracks, with a large and badly-kept
+parade ground, a covered bazar well supplied, houses
+with blank walls, large <i>caf&eacute;s</i> with broad matted benches,
+asaf&oelig;tida, crowds of men of superb <i>physique</i>, picturesque
+Arabs on high-bred horses, and a total invisibility of
+women, were the salient features of Kut-al-Aimarah.
+Big-masted, high-stemmed boats, the broad, turbid
+Tigris with a great expanse of yellowish sand on its
+farther shore, reeds "shaken with the wind," and a windy
+sky, heavily overcast, made up the view from the bank.
+There were seen for the first time by the new-comers
+the most venerable boats in the world, for they were old
+even when Herodotus mentions them&mdash;<i>kufas</i> or <i>gophers</i>,
+very deep round baskets covered with bitumen, with
+incurved tops, and worked by one man with a paddle.
+These remarkable tubs are used for the conveyance of
+passengers, goods, and even animals.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i019" id="i019"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-019.jpg" width="326" height="332" alt="A GOPHER" title="" />
+<p class="caption">A GOPHER.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Before leaving we visited the Arab Khan or Sheikh
+in his house. He received us in an upper room of
+difficult access, carpeted with very handsome rugs, and
+with a divan similarly covered, but the walls of brown
+mud were not even plastered. His manner was dignified
+and courteous, and his expression remarkably shrewd.
+A number of men sitting on the floor represented by
+their haughty aspect and magnificent <i>physique</i> the
+royalty of the Ishmaelite descent from Abraham. This
+Khan said that his tribe could put 3000 fighting men
+into the field, but it was obvious that its independence
+is broken, and that these tribal warriors are reckoned
+as Osmanli irregulars or Bashi Bazouks. The Khan
+remarked that "the English do not make good friends,
+for," he added, "they back out when difficulties arise."</p>
+
+<p>On board the steamer the condition of the Arabs is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
+much discussed, and the old residents describe it as
+steadily growing worse under the oppression and corruption
+of the Osmanli officials, who appear to be doing
+their best to efface these fine riparian tribes by merciless
+exactions coming upon the top of taxation so heavy
+as to render agriculture unprofitable, the impositions
+actually driving thousands of them to seek a living in
+the cities and to the Persian shores of the Gulf, where
+they exchange a life of hereditary freedom for a precarious
+and often scanty subsistence among unpropitious
+surroundings. Still, the Arab of the desert is not conquered
+by the Turks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER I (<i>Continued</i>)</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Baghdad</span>, <i>Jan. 5</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The last day on the Tigris passed as pleasantly as its
+predecessors. There was rain in the early morning,
+then frost which froze the rain on deck, and at 7 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>
+the mercury in my cabin stood at 28&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon the country became more populous,
+that is, there were <i>kraals</i> of mat huts at frequent
+intervals, and groups of tents to which an external wall
+of mats gave a certain aspect of permanence. Increased
+cultivation accompanied the increased population. In
+some places the ground was being scratched with a
+primitive plough of unshod wood, or a branch of a tree
+slightly trimmed, leaving a scar about two inches deep.
+These scars, which pass for furrows, are about ten inches
+apart, and camel thorn, tamarisk, and other shrubs
+inimical to crops stand between them. The seed is now
+being sown. After it comes up it grows apace, and
+in spite of shallow scratches, camel thorn, and tamarisk
+the tilth is so luxuriant that the husbandmen actually
+turn cattle and sheep into it for two or three weeks, and
+then leave it to throw up the ear! They say that there
+are from eighteen to thirty-five stalks from each seed in
+consequence of this process! The harvest is reaped in
+April, after which water covers the land.</p>
+
+<p>Another style of cultivation is adopted for land, of
+which we saw a good deal, very low lying, and annually
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
+overflowed, usually surrounding a nucleus of permanent
+marsh. This land, after the water dries up, is destitute
+of vegetation, and presents a smooth, moist surface full
+of cracks, which scales off later. No scratching is
+needed for this soil. The seed is sown broadcast over
+it, and such of it as is not devoured by birds falls into
+the cracks, and produces an abundant crop. All this rich
+alluvial soil is stoneless, but is strewn from Seleucia
+to Babylon with fragments of glass, bricks, and pottery.
+Artificial mounds also abound, and remains of canals, all
+denoting that these fertile plains in ancient days supported
+a large stationary population. Of all that once
+was, this swirling river alone remains, singing in every
+eddy and ripple&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p>"For men may come and men may go,</p>
+<p class="i2">But I go on for ever."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As we were writing in the evening we were nearly
+thrown off our chairs by running aground with a thump,
+which injured one paddle wheel and obliged us to lie up
+part of the night for repairs near the ruins of the ancient
+palace of Ctesiphon. Seleucia, on the right bank of the
+river, is little more now than a historic name, but the
+palace of Tak-i-Kasr, with its superb archway 100
+feet in height, has been even in recent times magnificent
+enough in its ruin to recall the glories of the
+Parthian kings, and the days when, according to Gibbon,
+"Khosroes Nushirwan gave audience to the ambassadors
+of the world" within its stately walls. Its gaunt and
+shattered remains have even still a mournful grandeur
+about them, but they have suffered so severely from the
+barbarous removal of the stones and the fall of much of
+the front as to be altogether disappointing.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after leaving Ctesiphon there is increased cultivation,
+and within a few miles of Baghdad the banks
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
+of the river, which is its great high road, become
+populous. "Palatial residences," in which the women's
+apartments are indicated by the blankness of their walls,
+are mixed up with mud hovels and goat's-hair tents;
+there are large farmhouses with enclosures for cattle and
+horses; date gardens and orange groves fringe the
+stream, and arrangements for drawing water are let into
+its banks at frequent intervals. Strings of asses laden
+with country produce, companies of horsemen and innumerable
+foot passengers, all moved citywards.</p>
+
+<p>The frosty sun rose out of an orange sky as a disc
+of blood and flame, but the morning became misty and
+overcast, so that the City of the Arabian Nights did not
+burst upon the view in any halo of splendour. A few
+tiled minarets, the blue domes of certain mosques,
+handsome houses,&mdash;some of them European Consulates,
+half hidden by orange groves laden with their golden
+fruitage,&mdash;a picturesque bridge of boats, a dense growth
+of palms on the right bank, beyond which gleam the
+golden domes of Kazimain and the top of Zobeide's tomb,
+the superannuated British gun-boat <i>Comet</i>, two steamers,
+a crowd of native craft, including <i>kufas</i> or <i>gophers</i>, a
+prominent Custom-house, and decayed alleys opening on
+the water, make up the Baghdad of the present as seen
+from the <i>Mejidieh's</i> deck.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as we anchored swarms of <i>kufas</i> clustered
+round us, and swarms of officials and <i>hamals</i> (porters)
+invaded the deck. Some of the passengers had landed
+two hours before, others had proceeded to their destinations
+at once, and as my friends had not come off I was
+alone for some time in the middle of a tremendous
+Babel, in which every man shouted at the top of his
+voice and all together, Hadji assuming a deportment of
+childish helplessness. Certain officials under cover of
+bribes lavished on my behalf by a man who spoke
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
+English professed to let my baggage pass unopened,
+then a higher official with a sword knocked Hadji
+down, then a man said that everything would be all
+right if I would bestow another gold <i>lira</i>, about &pound;1,
+on the officers, and I was truly glad when kind Captain
+Dougherty with Dr. Sutton came alongside in the
+<i>Comet's</i> boat, and brought me ashore. The baggage was
+put into another of her boats, but as soon as we were out
+of sight it was removed, and was taken to the Custom-house,
+where they insisted that some small tent poles in
+a cover were guns, and smashed a box of dates in the
+idea that it was tobacco!</p>
+
+<p>The Church Mission House, in which I am receiving
+hospitality, is a "native" house, though built and
+decorated by Persians, as also are several of the Consulates.
+It is in a narrow roadway with blank walls, a
+part of the European quarter; a door of much strength
+admits into a small courtyard, round which are some of
+the servants' quarters and reception rooms for Moslem
+visitors, and within this again is a spacious and handsome
+courtyard, round which are kitchens, domestic
+offices, and the <i>serdabs</i>, which play an important part in
+Eastern life.</p>
+
+<p>These <i>serdabs</i> are semi-subterranean rooms, usually
+with arched fronts, filled in above-ground with latticework.
+They are lofty, and their vaulted roofs are
+supported in rich men's houses on pillars. The well of
+the household is often found within. The general effect
+of this one is that of a crypt, and it was most appropriate
+for the Divine Service in English which greeted my
+arrival. The cold of it was, however, frightful. It was
+only when the Holy Communion was over that I found
+that I was wearing Hadji's revolver and cartridge belt
+under my cloak, which he had begged me to put on to
+save them from confiscation! In these vaulted chambers
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
+both Europeans and natives spend the hot season, sleeping
+at night on the roofs.</p>
+
+<p>Above this lower floor are the winter apartments,
+which open upon a fine stone balcony running round
+three sides of the court. On the river side of the house
+there is an orange garden, which just now might be the
+garden of the Hesperides, and a terrace, below which is
+the noble, swirling Tigris, and beyond, a dark belt of
+palms. These rooms on the river front have large
+projecting windows, six in a row, with screens which
+slide up and down, and those which look to the courtyard
+are secluded by very beautiful fretwork. The
+drawing-room, used as a dormitory, is a superb room,
+in which exquisitely beautiful ceiling and wall decorations
+in shades of fawn enriched with gold, and fretwork
+windows, suggest Oriental feeling at every turn. The
+plaster-work of this room is said to be distinctively
+Persian and is very charming. The house, though large,
+is inconveniently crowded, with the medical and clerical
+mission families, two lady missionaries, and two guests.
+Each apartment has two rows of vaulted recesses in its walls,
+and very fine cornices above. It is impossible to warm
+the rooms, but the winter is very short and brilliant,
+and after ulsters, greatcoats, and fur cloaks have been
+worn for breakfast, the sun mitigates the temperature.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER II</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Baghdad</span>, <i>Jan. 9</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Baghdad is too well known from the careful descriptions
+given of it by Eastern travellers to justify me in
+lingering upon it in detail, and I will only record a few
+impressions, which are decidedly <i>couleur de rose</i>, for the
+weather is splendid, making locomotion a pleasure, and
+the rough, irregular roadways which at other seasons are
+deep in foul and choking dust, or in mud and pestilential
+slime, are now firm and not remarkably dirty.</p>
+
+<p>A little earlier than this the richer inhabitants, who
+have <i>warstled</i> through the summer in their dim and
+latticed <i>serdabs</i>, emerge and pitch their tents in the
+plains of Ctesiphon, where the men find a stimulating
+amusement in hunting the boar, but it is now the "season"
+in the city, the liveliest and busiest time of the year.
+The cholera, which is believed to have claimed 6000
+victims, has departed, and the wailing of the women,
+which scarcely ceased day or night for a month, is silent.
+The Jewish troubles, which apparently rose out of the
+indignation of the Moslems at the burial within the gates,
+contrary to a strict edict on the subject, of a Rabbi who
+died of cholera, have subsided, and the motley populations
+and their yet more motley creeds are for the time
+at peace.</p>
+
+<p>In the daytime there is a roar or hum of business,
+mingled with braying of asses, squeals of belligerent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>
+horses, yells of camel-drivers and muleteers, beating of
+drums, shouts of beggars, hoarse-toned ejaculations of
+fakirs, ear-splitting snatches of discordant music, and
+in short a chorus of sounds unfamiliar to Western ears,
+but the nights are so still that the swirl of the Tigris
+as it hurries past is distinctly heard. Only the long
+melancholy call to prayer, or the wail of women over the
+dead, or the barking of dogs, breaks the silence which at
+sunset falls as a pall over Baghdad.</p>
+
+<p>Under the blue sunny sky the river view is very fine.
+The river itself is imposing from its breadth and volume,
+and in the gorgeous sunsets, with a sky of crimson
+flame, and the fronds of the dark date palms mirrored in
+its reddened waters, it looks really beautiful. The city
+is stately enough as far as the general <i>coup-d'&oelig;il</i> of the
+river front goes, and its river <i>fa&ccedil;ade</i> agreeably surprises
+me. The Tigris, besides being what may be called the
+main street, divides Baghdad into two unequal parts, and
+though the city on the left bank has almost a monopoly
+of picturesque and somewhat stately irregularity in the
+houses of fair height, whose lattices and oriel windows
+overhang the stream from an environment of orange
+gardens, the dark date groves dignify the meaner
+buildings of the right bank. The rush of a great river is
+in itself attractive, and from the roof of this house the
+view is fascinating, with the ceaseless movements of
+hundreds of boats and <i>kufas</i>, the constant traffic of men,
+horses, asses, and caravans across the great bridge of
+boats, and the long lines of buildings which with more or
+less picturesqueness line the great waterway.</p>
+
+<p>Without the wearisomeness of sight-seeing there is
+much to be seen in Baghdad, and though much that
+would be novel to a new-comer from the West is familiar
+to me after two years of Eastern travel, there is a great
+deal that is really interesting. The <i>kufas</i> accumulating
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
+at their landing, freighted with the products of the Upper
+Tigris, the transpontine city, in which country produce
+takes the foremost place; the tramway to Kazimain constructed
+during the brief valiship of Midhat Pasha, on
+which the last journey of the day is always performed at
+a gallop, <i>co&ucirc;te que co&ucirc;te</i>; the caravans of asses, each one
+with a huge fish, the "Fish of Tobias," hanging across its
+back; the strings of the same humble animal, carrying
+skins of water from the river throughout the city; the
+tombs, the mosques, the churches, the great caravans of
+mules and camels, almost monopolising the narrow roadways,
+Arabs and Osmanlis on showy horses, Persians,
+Turks, Arabs, Jews, Armenians, Chald&aelig;ans, in all the
+variety of their picturesque national costumes, to which
+the niggardly clothing of a chance European acts as an
+ungraceful foil; Persian dead, usually swaddled, making
+their last journey on mule or horseback to the holy
+ground at Kerbela, and the occasional march of horse or
+foot through the thronged bazars, are among the hourly
+sights of a city on which European influence is scarcely
+if at all perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>Turkish statistics must be received with caution, and
+the population of Baghdad may not reach 120,000 souls,
+but it has obviously recovered wonderfully from the
+effects of war, plague, inundation, and famine, and looks
+busy and fairly prosperous, so much so indeed that the
+account given of its misery and decay in Mr. Baillie
+Fraser's charming <i>Travels in Kurdistan</i> reads like a story
+of the last century. If nothing remains of the glories of
+the city of the Caliphs, it is certainly for Turkey a busy,
+growing, and passably wealthy nineteenth-century capital.
+It is said to have a hundred mosques, twenty-six minarets,
+and fifteen domes, but I have not counted them!</p>
+
+<p>Its bazars, which many people regard as the finest in
+the East outside of Stamboul, are of enormous extent and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
+very great variety. Many are of brick, with well-built
+domed roofs, and sides arcaded both above and below,
+and are wide and airy. Some are of wood, all are
+covered, and admit light scantily, only from the roof.
+Those which supply the poorer classes are apt to be
+ruinous and squalid&mdash;"<i>ramshackle</i>," to say the truth,
+with an air of decay about them, and their roofs are
+merely rough timber, roughly thatched with reeds or
+date tree fronds. Of splendour there is none anywhere,
+and of cleanliness there are few traces. The old, narrow,
+and filthy bazars in which the gold and silversmiths ply
+their trade are of all the most interesting. The trades
+have their separate localities, and the buyer who is in
+search of cotton goods, silk stuffs, carpets, cotton yarn,
+gold and silver thread, ready-made clothing, weapons,
+saddlery, rope, fruit, meat, grain, fish, jewellery, muslins,
+copper pots, etc., has a whole alley of contiguous shops
+devoted to the sale of the same article to choose from.</p>
+
+<p>At any hour of daylight at this season progress
+through the bazars is slow. They are crowded, and
+almost entirely with men. It is only the poorer women
+who market for themselves, and in twos and threes, at
+certain hours of the day. In a whole afternoon, among
+thousands of men, I saw only five women, tall, shapeless,
+badly-made-up bundles, carried mysteriously along,
+rather by high, loose, canary-yellow leather boots than
+by feet. The face is covered with a thick black gauze
+mask, or cloth, and the head and remainder of the form
+with a dark blue or black sheet, which is clutched by
+the hand below the nose. The walk is one of tottering
+decrepitude. All the business transacted in the bazars is
+a matter of bargaining, and as Arabs shout at the top of
+their voices, and buyers and sellers are equally keen, the
+roar is tremendous.</p>
+
+<p>Great <i>caf&eacute;s</i>, as in Cairo, occur frequently. In the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
+larger ones from a hundred to two hundred men are seen
+lounging at one time on the broad matted seats, shouting,
+chaffering, drinking coffee or <i>sharbat</i> and smoking <i>chibouks</i>
+or <i>kalians</i>. Negro attendants supply their wants. These
+<i>caf&eacute;s</i> are the clubs of Baghdad. Whatever of public
+opinion exists in a country where the recognised use of
+words is to "conceal thought," is formed in them. They
+are centres of business likewise, and much of the noise is
+due to bargaining, and they are also manufactories of
+rumours, scandals, and fanaticism. The great caravanserais,
+such as the magnificent Khan Othman, are also
+resorts of merchants for the display and sale of their
+goods.</p>
+
+<p>Europeans never make purchases in the bazars.
+They either have the goods from which they wish to
+make a choice brought to their houses, or their servants
+bargain for them, getting a commission both from buyer
+and seller.</p>
+
+<p>The splendour of the East, if it exists at all, is not
+to be seen in the bazars. The jewelled daggers, the cloth
+of silver and gold, the diaphanous silk tissues, the brocaded
+silks, the rich embroideries, the damascened sword blades,
+the finer carpets, the inlaid armour, the cunning work in
+brass and inlaid bronze, and all the articles of <i>vertu</i> and
+<i>bric-&agrave;-brac</i> of real or spurious value, are carefully concealed
+by their owners, and are carried for display, with
+much secrecy and mystery, to the houses of their ordinary
+customers, and to such European strangers as are reported
+to be willing to be victimised.</p>
+
+<p>Trade in Baghdad is regarded by Europeans and
+large capitalists as growing annually more depressed
+and unsatisfactory, but this is not the view of the
+small traders, chiefly Jews and Christians, who start
+with a capital of &pound;5 or upwards, and by buying some
+cheap lot in Bombay,&mdash;gay handkerchiefs, perfumery,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
+shoes, socks, buttons, tin boxes with mirror lids, scissors,
+pocket-knives, toys, and the like,&mdash;bid fair to make
+small fortunes. The amount of perfumery and rubbish
+piled in these ramshackle shops is wonderful. The
+trader who picks up a desert Arab for a customer and
+sells him a knife, or a mirror box, or a packet of
+candles is likely to attract to himself a large trade,
+for when once the unmastered pastoral hordes of Al
+Jaz&#299;ra, Trak, and Stram&#299;ya see such objects, the desire
+of possession is aroused, and the refuse of Manchester and
+Birmingham will find its way into every tent in the
+desert.</p>
+
+<p>The best bazars are the least crowded, though once
+in them it is difficult to move, and the strings of asses
+laden with skins of water are a great nuisance. The
+foot-passenger is also liable at any moment to be ridden
+down by horsemen, or squeezed into a jelly by the
+passage of caravans.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the meat, vegetable, cotton, oil, grain, fruit,
+and fish bazars that the throngs are busiest and noisiest,
+and though cucumbers, the great joy of the Turkish palate,
+are over, vegetables "of sorts" are abundant, and the
+slant, broken sunbeams fall on pyramids of fruit, and
+glorify the warm colouring of melons, apples, and pomegranates.</p>
+
+<p>A melon of 10 lbs. weight can be got for a penny,
+a sheep for five or six shillings, and fish for something
+like a farthing per pound, that is the "Fish of Tobias,"
+the monster of the Tigris waters, which is largely eaten
+by the poor. Poultry and game are also very cheap, and
+the absolute necessaries of life, such as broken wheat for
+porridge, oil, flour, and cheese, cost little.</p>
+
+<p>Cook-shops abound, but their viands are not tempting,
+and the bazars are pervaded by a pungent odour of hot
+sesamum oil and rancid fat, frying being a usual mode
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
+of cooking in these restaurants. An impassive Turk,
+silently smoking, sits cross-legged on a platform at each
+Turkish shop door. He shows his goods as if he had no
+interest in them, and whether he sells or not seems a
+matter of indifference, so that he can return to his pipe.
+It is not to him that the overpowering din is owing, but
+to the agitated eagerness of the other nationalities.</p>
+
+<p>The charm of the bazars lies in the variety of race
+and costume and in the splendid <i>physique</i> of the greater
+number of the men. The European looks "nowhere."
+The natural look of a Moslem is one of <i>hauteur</i>, but no
+words can describe the scorn and lofty Pharisaism which
+sit on the faces of the Seyyids, the descendants of Mohammed,
+whose hands and even garments are kissed reverently
+as they pass through the crowd; or the wrathful
+melancholy mixed with pride which gives a fierceness to
+the dignified bearing of the magnificent beings who glide
+through the streets, their white turbans or shawl head-gear,
+their gracefully flowing robes, their richly embroidered
+under-vests, their Kashmir girdles, their inlaid
+pistols, their silver-hilted dirks, and the predominance
+of red throughout their clothing aiding the general effect.
+Yet most of these grand creatures, with their lofty looks
+and regal stride, would be accessible to a bribe, and
+would not despise even a perquisite. These are the
+<i>mollahs</i>, the scribes, the traders, and the merchants of the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>The Bedouin and the city Arabs dress differently, and
+are among the marked features of the streets. The under-dress
+is a very coarse shirt of unbleached homespun
+cotton, rarely clean, over which the Sheikhs and richer
+men wear a robe of striped silk or cotton with a Kashmir
+girdle of a shawl pattern in red on a white ground. The
+poor wear shirts of coarse hair or cotton, without a robe.
+The invariable feature of Arab dress is the <i>abba</i>&mdash;a long
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+cloak, sleeveless, but with holes through which to pass
+the arms, and capable of many adaptations. It conceals
+all superabundance and deficiency of attire, and while it
+has the dignity of the <i>toga</i> by day it has the utility of a
+blanket by night. The better-class <i>abba</i> is very hard,
+being made of closely-woven worsted, in broad brown and
+white or black and white perpendicular stripes. The
+poorest <i>abba</i> is of coarse brown worsted, and even of goat's-hair.
+I saw many men who were destitute of any clothing
+but tattered <i>abbas</i> tied round their waists by frayed
+hair ropes. The <i>abba</i> is the distinctive national costume
+of the Arabs. The head-gear is not the turban but a
+shawl of very thick silk woven in irregular stripes of
+yellow and red, with long cords and tassels depending,
+made of the twisted woof. This handsome square is
+doubled triangularly, the double end hangs down the
+back, and the others over the shoulders. A loosely-twisted
+rope of camel's-hair is wound several times round
+the crown of the head. When the weather is cold, being
+like all Orientals very sensitive in their heads, they bring
+one side of the shawl over the whole of the face but the
+eyes, and tuck it in, in great cold only exposing one eye,
+and in great heat also. Most Moslems shave the head,
+but the Arabs let their hair grow very long, and wear it
+in a number of long plaits, and these elf-locks mixed up
+with the long coloured tassels of the <i>kiffiyeh</i>, and the dark
+glittering eyes looking out from under the yellow silk,
+give them an appearance of extreme wildness, aided by
+the long guns which they carry and their long desert
+stride.</p>
+
+<p>The Arab moves as if he were the ruler of the country,
+though the grip of the Osmanli may be closing on him.
+His eyes are deeply set under shaggy eyebrows, his nose
+is high and sharp, he is long and thin, his profile suggests
+a bird of prey, and his demeanour a fierce independence.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Arab women go about the streets unveiled, and
+with the <i>abba</i> covering their very poor clothing, but it is
+not clutched closely enough to conceal the extraordinary
+tattooing which the Bedouin women everywhere regard
+as ornamental. There are artists in Baghdad who make
+their living by this mode of decorating the person, and
+vie with each other in the elaboration of their patterns.
+I saw several women tattooed with two wreaths of blue
+flowers on their bosoms linked by a blue chain, palm
+fronds on the throat, stars on the brow and chin, and
+bands round the wrists and ankles. These disfigurements,
+and large gold or silver filigree buttons placed outside one
+nostril by means of a wire passed through it, worn by
+married women, are much admired. When these women
+sell country produce in the markets, they cover their
+heads with the ordinary <i>chadar</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The streets are narrow, and the walls, which are
+built of fire-burned bricks, are high. Windows to
+the streets are common, and the oriel windows, with
+their warm brown lattices projecting over the roadways
+at irregular heights, are strikingly picturesque. Not less
+so are latticework galleries, which are often thrown
+across the street to connect the two houses of wealthy
+residents, and the sitting-rooms with oriel windows,
+which likewise bridge the roadways. Solid doorways
+with iron-clasped and iron-studded doors give an impression
+of security, and suggest comfort and to some
+extent home life, and sprays of orange trees, hanging
+over walls, and fronds of date palms give an aspect of
+pleasantness to the courtyards.</p>
+
+<p>The best parts of the city, where the great bazars,
+large dwelling-houses, and most of the mosques are, is
+surrounded by a labyrinth of alleys, fringing off into
+streets growing meaner till they cease altogether among
+open spaces, given up to holes, heaps, rubbish, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+slaughter of animals, and in some favoured spots to the
+production of vegetables. Then come the walls, which
+are of kiln-burned bricks, and have towers intended for
+guns at intervals. The wastes within the walls have
+every element of decay and meanness, the wastes without,
+where the desert sands sweep up to the very foot of the
+fortifications, have many elements of grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried
+bricks. There are about twenty-five kilns, chiefly in the
+hands of Jews and Christians in the wastes outside the
+city, but the demand exceeds the supply, not for building
+only, but for the perpetual patchings which houses, paths,
+and walls are always requiring, owing to the absorption
+of moisture in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Bricks at the kilns sell for 36s. per thousand twelve
+inches square, and 18s. per thousand seven inches square.
+They are carried from the kilns on donkeys, small beasts,
+each taking ten large or twenty-five small bricks.</p>
+
+<p>Unskilled labour is abundant. Men can be engaged
+at 9d. a day, and boys for 5d.</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon, in the glory of a sunset which
+reddened the yellow waste up to the distant horizon,
+a caravan of mules, mostly in single file, approached the
+city. Each carried two or four white bales slung on
+his sides, or two or more long boxes, consisting of planks
+roped rather than nailed together. This is the fashion
+in which thousands of Persian Moslems (Shiahs or
+"Sectaries") have been conveyed for ages for final
+burial at Kerbela, the holiest place of the Shiahs, an
+easy journey from Baghdad, where rest the ashes of Ali,
+regarded as scarcely second to Mohammed, and of Houssein
+and Hassan his sons, whose "martyrdom" is annually
+commemorated by a Passion Play which is acted in
+every town and village in Persia. To make a pilgrimage
+to Kerbela, or to rest finally in its holy dust, or both,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span>
+constitutes the ambition of every Shiah. The Sunnis, or
+"Orthodox," who hate the Shiahs, are so far kept in check
+that these doleful caravans are not exposed to any worse
+molestation than the shouts and ridicule of street Arabs.</p>
+
+<p>The mode of carrying the dead is not reverent. The
+<i>katirgis</i>, who contract for the removal, hurry the bodies
+along as goods, and pile them in the yards of the
+caravanserais at night, and the mournful journey is
+performed, oftener than not, without the presence of
+relations, each body being ticketed with the name once
+borne by its owner. Some have been exhumed and are
+merely skeletons, others are in various stages of decomposition,
+and some are of the newly dead.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>Outside the walls predatory Arabs render the roads
+unsafe for solitary travellers, and at times for feeble caravans;
+but things in this respect are better than they were.</p>
+
+<p>Visits to the Armenian and Chald&aelig;an Churches, to
+the Mosque of Abdel Kader, with its courts thronged by
+Afghan pilgrims, and to the Jewish quarter, have been
+very interesting. There are said to be 30,000 Jews
+here, and while a large proportion of them are in
+poverty, on the whole they are an influential nationality,
+and some of them are very rich.</p>
+
+<p>Through the liberality of Sir Albert Sassoon a Jewish
+High School has been opened, where an admirable education
+is given. I was extremely pleased with it, and with the
+director, who speaks French fluently, and with the proficiency
+in French of the elder students. He describes
+their earnestness and energetic application as being most
+remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>The French Carmelite monks have a large, solid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
+"Mission Church" or Cathedral with a fine peal of bells,
+and a very prosperous school attached, in which are boys
+belonging to all the many creeds professed in Baghdad.
+The sisters of St. Joseph have a school for girls, which
+Turkish children are not slow to avail themselves of.
+The sisters find a remarkable unhandiness among the
+women. Few, if any, among them have any idea of
+cutting out or repairing, and rich and poor are equally
+incapable of employing their fingers usefully.</p>
+
+<p>The people here are so used to the sight of Europeans
+that it is quite easy for foreign ladies to walk in this
+quarter only attended by a servant, and I have accompanied
+Mrs. Sutton on visits to several Armenian houses.
+The Armenians are in many cases wealthy, as their
+admirably-designed and well-built houses testify. The
+Christian population is estimated at 5000, and its wealth
+and energy give it greater importance than its numbers
+warrant. One of the houses which we visited was truly
+beautiful and in very good taste, the solidity of the stone
+and brickwork, the finish of the wood, and the beauty of
+the designs and their execution in hammered iron being
+quite remarkable. The lofty roofs and cornices are
+elaborately worked in plaster, and this is completely
+concealed by hundreds or thousands of mirrors set so as
+to resemble facets, so that roof and cornices flash like
+diamonds. This is a Persian style of decoration, and is
+extremely effective in large handsome rooms. Superb
+carpets and divans and tea tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl
+furnish the reception and smoking rooms, and the
+bedrooms and nurseries over which we were taken were
+simply arranged with French bedsteads and curtains of
+Nottingham mosquito net. As in other Eastern houses,
+there were no traces of occupation, no morning room or
+den sacred to litter; neither was there anything to look
+at&mdash;the opposite extreme from our overloaded drawing-rooms&mdash;or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+any library. Cigarettes and black coffee in
+minute porcelain cups, in gold filigree receptacles, were
+presented on each occasion, and the kind and courteous
+intention was very pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>The visits which I paid with Dr. Sutton were very
+different. He has worked as a medical missionary here
+for some years, and his unaffected benevolence and quiet
+attention to all suffering persons, without distinction of
+race or creed, and his recent extraordinary labours by
+night and day among the cholera-smitten people, have
+won for him general esteem and confidence, and he is
+even allowed to enter Moslem houses and prescribe for
+the women in some cases.</p>
+
+<p>The dispensary, in which there is not half enough
+accommodation, is very largely attended by people of all
+creeds, and even Moslem women, though exclusively of
+the poorer classes, avail themselves of it. Yesterday,
+when I was there, the comfortable seats of the cheerful
+matted waiting-room were all occupied by Armenian
+and Chald&aelig;an women, unveiled and speaking quite
+freely to Dr. Sutton; while a few Moslem women,
+masked rather than veiled, and enveloped in black
+sheets, cowered on the floor and scarcely let their voices
+be heard even in a tremulous whisper.</p>
+
+<p>I am always sorry to see any encroachment made by
+Christian teachers on national customs where they are
+not contrary to morality, and willingly leave to Eastern
+women the <i>pardah</i> and the veil, but still there is a
+wholesomeness about the unveiled, rosy, comely, frank
+faces of these Christian women. But&mdash;and it is a decided
+but&mdash;though the women were comely, and though some
+of the Armenian girls are beautiful, every one has one or
+more flattish depressions on her face&mdash;scars in fact&mdash;the
+size of a large date stone. Nearly the whole population
+is thus disfigured. So universal is it among the fair-skinned
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
+Armenian girls, that so far from being regarded as
+a blemish, it is viewed as a token of good health, and it is
+said that a young man would hesitate to ask for the
+hand of a girl in marriage if she had not a "date mark"
+on her face.</p>
+
+<p>These "date boils," or "Baghdad boils," as they are
+sometimes called, are not slow in attacking European
+strangers, and few, if any, escape during their residence
+here. As no cause can reasonably be assigned for them,
+so no cure has been found. Various remedies, including
+cauterisation, have been tried, but without success, and
+it is now thought wisest to do nothing more than keep
+them dry and clean, and let them run their natural course,
+which lasts about a year. Happily they are not so painful
+as ordinary boils. The malady appears at first as a
+white point, not larger than a pin's head, and remains
+thus for about three months. Then the flesh swells,
+becomes red and hard and suppurates, and underneath
+a rough crust which is formed is corroded and eaten
+away as by vitriol. On some strangers the fatal point
+appears within a few days of their arrival.</p>
+
+<p>In two years in the East I have not seen any
+European welcomed so cordially as Dr. Sutton into
+Moslem homes. The <i>Hak&#299;m</i>, exhibiting in "quiet continuance
+in well-doing" the legible and easily-recognised
+higher fruits of Christianity, while refraining from harsh
+and irreverent onslaughts on the creeds of those whose
+sufferings he mitigates, is everywhere blessed.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>To my thinking, no one follows in the Master's footprints
+so closely as the medical missionary, and on
+no agency for alleviating human suffering can one look
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
+with more unqualified satisfaction. The medical mission
+is the outcome of the living teachings of our faith.
+I have now visited such missions in many parts of
+the world, and never saw one which was not healing,
+helping, blessing; softening prejudice, diminishing suffering,
+making an end of many of the cruelties which
+proceed from ignorance, restoring sight to the blind,
+limbs to the crippled, health to the sick, telling, in every
+work of love and of consecrated skill, of the infinite compassion
+of Him who came "not to destroy men's lives,
+but to save them."</p>
+
+<p>In one house Dr. Sutton was welcome because he had
+saved a woman's life, in another because a blind youth
+had received his sight, and so on. Among our visits
+was one to a poor Moslem family in a very poor quarter.
+No matter how poor the people are, their rooms stand
+back from the street, and open on yards more or less
+mean. It is a misnomer to call this dwelling a house, or
+to write that it <i>opens</i>, for it is merely an arched recess
+which can never be shut!</p>
+
+<p>In a hole in the middle of an uneven earthen floor
+there was a fire of tamarisk root and animal fuel, giving
+off a stinging smoke. On this the broken wheat porridge
+for supper was being cooked in a copper pot, supported
+on three rusty cannon-balls. An earthenware basin, a
+wooden spoon, a long knife, a goat-skin of water, a
+mallet, a long hen-coop, which had served as the bed for
+the wife when she was ill, some ugly hens, a clay jar full
+of grain, two heaps of brick rubbish, and some wadded
+quilts, which had taken on the prevailing gray-brown
+colour, were the plenishings of the arch.</p>
+
+<p>Poverty brings one blessing in Turkey&mdash;the poor
+man is of necessity a monogamist. Wretched though the
+place was, it had the air of home, and the smoky hole
+in the floor was a fireside. The wife was unveiled and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>
+joined in the conversation, the husband was helping her
+to cook the supper, and the children were sitting round
+or scrambling over their parents' knees. All looked as
+happy as people in their class anywhere. It is good to
+have ocular demonstration that such homes exist in
+Turkey. God be thanked for them! The man, a fine
+frank-looking Turk, welcomed Dr. Sutton jovially. He had
+saved the wife's life and was received as their best friend.
+Who indeed but the medical missionary would care for
+such as them and give them of his skill "without money
+and without price"? The hearty laugh of this Turk was
+good to hear, his wife smiled cordially, and the boys
+laughed like their father. The eldest, a nice, bright
+fellow of nine, taught in the mosque school, was proud to
+show how well he could read Arabic, and read part of a
+chapter from St. John's Gospel, his parents looking on
+with wonder and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Christian families we called on were those
+of the dispenser and catechist&mdash;people with very small
+salaries but comfortable homes. These families were
+living in a house furnished like those of the rich Armenians,
+but on a very simple scale, the floor and da&iuml;s
+covered with Persian carpets, the divan with Turkish
+woollen stuff, and there were in addition a chair or two,
+and silk cushions on the floor. In one room there were
+an intelligent elderly woman, a beautiful girl of seventeen,
+married a few days ago, and wearing her bridal
+ornaments, with her husband; another man and his wife,
+and two bright, ruddy-cheeked boys who spoke six
+languages. All had "date marks" on their faces. After
+a year among Moslems and Hindus, it was startling to
+find men and women sitting together, the women unveiled,
+and taking their share in the conversation merrily
+and happily. Even the young bride took the initiative
+in talking to Dr. Sutton.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of course the Christian women cover their faces in
+the streets, but the covering is of different material and
+arrangement, and is really magnificent, being of very rich,
+stiff, corded silk&mdash;self-coloured usually&mdash;black, heliotrope,
+or dark blue, with a contrasting colour woven in deep
+vandykes upon a white ground as a border. The silk is
+superb, really capable of standing on end with richness.
+Such a sheet costs about &pound;5. The ambition of every
+woman is to possess one, and to gratify it she even denies
+herself in the necessaries of life.</p>
+
+<p>The upper classes of both Moslem and Christian women
+are rarely seen on foot in the streets except on certain
+days, as when they visit the churches and the mosques
+and burial-grounds. Nevertheless they go about a great
+deal to visit each other, riding on white asses, which are
+also used by <i>mollahs</i> and rich elderly merchants. All
+asses have their nostrils slit to improve their wind. A
+good white ass of long pedigree, over thirteen hands high,
+costs as much as &pound;50. As they are groomed till they
+look as white as snow, and are caparisoned with red
+leather trappings embroidered with gold thread and silks,
+and as a rider on a white ass is usually preceded by
+runners who shout and brandish sticks to clear the
+way, this animal always suggests position, or at least
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>Women of the upper classes mounted on these asses
+usually go to pay afternoon visits in companies, with
+mounted eunuchs and attendants, and men to clear the
+way. They ride astride with short stirrups, but the rider
+is represented only by a shapeless blue bundle, out of which
+protrude two yellow boots. Blacks of the purest negro
+type frequently attend on women, and indeed consequence
+is shown by the possession of a number of them.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Georgian and Circassian <i>belles</i> of the harams,
+a single lustrous eye with its brilliancy enhanced by the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
+use of <i>kohl</i> is all that one sees. At the bottom of the
+scale are the Arab women and the unsecluded women of
+the lower orders generally, who are of necessity drudges,
+and are old hags before they are twenty, except in the
+few cases in which they do not become mothers, when
+the good looks which many of them possess in extreme
+youth last a little longer. If one's memories of Baghdad
+women were only of those to be seen in the streets, they
+would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old,
+figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained
+hands crinkled and deformed by toil.</p>
+
+<p>Baghdad is busy and noisy with traffic. Great quantities
+of British goods pass through it to Persia, avoiding
+by doing so the horrible rock ladders between Bushire
+and Isfahan. The water transit from England and
+India, only involving the inconvenience of transhipment
+at Basrah, makes Baghdad practically into a seaport, with
+something of the bustle and vivacity of a seaport, and
+caravans numbering from 20,000 to 26,000 laden mules
+are employed in the carriage of goods to and from the
+Persian cities. A duty of one per cent is levied on
+goods in transit to Persia.<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>The trade of Baghdad is not to be despised. The
+principal articles which were imported from Europe
+amounted in 1889 to a value of &pound;621,140, and from
+India to &pound;239,940, while the exports from Baghdad to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span>
+Europe and America were valued in the same year at
+&pound;469,200, and to India by British India Company
+steamers only at &pound;35,150. In looking through the
+Consular list of exports, it is interesting to notice that
+13,400 cwts. of gum of the value of &pound;70,000 were
+exported in 1889. Neither the Indian postage stamps
+nor ours should suffer from the partial failure of the
+Soudan supply.</p>
+
+<p>Liquorice roots to the value of &pound;7800 were exported
+in 1888, almost solely to America, to be used in the
+preparation of quid tobacco and "fancy drinks"!</p>
+
+<p>The gall nuts which grow in profusion on the dwarf
+oaks which cover many hillsides, were exported last year
+to the value of &pound;35,000, to be used chiefly in the production
+of ink, so closely is commerce binding countries
+one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>Two English firms have concessions for pressing wool
+and making it into bales suitable for shipment. There
+are five principal English firms here, three French, and
+six Turkish, not including the small fry. There are five
+foreign Consulates.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage of goods is one of the most important of
+Persian and Turkish industries, and the breeding of mules
+and the manufacture of caravan equipments give extensive
+employment; but one shudders to think of the amount
+of suffering involved in sore backs and wounds, and of
+exhausted and over-weighted animals lying down forlornly
+to die, having their eyes picked out before death.</p>
+
+<p>The mercury was at 37&deg; at breakfast-time this morning.
+Fuel is scarce and dear, some of the rooms are
+without fireplaces, and these good people study, write,
+and work cheerfully in this temperature in open rooms,
+untouched by the early sun.</p>
+
+<p>The preparations for to-morrow's journey are nearly
+complete. Three mules have been engaged for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
+baggage&mdash;one for Hadji, and a saddle mule for myself;
+stores, a revolver, and a <i>mangel</i> or brazier have been
+bought; a permit to travel has been obtained, and my
+hosts, with the most thoughtful kindness, have facilitated
+all the arrangements. I have bought two mule
+<i>yekdans</i>, which are tall, narrow leather trunks on strong
+iron frames, with stout straps to buckle over the top of
+the pack saddle. On the whole I find that it is best
+to adopt as far as possible the travelling equipments of
+the country in which one travels. The muleteers and
+servants understand them better, and if any thing goes
+wrong, or wears out, it can be repaired or replaced. I
+have given away <i>en route</i> nearly all the things I brought
+from England, and have reduced my camp furniture to
+a folding bed and a chair. I shall start with three
+novelties&mdash;a fellow-traveller,<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> a saddle mule, and an untried
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p>It is expected that the journey will be a very severe
+one, owing to the exceptionally heavy snowfall reported
+from the Zagros mountains and the Persian plateau.
+The Persian post has arrived several days late.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER III<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor_h">[10]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">Yakobiyeh, Asiatic Turkey</span>, <i>Jan. 11</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Whether for "well or ill" the journey to Tihran is
+begun. I am ashamed to say that I had grown so
+nervous about its untried elements, and about the
+possibilities of the next two months, that a very small
+thing would have made me give it up at the last
+moment; but now that I am fairly embarked upon it in
+splendid weather, the spirit of travel has returned.</p>
+
+<p>Much remained for the last morning,&mdash;debts to be paid
+in complicated money, for Indian, Turkish, and Persian
+coins are all current here; English circular notes to be
+turned into difficult coin, and the usual "row" with
+the muleteers to be endured. This disagreeable farce
+attends nearly all departures in the East, and I never
+feel the comfortable assurance that it means nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The men weighed my baggage, which was considerably
+under weight, the day before, but yesterday three or four
+of them came into the courtyard, shouting in Arabic at
+the top of their loud harsh voices that they would not
+carry the loads. Hadji roared at them, loading his
+revolver all the time, calling them "sons of burnt fathers,"
+and other choice names. Dr. Bruce and Dr. Sutton
+reasoned with them from the balcony, when, in the very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
+height of the row, they suddenly shouldered the loads
+and went off with them.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later the delightful hospitalities of Dr. and
+Mrs. Sutton were left behind, and the farewell to the
+group in the courtyard of the mission house is a long
+farewell to civilisation. Rumours of difficulties have
+been rife, and among the various dismal prophecies the
+one oftenest repeated is that we shall be entangled in
+the snows of the Zagros mountains; but the journey
+began propitiously among oranges and palms, bright sunshine
+and warm good wishes. My mule turns out a fine,
+spirited, fast-walking animal, and the untried saddle
+suits me. My marching equipment consists of two large
+holsters, with a revolver and tea-making apparatus in
+one, and a bottle of milk, and dates in the other. An
+Afghan sheepskin coat is strapped to the front of
+the saddle, and a blanket and stout mackintosh behind.
+I wear a cork sun-helmet, a gray mask instead of a veil,
+an American mountain dress with a warm jacket over it,
+and tan boots, scarcely the worse for a year of Himalayan
+travel. Hadji is dressed like a wild Ishmaelite.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Dougherty of H.M.S. <i>Comet</i> and his chief
+engineer piloted us through the narrow alleys and
+thronged bazars,&mdash;a <i>zaptieh</i>, or gendarme, with a rifle
+across his saddle-bow, and a sheathed sabre in his hand,
+shouting at the donkey boys, and clearing the crowd to
+right and left. Through the twilight of the bazars,
+where chance rays of sunshine fell on warm colouring,
+gay merchandise, and picturesque crowds; along narrow
+alleys, overhung by brown lattice windows; out under the
+glorious blue of heaven among ruins and graves, through
+the northern gateway, and then there was an abrupt exchange
+of the roar and limitations of the City of the Caliphs for
+the silence of the desert and the brown sweep of a limitless
+horizon. A walled Eastern city has no suburbs. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
+is a literal step from a crowded town to absolute solitude.
+The contrast is specially emphasised at Baghdad, where
+the transition is made from a great commercial city with
+a crowded waterway, to an uninhabited plain in the
+nudity of mid-winter.</p>
+
+<p>A last look at gleaming domes, coloured minarets, and
+massive mausoleums, rising out of an environment of
+palms and orange groves, at the brick walls and towers
+of the city, at the great gate to which lines of caravans
+were converging from every quarter, a farewell to the
+kindly pilots, and the journey began in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>The "Desert" sweeps up to the walls of Baghdad, but
+it is a misnomer to call the vast level of rich, stoneless,
+alluvial soil a desert. It is a dead flat of uninhabited
+earth; orange colocynth balls, a little wormwood, and
+some alkaline plants which camels eat, being its chief
+products. After the inundations reedy grass grows in the
+hollows. It is a waste rather than a desert, and was
+once a populous plain, and the rich soil only needs
+irrigation to make it "blossom as the rose." Traces of the
+splendid irrigation system under which it was once a
+garden abound along the route.</p>
+
+<p>The mid-day and afternoon were as glorious as an unclouded
+sky, a warm sun, and a fresh, keen air could make
+them. The desert freedom was all around, and the
+nameless charm of a nomadic life. The naked plain,
+which stretched to the horizon, was broken only by the
+brown tents of Arabs, mixed up with brown patches of
+migrating flocks, strings of brown camels, straggling
+caravans, and companies of Arab horsemen heavily
+armed. An expanse of dried mud, the mirage continually
+seen, a cloudless sky, and a brilliant sun&mdash;this was all.
+I felt better at once in the pure, exhilarating desert air,
+and nervousness about the journey was left behind. I
+even indulged in a gallop, and except for her impetuosity,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
+which carried me into the middle of a caravan, and
+turning round a few times, the mule behaved so
+irreproachably that I forgot the potential possibilities of
+evil. Still, I do not think that there can ever be that
+perfect correspondence of will between a mule and his
+rider that there is between a horse and his rider.</p>
+
+<p>The mirage was almost continual and grossly
+deceptive. Fair blue lakes appeared with palms and
+towers mirrored on their glassy surfaces, giving place to
+snowy ranges with bright waters at their feet, fringed
+by tall trees, changing into stately processions, all so
+absolutely real that the real often seemed the delusion.
+These deceptions, continued for several hours, were
+humiliating and exasperating.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening the shams disappeared, the waste
+purpled as the sun sank, and after riding fifteen miles
+we halted near the mud village of Orta Khan, a place with
+brackish water and no supplies but a little brackish
+sheep's milk. The caravanserai was abominable, and we
+rode on to a fine gravelly camping-ground, but the headman
+and some of the villagers came out, and would not
+hear of our pitching the tents where we should be the
+prey of predatory hordes, strong enough, they said, to
+overpower an officer, two <i>zaptiehs</i>, and three orderlies!
+Being unwilling to get them into trouble, we accepted a
+horrible camping-ground, a mud-walled "garden," trenched
+for dates, and lately irrigated, as damp and clayey as it
+could be. My <i>dhurrie</i> will not be dry again this winter.
+The mules could not get in, the baggage was unloaded at
+some distance, and was all mixed up, and Hadji showed
+himself incapable; my tent fell twice, remained precarious,
+and the <i>kanats</i> were never pegged down at all.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>dhurrie</i> was trampled into the mud by clayey
+feet. Baggage had to be disentangled and unpacked
+after dark, and the confusion apt to prevail on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
+first night of a march was something terrible. It opened
+my eyes to the thorough inefficiency of Hadji, who was
+so dazed with opium this morning that he stood about
+in a dream, ejaculating "<i>Ya Allah!</i>" when it was suggested
+that he should bestir himself, leaving me to do
+all the packing, groaning as he took up the tent pegs,
+and putting on the mule's bridle with the bit hanging
+under her chin!</p>
+
+<p>The night was very damp, not quite frosty, and in
+the dim morning the tent and its contents were wet.
+Tea at seven, with Baghdad rusks, with a distinctly "native
+taste," two hours spent in standing about on the damp,
+clayey ground till my feet were numb, while the men,
+most of whom were complaining of rheumatism, stumbled
+through their new work; and then five hours of wastes,
+enlivened by caravans of camels, mules, horses, or asses,
+and sometimes of all mixed, with their wild, armed
+drivers. The leader of each caravan carries a cylinder-shaped
+bell under his throat, suspended from a red
+leather band stitched with cowries, another at his chest,
+and very large ones, often twenty-four inches long by ten
+in diameter, hanging from each pack. Every other animal
+of the caravan has smaller bells, and the tones, which
+are often most musical, reach from the deep note of a
+church bell up to the frivolous jingle of sleigh bells;
+jingle often becomes jangle when several caravans are
+together. The <i>katirgis</i> (muleteers) spend large sums on
+the bells and other decorations. Among the loads we
+met or overtook were paraffin, oranges, pomegranates,
+carpets, cotton goods, melons, grain, and chopped straw.
+The waste is covered with tracks, and a guide is absolutely
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>The day has been still and very gloomy, with flakes of
+snow falling at times. The passing over rich soil, once
+cultivated and populous, now abandoned to the antelope
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
+and partridge, is most melancholy. The remains of
+canals and water-courses, which in former days brought
+the waters of the Tigris and the Diyalah into the fields
+of the great grain-growing population of these vast levels
+of Chald&aelig;a and Mesopotamia, are everywhere, and at
+times create difficulties on the road. By road is simply
+meant a track of greater or less width, trodden on the
+soil by the passage of caravans for ages. On these two
+marches not a stone has been seen which could strike a
+ploughshare.</p>
+
+<p>Great ancient canals, with their banks in ruins and
+their deep beds choked up and useless, have been a
+mournful feature of rather a dismal day's journey. We
+crossed the bed of the once magnificent Nahrwan canal,
+the finest of the ancient irrigation works to the east of
+the Tigris, still in many places from twenty-five to forty
+feet deep and from 150 to 200 feet in breadth.</p>
+
+<p>For many miles the only permanent village is a
+collection of miserable mud hovels round a forlorn caravanserai,
+in which travellers may find a wretched refuge
+from the vicissitudes of weather. There is a remarkable
+lack of shelter and provender, considering that this is
+not only one of the busiest of caravan routes, but is
+enormously frequented by Shiah pilgrims on their way
+from Persia to the shrines of Kerbela.</p>
+
+<p>After crossing the Nahrwan canal the road keeps
+near the right bank of the Diyalah, a fine stream, which
+for a considerable distance runs parallel with the Tigris
+at a distance of from ten to thirty miles from it, and falls
+into it below Baghdad; and <i>imamzadas</i> and villages with
+groves of palms break the line of the horizon, while on
+the left bank for fully two miles are contiguous groves
+of dates and pomegranates. These groves are walled,
+and among them this semi-decayed and ruinous town is
+situated, miserably shrunk from its former proportions.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
+We entered Yakobiyeh after crossing the Diyalah by a
+pontoon bridge of twelve boats, and found one good
+house with projecting lattice windows, and a large
+entrance over which the head and ears of a hare were
+nailed; narrow, filthy lanes, a covered bazar, very dark
+and ruinous, but fairly well supplied, an archway, and
+within it this caravanserai in which the baggage must
+be waited for for two hours.</p>
+
+<p>This first experience of a Turkish inn is striking.
+There is a large square yard, heaped with dirt and
+rubbish, round which are stables and some dark, ruinous
+rooms. A broken stair leads to a flat mud roof, on
+which are some narrow "stalls,"&mdash;<i>rooms</i> they cannot be
+called,&mdash;with rude doors fastening only from the outside,
+for windows small round holes mostly stuffed with straw
+near the roof, for floors sodden earth, for fireplaces holes in
+the same, the walls slimy and unplastered, the corners full
+of ages of dusty cobwebs, both the walls and the rafters
+of the roof black with ages of smoke, and beetles and
+other abominations hurry into crannies, when the doors
+are opened, to emerge as soon as they are shut. A small
+hole in the wall outside each stall serves for cooking.
+The habits of the people are repulsive, foul odours are
+only hybernating, and so, mercifully, are the vermin.</p>
+
+<p>While waiting for the "furniture" which is to make
+my "unfurnished apartment" habitable, I write sitting
+on my camp stool with its back against the wall,
+wrapped up in a horse-blanket, a heap of saddles, swords,
+holsters, and gear keeping the wind from my feet. The
+Afghan orderly smokes at the top of the stair. Plumes
+of palms and faintly-seen ridges of snowy hills appear
+over the battlements of the roof. A snow wind blows
+keenly. My fingers are nearly numb, and I am generally
+stiff and aching, but so much better that discomforts
+are only an amusement. Snow is said to be impending.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
+I have lunched frugally on sheep's milk and dates,
+and feel everything but my present surroundings to be
+very far off, and as if I had lived the desert life, and
+had heard the chimes of the great caravans, and had
+seen the wild desert riders, and the sun sinking below
+the level line of the desert horizon, for two months
+instead of two days.</p>
+
+<p>Yakobiyeh is said to have 800 houses. It has some
+small mosques and several caravanserais, of which this is
+the best! It was once a flourishing place, but repeated
+ravages of the plague and chronic official extortions
+have reduced it to decay. Nevertheless, it grows grain
+enough for its own needs on poorly irrigated soil, and
+in its immense gardens apples, pears, apricots, walnuts,
+and mulberries flourish alongside of the orange and palm.</p>
+
+<p><i>Kizil Robat, Jan. 14.</i>&mdash;It was not very cold at
+Yakobiyeh. At home few people would be able to sit
+in a fireless den, with the door open, on a January
+night, but fireless though it was, my slender camp
+equipage gave it a look of comfort, and though rats or
+mice ate a bag of rusks during the night, and ran over
+my bed, there were no other annoyances. Hadji grows
+more dazed and possibly more unwilling every day, as
+he sees his vista of perquisites growing more limited, and
+to get off, even at nine, I have to do the heavy as well
+as the light packing myself.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great "row," arising out of an alleged
+delinquency of the <i>katirgis</i> concerning payment, when
+we left Yakobiyeh the following morning. The owners
+of the caravanserai wanted to detain us, and the archway
+was so packed with a shouting, gesticulating,
+scowling, and not kindly crowd, mostly armed, that it was
+not easy for me to mount. The hire of mules always
+includes their fodder and the keep of the men, but in
+the first day or two the latter usually attempt to break
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
+their bargain, and compel their employer to provide for
+them. So long as Arabic is spoken Hadji acts as sole
+interpreter, and though soldiers and <i>zaptiehs</i> were left with
+him he was scared at being left behind with the baggage.
+The people stormed and threatened at the top of their
+voices, but doubtless it was not so bad as it sounded, for
+we got through the bazars without molestation, and then
+into a perplexing system of ancient water-courses whose
+high broken banks and deep waterless beds intersect each
+other and the road. In contrast to this magnificent irrigation
+system there are modern water-channels about a foot
+wide, taken from the river Diyalah, which, small as they
+are, turn the rich deep soil into a "fruitful field."</p>
+
+<p>After these glimpses of a prosperity which once was
+and might be again (for these vast alluvial plains, which
+extend from the Zagros mountains to the Euphrates and
+up to the Syrian desert, are capable with irrigation
+and cultivation of becoming the granary of Western
+Asia), the road emerges on a level and somewhat gravelly
+waste, on which after a long ride we were overtaken by
+a <i>zaptieh</i> sent by the Persian agent in Yakobiyeh, to say
+that the baggage and servants were being forcibly detained,
+but shortly afterwards with a good glass the
+caravan was seen emerging from the town.</p>
+
+<p>The country was nearly as featureless as on the preceding
+day, and on the whole quite barren; among the
+few caravans on the road there were two of immense
+value, the loads being the best description of Persian
+carpets. There were a few families on asses, migrating
+with all their possessions, and a few parties of Arab
+horsemen picturesquely and very fully armed, but no
+dwellings, till in the bright afternoon sunshine, on the
+dreariest stretch of an apparently verdureless waste, we
+came on the caravanserai of Wiyjahea, a gateway with a
+room above it, a square court with high walls and arched
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
+recesses all round for goods and travellers, and large
+stables. A row of reed huts, another of Arab tents, and
+a hovel opposite the gateway, where a man with two guns
+within reach sells food, tobacco, and hair ropes, make up
+this place of horror. For, indeed, the only water is a
+brackish reedy pool, with its slime well stirred by the feet
+of animals, and every man's hand is against his brother.</p>
+
+<p>We proposed to pitch my tent in a ruined enclosure,
+but the headman was unwilling, and when it was suggested
+that it should be placed between the shop and the
+caravanserai, he said that before sunset all the predatory
+Arabs for ten miles round would hear that "rich
+foreigners were travelling," and would fall upon and
+plunder us, so we must pitch, if at all, in the filthy and
+crowded court of the caravanserai. The <i>balakhana</i>, or
+upper room, was too insecure for me, and had no privacy,
+as the fodder was kept in it, and there was no method of
+closing the doors, which let in the bitterly cold wind.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived at 3 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, and long before sunset a number
+of caravans came in, and the courtyard was full of horses,
+mules, and asses. When they halted the loads were
+taken off and stacked in the arched recesses; next, the
+great padded pack-saddles, which cover nearly the whole
+back, were removed, revealing in most cases deep sores
+and ulcers. Then the animals were groomed with box
+curry-combs, with "clatters" like the noise of a bird-scarer
+inside them. Fifty curry-combs going at once is like
+the din of the cicada. Then the beasts were driven in
+batches to the reedy pool, and came flying back helter-skelter
+through the archway, some fighting, others playing,
+many rolling. One of them nearly pulled my tent over
+by rolling among the tent ropes. It had been pitched
+on damp and filthy ground in a corner of the yard, among
+mules, horses, asses, dogs, and the roughest of rough men,
+but even there the damp inside looked like home.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After this brief hilarity, the pack-saddles, which serve
+as blankets, were put on, the camels were made to lie
+down in rows, most of the mules and horses were tethered
+in the great stable, where they neighed, stamped, and
+jangled their bells all night, and others were picketed in
+the yard among the goats and donkeys and the big
+dogs, which wandered about yelping. Later, the small
+remaining space was filled up with sheep. It was just
+possible to move, but no more, and sheep and goats were
+even packed under the <i>flys</i> of my tent. The muleteers
+and travellers spread their bedding in the recesses, lighted
+their fires of animal fuel, and cooked their food.</p>
+
+<p>At sunset the view from the roof was almost beautiful.
+Far away, in all directions, stretched the level desert
+purpling in the purple light. Very faintly, on the far
+horizon to the north-east, mountain ranges were painted
+in amethyst on an orange sky. Horsemen in companies
+galloped to tents which were not in sight, strings of
+camels cast their long shadows on the purple sand, and
+flocks of big brown sheep, led by armed shepherds, converged
+on the reedy pool in long brown lines. The
+evening air was keen, nearly frosty.</p>
+
+<p>The prospects for the night were not encouraging, and
+on descending the filthy stair on which goats had taken
+up their quarters, I found the malodorous, crowded
+courtyard so blocked, that shepherds, with much pushing,
+shouting, and barking of big dogs, with difficulty made a
+way for me to pass through the packed mass of sheep
+and goats into the cold, damp tent, which was pitched on
+damp manure, two or three feet deep, into which heavy
+feet had trampled the carpet. The uproar of <i>katirgis</i> and
+travellers went on for another two hours, and was exchanged
+later for sounds of jangling bells, yelping and
+quarrelling dogs, braying asses, bleating sheep, and coarsely-snoring
+men.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At 9 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> the heavy gates, clamped with iron, were
+closed and barred, and some belated travellers, eager to
+get in from the perils of the outside, thundered at them
+long and persistently, but "the door was shut," and they
+encountered a hoarse refusal. The <i>seraidar</i> said that
+400 horses and mules, besides camels and asses, 2000
+sheep, and over 70 men were lodged in the caravanserai
+that night.</p>
+
+<p>The servants were in a recess near, and Hadji professed
+that he watched all night, and said that he fired at
+a man who tried to rob my tent after the light went out,
+but I slept too soundly to be disturbed, till the caravans
+and flocks left at daybreak, after a preliminary uproar of
+two hours. It was bitterly cold, and my tent and its
+contents were soaked with the heavy dew, nearly doubling
+their weight.</p>
+
+<p>I started at 9 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, before the hoar-frost had melted,
+and rode with the <i>zaptieh</i> over flat, stoneless, alluvial
+soil, with some irrigation and the remains of some fine
+canals. There are villages to be seen in the distance,
+but though the soil is rich enough to support a very
+large population, there are no habitations near the road
+except a few temporary reed huts, beside two large
+caravanserais. There was little of an interesting kind
+except the perpetual contrast between things as they are
+and things as they were and might be. Some large
+graveyards, with brick graves, a crumbling <i>imamzada</i>, a
+pointed arch of brick over the Nahrud canal, a few ass
+caravans, with a live fowl tied by one leg on the back of
+each ass, and struggling painfully to keep its uneasy
+seat, some cultivation and much waste, and then we
+reached the walled village of Sheraban, once a town, but
+now only possessing 300 houses.</p>
+
+<p>Passing as usual among ruinous dwellings and between
+black walls with doors here and there, by alleys foul
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
+with heaps of refuse, and dangerous from slimy pitfalls,
+in the very foulest part we turned into the caravanserai,
+its great courtyard reeking with filth and puddles, among
+which are the contaminated wells from which we are
+supposed to drink. The experience of the night before
+was not repeated. There were fairly good rooms, mine
+looking into a palm garden, through a wooden grating,
+cold truly, but pleasant. I fear we may never have such
+"luxury" again. I remarked to my fellow-traveller that
+our early arrival had fortunately given us the "choice of
+rooms," and he replied, "choice of pig-styes,&mdash;choice of
+dens!" but my experience at Wiyjahea has deprived me
+of the last remnants of fastidiousness!</p>
+
+<p>I walked through the ruinous, wretched town, and its
+poor bazar, where the very fine <i>physique</i> of the men was
+in marked contrast with their wretched surroundings, and
+gives one the impression that under honest officials they
+might be a fine people. They are not genial to strangers,
+however. There was some bad language used in the
+bazar, and on the roads they pass one in silence at the
+best, so unlike the Tibetans with their friendly <i>Tzu</i>. At
+Sheraban one of the muleteers forced his way into my
+room, and roughly turned over my saddle and baggage,
+accusing me of having taken his blanket! Hadji is useless
+under such circumstances. He blusters and fingers
+his revolver, but carries no weight. Indeed his defects
+are more apparent every day. I often have to speak to
+him two or three times before I can rouse him from his
+opium dream, and there is a growing inclination to shirk
+his very light work when he can shift it upon somebody
+else. I hope that he is well-meaning, as that would cover
+a multitude of faults, but he is very rough and ignorant,
+and is either unable or unwilling to learn anything, even
+how to put up my trestle bed!</p>
+
+<p>Open rooms have sundry disadvantages. In the night a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+cat fell from the roof upon my bed, and was soon joined by
+more, and they knocked over the lamp and milk bottle,
+and in the darkness had a noisy quarrel over the milk.</p>
+
+<p>The march of eighteen miles here was made in six hours,
+at a good caravan pace. The baggage animals were sent
+off in advance, and the <i>zaptieh</i> led a mule loaded with
+chairs, blankets, and occupations. I ride with the <i>zaptieh</i>
+in front of me till I get near the halting-place, when
+M&mdash;&mdash; and his orderly overtake me, as it might be
+disagreeable for a European woman to enter a town alone.</p>
+
+<p>The route lies over treeless levels of the same brown
+alluvial soil, till it is lifted on a gentle gravelly slope to a
+series of low crumbling mounds of red and gray sandstone,
+mixed up with soft conglomerate rocks of jasper and
+porphyry pebbles. These ranges of mounds, known as
+the Hamrin Hills, run parallel to the great Kurdistan
+ranges, from a point considerably below Baghdad, nearly
+to Mosul and the river Zab. They mark the termination
+in this direction of the vast alluvial plains of the Tigris
+and Euphrates, and are the first step to the uplifted
+Iranian plateau.</p>
+
+<p>Arid and intricate ravines, dignified by the name of
+passes, furrow these hills, and bear an evil reputation, as
+Arab robbers lie in wait, "making it very unsafe for
+small caravans." A wild, desolate, ill-omened-looking
+region it is. When we were fairly within the pass, the
+<i>zaptieh</i> stopped, and with much gesticulation and many
+repetitions of the word <i>effendi</i>, made me understand that
+it was unsafe to proceed without a larger party. We
+were unmolested, but it is a discredit to the administration
+of the province that an organised system of pillage
+should be allowed to exist year after year on one of the
+most frequented caravan routes in Turkey. There were
+several companies of armed horsemen among the ranges,
+and some camels browsing, but we met no caravans.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the top of the descent there was a striking view
+over a great brown alluvial plain, watered by the Beladruz
+and the Diyalah, with serrated hills of no great height, but
+snow-covered; on its east side a silent, strange, weird view,
+without interest or beauty as seen under a sullen sky.
+There are no villages on this march, but ancient canals
+run in all directions, and fragments of buildings, as well
+as of brick and pottery, scattered over the unploughed
+surface, are supposed by many to mark the situation of
+Dastagird, the residence of Khosroe Parviz in the seventh
+century. I have no books of reference with me, and
+can seldom write except of such things as I see and
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on a multitude of irrigation ditches have
+turned a plain of dry friable soil into a plain of mud,
+through which it was difficult to struggle. Then came a
+grove of palms, and then the town or village of Kizil
+Robat (Red Shrine), with its <i>imamzada</i>, whose reputation
+for sanctity is indicated by the immense number of
+graves which surround it. The walls of this decayed and
+wretched town are of thick layers of hardened but now
+crumbling earth, and on the east side there is an old
+gateway of burned brick. There are said to be 400
+houses, which at the lowest computation would mean a
+population of 2000, but inhabited houses and ruins are
+so jumbled up together that one cannot form any estimate.</p>
+
+<p>So woe-begone and miserable a place I never saw,
+and the dirt is appalling even in this dry weather. In
+spring the alleys of the town are impassable, and people
+whose business calls them out cross from roof to roof on
+boards. Pools of filthy water, loathsome ditches with
+broad margins of trodden slime full of abominations, ruins
+of houses, yards foul with refuse, half-clothed and wholly
+unwashed children, men of low aspect standing in melancholy
+groups, a well-built brick bazar, in which Manchester
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
+cottons are prominent, more mud and dirt, some
+ruinous caravanserais, and near the extremity of the town
+or village is the horrible one in which I now am, said to be
+the best, with a yard a foot deep in manure and slush, in
+the midst of which is the well, and around which are
+stables and recesses for travellers.</p>
+
+<p>At first it seemed likely that I should fall so low as
+to occupy one of these, but careful investigation revealed
+a ruinous stair leading to the roof, up which were two
+rooms, or shall I say three?&mdash;an arched recess such as
+coals are kept in, a small room within it, and a low wood
+hole. The open arch, with a <i>mangel</i> or iron pan of
+charcoal, serves as the "parlour" this January night,
+M&mdash;&mdash; occupies the wood hole, and I the one room, into
+which Hadji, with many groans and ejaculations of "<i>Ya
+Allah!</i>" has brought up the essential parts of my baggage.
+The evening is gray and threatening, and low, snow-covered
+hills look grimly over the bare brown plain which lies
+outside this mournful place.</p>
+
+<p><i>Khannikin, Jan. 15.</i>&mdash;This has been a hard, rough
+march, but there will be many worse ahead. Rain fell
+heavily all night, converting the yard into a lake of
+trampled mud, and seemed so likely to continue that it
+was difficult to decide whether to march or halt. Miserable
+it was to see mules standing to be loaded, up to
+their knees in mud, bales of tents and bedding lying in
+the quagmire, and the shivering Indian servants up to
+their knees in the swamp. In rain steadily falling the
+twelve animals were loaded, and after the usual scrimmage
+at starting, in which the <i>bakhsheesh</i> is often thrown back at
+us, we rode out into a sea of deep mud, through which the
+mules, struggling and floundering, got on about a mile an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>After a time we came to gravel, then relapsed into
+deep alluvial soil, which now means deep mire, then a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>
+low range of gravelly hills on which a few sheep and
+camels were browsing on artemisia and other aromatic
+herbs gave a temporary respite, then again we floundered
+through miles of mud, succeeded by miles of gravel and
+stones. The rain fell in torrents, and there was a cold
+strong wind to fight against. There was that amount of
+general unpropitiousness which is highly stimulating and
+inspiriting.</p>
+
+<p>When noon came, there was not a rock or bush for
+shelter, and turning our backs to the storm we ate our
+lunch in our saddles. There was nothing to look at but
+brown gravel, or brown mud, brooded over by a gray mist.
+So we tramped on, hour after hour, in single file, the
+<i>zaptieh</i> leading, everything but his gun muffled in his
+brown <i>abba</i>, splashing through mud and water, the water
+pouring from my hat and cloak, the six woollen thicknesses
+of my mask dripping, seeing neither villages nor caravans,
+for caravans of goods do not travel in such rain as this.
+Then over a slope we went down into a lake of mud,
+where the <i>aide-de-camp</i> of the Governor of Khannikin, in
+a fez and military frock-coat and trousers, with a number
+of Bashi Bazouks or irregulars, met M&mdash;&mdash; with courtesies
+and an invitation.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of the next slope there was a view of
+Khannikin, a considerable-looking town among groves of
+palms and other trees. Then came a worse sea of mud,
+and a rudely cobbled causeway, so horrible that it diverted
+us back into the mud, which was so bottomless that it
+drove us back to the causeway, and the causeway back to
+the mud, the rain all the time coming down in sheets.
+This causeway, without improvement, is carried through
+Khannikin, a town with narrow blind alleys, upon which
+foul courtyards open, often so foul as to render the recent
+ravages of cholera (if science speaks truly) a matter of
+necessity. The mud and water in these alleys was up to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
+the knees of the mules. Not a creature was in the
+streets. No amount of curiosity, even regarding the rare
+sight of a Frank woman, could make people face the
+storm in flimsy cotton clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Where the road turns to the bridge a line of irregular
+infantry was drawn up, poorly dressed, soaked creatures,
+standing in chilly mud up to their ankles, in soaked boots
+reaching to their knees. These joined and headed the
+cavalcade, and I fell humbly in the rear. Poor fellows!
+To keep step was impossible when it was hard work to
+drag their feet out of the mire, and they carried their
+rifles anyhow. It was a grotesque procession. A trim officer,
+forlorn infantry, wild-looking Bashi Bazouks, Europeans
+in stout mackintoshes splashed with mud from head to
+foot, mules rolling under their bespattered loads, and a
+<i>posse</i> of servants and orderlies crouching on the top of
+baggage, muffled up to the eyes, the asses which carry
+the <i>katirgis</i> and their equipments far behind, staggering
+and nearly done up, for the march of seventeen miles had
+taken eight and a half hours.</p>
+
+<p>An abrupt turn in the causeway leads to the Holwan,
+a tributary of the Diyalah, a broad, rapid stream, over
+which the enterprise of a Persian has thrown a really
+fine brick bridge of thirteen heavily-buttressed arches,
+which connects the two parts of the town and gives some
+dignity and picturesqueness to what would otherwise be
+mean. On the left bank of the Holwan are the barracks,
+the governor's house, some large caravanserais, the Custom-house,
+and a quarantine station, quarantine having just
+been imposed on all arrivals from Persia, giving travel
+and commerce a decided check.</p>
+
+<p>After half a mile of slush on the river bank we
+entered by a handsome gateway a nearly flooded courtyard,
+and the Governor's house hospitably engorged the
+whole party.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The fully-laden mules stuck in the mud a few miles
+off, and did not come in for two hours, and in spite
+of covers everything not done up in waterproof was
+very wet. The servants looked most miserable, and
+complained of chills and rheumatism, and one of the
+orderlies is really ill. We cannot move till the storm
+is over.</p>
+
+<p>The rain falls heavily still, the river is rising, the
+alleys are two feet deep in slush, travel is absolutely
+suspended, and it is not possible without necessity to go
+out. It was well indeed that we decided to leave the
+shelterless shelter of Kizil Robat. Nothing can exceed
+the wretchedness of Khannikin or any Turkish town in
+such rain as this. Would that one could think that it
+would be washed, but as there are no channels to carry
+off the water it simply lodges and stagnates in every depression,
+and all the accumulations of summer refuse
+slide into these abominable pools, and the foul dust, a
+foot deep, becomes mud far deeper; buried things are
+half uncovered; torrents, not to be avoided, pour from
+every roof, the courtyards are knee-deep in mud, the
+cows stand disconsolately in mud; not a woman is to be
+seen, the few men driven forth by the merciless exigences
+of business show nothing but one eye, and with
+"loins girded" and big staffs move wearily, stumbling
+and plunging in the mire.</p>
+
+<p>After some hours the flat mud roofs begin to leak,
+water finds out every weak place in the walls, the bazars,
+only half open for a short time in the day, are deserted
+by buyers, and the patient sellers crouch over <i>mangels</i>,
+muffled up in sheepskins, the caravanserais are crammed
+and quarrelsome; the price of fodder and fuel rises, and
+every one is drowned in rain and wretchedness. Even
+here, owing to the scarcity of fuel, nothing can be dried;
+the servants in their damp clothes come in steaming;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
+Hadji in his misshapen "jack-boots," which he asserts
+he cannot take off, spreads fresh mud over the carpets
+whenever he enters; I shift from place to place to
+avoid the drip from the roof&mdash;and still the rain comes
+down with unabated vigour!
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER III (<i>Continued</i>)</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">The house consists of two courtyards, with buildings
+round them. The larger and handsomer is the <i>haram</i>
+or women's house, which is strictly enclosed, has no exterior
+windows, and its one door into the men's house is
+guarded by a very ancient eunuch. The courtyard of
+this house is surrounded partly by arched <i>serdabs</i>, with
+green lattice fronts, and partly by a kitchen, bakery,
+wood-house, <i>hammam</i> or hot bath, and the servants'
+quarters. The <i>haram</i> has a similar arrangement on the
+lower floor. A broad balcony, reached by a steep and
+narrow stair, runs round three sides of the upper part
+of this house. There are very few rooms, and some of
+them are used for storing fruit. The wet baggage is
+mostly up here, and under the deep roof the servants
+and orderlies camp, looking miserable. The <i>haram</i> has a
+balcony all round it, on which a number of reception and
+living rooms open, and though not grand or elaborately
+decorated, is convenient and comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>The Turkish host evidently did not know what to do
+with such an embarrassing guest as a European woman,
+and solved the difficulty by giving me the guest-chamber
+in the men's house, a most fortunate decision, as I have
+had quiet and privacy for three days. Besides, this room
+has a projecting window, with panes of glass held in by
+nails, and there is not only a view of the alley with its
+slush, but into the house of some poor folk, and over that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
+to the Holwan, sometimes in spate, sometimes falling, and
+through all the hours of daylight frequented by grooms
+for the purpose of washing their horses. Some shingle
+banks, now overflowed, sustain a few scraggy willows, and
+on the farther side is some low-lying land. There may be
+much besides, but the heavy rain-clouds blot out all else.</p>
+
+<p>My room is whitewashed, and is furnished with Persian
+rugs, Austrian bent-wood chairs, and a divan in the
+window, on which I sleep. Lamps, <i>samovars</i>, and glasses
+are kept in recesses, and a black slave is often in and out
+for them. Otherwise no one enters but Hadji. I get
+my food somewhat precariously. It is carved and sent
+from table at the beginning of meals, chiefly pillau, curry,
+<i>kabobs</i>, and roast chicken, but apparently it is not
+etiquette for me to get it till after the men have dined,
+and it is none the better for being cold.</p>
+
+<p>The male part of the household consists of the
+Governor and his brother-in-law, a Moslem judge, and
+the quarantine doctor, a Cretan, takes his meals in the
+house. The Governor and doctor speak French. My
+fellow-traveller lives with them.</p>
+
+<p>The night we arrived, the Governor in some agitation
+asked me to go and see his wife, who is very ill.
+The cholera has only just disappeared, and the lady had
+had a baby, which died of it in three days, and "being a
+boy her heart was broken," and "something had come
+under her arm." So I went with him into the <i>haram</i>,
+which seemed crowded with women of various races and
+colours, peeping from behind curtains and through chinks
+of doors, tittering and whispering. The wife's room is
+richly carpeted and thoroughly comfortable, with a huge
+charcoal brazier in the centre, and cushions all over the
+floor, except at one end, where there is a raised alcove
+with a bed in it.</p>
+
+<p>On this the lady sat&mdash;a rather handsome Kurdish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
+woman, about thirty-five, dressed in a silk quilted jacket,
+and with a black gauze handkerchief round her head,
+and a wadded quilt over her crossed legs. She was supported
+by a pile of pillows. Since then I have been
+sent for to see her several times every day, and found her
+always in the same position. There is surely something
+weird about it. She says she sits there all night, and
+has not lain down for two months. A black slave
+was fanning her, and two women, shrouded in veils of
+tinselled gauze, sat on the bed combing her luxuriant
+hair. She is not really beautiful at all, but her husband
+assures me constantly that she is "<i>une femme savante</i>."
+She has property and the consideration which attaches
+to it. She was burning with fever and very weak.</p>
+
+<p>I had scarcely returned to my room when my host
+sent again, begging that I would go back and see the
+doctor. I found that it was expected that I should persuade
+the lady to consent to have the abscess, or whatever
+it is, reopened. The room was full of women and eunuchs,
+and the chief eunuch, an elderly Arab, sat on the bed
+and supported her while the doctor dressed the wound,
+and even helped him with it. Her screams were fearful,
+and five people held her with difficulty. Her husband
+left the room, unable to bear her cries.</p>
+
+<p>Quite late I was sent for again, and that time by the
+lady, to know if I thought she would die. It appears
+that her brother, the judge, remains here to see that she
+is not the victim of foul play, but I don't like to ask to
+whom the suspicion points, or whether our host, although
+the civil governor, keeps him here that he may not be
+suspected in case his rich wife dies.</p>
+
+<p>Except for the repeated summonses to the sick-room,
+a walk on the slime of the roof when the rain ceases for
+a time, and on the balcony of the <i>haram</i> when it does
+not, and a study of the habits of my neighbours over the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+way, it is very dull. I have patched and mended everything
+that gave any excuse for either operation, have
+written letters which it is not safe to post, and have
+studied my one book on Persia till I know it throughout,
+and still the rain falls nearly without cessation and the
+quagmires outside deepen.</p>
+
+<p>So bad is it that, dearly as Orientals love bazars and
+<i>hammams</i>, Hadji refuses leave to go to either. I remarked
+to him that he must be glad of such a rest, and
+he replied in his usual sententious fashion: "They who
+have to work must work. God knows all." I fear he
+is very lazy, and he has no idea of making one comfortable
+or of keeping anything clean. He stamps the mud
+of the courtyard into the carpets, and wipes my plates
+without washing them, with his shirt. He considers that
+our host has attained the height of human felicity.
+"What is there left to wish for?" he says. "He has
+numbers of slaves, and he's always buying more, and he's
+got numbers of women and eunuchs, and everything, and
+when he wants money he just sends round the villages.
+God is great! <i>Ya Allah!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Khannikin, being the nearest town to the Persian
+frontier, should be a place of some importance. It is
+well situated at an altitude of 1700 feet among groves of
+palms, on both banks of the Holwan, and having plenty
+of water, the rich alluvium between it and Yakobiyeh
+is able to support its own population, though it has to
+import for caravans. Most of the Persian trade with
+Baghdad and thousands of Shiah pilgrims annually pass
+through it. It is a customs station, and has a regiment
+of soldiers. Nevertheless, it is very ruinous, and its
+population has diminished of late years from 5000 to
+about 1800 (exclusive of the troops), and of this number
+a fifth have been carried off by cholera within the last
+few weeks. It has no schools, and no special industries.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span>
+The stamp of decay rests upon it. Exactions, crushing
+hope out of the people, the general insecurity of property,
+and the misrule which has blighted these fine
+Asiatic provinces everywhere, sufficiently explain its
+decadence.</p>
+
+<p>The imposition of quarantine on arrivals from Persia
+has all but stopped the supply of charcoal, and knowing
+the scarcity in the house, I am going without a fire, as
+most of the inhabitants are doing. A large caravanserai
+outside the walls is used as a quarantine station, and
+three others are taken as lazarettos. Out of these
+arrangements the officials make a great deal of money in
+fees, but anything more horrible than the sanitary state
+of these places cannot be conceived. The water appears
+to be the essence of typhoid fever and cholera, and the unfortunate
+<i>d&eacute;tenus</i> are crowded into holes unfit for beasts,
+breathing pestiferous exhalations, and surrounded by such
+ancient and modern accumulations of horrors that typhus
+fever, cholera, and even the plague might well be expected
+to break out.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, for a brief interval, hills covered with snow
+appeared through rolling black clouds, and a change
+seemed probable, but rain fell in torrents all night; there
+is a spate in the river, and though we were ready to start
+at eight this morning, the <i>katirgis</i> declined to move, saying
+that the road could not be travelled because of the
+depth of the fords and the mud.</p>
+
+<p>The roof, though a good one, is now so leaky that I
+am obliged to sleep under my waterproof cloak, and the
+un-puttied window-frames let in the rain. Early this
+morning a gale from the south-west came on, and the
+howling and roaring have been frightful, the rain falling
+in sheets most of the time. Sensations are not wanting.
+One of the orderlies is seriously ill, and has to be left
+behind under medical care till he can be sent to India,&mdash;the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
+second man who has broken down. A runner came in
+with the news that all caravans are stopped in the Zagros
+mountains by snow, which has been falling for five days,
+and that the road is not expected to be open for a fortnight.
+Later, the Persian agent called to say that on the
+next march the road, which is carried on a precipice above
+the river, has slid down bodily, and that there are fifteen
+feet of water where there should be only two. Of course
+this prolonged storm is "exceptional." The temperature
+is falling, and it is so cold without a fire that though
+my bed is only a blanket-covered dais of brick and
+lime, dripped upon continually, in a window with forty
+draughts, I am glad to muffle myself up in its blankets
+and write among wraps.</p>
+
+<p>The Governor, recognising the craze of Europeans for
+exercise, sent word that M&mdash;&mdash; might walk in the
+balcony of the <i>haram</i> if I went to chaperon him, and this
+great concession was gladly accepted, for it was the only
+possible way of getting warm. The apparition of a
+strange man, and a European, within the precincts of the
+<i>haram</i> was a great event, and every window, curtain, and
+doorway was taken advantage of by bright dark eyes
+sparkling among folds of cotton and gauze. The enjoyment
+was surreptitious, but possibly all the more keen,
+and sounds of whispering and giggling surged out of
+every crevice. There are over thirty women, some of
+them negresses. Some are Kurds and very handsome,
+but the faces of the two handsomest, though quite young,
+have something fiendish in their expression. I have seldom
+seen a <i>haram</i> without its tragedies of jealousy and hate,
+and every fresh experience makes me believe that the
+system is as humiliating to men as it is to women.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>haram</i> reception-rooms here are large and bright,
+with roofs and cornices worked daintily in very white
+plaster, and there are superb carpets on the floors, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>
+divans covered with Damascus embroidery in gold silk on
+cream muslin.</p>
+
+<p>Each day the demands for my presence in the sick-room
+are more frequent, and though I say that I can
+scarcely aspire to be a nurse, they persist in thinking
+that I am a <i>Hak&#299;m</i>, and possibly a useful spy on the
+doctor. I have become aware that unscrupulous jealousy
+of the principal wife exists, and, as is usual in
+the East, everybody distrusts everybody else, and prefers
+to trust strangers. The husband frequently asks
+me to remove what seems a cancerous tumour, and the
+doctor says that an operation is necessary to save the
+lady's life, but when I urge him to perform it, and offer
+a nurse's help, he replies that if she were to die he
+would be at once accused of murder, and would run a
+serious risk.</p>
+
+<p>The Governor to-day was so anxious that I should
+persuade the lady to undergo an operation that he even
+brought Hadji into the room to interpret what I said in
+Arabic. His ceaseless question is, "Will she die?" and
+she asks me the same many times every day. She
+insists that I shall be present each day when the wound
+is dressed, and give help, lest the doctor without her
+leave should plunge a knife into the swelling. These
+are most distressing occasions, for an hour of struggle and
+suffering usually ends in delirium.</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon, however, she was much freer from
+pain, and sent for me to amuse her. She wore some fine
+jewels, and some folds of tinselled gauze round her head,
+and looked really handsome and intelligent. Her husband
+wished that we could converse without his imperfect
+interpreting, and repeated many times, "She is a learned
+woman, and can write and read several languages." The
+room was as usual full of women, who had removed their
+veils at their lord's command. I showed the lady some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
+Tibetan sketches, but when I came to one of a man the
+women replaced their veils!</p>
+
+<p>When I showed some embroidery, the Governor said he
+had heard that the Queen of England employed herself
+with her needle in leisure hours, but that it is not <i>comme
+il faut</i> here for ladies to work. It seems that the making
+of sweetmeats is the only occupation which can be
+pursued without loss of dignity. Is it wonderful that
+intolerable <i>ennui</i> should be productive of the miserable
+jealousies, rivalries, intrigues, and hatreds which accompany
+the system of polygamy?</p>
+
+<p>The host, although civil governor of a large district,
+also suffers from <i>ennui</i>. The necessary official duties are
+very light, and the accounts and reports are prepared by
+others. If money is wanted he makes "an exaction" on
+a village, and subordinates screw it out of the people.
+Justice, or the marketable commodity which passes for
+such, is administered by a <i>kadi</i>. He clatters about the
+balconies with slippered feet, is domestic, that is, he
+spends most of the day in the <i>haram</i>, smokes, eats two
+meals of six or seven courses each, and towards evening
+takes a good deal of wine, according to a habit which is
+becoming increasingly common among the higher classes
+of Moslems. He is hospitable, and is certainly anything
+but tyrannical in his household.</p>
+
+<p>The customs and ways of the first Turkish house I
+have visited in would be as interesting to you as they
+were to myself, but it would be a poor return for
+hospitality to dwell upon anything, unless, like the
+difficulties regarding the illness of the principal wife,
+it were a matter of common notoriety.</p>
+
+<p>It is a punishable act in Persia, and possibly here also,
+to look into a neighbour's house, but I cannot help it
+unless I were to avoid the window altogether. Wealth
+and poverty are within a few feet of each other, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+as Moslems are charitable to a degree and in a manner
+which puts us to shame, the juxtaposition is advantageous.</p>
+
+<p>My neighbour's premises consist of a very small and
+mean yard, now a foot deep in black mire, a cow-shed,
+and a room without door or windows, with a black uneven
+floor, and black slimy rafters&mdash;neither worse nor
+better than many hovels in the Western Isles of Scotland.
+A man in middle life, a woman of dubious age, two girls
+from eight to ten years old, and a boy a little older are
+the occupants. The furniture consists of some wadded
+quilts, a copper pot, an iron girdle, a clay ewer or two, a
+long knife, a wooden spoon, a clay receptacle for grain,
+two or three earthenware basins, glazed green, and a
+wicker tray. The cow-shed contains&mdash;besides the cow,
+which is fed on dried thistles&mdash;a spade, an open basket,
+and a baggage pad. A few fowls live in the house, and
+are disconcerted to find that they cannot get out of it
+without swimming.</p>
+
+<p>The weather is cold and raw, fuel is enormously
+dear, work is at a standstill, and cold and <i>ennui</i> keep
+my neighbours in bed till the day is well advanced.
+"Bed" consists of a wadded quilt laid on the floor, with
+another for a covering. The man and boy sleep at
+one end of the room, the woman and girls at the other,
+with covered heads. None make any change in their
+dress at night, except that the man takes off the <i>pagri</i>
+of his turban, retaining only a skull cap.</p>
+
+<p>The woman gets up first, lights a fire of tamarisk
+twigs and thistles in a hole in the middle of the floor,
+makes porridge of some coarse brownish flour and water,
+and sets it on to warm&mdash;to <i>boil</i> it, with the means at her
+disposal, is impossible. She wades across the yard, gives
+the cow a bunch of thistles, milks it into a basin, adds a
+little leaven to the milk, which she shakes in a goat skin
+till it is thick, carries the skin and basket to the house,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+feeds the fowls from the basket, and then rouses her lord.
+He rises, stretches himself, yawns, and places himself
+cross-legged by the fire, after putting on his <i>pagri</i>. The
+room is dense with pungent wood smoke, which escapes
+through the doorway, and only a few embers remain.
+The wife hands him an earthen bowl, pours some porridge
+into it, adds some "thick milk" from the goat skin, and
+stands before him with her arms crossed while he eats,
+then receives the bowl from his hands and kisses it, as is
+usual with the slaves in a household.</p>
+
+<p>Then she lights his pipe, and while he enjoys it
+she serves her boy with breakfast in the same fashion,
+omitting the concluding ceremony, after which she and
+the girls retire to a respectful distance with the big pot,
+and finish its contents simultaneously. The pipe over,
+she pours water on her lord's hands, letting it run on the
+already damp floor, and wipes them with her <i>chadar</i>.
+No other ablution is customary in the house.</p>
+
+<p>Poor as this man is, he is a Hadji, and having brought
+from Mecca a "prayer stone," with the Prophet's hand
+upon it, he takes it from his girdle, puts it on the floor,
+bows his forehead on it, turning Mecca-ward, and says his
+prayers, repeating his devotions towards evening. The
+first day or two he went out, but the roads now being
+almost impassable, he confines himself to the repairing of
+a small dyke, which keeps the water from running into
+the room, which is lower than the yard, and performs its
+duty very imperfectly, the soak from the yard and the
+drip from the roof increasing the sliminess hourly. These
+repairs, an occasional pipe, and much sleep are the record
+of this man's day till an hour before sunset, when the
+meal of the morning is repeated with the addition of
+some cheese.</p>
+
+<p>The children keep chiefly in bed. Meanwhile the
+woman, the busy bee of the family, contrives to patter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+about nearly all day in wet clothing, carrying out
+rubbish in single handfuls, breaking twigs, cleaning the
+pot, and feeding the cow. The roof, which in fine weather
+is the scene of most domestic occupations, is reached
+by a steep ladder, and she climbs this seven times in
+succession, each time carrying up a fowl, to pick for
+imaginary worms in the slimy mud. Dyed yarn is also
+carried up to steep in the rain, and in an interval of
+dryness some wool was taken up and carded. An hour
+before sunset she lights the fire, puts on the porridge,
+and again performs seven journeys with seven fowls,
+feeds them in the house, attends respectfully to her lord,
+feeds her family, including the cow, paddles through
+mire to draw water from the river, and unrolls and
+spreads the wadded quilts. By the time it is dark they
+are once more in bed, where I trust this harmless,
+industrious woman enjoys a well-earned sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds are breaking, and in spite of adverse
+rumours it is decided <i>co&ucirc;te que co&ucirc;te</i> to start to-morrow.
+For my own part I prefer the freedom even with the
+"swinishness" of a caravanserai to receiving hospitality
+for which no fitting return can be made.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER IV</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Saripul-i-Zohab</span>, <i>Jan. 21</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The rain at last ceased, and after the <i>katirgis</i> had
+squabbled for an hour over the baggage, we got off at
+ten, two days ago, very grateful for shelter and hospitality
+under such untoward circumstances. Six Bashi
+Bazouks and two <i>zaptiehs</i> on foot in ragged and incongruous
+uniforms escorted us to the Turkish frontier.</p>
+
+<p>The streets were in a terrible condition, and horse and
+footmen, after an attempt to march in pairs, fell perforce
+into a floundering and disorderly single file, the footmen
+occasionally pulling themselves out of mud holes by the
+tails of the horses. Outside the town there was an
+expanse of mud and flooded water-channels which broke
+up the last attempt at a procession, and led to a general
+<i>sauve qui peut</i>. The mire was tenacious and up to the
+horses' knees, half the mules were down with their loads,
+Hadji rolled into the mud, my capable animal snorted
+and struggled, some went on banks and some took
+to streams, the asses had to be relieved of their loads,
+and the air was full of shouts and objurgations, till after
+much delay the forlorn rabble all struggled to the <i>terra
+firma</i> of a gravelly slope, splashed from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>The road crosses low, rolling, gravelly hills, with an
+occasional outcrop of red sandstone, and ascends on the
+whole. The sun was bright, but the wind was strong
+and very cold. The Bashi Bazouk escort was altogether
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
+harum-scarum and inconsequent, careering in circles, and
+firing at birds (which they never hit) from the saddle,
+and when we reached some low hills bearing a bad
+reputation, the officer, in order to represent danger and
+his vigilant care, threw them out in all directions scouting
+for robbers, till we came to a steepish hill crowned
+by a round tower with a mushroom top, a few
+ruinous mud buildings, and a tattered tent. Here the
+escort formed into one line, and the ragged garrison into
+another, with an officer facing them, and were photographed
+as they shivered in the biting wind. This tower
+is a Turkish frontier fort.</p>
+
+<p>Soon afterwards the Persian frontier is crossed,
+the hills increase considerably in size, and mud was
+exchanged for firm, rough gravel. A feature of the
+otherwise featureless landscape is the frequent occurrence
+of towers like martello towers, on hill-tops, placed there
+for the shelter of the guards who formerly kept a look-out
+for robbers. In the uninteresting gravel lie pebbles
+of jasper and agate, emerald green, red, yellow, and
+purple. The first object of the slightest interest in this
+new country was a village of Ilyats, built of reed screens,
+with roofs of goat's-hair cloth, and with small yards with
+reed walls in front. The women, who wore full trousers
+and short jackets, were tall, somewhat striking-looking,
+and unveiled. Their hair hung down in long plaits, and
+they wore red handkerchiefs knotted at the back of the
+head.</p>
+
+<p>There an escort of four Persian <i>sowars</i> joined us. The
+type of face was that with which we are familiar on Sasanian
+coins and sculptured stones, the brow and chin receding
+considerably, and the nose thin and projecting, the profile
+suggesting a beak rather than a human face, and the skin
+having the appearance of being drawn so tightly over the
+bones as to force the eyes into singular prominence.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i078" id="i078"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-078-f.jpg" width="645" height="401" alt="A TURKISH FRONTIER FORT" title="" />
+<p class="caption">A TURKISH FRONTIER FORT.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A six hours' march ended at the wildly-situated village
+of Kasr-i-Shirin, high on the right bank of the Holwan,
+with a plantation of dates on the left bank and considerable
+cultivation in the valley. It has only eighty houses
+of the most wretched construction, rivalled in height
+and size by middens, the drainage of which wastes itself
+on the wretched roadway. A caravanserai of the most
+miserable description, a square fort with a small garrison,
+and some large graveyards with domed tombs and
+curious obelisks, are the salient features of this village.
+Its wretched aspect is accounted for by its insecurity.
+It has been destroyed by robber tribes as often as there
+was anything worth destroying, and it has been so tossed
+to and fro between Turkey and Persia as not to have
+any of the special characteristics of either empire.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped short of the village, at a great pile of
+building on a height, in massiveness and irregularity
+resembling a German medieval castle, in which a letter
+had secured accommodation. It has been unoccupied
+since its owner, Jan Mir, a sheikh of a robber tribe, and
+the terror of the surrounding neighbourhood, was made
+away with by the Persian Government.</p>
+
+<p>The accommodation consisted of great, dark, arched,
+vaulted rooms, with stone-flagged floors, noble in size, but
+needing fifty candles and huge log fires to light up and
+warm their dark recesses, and gruesome and damp with
+one candle and a crackle of twigs. They were clean,
+however, and their massive walls kept out the cold.
+The village is at an elevation of 2300 feet, and the
+temperature has greatly changed.</p>
+
+<p>The interest of Kasr-i-Shirin is that it lies among
+masses of ancient rubble, and that the slopes which
+surround it are completely covered with hewn and
+unhewn stones of all sizes, the relics of a great city, at
+the western extremity of which the present wretched
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+hamlet stands.<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The walls, which are easily traced,
+enclose an irregular square, the shortest front of which is
+said to be three miles long. They are built of roughly-hewn
+blocks of gray and red sandstone, and very hard
+mortar or concrete. The blocks are so huge in many
+places as to deserve the often misused epithet Cyclopean.</p>
+
+<p>Within this enclosure are remains of houses built of
+water-worn round stones, which lie in monstrous heaps,
+and of a large fort on an eminence. In another direction
+are the ruins of an immense palace of quadrangular form,
+with only one entrance, and large underground rooms
+now nearly choked up. There are remains of what must
+have been very fine archways, but as the outer coating of
+hewn stone and all the decorations have fallen off, leaving
+only the inner case of rough rubble and concrete, the
+architectural forms are very badly defined, and the aspect
+of what must once have been magnificent is now forbidding
+and desolate. The remains of an aqueduct cut
+in the rock, and of troughs and stone pipes by which
+water was brought into the palace and city, from a distance
+of fifteen miles, are still traceable among the desolations,
+but of the beautiful gardens which they watered, and
+with which Khosroe surrounded the beautiful Shirin, not
+a trace remains. There was a pale sunset, flushing with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
+pale pink distant leagues of sodden snow, and right across
+a lurid opening in a heavy mass of black clouds the great
+ruined pile of the palace of Khosroe the Magnificent stood
+out, a dismal commentary on splendour and fame.</p>
+
+<p>The promise of the evening was fulfilled the next day
+in windy rain, which began gently, but afterwards fell in
+persistent torrents, varied by pungent swirls of sleet and
+snow. Leaving the gash through cliffs with curious
+stratification in white and red, formed by the Holwan,
+the day was spent in skirting or crossing low hills.
+The mud was very deep and tenacious, and the rate of
+progress barely two miles an hour. There were no
+caravans, travellers, or population, and no birds or beasts.
+The rain clouds hung low and heavy, mists boiled up
+from among the folds of the hills, the temperature fell
+perceptibly. It was really inspiriting for people protected
+by good mackintoshes.</p>
+
+<p>After riding for six hours the rain changed into sleet
+and wet snow, blotting out the hills and creating an
+unnatural twilight, in which we floundered in mud up to
+the mules' knees into the filthiest village I have ever
+seen, a compound of foul, green ditches, piles of dissolving
+manure, mud hovels looking as if they were dissolving too,
+reed huts, and an Ilyat village, grouped round the vilest
+of caravanserais, the entrance to which was knee-deep in
+mire. To lodge in it was voted impossible, and the
+escort led us in the darkening mist and pelting sleet to
+an adjacent mud hamlet as hopeless-looking on the other
+side of the bridge, where, standing up to the knees of the
+mules in liquid manure, we sought but vainly for shelter,
+forded the Holwan, and returned to the caravanserai
+through almost impassable slush.</p>
+
+<p>It was simply loathsome, with its stench, its foulness,
+and its mire, and was already crowded and noisy with
+men and beasts. There was a great courtyard with arched
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+recesses all round, too abominable to be occupied, too
+exposed and ruinous, even had they been cleaned, to give
+shelter from the driving sleet. The last resource was to pass
+through an archway into the great, lofty mule stable, on
+both sides of which are similar recesses or mangers, about
+ten feet by seven and about eight feet high. The stable
+was of great size and height with a domed roof. Probably
+it runs half-way round the quadrangle at the back of the
+uninhabitable recesses. There were at least four hundred
+mules in this place, jangling their great bells, and crowds
+of <i>katirgis</i>, travellers, and <i>zaptiehs</i>, all wet and splashed
+over their heads with mud, some unloading, others making
+fires and feeding their mules, all shouting when they
+had anything to say, the Babel aggravated by the clatter
+of the rattles of a hundred curry-combs and the squeals
+of fighting horses.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i082" id="i082"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-082.jpg" width="400" height="194" alt="LODGINGS FOR TRAVELLERS" title="" />
+<p class="caption">LODGINGS FOR TRAVELLERS.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The floor was deep with the manure of ages and piled
+with bales and boxes. In the side recesses, which are
+about the height of a mule's back, the muleteers camped
+with their fires and their goods, and laid the provender
+for their beasts in the front. These places are the
+mangers of the eastern caravanserai, or <i>khan</i>, or inn.
+Such must have been the inn at Bethlehem, and surely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>
+the first step to the humiliation of "the death of the
+cross" must have been the birth in the manger, amidst
+the crowd and horrors of such a stable.</p>
+
+<p>The odour was overpowering and the noise stunning,
+and when our wet, mud-covered baggage animals came
+in, adding to the din, there was hardly room to move, far
+less for the roll in which all mules indulge when the
+loads are taken off; and the crush resulted in a fight, and
+one mule got his fore-feet upon my "manger," and
+threatened to share it with me. It was an awful place
+to come to after a six hours' march in rain and snow, but
+I slid off my mule into the recess, had it carpeted,
+put down my chair, hung a blanket up in front, and
+prepared to brave it, when the inhabitants of this room,
+the one place which has any pretensions to being a room
+in the village, were bribed by an offer of six <i>krans</i> (about
+four shillings) to vacate it for me. Its "pretensions"
+consist in being over a gateway, and in having a door,
+and a square hole looking on the street; a crumbling
+stair slippery with mud leads up to it. The roof leaks
+in every direction, and the slimy floor is full of pools,
+but it is luxury after the caravanserai stable, and with
+one waterproof sheet over my bed and another over
+myself I have fared well, though the door cannot be shut,
+and the rest of the party are in the stable at an
+impassable distance.</p>
+
+<p>Our language happily has no words in which the
+state of this village can be described. In front of this
+room is a broken ditch full of slimy greenish water,
+which Hadji took for my tea! There has been a slight
+snowfall during the night, and snow is impending. We
+have now reached a considerable altitude, and may expect
+anything. Hadji has just climbed the stair with groans
+of "<i>Ya Allah</i>," and has almost wailed out, "Colonel says
+we go&mdash;God help us."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Kirrind, Jan. 23.</i>&mdash;From Saripul-i-Zohab we are
+taking the most southerly of the three routes to Kirmanshah
+traversed by Sir H. Rawlinson in 1836.<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> A sea of
+mud varied by patches of sodden snow, walls of rock
+with narrow passes, great snow-covered mountains, seen
+spectrally for a minute at a time through swirling snow-clouds,
+black tents of nomads, half-drowned villages, and
+a long, cold, steep ascent, among scrub oaks and dwarf
+ash, to snow which was not melting, and the hospitalities
+of a Kurdish village, comprise the interests of the march
+from Saripul to Myan Tak, so far as they lie on the
+surface, but in various ways this part of Kurdistan has
+many interests, not to be absolutely ignored even in a
+familiar letter.</p>
+
+<p>Here the Ilyats, who are supposed to constitute a fifth
+of the rural population of Persia, are met with in large
+numbers, and their brown flocks and herds are still
+picking up a scanty subsistence. The great chief of this,
+the Gur&#257;n tribe, holds the region on an annual payment
+to the Persian Government, gives grain to his tribesmen,
+and receives from them, of corn one-half, and of rice two-thirds
+of the crop. These people sow their grain in early
+spring, and then move up with their flocks to the
+mountain pastures, leaving behind only a few men to
+harvest the crops. They use no manure, this being
+required for fuel, and in the case of rice they allow a
+fallow of at least seven years. There are very few
+cultivators resident upon these lands, but Ilyat camps
+occur frequently.</p>
+
+<p>The region is steeped in history. The wretched
+village of Saripul is the Calah of Asshur and the Halah
+of the Israelitish captivity,<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and gave to the surrounding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>
+country the name of Chalonitis, which we have on our
+old maps. A metropolitan See in the fifth century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>,
+soon after the institution of the Nestorian hierarchy, it
+was called Calah, Halah, and Holwan. If the Diyalah be
+the ancient Gyndes, noteworthy for the singular delay of
+Cyrus on his march to Babylon, and Saripul the ancient
+Holwan, and if in addition to the numerous Chald&aelig;an
+and Sasanian remains there are relics of Semiramis and
+of the fire-temples of the Magi, the crowd of historic
+associations is almost too much for one day, and I will
+return to the insignificant details of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>We left at nine, crossed the Holwan by a four-arched
+brick bridge, and in falling snow and deep mud rode
+over fairly level ground till we came to an abrupt range
+of limestone rock, with a natural rift, across which the
+foundations of a wall still remain. The clouds were
+rolling low, and the snow was driving wildly, so as
+to make it impossible to see the sculptured tablet
+described by Rawlinson and Layard, on which a high-priest
+of the Magi is represented, with one hand raised
+in benediction, and the other grasping a scroll, the dress
+being the pontifical robe worn by the Zoroastrian priests,
+with a square cap, pointed in front, and lappets covering
+the mouth. Above this is a tomb with an ornamented
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>We were now among a very strange and mysterious
+people, of whose ancestry and actual beliefs very little is
+known. They are Ali-Ilahis, but Europeans often speak
+of them as "Davidites," from their special veneration for
+King David. This tomb in the rift is called Dukkani-Daoud,
+or David's shop, and the people believe that he
+still dwells there, and come on pilgrimages and to offer
+animals in sacrifice from all parts of Kurdistan. He is
+believed to work as a smith, and the <i>katirgis</i> say that he
+makes suits of fine armour. A part of the tomb which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>
+is divided from the rest by a low partition is believed to
+be a reservoir containing the water which he uses to
+temper his metal. A great mound with some building
+in the centre, on the right of the road near this gorge,
+though properly it bears another name, is called by the
+people "David's Fort." Jewish traditions abound, specially
+concerning David, who is regarded by the tribes as their
+great tutelar prophet.</p>
+
+<p>The Gur&#257;ns and Kalhurs, who are the nomadic
+inhabitants of this district, are of a very marked type of
+physiognomy, so Israelitish indeed that, taken along with
+certain traditions of their origin, their Jewish names, and
+their veneration for David, they have been put forward
+as claimants to the dignity of being the "lost tribes."
+The great Hebrew traveller of the twelfth century, to
+whom I have referred before, believed that the whole of
+the Ali-Ilahis were Jews, and writes of 100 synagogues
+in the Zagros mountains, and of 50,000 Jewish families
+in the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>As we shall be for some days among these people, I
+will abbreviate Sir H. Rawlinson's sketch of their tenets.
+He considers that Ali-Ilahism bears evident marks of
+Judaism, mixed up with Moslem, Christian, and Sab&aelig;an
+legends. The Ali-Ilahis believe in 1001 incarnations of
+the Godhead in a series; among them Benjamin, Moses,
+Elias, David, Jesus Christ, Ali and Salman his tutor, the
+Imam Houssein and the Haft&#257;n (or seven bodies), the
+chief spiritual guides in the early ages of Islam, "and
+each, worshipped as a Deity, is an object of adoration
+in some locality of Kurdistan." The tomb of one of
+these, B&#257;b&#257; Yadg&#257;r, is their holy place, and this was
+regarded as the dwelling of Elijah at the time when the
+Arabs invaded Persia. All these incarnations are regarded
+as of one and the same person. All that changes is the
+bodily form of the Divine manifestation. There are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
+degrees in the perfection of the development, and the
+most perfect forms are Benjamin, David, and Ali.</p>
+
+<p>Practically, however, the metaphysical speculations
+involved in this creed of successive incarnations are unknown,
+and the Imam Ali, the cousin of Mohammed, is
+the great object of worship. Though professing Mohammedanism
+the Ali-Ilahis are held in great horror by "believers,"
+and those of this region lie under the stigma of
+practising unholy rites as a part of their religion, and have
+received the name of "Chiragh Sonderan," the putters-out
+of lights.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> This accusation, Sir A. H. Layard observes,
+may be only a calumny invented, like many another, to
+justify persecution.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the rift in the Dukkani-Daoud range
+which has led to this digression, we entered an ascending
+valley between the range through which we had
+passed and some wild mountains covered with snow,
+which were then actively engaged in brewing a storm.
+Farther on there was irrigation and cultivation, and then
+the wretched village of Pai Tak, and the ruins of a bridge.
+There, the people told us, we must halt, as the caravanserai
+at the next place was already full, and we plunged
+about in the snow and mud looking for a hovel in which to
+take shelter, but decided to risk going on, and shortly began
+the ascent of the remarkable pass known as "The Gates
+of Zagros," on the ancient highway between Babylonia
+and Media, by which, in a few hours, the mountain
+barrier of Zagros is crossed, and the plain of Kirrind, a
+part of the great Iranian plateau, is reached.</p>
+
+<p>This great road, which zigzags steeply up the pass, is
+partly composed of smoothed boulders and partly of
+natural rock, somewhat dressed, and much worn by the
+continual passage of shod animals. It is said to be much
+like a torrent bed, but the snow was lying heavily upon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>
+it, filling up its inequalities. Dwarf oaks, hawthorn, ash,
+and other scrub find root-hold in every crevice. All
+that may be ugly was draped in pure white, and looking
+back from the surrounding glitter, the view of low ranges
+lying in indigo gloom was very striking. On the ascent
+there is a remarkable arch of great blocks of white
+marble, with a vaulted recess, called the "Tak-i-Girreh,"
+"the arch holding the road," which gives the popular
+name of Gardan-i-Tak-i-Girreh (the pass of Tak-i-Girreh)
+to the ascent, though the geographers call it Akabah-i-Holwan
+(the defile of Holwan).</p>
+
+<p>After the deep mud of the earlier part of the march it
+was a pleasure to ride through pure, deep, powdery snow,
+and to find the dirt of the village of Myan Tak, a Kurdish
+hamlet situated on a mountain torrent among steep
+hills and small trees, covered with this radiant mantle.
+The elevation of the pass is 4630 feet, but Myan Tak is
+at a lower altitude an hour farther on.</p>
+
+<p>The small and ruinous caravanserai was really full of
+caravans detained by the snowstorm, and we lodged in
+a Kurdish house, typical of the style of architecture
+common among the settled tribes. Within a wide doorway
+without a door, high enough for a loaded mule to
+enter, is a very large room, with a low, flat mud roof,
+supported on three rows of misshapen trunks of trees,
+with their branches cut off about a foot from the stem,
+all black and shiny with smoke. Mud and rubble
+platforms, two feet high, run along one side and one
+end, and on the end one there is a clay, beehive-shaped
+fireplace, but no chimney. Under this platform
+the many fowls are shut in at night by a stone at the
+hole by which they enter. Within this room is a perfectly
+dark stable of great size. Certainly forty mules,
+besides asses and oxen, were lodged in it, and the overflow
+shared the living-room with a number of Kurds,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
+<i>katirgis</i>, servants, dogs, soldiers, and Europeans. The
+furniture consisted of guns and swords hanging on the
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>The owner is an old Kurd with some handsome sons
+with ruddy complexions and auburn hair. The big house
+is the patriarchal roof, where the patriarch, his sons,
+their wives and children, and their animals, dwell
+together. The women, however, had all been got rid of
+somehow. The old Kurd made a great fire on the dais,
+wood being plentiful, and crouched over it. My bed
+was pitched near it, and enclosed by some reed screens.
+With chairs and a table, with routes, maps, writing
+materials, and a good lantern upon it, an excellent
+dinner of soup and a leg of mutton, cooked at a bonfire
+in the middle of the floor, and the sight of all the
+servants and <i>katirgis</i> lying round it, warm and comfortable,
+and the knowledge that we were above the mud,
+the clouds of blinding smoke which were the only drawback
+scarcely affected the cheerfulness and comfort of
+the blazing, unstinted fire. The doorway gave not only
+ample ventilation but a brilliant view of snow, and of
+myriads of frosty stars.</p>
+
+<p>It was infinitely picturesque, with the fitful firelight
+falling on the uncouth avenues of blackened tree-stumps,
+on big dogs, on mild-eyed ox faces and long ass ears, on
+turbaned Indian heads, and on a confused crowd of Turks,
+Kurds, and Persians, some cooking, some sleeping, some
+smoking, while from the black depth beyond a startling
+bray of an ass or the abortive shriek of a mule occasionally
+proceeded, or a stray mule created a commotion by
+rushing in from the snow outside.</p>
+
+<p>I slept comfortably, till I was awakened early by
+various country sounds&mdash;the braying of an ass into my
+ear (for I was within a few inches of the stable), the
+crowing of cocks, and some hens picking up crumbs upon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span>
+my bed. The mules were loaded in the living-room.
+The mercury was only 26&deg; at 9 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, and under cloudless
+sunshine the powdery snow glittered and crackled.
+There were difficulties ahead, we heard. The road
+heavily blocked with snow was only just open, and the
+Persian post, which should have passed forty-eight hours
+before, had not been heard of, showing that the snow is
+very deep farther on.</p>
+
+<p>It was beautiful, that uplifted, silent world of snow
+and mountains, on whose skirts for some miles grew small
+apple and pear trees, oak, ash, and hawthorn, each twig a
+coral spray. In the deepest depression, among great
+rocks, now masses of snow, tumbles a now partially
+arrested stream, gleaming with icicles, one of the head-waters
+of the Holwan. After getting through this
+picturesque forest of scrub, the road emerges on the
+plateau of the Kirrind valley, the greatest altitude of
+which is about 5800 feet. It is said to be irrigated and
+fertile. It is now, as I describe it, a wide valley, without
+a tree or bush, a rolling plain of snow from two to
+three feet deep, marked only by lines made by birds' feet
+and the beating of the tips of birds' wings, the track across
+it a corrugated trench, wide enough for one mule, the sun
+brilliant, the sky blue, the surface of the snow flashing
+light from millions of crystals with a glitter not to be
+borne, all dazzling, "glistering," silent,&mdash;a white world
+and a blue heaven, with a sun "shining in his strength,"&mdash;light
+without heat.</p>
+
+<p>It has been a tremendous day's march, only fourteen
+miles in seven and a half hours of severe toil! The
+<i>katirgis</i> asked us to keep together in case of difficulties
+with caravans. Difficulties indeed! A mild term! I
+was nearly smashed. I little knew what meeting a
+caravan in these circumstances meant till we met the
+first sixty animals, each laden with two heavy packing-cases.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
+The question arises who is to give way, and who
+is to drive his heavily-laden beasts off the track, to
+struggle, flounder, and fall in three feet of snow, not to
+get up again without being unloaded, and even then
+with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>The rub came on a bank near a stream where there
+was a deep drift. I decided to give way, but nothing
+would induce my mule to face the snow. An orderly
+was in front and Hadji behind. Down the track came
+sixty animals, loaded with their great packing-cases.
+They could not and would not give way, and the two
+caravans came into collision. There were mules
+struggling and falling, loads overturned, muleteers yelling
+and roaring, Hadji groaning "God help us!" my mule,
+a new one, a big strong animal, unused to a bit, plunging
+and kicking, in the middle of a "free fight." I was
+struck hard on my ankle by a packing-case and nearly
+knocked off. Still, down they came, in apparently
+endless hordes; my mule plunged her bridle off, and
+kicked most violently; there were yells all round. My
+snow spectacles were knocked off and lost, then came
+another smash, in which I thought a bone was broken.
+Fearing that I should be laid up with a broken limb for
+weeks in some horrible caravanserai, and really desperate
+with the danger and confusion, I called over and over
+again to Hadji to get off and pull my mule into the snow
+or I should be killed! He did not stir, but sat dazed on
+his pack moaning "God help us!" till he, the mule, and
+the load were rolled over in the drift. The orderly contrived
+to get the bridle on my mule, and to back his
+own in front of me, and as each irrepressible animal
+rolled down the bank he gave its load a push, which, nicely
+balanced as these loads are, made it swerve, and saved
+me from further damage. Hadji had rolled off four times
+previously, and the last I saw of him at that time and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+of the caravan was a man, five mules, and their loads
+buried in the snow. The personal results to me of what
+is euphemistically called a "difficulty," are my blue
+glasses gone, a number of bruises, a badly-torn riding-skirt,
+and a bad cut, which bled profusely, and then the
+blood froze.</p>
+
+<p>A number of caravans snowed up for several days
+were <i>en route</i>, and there were many similar encounters,
+and donkeys and mules falling with their loads and
+rolling into the deep snow, and <i>katirgis</i> coming to blows
+over the right-of-way. If a donkey is forced off the
+track it goes down at once. I unfortunately caught my
+foot in the pack of one and rolled it over, and as it disappeared
+in the snow its pack and saddle fell over its
+head and displayed the naked vertebr&aelig; of its poor back.</p>
+
+<p>This Kirrind valley must be fully twenty miles long by
+from two to five broad, but there was only one village
+inhabited and two in ruins. As we floundered along in
+the snow with our jaded animals, two well-armed men on
+fine horses met and joined us, sent by the <i>Agha</i> Abdul
+Rahim, son of the British agent at Kirmanshah, whose
+guests we are to be. Following them was a <i>taktrawan</i>
+or litter for me, a wooden box with two side doors, four
+feet high, six feet long, and three feet wide. At each end
+are long shafts, and between each pair of shafts a superb
+mule, and each mule has a man to lead him. I could
+never use such a thing except in case of a broken limb,
+but I am very grateful to Abdul Rahim for sending it
+fifty-six miles.</p>
+
+<p>The temperature fell with the sun; the snowy hills
+took on every shade of rose and pink, and in a universal
+blush of tender colouring we reached Kirrind. All of a
+sudden the colour died out, the rose-flushed sky changed
+to blue-gray, and pallid wastes of unbroken snow
+stretching into the gray distance made a glorious winter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
+landscape. We are now fairly in for the rigours of a
+Persian winter.</p>
+
+<p>Kirrind, the capital of the Kirrind Kurds, is either
+grotesquely or picturesquely situated in and around a
+narrow gap in a range of lofty hills, through which the
+Ab-i-Kirrind rushes, after rising in a spring immediately
+behind. The gap suggests the word jaws, and in these
+open jaws rise one above another flat-roofed houses
+straggling down upon the plain among vineyards, poplars,
+willows, fruit-trees, and immense walnuts and gardens.
+There are said to be 900 houses, but many of them are
+ruinous. The stream which bursts from the hills is
+divided into innumerable streamlets, which must clothe
+these gardens with beauty.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>far&#257;sh</i> riding on ahead had engaged a house, so
+we avoided the horrors of the immense caravanserai,
+crammed to-night with storm-bound caravans. The
+house is rough, but has three adjoining rooms, and the
+servants are comfortable. A fire, with its usual accompaniment
+of stinging smoke, fails to raise the temperature
+of my room to the freezing-point, yet it is quite possible
+to be comfortable and employ oneself.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mahidasht, Jan. 24.</i>&mdash;My room at Kirrind was very
+cold. The ink froze. The mercury fell to 2&deg; below
+zero in it, and outside in the sun was only 14&deg; at 8.30.
+There was a great Babel at starting. Some men had sold
+four chickens for the high price of 2s. each, the current
+price being 6d., and had robbed the servants of two, and
+they took one of the mules, which was sent after us by
+an official. Slipping, floundering, and falling in the deep
+snow, and getting entangled among caravans, we rode
+all day over rolling levels. The distance seemed interminable
+over the glittering plains, and the pain and
+stiffness produced by the intense cold were hard to bear,
+and it was not possible to change the cramped position by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span>
+walking. The mercury fell to 4&deg;, as with tired animals
+we toiled up the slope on which Harunabad stands.</p>
+
+<p>A very large caravanserai and a village of sixty houses
+occupy the site of a town built by Harun-al-Raschid on
+the upper waters of the Kerkhah. It has the reputation
+of being one of the coldest places in Persia, so cold that
+its Ilyat inhabitants desert it in winter, leaving two or
+three men who make a business of supplying caravans.
+Usually people come out of the villages in numbers as
+we arrive, but we passed group after group of ruinous
+hovels without seeing a creature. We obtained awfully
+cold rooms at a great height above a bazar, now deserted.
+I write "awfully" advisedly, for the mercury in them at
+sunset was 2&deg; below zero, the floors were plaster, slippery
+with frozen moisture, the walls were partly wood, with
+great apertures between the planks; where they were mud
+the blistered plaster was fringed with icicles. Later the
+mercury sank to 12&deg;, and before morning to 16&deg; below
+zero, and the hot water froze in my basin before I could
+use it!</p>
+
+<p>We were to have started at eight, as there was no
+possible way of dividing the nine hours' march, but when
+the time came the <i>katirgis</i> said it was too cold to rope
+the loads, a little later that we could only get half-way,
+and later that there was no accommodation for mules
+half-way and that we must go the whole way! At nine
+the mercury was at 4&deg; below zero, and the slipperiness
+was fearful. The poor animals could scarcely keep on
+their feet. We have crossed two high passes, Nal
+Shikan (the Horse-Shoe breaking pass) and the Charzabar
+Pass, in tremendous snow, riding nine hours, only dismounting
+to walk down one hill. At the half-way
+hamlet I decided to go on, having still a lingering prejudice
+against sharing a den with a quantity of human
+beings, mules, asses, poultry, and dogs.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On one long ascent we encountered a "blizzard,"
+when the mercury was only 3&deg; above zero. It was awful.
+The men covered their heads with their <i>abbas</i> and turned
+their backs to the wind. I got my heavy mackintosh
+over everything, but in taking off three pairs of gloves
+for one minute to button it the pain of my hand was
+literally excruciating. At the summit the snow was four
+feet deep, and a number of mules were down, but after
+getting over the crest of the Nal Shikan Pass and into
+the Zobeideh valley it became better. But after every
+descent there was another ascent to face till we reached
+the pass above the Cheshmeh-i-Charzabar torrent, in a
+picturesque glen, with a village and some primitive flour
+mills.</p>
+
+<p>Below this height lies the vast and fertile plain of
+Mahidasht, one expanse of snow, broken by mud villages
+looking like brown islands, and the truncated cone of
+Goree, a seat of the ancient fire-worship. In the centre
+of the plain is an immense caravanserai with some houses
+about it. When this came into sight it was only five
+miles off, but we were nearly three hours in reaching it!
+The view was wonderful. Every speck on the vast plain
+was seen distinctly; then came a heavy snow blink,
+above which hovered ghosts of snow mountains rising
+into a pale green sky, a dead and lonely wilderness,
+looking as if all things which lived and moved had long
+ago vanished from it. Those hours after first sighting
+the village were very severe. It seemed to grow no
+nearer. I was half-dead with the journey of twenty-two
+miles at a slow foot's pace, and was aching and cramped
+from the intense cold, for as twilight fell the mercury
+sank to 3&deg; below zero. The Indian servants, I believe,
+suffered more than I did, and some of the <i>katirgis</i> even
+more than they.</p>
+
+<p>At last by a pointed brick bridge we crossed the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+little river of Mahidasht, and rode into the house of
+the headman, who is a sort of steward of Abdul
+Rahim, our future host, the owner of many villages on
+this plain. The house is of the better class of
+Kurdish houses, with a broad passage, and a room on
+each side, at the end a great, low, dark room, half living-room,
+half stable, which accommodates to-night some of the
+mules, the muleteers, the servants, and the men of the
+family. Beyond this again is a large stable, and below-ground,
+reached by a sloping tunnel, is the sheep-fold.
+One room has neither door nor window, mine has an
+outer and inner door, and a fire of live embers in a hole
+in the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The family in vacating the room have left their goods
+behind,&mdash;two plank beds at one end heaped with carpets
+and felts, a sacking cradle hanging from the roof, two
+clay jars five feet high for storing grain, and in the
+<i>takchahs</i>, or recesses of the walls, <i>samovars</i> or tea-urns,
+pots, metal vases, cartridge belts, and odds and ends.
+Two old guns, an old sword, and a coarse coloured print
+of the Russian Imperial family are on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>I was lifted from the mule to my bed, covered
+with all available wraps, a pot of hot embers put by
+the bed, my hands and feet rubbed, hot syrup coloured
+with tea produced in Russian glasses, and in two
+hours I was able to move. The caravan, which we
+thought could not get through the snow, came in three
+hours later, men and mules thoroughly knocked up, and
+not till nine could we get a scanty dinner. It has been
+a hard day all round. The <i>far&#257;shes</i> in the kitchen are
+cursing the English sahibs, who will travel in the winter,
+wishing our fathers may be burned, etc., two of the
+muleteers have been howling with pain for the last two
+hours, and I went into the kitchen to see the poor
+fellows.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In a corner of the big room, among the rough trunks
+of trees which support the sooty roof, the muleteers were
+lying in a heap in their big-sleeved felt coats round a
+big fire, about another the servants were cooking their
+food, the <i>far&#257;shes</i> were lying round another, and some of
+the house people about a fourth, and through smoke and
+flame a background of mules and wolf-like dogs was dimly
+seen, a gleam now and then falling into the dark stable
+beyond, where the jaded baggage animals were lying in
+heaps.</p>
+
+<p>Mahidasht is said to be one of the finest and most fertile
+plains in Persia, seventy-two miles long by fifteen broad,
+and is irrigated throughout by a small stream swarming
+with turtles. Its population, scattered over it in small
+villages, is estimated&mdash;over-estimated probably&mdash;at
+4000. At a height of 5050 feet the winters are severe.
+The snow is nearly three feet deep already, and more is
+impending.</p>
+
+<p>The mercury in my room fell to 5&deg; below zero before
+midnight, but rose for a gray cloudy day. The men and
+animals were so done up that we could not start till
+nearly eleven. The march, though not more than sixteen
+miles, was severe, owing to the deep snow and cold wind.
+Five miles over the snowy billows of the Mahidasht
+plain, a long ascent, on which the strong north wind was
+scarcely bearable, a succession of steep and tiresome
+ridges, many "difficulties" in passing caravans, and then
+a gradual descent down a long wide valley, opened upon
+the high plateau, on which Kirmanshah, one of the most
+important cities in Persia, is situated.</p>
+
+<p>Trees, bare and gaunt, chiefly poplars, rising out of
+unsullied snow, for two hours before we reached it,
+denoted the whereabouts of the city, which after many
+disappointments bursts upon one suddenly. The view
+from the hill above the town was the most glorious snow
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
+view I ever saw. All around, rolled to a great height,
+smooth as the icing of a cake, hills, billowy like the
+swell of the Pacific after a storm&mdash;an ocean of snow;
+below them a plateau equally unsullied, on the east side of
+which rises the magnificently precipitous Besitun range,
+sublime in its wintry grandeur, while on the distant side
+of the plateau pink peaks raised by an atmospheric
+illusion to a colossal height hovered above the snow
+blink, and walled in the picture. Snow was in the air,
+snow clouds were darkening over the Besitun range;
+except for those pink peaks there were no atmospheric
+effects; the white was very pallid, and the gray was very
+black; no illusions were possible, the aspect was grim,
+desolate, and ominous, and even before we reached the
+foot of the descent the huge peaks and rock masses of
+Besitun were blotted out by swirls of snow.</p>
+
+<p>Kirmanshah, approached from the south-west, added no
+elements of picturesqueness to the effect. A ruinous wall
+much too large for the shrunken city it encloses, parts of
+it lying in the moat, some ruinous loopholed towers, lines
+of small domes denoting bazars below, a few good-looking
+houses rising above the insignificant mass, gardens,
+orchards, vineyards, and poplars stretching up the southerly
+hollow behind, and gardens, now under frozen water, to
+the north, made up a not very interesting contrast with the
+magnificence of nature.</p>
+
+<p>We circled much of the ruinous wall on thin ice,
+turned in between high walls and up an alley cumbered
+with snow, dismounted at a low door, were received by a
+number of servants, and were conducted through a frozen
+courtyard into a handsomely-carpeted room with divans
+beside a blazing fire, a table in the centre covered with
+apples, oranges, and sweetmeats, and the large Jubilee
+photograph of Queen Victoria hanging over the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER V</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Kirmanshah</span>, <i>Jan. 31</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This hospitable house is the residence of the British
+Agent or <i>Vakil</i> for Kirmanshah, in whose absence at
+Tihran, his son, Abdul Rahim, performs the duties of
+hospitality in a most charming manner, as if though a
+very busy man he had nothing else to do but carry out
+the wishes of his guests. His hospitality is most unobtrusive
+also, and considerate. If such a wish is expressed
+as to visit the sculptures of the Takt-i-Bostan, or anything
+else, everything is quietly and beautifully arranged; a
+landau-and-four with outriders, superb led saddle-horses,
+and arrangements for coffee are ready outside the walls,
+with the host as <i>cicerone</i>, ready to drive or ride at the
+pleasure of his guests. The rooms in which he receives
+Europeans are on the opposite side of the courtyard from
+the house, and have been arranged according to European
+ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The family history, as usually told, is an interesting
+one. They are Arabs, and the grandfather of our host,
+Hadji Khalil, was a trusted <i>katirgi</i> in the employment of
+Sir Henry Rawlinson, and saved his life when he fell
+from a scaffolding while copying the Besitun inscriptions.
+His good qualities, and an honesty of character and
+purpose rare among Orientals, eventually placed him in the
+important position of British <i>Vakil</i> here, and he became a
+British subject, and was succeeded in his position by his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+son, Agha Hassan, who is now by virtue of singular
+business capacities the wealthiest man in this province
+and possibly in Persia, and bears the very highest character
+for trustworthiness and honour.<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>Abdul Rahim is a very fine-looking man, with noticeable
+eyes, very large and prominent. He has a strong sense
+of humour, which flits over his face in an amused smile.
+He and his father are very large landowners, and are
+always adding land to land, and are now the owners of
+the magnificent sculptures and pleasure-grounds of the
+Takt-i-Bostan. They are bankers likewise, and money-lenders,
+merchants on a large scale, and have built a very
+fine caravanserai, with great brick warehouses for the use
+of traders. Agha Hassan travels <i>en prince</i>, driving to
+Tihran and back in an English landau with four horses
+and a number of outriders and attendants, and his son
+entertains visitors in the same way, mounting even the
+outriders and pipe-bearers on well-bred Arabs. When
+he walks in the city it is like a royal progress. Everybody
+bows low, nearly to the ground, and his purse-bearer
+follows, distributing alms among the poor.</p>
+
+<p>I mention all this because it is a marvel in Persia,
+where a reputation for wealth is the last thing a rich
+man desires. To elevate a gateway or to give any
+external sign of affluence is to make himself a mark for
+the official rapacity which spares none. The policy is to
+let a man grow quietly rich, to "let the sheep's wool
+grow," but as soon as he shows any enjoyment of wealth
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+to deprive him of his gains, according to a common
+Persian expression, "He is ripe, he must be squeezed."
+The <i>Vakil</i> and his son are the only men here who are
+not afraid to show their wealth, and for the simple
+reason that it cannot be touched, because they are
+British subjects. They can neither be robbed, squeezed,
+nor mulcted beyond the legitimate taxation by Persian
+officials, and are able to protect the property of others
+when it is entrusted to their keeping. British protection
+has been in fact the making of these men.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>m&eacute;nage</i> is simple. The dining-room is across the
+frozen courtyard. The meals are served in European
+fashion, the <i>major-domo</i> being an ancient man, "born in
+the house," who occasionally inserts a remark into the
+conversation or helps his master's memory. The interpreter
+sits on the floor during meals. I breakfast in my
+room, but lunch and dine with our host, who spends
+the evening in the <i>salon</i>; sherbet is provided instead of
+wine. Abdul Rahim places me at the head of the
+table, and I am served first! The interpreting is from
+Persian into Hindustani, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>. Our host
+expresses almost daily regret that he cannot talk with me
+on politics!</p>
+
+<p>Kirmanshah, which is said to be a favourable specimen
+of a Persian town, is absolutely hideous and uninteresting.
+It is really half in ruins. It has suffered
+terribly from "plague, pestilence, and famine," and from
+the awful rapacity of governors. It once had 12,000
+houses, but the highest estimate of its present population
+is 25,000. So severely have the town and province been
+oppressed that some years ago three-quarters of the
+inhabitants migrated, the peasants into Turkey, and the
+townspeople into the northern province of Azerbijan.
+If a governor pays 30,000 <i>tumans</i> (&pound;10,000) to the
+Shah for an appointment, of which he may be deprived
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
+any day, it can scarcely be expected of Oriental, or
+indeed of any human nature, that he will not make a
+good thing of it while he has it, and squeeze all he can
+out of the people.</p>
+
+<p>The streets are very narrow, and look narrower just
+now, because the snow is heaped almost to the top of the
+mud walls, which are not broken up as in Turkish towns
+by projecting lattice windows, but are absolutely blank,
+with the exception of low-arched entrances to the courtyards
+within, closed by heavy, unpainted wooden doors,
+studded with wooden nails. The causeways, on which,
+but for the heaps of slippery snow two men might walk
+abreast, have a ditch two or three feet wide between
+them, which is the roadway for animals. There are
+some open spaces, abounding in ruinous heaps, others
+where goods are unloaded, surrounded with warehouses,
+immense brick bazars with domed roofs, a citadel or <i>ark</i>,
+where the Governor lives, a large parade ground and
+barracks for 2000 men, mosques of no pretensions,
+public baths, caravanserais, brick warehouses behind the
+bazars, public gardens, with fountains and avenues of
+poplars, a prison, and some good houses like this one,
+hidden behind high mud walls. Although the snow
+kindly veils a good deal of deformity, the city impresses
+one as ruinous and decayed; yet it has a large trade, and
+is regarded as one of the most prosperous places in the
+Empire.<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p>The bazars are spacious and well stocked with
+European goods, especially with Manchester cottons of
+colours and patterns suited to Oriental taste, which
+loves carnation red. There are many Jews, otherwise
+the people are Shiah Moslems, with an increasing
+admixture of the secret sect of the <i>B&#257;bis</i>. In some
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
+respects the Shiahs are more fanatical than the Sunnis,
+as, for instance, it is quite possible to visit a mosque in
+Turkey, but here a Christian is not allowed to cross the
+threshold of the outer gate. Certain customs are also
+more rigidly observed. A Persian woman would be in
+danger of death from the mob if she appeared unveiled
+in the streets. When I walked through the town,
+though attended by a number of men, the <i>major-domo</i>
+begged me to exchange my gauze veil for a mask, and
+even when I showed this deference to custom the
+passing through the bazars was very unpleasant, the men
+being decidedly rude, and inclined to hoot and use bad
+language. Even the touch of a Christian is regarded as
+polluting, and I nearly got into trouble by handling a
+"flap-jack," mistaking it for a piece of felt. The bazars
+are not magnificent. No rich carpets or other goods are
+exposed to view for fear of exactions. A buyer wanting
+such things must send word privately, and have them
+brought to his house.</p>
+
+<p>Justice seems to be here, much as in Turkey, a
+marketable commodity, which the working classes are
+too poor to buy. A man may be kept in prison because
+he is too poor to get out, but justice is usually summary,
+and men are not imprisoned for long terms. If prisoners
+have friends, the friends feed them, if not they depend
+on charity, and charity is a Moslem virtue. There is no
+prison here for women. They are punished by having
+their heads shaved, and by being taken through the
+town on asses. Various forms of torture are practised,
+such as burning with hot irons, the bastinado, and
+squeezing the fingers in a vice. The bastinado is also
+most extensively used as a punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday by appointment we were received by the
+Governor of the Province. Riding through the slippery
+snow-heaped alleys is not what Europeans would think
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
+of, and our host with his usual courtesy humoured the
+caprice by walking with us himself, preceded by six
+<i>far&#257;shes</i> (lit. carpet-spreaders) and followed by his purse-bearer
+casting money to the poor, and a train of servants.
+The Citadel, or Governor's residence, like all else, is
+forlorn, dirty, and ruinous in its approaches, which are
+long vaulted corridors capable of much adornment.
+Crowds of soldiers, <i>mollahs</i>, dervishes, and others were
+there to see the visit, which was one of ceremony. The
+Palace and Government offices are many-windowed, well-built
+brick-and-tile buildings, arranged round a large
+<i>place</i> with trees and fountains.</p>
+
+<p>Two little fellows in scarlet uniform were at the
+entrance, and the lobby upstairs was crowded with
+Persian and Negro servants, all in high, black lambskin
+caps, tight black trousers, and tight coats with full
+skirts. The Governor received us in a very large, lofty,
+vacant-looking room, and shook hands. I never saw a
+human being more nearly like an ape in appearance, and
+a loud giggle added to the resemblance. This giggle and
+a fatuous manner are possibly assumed, for he has the
+widespread reputation of being a very able man, shrewd
+in business and officially rapacious, as was his father
+before him. The grotesque figure, not more than five
+feet high, was dressed in a black Astrakan cap, a coat of
+fine buff Russian kerseymere with full skirts, and tight
+trousers of the same, and an under-coat of rich, Kerman
+silk brocade, edged with costly fur. He made a few
+curt remarks to his foreign guests, and then turned to
+Abdul Rahim, and discussed local affairs for the
+remainder of a very long visit.</p>
+
+<p>A table covered with exquisite-looking sweetmeats
+was produced, and we were regaled with tea <i>&agrave; la
+Russe</i> in Russian glasses, ice-cream, and <i>gaz</i>. Then
+young, diminutive, raw-looking soldiers in scarlet coats
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
+and scarlet trousers with blue stripes marched into the
+courtyard, and stood disconsolately in the snow, and two
+bands brayed and shrieked for an hour. Then <i>kalians</i>
+were smoked, and coffee was handed round, the cups
+being in gold filigree holders incrusted with turquoises.
+This was the welcome signal for the termination of a
+very tedious visit. The reception-room is a dismal
+combination of Persian and European taste, invariably a
+failure. The carpets are magnificent, but the curtains
+are common serge bordered with white cotton lace, and
+the tea-table with its costly equipments was covered
+with a tawdry cretonne cover, edged with some inferior
+black cotton lace. The lofty walls of plain plaster of
+Paris have their simplicity destroyed by some French
+girandoles with wax grapes hanging from them.</p>
+
+<p>The Governor returned the visit to-day, arriving on
+horseback with fully forty mounted attendants, and was
+received in a glass room on the roof, furnished with
+divans, tables covered with beautiful confectionery, and
+tea and coffee equipages. The conversation was as local
+as yesterday, in spite of our host's courteous efforts to
+include the strangers in it. The Governor asked if I
+were going to Tihran to be <i>Hak&#299;m</i> to the Shah's <i>haram</i>,
+which our host says is the rumour in Kirmanshah!
+During such visits there are crowds of attendants in the
+room all the time pouring out tea, filling <i>kalians</i>, and
+washing cups on the floor, and as any guest may be a
+spy and an enemy, the conversation is restricted to
+exaggerated compliments and superficial remarks.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is regulated by an elaborate code of
+etiquette, even the compliments are meted out by rule,
+and to give a man more than he is entitled to is understood
+to be intended as sarcasm. The number of bows
+made by the entertainer, the distance he advances to
+meet his guest, and the position in which he seats him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>
+are matters of careful calculation, and the slightest mistake
+in any particular is liable to be greatly resented by
+a superior.</p>
+
+<p>The Persian is a most ceremonious being. Like the
+Japanese he is trained from infancy to the etiquette of
+his class, and besides the etiquette of class there is here
+the etiquette of religion, which is far more strict than
+in Turkey, and yields only when there is daily contact, as
+in the capital, between Moslems and Christians. Thus,
+a Moslem will not accept refreshments from a Christian,
+and he will not smoke a pipe after a Christian even if
+he is his guest, and of equal or higher rank.</p>
+
+<p>The custom is for a visitor, as in the case of the
+Governor, to announce his visit previously, and he and
+his train are met, when he is the superior, by a mounted
+servant of the recipient of the honour, who precedes him
+to the door, where the servants are arranged according to
+their rank, and the host waits to take his hand and lead
+him to a seat. On entering the room a well-bred
+Persian knows at once what place he ought to take, and
+it is rare for such a <i>fiasco</i> as that referred to in Luke
+xiv. 9 to occur. Refreshments and pipes are served at
+regulated intervals, and the introduction of a third cup
+of tea or coffee and a third <i>kalian</i> is the signal for the
+guest to retire. But it is necessary to ask and receive
+permission to do so, and elaborate forms of speech
+regulated by the rank of the visitor are used on the
+occasion. If he is of equal or superior rank, the host,
+bowing profoundly, replies that he can have no other wish
+than that of his guest, that the house has been purified by
+his presence, that the announcement of the visit brought
+good luck to the house, that his headache or toothache
+has been cured by his arrival, and these flowery compliments
+escort the ordinary guest to the door, but if
+he be of superior rank the host walks in advance to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
+the foot of the stairs, and repeats the compliments
+there.</p>
+
+<p>The etiquette concerning pipes is most elaborate.<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>
+<i>Kalians</i> are invariably used among the rich. The great
+man brings his own, and his own pipe-bearer. The
+<i>kalian</i> is a water pipe, and whatever its form the
+principle is the same, the smoke being conducted to
+the bottom of a liberal supply of water, to be sucked up
+in bubbles through it with a gurgling noise, as in the
+Indian "hubble-bubble." This water-holder is decanter-shaped,
+of plain or cut glass, with a wide mouth; the
+fire-holder, as in the case of the Governor's pipe, is often
+a work of high art, in thin gold, chased, engraved,
+decorated with <i>repouss&eacute;</i> work, or incrusted with turquoises,
+or ornamented with rich enamel, very costly,
+&pound;40 or even &pound;50 being paid by rich men for the decoration
+of a single pipe-head. Between this and the water-holder
+is a wooden tube about fourteen inches long, from
+one end of which an inner tube passes to the bottom of
+the water. A hole in the side of the tube admits the
+flexible smoking tube, more used in Turkey than in
+Persia, or the wooden stem, about eighteen inches long.
+The fire-holder is lined with clay and plaster of Paris.
+Besides these there is the wind-guard, to prevent the
+fire from falling or becoming too hot, usually of silver,
+with dependent silver chains, and four or six silver or
+gold chains terminating in flat balls hang from the fire-holder.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>kalian</i> is one of the greatest institutions of
+Persia. No man stirs without it, and as its decoration
+gives an idea of a man's social position, immense sums
+are lavished upon it, and the pipe-bearer is a most
+important person. The lighting is troublesome, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
+after all there seems "much ado about nothing," for a
+few whiffs exhaust its capacities.</p>
+
+<p>The tobacco, called <i>tumbaku</i>, which is smoked in
+<i>kalians</i> is exceptionally poisonous. It cannot be used
+the first year, and improves with age, being preserved
+in bags sewn up in raw hide. Unless it is moistened it
+produces alarming vertigo. When the <i>kalian</i> is required,
+about three-quarters of an ounce is moistened, squeezed
+like a sponge, and packed in the fire-holder, and morsels
+of live charcoal, if possible made from the root of the
+vine, are laid upon it and blown into a strong flame.
+The pipe-bearer takes two or three draws, and with an
+obeisance hands it with much solemnity to his master.
+Abdul Rahim smokes three or four pipes every evening,
+and coffee served with the last is the signal for his
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>A guest, if he does not bring his own pipe and pipe-bearer
+has a <i>kalian</i> offered to him, but if the host be
+of higher rank any one but an ignoramus refuses it till
+he has smoked first. If under such circumstances a
+guest incautiously accepts it, he is invariably mortified by
+seeing it sent into the ante-room to be cleaned and refilled
+before his superior will smoke. If it be proper for him to
+take it, he offers it in order of rank to all present, but
+takes good care that none accept it till he has enjoyed
+it, after which the attendant passes it round according to
+rank. In cases of only one <i>kalian</i> and several guests,
+they smoke in order of position, but each one must pay
+the compliment of suggesting that some one else should
+smoke before himself. The etiquette of smoking is most
+rigid. I heard of a case here in which a <i>mollah</i>, who
+objected to smoke after a European, offered it to one
+after he had smoked it himself&mdash;so gross a piece of
+impertinence that the other called the pipe-bearer,
+saying, "You can break that pipe to pieces, and burn
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
+the stick, I do not care to smoke it," upon which the
+<i>mollah</i>, knowing that his violation of etiquette merited
+this sharp rebuke, turned pale and replied, "You say
+truly, I have eaten dirt."</p>
+
+<p>The lower classes smoke a coarse Turkish tobacco, or
+a Persian mild sort looking like whitish sawdust, which is
+merely the pounded leaf, stalk, and stem. The pipe they
+use and carry in their girdles has a small iron, brass, or
+clay head, and a straight cherry-wood stick, with a very
+wide bore and no mouthpiece, and it is not placed in
+the teeth but is merely held between the lips. Smoking
+seems a necessity rather than a luxury in Persia, and is
+one of the great features of social life.</p>
+
+<p>Kirmanshah is famous for its "rugs," as carpets are
+called in this country. There are from twenty-five to
+thirty kinds with their specific names. Aniline dyes
+have gone far to ruin this manufacture, but their import
+is now prohibited. A Persian would not look at the
+carpets loosely woven and with long pile, which are
+made for the European market, and are bought just now
+from the weavers at 13s. the square yard. A carpet,
+according to Persian notions, must be of fast colours,
+fine pile, scarcely longer than Utrecht velvet, and ready
+to last at least a century. A rug can scarcely be
+said to have reached its prime or artistic mellowness of
+tint till it has been "down" for ten years. The permanence
+of the dyes is tested by rubbing the rug with a
+wet cloth, when the worthless colours at once come off.</p>
+
+<p>Among the real, good old Persian carpets there are
+very few patterns, though colouring and borders vary
+considerably. A good carpet, if new, is always stiff;
+the ends when doubled should meet evenly. There must
+be no creases, or any signs on the wrong side of darning
+or "fine-drawing" having been resorted to for taking
+out creases, and there must be no blue in the white
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>
+cotton finish at the ends. Carpets with much white are
+prized, as the white becomes primrose, a colour which
+wears well. Our host has given me a rug of the oldest
+Persian pattern, on a white ground, very thin and fine.
+Large patterns and thick wool are comparatively cheap.
+It is nearly impossible to say what carpets sell at, for if
+one has been made by a family and poverty presses, it
+may be sold much under value, or if it is a good one and
+they can hold on they may force a carpet fancier to give
+a very high price. From what Abdul Rahim says, the price
+varies from 13s. to 50s. a square yard, the larger carpets,
+about fourteen feet by eight feet, selling for &pound;40.<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>Abdul Rahim took me to see carpet-weaving, a process
+carried on in houses, hovels, and tents by women
+and children. The "machinery" is portable and marvellously
+simple, merely two upright beams fixed in the
+floor, with a cross-beam near the top and bottom, round
+which the stout cotton or woollen threads which are the
+basis of the carpet are stretched. The wools are cut in
+short lengths and are knotted round two threads, according
+to the pattern, which, however elaborate, the weaver
+usually carries in her head. After a few inches have been
+woven in this simple way the right side is combed and the
+superfluous length cut off with rough scissors. Nothing
+can be more simple than the process or more beautiful
+than the result. The vegetable dyes used are soft and
+artistic, specially a madder red and the various shades of
+indigo. A soft turquoise blue is much used, and an
+"olive green," supposed to be saffron and indigo. The
+dull, rich tints, even when new, are quite beautiful.
+The women pursue this work chiefly in odds and ends of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
+time, and in some cases make it much of a pastime.
+Men being present they were very closely veiled, and
+found great difficulty in holding on the <i>chadars</i> and
+knotting the wool at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>After taking tea in the pleasant upper room of the
+carpet-weaver's house, we visited the large barracks and
+parade ground. The appearance of the soldiers could
+not possibly impress a stranger favourably. They looked
+nothing better than "dirty, slouching ragamuffins," slipshod,
+in tattered and cast-off clothes of all sorts, on the
+verge of actual mendicancy, bits of rusty uniform appearing
+here and there amongst their cotton rags. The quarters are
+not bad. The rank and file get one and a half pounds of
+bread daily and five rupees a month nominally, but their pay
+is in arrears, and they eke it out by working at different
+trades. These men had not been drilled for two months,
+and were slovenly and unsoldierly to a degree, as men
+must be who have no proper pay, rations, instruction,
+clothing, or equipments.</p>
+
+<p>The courtesy of the host leaves nothing unthought of.
+In returning from a long stroll round the city a wet place
+had to be crossed, and when we reached it there were
+saddle-horses ready. On arriving at dusk in the bazar
+several servants met us with lanterns. The lantern is an
+important matter, as its size is supposed to indicate the
+position of the wearer. The Persian lantern has a tin or
+iron top and bottom, between which is a collapsible
+wired cylinder of waxed muslin. The light from the
+candle burning inside is diffused and soft. Three feet
+long and two feet wide is not an uncommon size. They
+are carried close to the ground, illustrating "Thy Word
+is a lamp unto my path," and none but the poor stir
+out after dark without a lantern-bearer in front. Our
+lanterns, as befits the <i>Vakil's</i> position, are very large.</p>
+
+<p>There is something Biblical in the progress of Abdul
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>
+Rahim through the streets, always reminding me of
+"greetings in the market-place," and "doing alms to be
+seen of men,"&mdash;not that I think our kind host sins in either
+direction. "Peace be with you," say the people, bending
+low. "To you be peace," replies the Agha.</p>
+
+<p>A wish having been expressed to visit the rock-sculptures
+of the Takt-i-Bostan, a winter picnic was quietly
+arranged for the purpose. There was a great snowstorm on
+the night we arrived, succeeded by intense frost and clear
+blue skies,&mdash;glorious Canadian winter weather. Outside
+the wall an English landau, brought in pieces from Baghdad,
+awaited us, with four Arab horses, two of them
+ridden. There were eleven outriders and some led
+horses, and a Turki pipe-bearer rode alongside the
+carriage with two cylinders of leather containing <i>kalians</i>
+in place of holsters, on one side, behind a leather water-bottle,
+and on the other a brazier of lighted charcoal
+hanging by chains much below the horse's body. Another
+pipe-bearer lighted the <i>kalian</i> at intervals and handed it
+into the carriage to his master. Some of the horsemen
+carried rifles and wore cartridge-belts.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the Karasu river we got out into deep mud,
+were ferried over in a muddy box hauling on a rope, and
+drove to the Takt-i-Bostan, where several tanks of
+clear water, a house built into the rock, a number of
+Kurds on fine horses, the arched recesses in the rock
+which contain the sculptures, and the magnificent range
+of the Jabali-Besitun formed a very striking scene.</p>
+
+<p>Sir H. Rawlinson considers these sculptures the finest
+in Persia, and regards them as the work of Greek artists.
+The lower of the two bas-reliefs at the back of the main
+recess is a colossal figure of a king on horseback, "the staff
+of whose spear is as a weaver's beam." On the sides of the
+recess, and, like the equestrian figure, in very high relief
+and very much undercut, are scenes from the chase of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+most spirited description, representing a king and court
+mounted on elephants, horses, and camels, hunting boars,
+stags, and other animals, their enthusiasm in the pursuit
+being successfully conveyed by the art of the sculptor.
+In the spandrels of the archway of the main recess are
+carved, winged female figures. In the smaller arch, also
+containing a bas-relief, is a Pehlevi inscription.<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>There is a broad stone platform in front of the arch,
+below which flows direct from the mountain a great
+volume of water, which replenishes the tanks. The house,
+which also contains a tank fed by the same living water,
+the mountain and its treasures, the tanks, and some miles
+of avenues of willows, have been bought by the <i>Vakil</i>,
+and his son laughingly says that he hopes to live to see a
+time when Cook will give "tourist excursion tickets" by
+rail to the Takt-i-Bostan!</p>
+
+<p>Coffee and <i>kalians</i> were served to the Kurds in the
+arch, and mounting the horses we rode to a country house
+belonging to our host in the midst of large rose gardens,
+and with a wonderful view of the magnificent Besitun
+range, of the rolling snowy hills on which Kirmanshah
+and its plantations lay like a black splotch, and of this
+noble plain, six miles long from north to south, and thirty
+from east to west, its absolutely unbroken snow gleaming
+like satin, and shadows lying upon it in pure blue.
+Many servants and a large fire awaited us in that pleasant
+bungalow, as well as coffee and sweetmeats, and we stayed
+there till the sinking sun flushed all the surrounding hills
+with pink, and the gray twilight came on.</p>
+
+<p>I rode a splendid Arab, with a neck "clothed with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+thunder," a horse to make one feel young again, with
+his elastic stride and pride of bearing, but indeed I
+"snatched a fearful joy," for the snow was extremely
+slippery, and thirteen Arab horses in high condition
+restrained to a foot's pace had belligerent views of their
+own, tending to disconcert an unwary rider. We crossed
+the Karasu by a deep and devious ford up to the girths,
+and had an exhilarating six miles' ride by moonlight in
+keen frost, the powdery snow crackling under the horses'
+feet. It was too slippery to enter the town on horseback,
+but servants with lanterns awaited us at the gates
+and roaring fires and dinner were ready here, after a
+delightful expedition.</p>
+
+<p>I dined alone with our host, Hadji, who understands and
+speaks English fairly well, acting as interpreter. Abdul
+Rahim at once plunged into politics, and asked very many
+intelligent questions about English politics and parties,
+the condition and housing of our working classes, and
+then about my own family and occupations. He is a
+zealous Moslem, and the pious phrases which sit so oddly
+on Hadji come very naturally from his lips. In reply to
+a sketch of character which I gave him he said: "What
+God does is good. He knows, we submit. He of whom
+you speak laid up great treasure for another life. Whoso
+loves and befriends the poor is acceptable to God. One
+day we shall know all. God is good." He said he had
+been too busy to learn English, but that he understands
+a great deal, and added, with a roguish gleam lighting up
+his whole face, and a very funny laugh, "And I hear
+what M&mdash;&mdash; says." He has seen but very few English
+ladies, and it shows great quickness of apprehension that
+he should never fail in the respectfulness and quiet
+courteous attentions which would be shown to a lady by
+an English host.</p>
+
+<p>Even after India, the quantity of servants employed in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>
+such a household as this is very impressive. Besides
+a number who are with the <i>Vakil</i> in Tihran, there are
+the <i>nazr</i> or steward, who under the master is supreme,
+cooks and their assistants, table servants, <i>far&#257;shes</i>, who
+are sweepers and message-runners, in any number, pipe-bearers,
+coffee and ice-makers, plate-cleaners, washermen,
+lamp-cleaners, who are also lantern-bearers, a head groom,
+with a groom for each horse under him, and a number
+more, over forty in all, receiving, if paid at the usual
+rate of wages in Kirmanshah, which is a cheap place,
+from sixty <i>krans</i> a month down to twenty, the <i>kran</i> being
+now about 8d. These wages do not represent the actual
+gains of a servant, for he is entitled to perquisites, which
+are chiefly in the form of commissions on things bought
+and sold by his master, and which are regarded as legitimate
+if they do not exceed 10 per cent. It is of no use
+to fight again this "<i>modakel</i>," or to vex one's soul in any
+way about it. Persians have to submit to it as well
+as Europeans. Hadji has endeavoured to extract from
+50 to 80 per cent on purchases made by him for me,
+but this is thought an outrage.</p>
+
+<p>This <i>modakel</i> applies to all bargains. If a <i>charvadar</i>
+(no longer a <i>katirgi</i>) is hired, he has to pay one's servant
+10 per cent on the contract price. If I sell a horse, my
+servant holds out for a good price, and takes his 10 per
+cent, and the same thing applies to a pair of shoes, or
+a pound of tea, or a chicken, or a bottle of milk. The
+system comes down from the highest quarters. The
+price paid by the governor of a province to the Shah is
+but the Shah's <i>modakel</i>, and when a governor farms the
+taxes for 60,000 <i>tumans</i> and sells them for 80,000, the
+difference is his <i>modakel</i>, and so it goes on through all
+official transactions and appointments, and is a fruitful
+source of grinding oppression, and of inefficiency in the
+army and other departments. The servant, poor fellow,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
+may stop at 10 per cent, but the Shah's servant may
+think himself generous if he hesitates at 50 per cent.
+I have heard it said that when the late Shah was dying
+he said to the present sovereign: "If you would sit long
+upon the throne, see that there is only one spoon among
+ten men," and that the system represented by this speech
+is faithfully carried out.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER VI</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">Kirmanshah</span>, <i>Feb. 2</i>.</p>
+
+<p>On January 28 there was a tremendous snowfall, and
+even before that the road to Hamadan, which was our
+possible route, had been blocked for some days. The
+temperature has now risen to 31&deg;, with a bitter wind,
+and much snow in the sky. The journey does not
+promise well. Two of the servants have been ill. I am
+not at all well, and the reports of the difficulties farther
+on are rather serious. These things are certain,&mdash;that the
+marches are very long, and without any possibility of
+resting <i>en route</i> owing to mud or snow, and that the food
+and accommodation will be horrible.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji is turning out very badly. He has fever now,
+poor fellow, and is even more useless than usual. Abdul
+Rahim does not like him to interpret, and calls him "the
+savage." He does no work, and is both dirty and dishonest.
+The constant use of pious phrases is not a good
+sign either of Moslem or Christian. I told him this
+morning that I could not eat from so dirty a plate.
+"God is great," he quietly answered. He broke my
+trestle bed by not attending to directions, and when I
+pointed out what he had done, he answered, "God knows
+all, God ordains all things." It is really exasperating.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary to procure an additional outfit for
+the journey&mdash;a slow process&mdash;masks lined with flannel,
+sheepskin bags for the feet, the thick felt coats of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
+country for all the servants, additional blankets, <i>kajawehs</i>
+for me, and saddle-horses. The marches will frequently
+be from twenty to thirty miles in length, and the fatigue
+of riding them at a foot's pace when one cannot exchange
+riding for walking will be so great that I have had a pair
+of <i>kajawehs</i> made in which to travel when I am tired of
+the mule. These panniers are oblong wooden boxes,
+eighteen inches high, with hoops over them for curtains.
+One hangs on each side of the mule on a level with his
+back, and they are mounted, <i>i.e.</i> they are scrambled into
+from the front by a ladder, which is carried between
+them. Most women and some men travel in them.
+They are filled up with quilts and cushions. The mule
+which is to carry them is a big and powerful animal, and
+double price is charged for him.</p>
+
+<p>Horses are very good and cheap here. A pure Arab
+can be bought for &pound;14, and a cross between an Arab and
+a Kurdish horse&mdash;a breed noted for endurance&mdash;for even
+less. But to our thinking they are small, never exceeding
+fifteen hands. The horses of the Kirmanshah
+province are esteemed everywhere, and there is a steady
+drain upon them for the Indian market. The stud of
+three horses requires a groom, and Abdul Rahim is
+sending a <i>sowar</i>, who looks a character, to attend us to
+Tihran. A muleteer, remarkable in appearance and
+beauty, and twelve fine mules have been engaged. The
+<i>sowar</i> and several other men have applied to me for
+medicine, having fearful coughs, etc., but I have not been
+fortunate enough to cure them, as their maladies chiefly
+require good feeding, warm bedding, and poultices, which
+are unattainable. It is pitiable to see the poor shivering
+in their thin cotton clothes in such weather. The men
+make shift with the seamless felt coats&mdash;more cloaks than
+coats, with long bag-like sleeves tapering to the size of a
+glove but with a slit midway, through which the hands
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
+can be protruded when need arises. The women have
+no outer garment but the thin cotton <i>chadar</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have tried to get a bed made, but there is no wood
+strong enough for the purpose, and the bazars cannot
+produce any canvas.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sannah, Feb. 5.</i>&mdash;Yesterday we were to have started at
+nine, but the usual quarrelling about loads detained us till
+10.30, so that it was nearly dark when we reached the
+end of the first stage of a three weeks' journey. From
+the house roof the prospect was most dismal. It was
+partly thawing, and through the whiteness of the plain ran
+a brown trail with sodden edges, indicating mud. The
+great mass of the Jabali-Besitun, or Behistun, or Behishtan,
+though on the other side of the plain, seemed actually impending
+over the city, with its great black rock masses, too
+steep to hold the snow, and the Besitun mountain itself,
+said to be twenty-four miles away, looming darkly through
+gray snow clouds, looked hardly ten. Our host had sent
+men on to see if the landau could take me part of the way
+at least; but their verdict was that the road was impassable.</p>
+
+<p>After much noise the caravan got under way, but it
+was soon evident that the fine mules we had engaged
+had been changed for a poor, sore-backed set, and that
+the fine saddle-mule I was to have had was metamorphosed
+into a poor weak creature, which began to drop
+his leg from the shoulder almost as soon as we were outside
+the walls, and on a steep bridge came down on his
+nose with a violent fall, giving me a sharp strain, and fell
+several times afterwards; indeed, the poor animal could
+scarcely keep on his legs during the eight hours' march.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji rode in a <i>kajaweh</i>, balanced by some luggage,
+and was to keep close to me, but when I wanted to
+change my broken-down beast for a pannier he was not
+to be seen, then or afterwards, and came in late. The
+big mule had fallen, he was bruised, the <i>kajawehs</i> were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
+smashed to pieces, and were broken up for firewood, and
+I am now without any means of getting any rest from
+riding! "It's the pace that kills." In snow and mud
+gallops are impossible, and three miles an hour is good
+going.</p>
+
+<p>An hour from Kirmanshah the road crosses the Karasu
+by a good brick bridge, and proceeds over the plain for
+many miles, keeping the Besitun range about two miles
+on the left, and then passes over undulating ground to the
+Besitun village. Two or three large villages occur at a
+distance from the road, now shut in, and about eight miles
+from Besitun there are marble columns lying on the
+ground among some remains of marble walls, now only
+hummocks in the snow.</p>
+
+<p>The road was churned into deep mud by the passage
+of animals, and the snow was too deep to ride in. My
+mule lost no opportunity of tumbling down, and I felt
+myself a barbarian for urging him on. Hills and mountains
+glistened in all directions. The only exception to
+the general whiteness was Piru, the great rock mass of
+Besitun, which ever loomed blackly overhead through
+clouds and darkness, and never seemed any nearer. It
+was very solitary. I met only a caravan of carpets, and
+a few men struggling along with laden asses.</p>
+
+<p>It was the most artistic day of the whole journey,
+much cloud flying about, mountains in indigo gloom, or in
+gray, with storm clouds round their heads, or pure white,
+with shadows touched in with cobalt, while peaks and
+ridges, sun-kissed, gleamed here and there above indigo
+and gray. Not a tree or even bush, on them or on the
+plain, broke the monotony after a summer palace of the
+Shah, surrounded by poplars, was passed. There is
+plenty of water everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun was stormily tinging with pink the
+rolling snow-clouds here and there, I halted on the brow
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
+of a slope under the imposing rock front of Besitun to
+wait for orders. It was wildly magnificent: the huge
+precipice of Piru, rising 1700 feet from the level, the
+mountains on both sides of the valley approaching each
+other, and behind Piru a craggy ravine, glorified here
+and there by touches of amber and pink upon the clouds
+which boiled furiously out of its depths. In the foreground
+were a huge caravanserai with a noble portal, a
+solitary thing upon the snow, not a dwelling, but offering
+its frigid hospitality to all comers; a river with many
+windings, and the ruinous hovels of Besitun huddled
+in the mud behind. An appalling view in the wild twilight
+of a winter evening; and as the pink died out, a
+desolate ghastliness fell upon it. As I waited, all but
+worn out by the long march, the tumbling mule, and the
+icy wind, I thought I should like never to hear the deep
+chimes of a Persian caravan, or see the huge portal of
+a Persian caravanserai any more. These are cowardly
+emotions which are dispelled by warmth and food, but at
+that moment there was not much prospect of either.</p>
+
+<p>Through seas of mud and by mounds of filth we
+entered Besitun, a most wretched village of eighteen
+hovels, chiefly ruinous, where we dismounted in the
+mixed snow and mud of a yard at a hovel of three
+rooms vacated by a family. It was a better shelter than
+could have been hoped for, though after a fire was made,
+which filled the room with smoke, I had to move from
+place to place to avoid the drip from the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji said he was ill of fever, and seemed like an
+idiot; but the orderly said that the illness was shammed
+and the stupidity assumed in order not to work. I told
+him to put the mattress on the bed; "Pour water on the
+mattress," he replied. I repeated, "Put&mdash;the&mdash;mattress&mdash;on&mdash;the&mdash;bed,"
+to which he replied, "Put the mattress
+into water!" I said if he felt too ill for his work he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+might go to bed. "God knows," he answered. "Yes,
+knows that you are a lazy, good-for-nothing, humbugging
+brute"&mdash;a well-timed objurgation from M&mdash;&mdash;,
+which elicited a prolonged "<i>Ya Allah!</i>" but produced no
+effect, as the tea and <i>chapatties</i> were not relatively but
+absolutely cold the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>The next day dawned miserably, and the daylight
+when it came was only a few removes from darkness,
+yet it was enough to bring out the horrors of that
+wretched place, and the dirt and poverty of the people,
+who were a prey to skin diseases. Many readers will
+remember that Sir H. Rawlinson considers that there are
+good geographical and etymological reasons for identifying
+Besitun with the Baghistan, or Place of Gardens of
+the Greeks, and with the famous pleasure-grounds which
+tradition ascribes to Semiramis. But of these gardens
+not a trace remains. A precipitous rock, smoothed at its
+lower part, a vigorous spring gushing out at the foot of
+the precipice, two tablets, one of which, at a height of
+over 300 feet, visible from the road but inaccessible, is
+an Ach&aelig;menian sculpture portraying the majesty of
+Darius, with about a thousand lines of cuneiform writing,
+are all that survive of the ancient splendours of Besitun,
+with the exception of some buttresses opposite the rock,
+belonging to a vanished Sasanian bridge over the Gamasiab,
+and some fragments of other buildings of the Sasanian
+epoch. These deeply interesting antiquities have been
+described and illustrated by Sir H. Rawlinson, Flandin
+and Coste, and others.</p>
+
+<p>It has been a severe day. It was so unpromising that
+a start was only decided on after many pros and cons.
+Through dark air small flakes of snow fell sparsely at
+intervals from a sky from which all light had died out.
+Gusts of icy wind swept down every gorge. Huge ragged
+masses of cloud drifted wildly round the frowning mass
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
+of Piru. Now and then the gusts ceased, and there was
+an inauspicious calm.</p>
+
+<p>I rode a big mule not used to the bit, very troublesome
+and mulish at first, but broken in an hour. A
+clear blink revealed the tablets, but from their great altitude
+the tallest of the figures only looked two feet high.
+There is little to see on this march even under favourable
+circumstances. A few villages, the ruined fort of
+Hassan Khan, now used as a caravanserai, on a height,
+the windings of the Gamasiab, and a few canals crossed
+by brick bridges, represent its chief features. Impressions
+of a country received in a storm are likely to be
+incorrect, but they were pleasurable. Everything seemed
+on a grand scale: here desolate plateaus pure white, there
+high mountains and tremendous gorges, from which white
+mists were boiling up&mdash;everything was shrouded in
+mystery&mdash;plain prose ceased to be for some hours.</p>
+
+<p>The others had to make several halts, so I left the
+"light division" and rode on alone. It became dark and
+wild, and presently the surface of the snow began to
+move and to drift furiously for about a foot above the
+ground. The wind rose to a gale. I held my hat on
+with one half-frozen hand. My mackintosh cape blew
+inside out, and struck me such a heavy blow on the eyes
+that for some time I could not see and had to trust to
+the mule. The wind rose higher; it was furious, and the
+drift, not only from the valley but from the mountain
+sides, was higher than my head, stinging and hissing as
+it raced by. It was a "blizzard," a brutal snow-laden
+north-easter, carrying fine, sharp, hard-frozen snow
+crystals, which beat on my eyes and blinded them.</p>
+
+<p>After a short experience of it my mule "turned tail"
+and needed spurring to make him face it. I fought on
+for an hour, crossed what appeared to be a bridge, where
+there were a few mud hovels, and pressed on down a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span>
+narrower valley. The blizzard became frightful; from
+every ravine gusts of storm came down, sweeping the
+powdery snow from the hillsides into the valley; the
+mountains were blotted out, the depression in the snow
+which erewhile had marked the path was gone, I could
+not even see the mule's neck, and he was floundering in
+deep snow up to the girths; the hiss of the drift had increased
+to a roar, the violence of the storm produced
+breathlessness and the intense cold numbness. It was
+dangerous for a solitary traveller, and thinking that
+M&mdash;&mdash; would be bothered by missing one of the party
+under such circumstances, I turned and waited under the
+lee of a ruinous mud hovel for a long, long time till the
+others came up&mdash;two of the men having been unhorsed in
+a drift.</p>
+
+<p>In those hovels there were neither accommodation nor
+supplies, and we decided to push on. It was never so
+bad again. The wind moderated, wet snow fell heavily,
+but cleared off, and there was a brilliant blue heaven
+with heavy sunlit cloud-wreaths, among which colossal
+mountain forms displayed themselves, two peaks in
+glorious sunlight, high, high above a whirling snow-cloud,
+which was itself far above a great mountain range below.
+There were rifts, valleys, gorges, naked, nearly perpendicular
+rocks, the faces of mountains, half of which had
+fallen down in the opposite direction, a snow-filled valley,
+a winding river with brief blue stretches, a ruined fort
+on an eminence, a sharp turn, a sudden twilight, and
+then another blizzard far colder than the last, raging
+down a lateral ravine, up which, even through the blinding
+drift, were to be seen, to all seeming higher than
+mountains of this earth, the twin peaks of Shamran lighted
+by the sun. I faced the blizzard for some time, and then
+knowing that Hadji and the cook, who were behind me,
+would turn off to a distant village, all trace of a track
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
+having disappeared, I rode fully a mile back and waited
+half an hour for them. They were half-frozen, and had
+hardly been able to urge their mules, which were lightly
+laden, through the snow, and Hadji was groaning "<i>Ya
+Allah!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The blizzard was over and the sky almost cloudless,
+but the mercury had fallen to 18&deg;, and a keen wind was
+still blowing the powdery snow to the height of a foot.
+I sent the two men on in front, and by dint of calling to
+them constantly, kept them from getting into drifts of
+unknown depth. We rode up a rising plateau for two
+hours&mdash;a plateau of deep, glittering, blinding, trackless
+snow, giving back the sunshine in millions of diamond
+flashings. Through all this region thistles grow to a
+height of four feet, and the only way of finding the track
+was to look out for a space on which no withered thistle-blooms
+appeared above the snow.</p>
+
+<p>This village of Sannah lies at an altitude of about 5500
+feet, among poplar plantations and beautiful gardens, in
+which fine walnut trees are conspicuous. Though partly
+ruinous it is a flourishing little place, its lands being
+abundantly watered by streams which run into the
+Gamasiab. It is buried now in snow, and the only mode
+of reaching it is up the bed of a broad sparkling stream
+among the gardens. The <i>sowar</i> met us here, the navigation
+being difficult, and the "light division" having
+come up, we were taken to the best house in the village,
+where the family have vacated two rooms, below the
+level of a yard full of snow. The plateau and its adjacent
+mountains were flushed with rose as we entered
+Sannah, and as soon as the change to the pallor of death
+came on the mercury raced down to zero outside, and it
+is only 6&deg; in the room in which I am writing.</p>
+
+<p>There is a large caravanserai at the entrance to Sannah,
+and I suspect that the <i>sowar</i> in choosing private quarters
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span>
+bullies the <i>ketchuda</i> (headman) and throws the village
+into confusion, turning the women and children out of
+the rooms, the owners, though they get a handsome sum
+for the accommodation, having to give him an equally
+handsome <i>modakel</i>.</p>
+
+<p>After nearly nine hours of a crawling pace and exposure
+to violent weather, I suffered from intense pain
+in my joints, and was dragged and lifted in and put into
+a chair. I write "put," for I was nearly helpless, and had
+to take a teaspoonful of whisky in warm milk. While the
+fire was being made two women, with a gentle kindliness
+which won my heart, chafed my trembling, nearly frozen
+hands with their own, with kindly, womanly looks,
+which supplied the place of speech.</p>
+
+<p>I lay down under a heap of good blankets, sorry to
+see them in thin cotton clothes, and when I was less
+frozen observed my room and its grotesquely miserable
+aspect, "the Savage" never taking any trouble to arrange
+it. There are no windows, and the divided door does
+not shut by three inches. A low hole leads into
+the granary, which is also the fowl-house, but the fowls
+have no idea of keeping to their own apartment. Two
+sheep with injured legs lie in a corner with some fodder
+beside them. A heap of faggots, the bed placed diagonally
+to avoid the firehole in the floor, a splashed tarpaulin
+on which Hadji threw down the saddle and bridle plastered
+with mud, and all my travelling gear, a puddle of frozen
+water, a plough, and some ox yokes, an occasional gust of
+ashes covering everything, and clouds of smoke from
+wood which refuses to do anything but smoke, are
+the luxuries of the halt. The house is full of people,
+and the women come in and out without scruple, and I
+am really glad to see them, though it is difficult to rouse
+Hadji from his opium pipe and coffee, and his comfortable
+lounge by a good fire, to interpret for them.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The day's experiences remind me of the lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="o1">"Bare all he could endure,</p>
+<p>And bare not always well."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But tired and benumbed as I am I much prefer a march
+with excitements and difficulties to the monotony of
+splashing through mud in warm rain.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hamilabad, Feb. 7.</i>&mdash;The next morning opened cloudless,
+with the mercury at 18&deg;, which was hardly an excuse
+for tea and <i>chapatties</i> being quite cold. I was ready much
+too early, and the servants having given out that I am
+a <i>Hak&#299;m</i>, my room was crowded with women and children,
+all suffering from eye diseases and scrofula, five
+women not nearly in middle life with cataract advanced
+in both eyes, and many with incurved eyelids, the
+result of wood smoke. It was most painful to see their
+disappointment when I told them that it would need
+time to cure some of them, and that for others I could
+do nothing. Could I not stay? they pleaded. I could
+have that room and milk and eggs&mdash;the best they had.
+"And they lifted up their voices and wept." I felt like
+a brute for leaving them. The people there showed much
+interest in our movements, crowding on the roofs to see
+our gear, and the start.</p>
+
+<p>The order of march now is&mdash;light division, three
+mules with an orderly, Hadji, and the cook upon them,
+the two last carrying what is absolutely necessary for the
+night in case the heavy division cannot get on. M&mdash;&mdash;
+and an orderly, the <i>sowar</i>, Abbas Khan, another who is
+changed daily, the light division and I, sometimes start
+together; but as the others are detained by work on the
+road, I usually ride on ahead with the two servants.</p>
+
+<p>To write that we all survived the march of that day
+is strange, when the same pitiless blast or "demon wind,"
+blowing from "the roof of the world"&mdash;the Pamir desert,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+made corpses of five men who started with a caravan
+ahead of us that morning. We had to climb a long
+ascending plateau for 1500 feet, to surmount a pass.
+The snow was at times three feet deep, and the tracks
+even of a heavy caravan which crossed before us were
+effaced by the drift in a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>A sun without heat glared and scintillated like an
+electric light, white and unsympathetic, out of a pitiless
+sky without a cloud. As soon as we emerged from Sannah
+the "demon wind" seized on us&mdash;a steady, blighting,
+searching, merciless blast, no rise or fall, no lull, no hope.
+Steadily and strongly it swept, at a temperature of 9&deg;,
+across the glittering ascent&mdash;swept mountain-sides bare;
+enveloped us at times in glittering swirls of powdery snow,
+which after biting and stinging careered over the slopes
+in twisted columns; screeched down gorges and whistled
+like the demon it was, as it drifted the light frozen snow
+in layers, in ripples, in waves, a cruel, benumbing, blinding,
+withering invisibility!</p>
+
+<p>The six woollen layers of my mask, my three pairs of
+gloves, my sheepskin coat, fur cloak, and mackintosh piled
+on over a swaddling mass of woollen clothing, were as
+nothing before that awful blast. It was not a question
+of comfort or discomfort, or of suffering more or less
+severe, but of life or death, as the corpses a few miles
+ahead of us show. I am certain that if it had lasted
+another half-hour I too should have perished. The torture
+of my limbs down to my feet, of my temples and cheekbones,
+the anguish and uselessness of my hands, from
+which the reins had dropped, were of small consequence
+compared with a chill which crept round my heart,
+threatening a cessation of work.</p>
+
+<p>There were groans behind me; the cook and Hadji had
+rolled off into the snow, where Hadji was calling on Him
+"who is not far from every one of us." M&mdash;&mdash; was on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
+foot. His mask was frozen hard. He was using a
+scientific instrument, and told his orderly, an Afghan, a
+smart little "<i>duffadar</i>" of a crack Indian <i>corps</i>, to fasten
+a strap. The man replied sadly, "I can't, Sahib." His
+arms and hands were useless. My mask was frozen to
+my lips. The tears extorted from my eyes were frozen.
+I was so helpless, and in such torture, that I would gladly
+have lain down to die in the snow. The mercury fell
+to 4&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>After fighting the elements for three hours and a half,
+we crossed the crest of the pass at an altitude of 7000
+feet, to look down upon a snow world stretched out everywhere,
+pure, glistering, awful; mountains rolling in snowy
+ranges, valleys without a trace of man, a world of horror,
+glittering under a mocking sun.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji, with many pious ejaculations, gasped out that
+he was dying (in fact, for some time all speech had
+been reduced to a gasp); but when we got over the crest
+there was no more wind, and all the benumbed limbs
+resumed sensation, through an experience of anguish.</p>
+
+<p>The road to Kangawar lies through a broad valley,
+which has many streams. Among the mountains which
+encompass it are the Kuh-i-Hassan, Boka, the Kuh-i-Paran,
+and the Kuh-i-Bozah. I rode on with the two servants,
+indulging in no higher thoughts than of the comfort I
+should have in lying down, when just in front of me
+Hadji turned a somersault, my alpenstock flying in one
+direction and the medicine chest in another, while he lay
+motionless, flat on his back with all his limbs stretched
+out, just as soldiers who have been shot lie in pictures.
+In getting to him my mule went down in a snow-drift,
+out of which I extricated him with difficulty. I induced
+Hadji, who said his back was broken, and was groaning
+and calling on Allah, to get up, and went on to secure his
+mule, which had the great pack-saddle under its body,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+and was kicking with all its might at my bed and "hold-all,"
+which were between its hind legs, and succeeded in
+catching and holding it till Hadji came up. I told him
+to unfasten the surcingle, for the animal was wild with
+the things among its legs, and he wrung his hands and
+beat his breast, exclaiming, "God is great! God knows I
+shall never see Bushire again!" and was quite helpless.
+Seeing a caravan of asses approaching, I rode on as fast
+as I could to the well-situated little town of Kangawar,
+expecting him to follow shortly. At present the entrance
+into Kangawar is up the bed of a stream.</p>
+
+<p>We had been promised good accommodation there,
+and the town could evidently afford it, but Abbas Khan
+had chosen something very wretched, though it was upstairs,
+and had an extensive snow view. Crumbling,
+difficult stairs at each end of a crumbling mud house led
+to rooms which barely afforded a shelter, with a ruinous
+barn between, where the servants, regardless of consequences,
+kept up a bonfire. A man shovelled most of
+the snow out of my room, and tried to make a fire but
+failed, as neither he nor I could stand the smoke produced
+by the attempt. This imperfect shelter had a window-frame,
+with three out of its four wooden panes gone, and
+a cracked door, which could only ensure partial privacy
+by being laid against the posts from the outer landing,
+which was a flat roof. The wall was full of cracks big
+enough for a finger, through which the night wind rioted
+in a temperature 5&deg; below zero.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to sit upon, and I walked up and
+down for two hours, half-frozen, watching the straggling
+line of the caravan as it crawled along the valley, till the
+sunset flush changed into the chill blue-gray of twilight.
+Hadji arrived with it, having broken his girth after I left
+him. There was not much comfort after the severe
+march, owing to the draughts and the smoke, but one is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
+always hungry and sleepy, and the hybernation of the
+insects makes up for any minor discomforts. It was
+so cold that some water in a cup froze before I could
+drink it, and the blanket over my face was hard frozen.</p>
+
+<p>Kangawar was full of mourning. The bodies of two
+men and a boy, who had perished on the plain while we
+were struggling up the pass, had been brought in. This
+boy of twelve was "the only son of his mother and she
+was a widow." He had started from Kangawar in the
+morning with five asses laden with chopped straw to sell
+for her, and had miserably perished. The two men were
+married, and had left families.</p>
+
+<p>Kangawar is a town of a thousand people built below
+a high hill, on some natural and artificial mounds. Some
+traditions regarding Semiramis are localised there, and it
+is supposed to be on the site of Pancobar, where she
+erected a temple to Anaitis or Artemis. Ruins of a
+fortress, now snow-buried, occupy the crest of a hill above
+the town, and there are other ruins, regarded by
+antiquaries as Grecian, representing a temple or palace,
+"a vast building constructed of enormous blocks of
+dressed stone." Of these remains I saw nothing but
+some columns and a pilaster, which are built into the
+miserable mud walls of a house near the bazar.</p>
+
+<p>At night the muleteers were beseeching on their
+knees. They said that they could not go on, that the
+caravan which had attempted to leave Kangawar in the
+morning had put back with three corpses, and that they
+and their mules would perish. In the morning it was
+for some time doubtful whether they could be induced or
+bribed to proceed. The day was fine and still, but they
+said that the snow was not broken. At last they agreed
+to start if we would promise to return at the first breath
+of wind!</p>
+
+<p>Every resource against cold was brought out and put
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+on. One eye was all that was visible of the servants'
+faces. The <i>charvadars</i> relied on their felt coats and raw
+sheepskins, with the fur inside, roped round their legs.
+There is danger of frost-bite even with all precautions.
+In addition to double woollen underclothing I put on a
+pair of thick Chitral socks over two pairs of woollen
+stockings, and over these a pair of long, loose Afghan
+boots, made of sheepskin with the fur inside. Over my
+riding dress, which is of flannel lined with heavy homespun,
+I had a long homespun jacket, an Afghan sheepskin coat, a
+heavy fur cloak over my knees, and a stout "regulation"
+waterproof to keep out the wind. Add to this a cork
+helmet, a fisherman's hood, a "six-ply" mask, two pairs of
+woollen gloves with mittens and double gauntlets, and
+the difficulty of mounting and dismounting for a person
+thus <i>swaddled</i> may be imagined! The Persians are all in
+cotton clothes.</p>
+
+<p>However, though they have no "firesides," and no
+cheerful crackle and blaze of wood, they have an arrangement
+by which they can keep themselves warm
+for hours by the expenditure of a few handfuls of animal
+fuel. The fire hole or <i>t&#257;nd&#363;r</i> in the middle of the
+floor is an institution. It is circular, narrows somewhat
+at the top and bottom, has a flue leading to the
+bottom from the outside, and is about three feet deep
+and two in diameter. It is smoothly lined with clay
+inside.</p>
+
+<p>Over this is the <i>karsi</i> or platform, a skeleton wooden
+frame like an inverted table, from two to five feet square,
+covered with blankets or a thickly-wadded cotton quilt,
+which extends four or five feet beyond it. Cushions are
+placed under this, and the women huddle under it all
+day, and the whole family at night, and in this weather
+all day&mdash;the firepot in the hole giving them comfortable
+warmth both for sleeping and waking. They very rarely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
+wash, and the <i>karsi</i> is so favourable for the development
+of vermin that I always hurry it out of the room
+when I enter. So excellent and economical is the
+contrivance, that a <i>t&#257;nd&#363;r</i> in which the fire has not
+been replenished for eighteen hours has still a genial
+heat.</p>
+
+<p>It was a serious start, so terribly slippery in the
+heaped-up alleys and uncovered bazars of Kangawar
+that several of the mules and men fell. Outside the
+town was a level expanse of deep, wrinkled, drifted,
+wavy, scintillating snow, unbroken except for a rut about
+a foot wide, a deep long "mule ladder," produced by
+heavily-laden mules and asses each stepping in its
+predecessor's footsteps, forming short, deep corrugations,
+in which it is painful and tedious for horses or lightly-laden
+animals to walk. For nine hours we marched
+through this corrugated rut.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving on the left the summer route to Tihran
+<i>vi&acirc;</i> Hamadan, which is said to have been blocked
+for twenty days, we embarked upon a glittering plain
+covered with pure snow, varying in depth from two feet
+on the level to ten and fifteen in the drifts, crossed by
+a narrow and only slightly beaten track.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long we came on solemn traces of the struggle and
+defeat of the day before: every now and then a load of
+chopped straw thrown away, then the deep snow much
+trampled, then the snow dug away and piled round a
+small space, in which the <i>charvadars</i> had tried to shelter
+themselves from the wind as the shadows of death fell,
+then more straw, and a grave under a high mound of
+snow; farther on some men busy burying one of the
+bodies. The air was still, and the sun shone as it had
+shone the day before on baffled struggles, exhaustion, and
+death. The trampling of the snow near the track
+marked the place where the caravan had turned, taking
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span>
+three out of the five bodies back to Kangawar. The
+fury with which the wind had swept over the plain was
+shown by the absolute level to which it had reduced the
+snow, the deep watercourses being filled up with the
+drifts.</p>
+
+<p>After crossing a brick bridge, and passing the nearly
+buried village of Husseinabad, we rode hour after hour
+along a rolling track among featureless hills, till in the
+last twilight we reached the village of Pharipah, a low-lying
+place ("low-lying" must never be understood to
+mean anything lower than 5000 feet) among some
+frozen irrigated lands and watered gardens. I arrived
+nearly dead from cold, fatigue, and the severe pains in
+the joints which are produced by riding nine hours at a
+foot's pace in a temperature of 20&deg;. My mule could only
+be urged on by spurring, and all the men and animals
+were in a state of great fatigue. My room was very
+cold, as much of one side was open to the air, and a fire
+was an impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>Except for the crossing of a pass with an altitude of
+7500 feet, the next day's route was monotonous, across
+plains, among mountains, all pure white, the only incidents
+being that my chair was broken by the fall of a
+mule, and that my mule and I went over our heads in a
+snow-drift. The track was very little broken, and I was
+four hours in doing ten miles.</p>
+
+<p>Hamilabad is a village of about sixty mud hovels, and
+in common with all these mountain hamlets has sloping
+covered ways leading to pens under the house, where
+cattle, sheep, and goats spend much of the winter in
+darkness and warmth.</p>
+
+<p>I have a house, <i>i.e.</i> a mud room, to myself. These
+two days I have had rather a severe chill, after getting
+in, including a shivering lasting about two hours,
+perhaps owing to the severe fatigue; and I was lying
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+down with the blankets over my face and was just
+getting warm when I heard much buzzing about me,
+and looking up saw the room thronged with men, women,
+and children, just such a crowd as constantly besieged
+our blessed Lord when the toilsome day full of "the
+contradiction of sinners against Himself" was done,
+most of them ill of "divers diseases and torments,"
+smallpox, rheumatism, ulcers on the cornea, abortive and
+shortened limbs, decay of the bones of the nose, palate,
+and cheek, tumours, cancers, skin maladies, ophthalmia,
+opaque films over the eyes, wounds, and many ailments
+too obscure for my elementary knowledge. Nothing is
+more painful than to be obliged to say that one cannot
+do anything for them.</p>
+
+<p>I had to get up, and for nearly two hours was hearing
+their tales of suffering, interpreted by Hadji with
+brutal frankness; and they crowded my room again this
+morning. All I could do was to make various ointments,
+taking tallow as the basis, drop lotion into some eyes,
+give a few simple medicines, and send the majority sadly
+away. The <i>sowar</i>, Abbas Khan, is responsible for spreading
+my fame as a <i>Hak&#299;m</i>. He is being cured of a severe
+cough, and comes to my room for medicine (in which I
+have no faith) every evening, a lean man with a lean
+face, lighted with a rapacious astuteness, with a <i>kaftan</i>
+streaming from his brow, except where it is roped
+round his shaven skull, a zouave jacket, a skirt something
+like a kilt, but which stands out like a ballet dancer's
+dress, all sorts of wrappings round his legs, a coarse
+striped red shirt, a double cartridge-belt, and a perfect
+armoury in his girdle of pistols and knives. He is a wit
+and a rogue. Dogs, deprived of their usual shelter, shook
+my loose door at intervals all night. This morning is
+gray, and looks like change.</p>
+
+<p><i>Nanej, Feb. 9.</i>&mdash;It was thawing, and the march here
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
+was very soft and splashy. The people are barbarous in
+their looks, speech, manners, and ways of living, and have
+a total disregard of cleanliness of person, clothing, and
+dwellings. Whether they are actually too poor to have
+anything warmer than cotton clothing, or whether they
+have buried hoards I do not know; but even in this
+severe weather the women of this region have nothing on
+their feet, and their short blue cotton trousers, short, loose,
+open jackets, short open chemises, and the thin blue sheet
+or <i>chadar</i> over their heads, are a mere apology for clothing.</p>
+
+<p>The journey yesterday was through rolling hills, enclosing
+level plains much cultivated, with villages upon
+them mostly at a considerable distance from the road. I
+passed through two, one larger and less decayed than
+usual, but fearfully filthy, and bisected by a foul stream,
+from which people were drinking and drawing water.
+Near this is a lofty mound, a truncated cone, with some
+"Cyclopean" masonry on its summit, the relics of a fire
+temple of the Magi. Another poorer and yet filthier
+village was passed through, where a man was being
+buried; and as I left Hamilabad in the morning, a long
+procession was escorting a corpse to its icy grave, laid on
+its bedding on a bier, both these deaths being from smallpox,
+which, though very prevalent, is not usually fatal,
+and seldom attacks adults. Indeed, it is regarded as a
+childish malady, and is cured by a diet of melons and by
+profuse perspirations.</p>
+
+<p>A higher temperature had turned the path to slush,
+and made the crossing of the last plain very tedious.
+This is an abominable village, and the thaw is revealing
+a state of matters which the snow would have concealed;
+but it has been a severe week's journey, and I am glad
+of Sunday's rest even here. It is a disheartening place.
+I dismounted in one yard, in slush up to my knees,
+and from this splashed into another, round which are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>
+stables, cowsheds, and rooms which were vacated by the
+<i>ketchuda</i> and his family, but only partially, as the women
+not only left all their "things" in my room, but had a
+<i>godown</i> or storehouse through it, to which they resorted
+continually. I felt ill yesterday, and put on a blister,
+which rendered complete rest desirable; but it is not to
+be got. The room filled with women as soon as I settled
+myself in it.</p>
+
+<p>They told me at once that I could not have a fire
+unless I had it under the <i>karsi</i>, that the smoke would
+be unbearable. When I asked them to leave me to rest,
+they said, "There's no shame in having women in the
+house." M&mdash;&mdash; came an hour later and cleared the room,
+but as soon as he went away it filled again, and with
+men as well as women, and others unscrupulously tore
+out the paper panes from the windows. This afternoon
+I stayed in bed feeling rather ill, and about three o'clock
+a number of women in blue sheets, with a very definite
+leader, came in, arranged the <i>karsi</i>, filling the room with
+smoke, as a preliminary, gathered themselves under the
+quilt, and sat there talking loudly to each other. I felt
+myself the object of a focused stare, and covered my
+head with a blanket in despair. Then more women
+came in with tea-trays, and they all took tea and sat for
+another hour or two talking and tittering, Hadji assuring
+me that they were doing it out of kindness, because
+I was not well, and they thought it dull for me alone!
+The room was again cleared, and I got up at dark, and
+hearing a great deal of whispering and giggling, saw that
+they had opened the door windows, and that a crowd
+was outside. When I woke this morning a man was
+examining my clothes, which were hanging up. They
+feel and pull my hair, finger all my things, and have
+broken all the fine teeth out of my comb. They have
+the curiosity without the gracefulness of the Japanese.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is a house of the better sort, though the walls
+are not plastered. A carpet loom is fixed into the floor
+with a half-woven carpet upon it. Some handsome rugs
+are laid down. There are two much-decorated marriage
+chests, some guns and swords, a quantity of glass teacups
+and ornaments in the recesses, and coloured woodcuts
+of the Russian Imperial family, here, as in almost
+every house, are on the walls.</p>
+
+<p>There is great rejoicing to-night "for joy that a man
+is born into the world," the first-born of the <i>ketchuda's</i>
+eldest son. In their extreme felicity they took me to see
+the mother and babe. The room was very hot, and
+crowded with relations and friends. The young mother
+was sitting up on her bed on the floor and the infant lay
+beside her dressed in swaddling clothes. She looked
+very happy and the young father very proud. I added
+a small offering to the many which were brought in for
+luck, and it was not rejected.</p>
+
+<p>A sword was brought from my room, and with it the
+<i>mamach&eacute;</i> traced a line upon the four walls, repeating a
+formula which I understood to be, "I am making this
+tower for Miriam and her child."<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> I was warned by
+Hadji not to look on the child or to admire him without
+saying "Mashallah," lest I should bring on him the woe
+of the evil eye. So greatly is it feared, that precautions
+are invariably taken against it from the hour of birth,
+by bestowing amulets and charms upon the child. A
+paragraph of the Koran, placed in a silk bag, had already
+been tied round the infant's neck. Later, he will wear
+another bag round his arm, and turquoise or blue beads
+will be sewn upon his cap.</p>
+
+<p>If a visitor admires a child without uttering the word
+<i>Mashallah</i>, and the child afterwards falls sick, the visitor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
+at once is regarded as answerable for the calamity, and
+the relations take a shred of his garment, and burn it in
+a brazier with cress seed, walking round and round the
+child as it burns.</p>
+
+<p>Persian mothers are regarded as convalescent on the
+third day, when they go to the <i>hammam</i> to perform the
+ceremonies required by Moslem law. A boy is weaned
+at the end of twenty-six months and a girl at the end
+of twenty-four. If possible, on the weaning day the child
+is carried to the mosque, and certain devotions are
+performed. The weaning feast is an important function,
+and the relations and friends assemble, bringing presents,
+and the child in spite of his reluctance is forced to
+partake of the food.</p>
+
+<p>At the earliest possible period the <i>mamach&eacute;</i> pronounces
+in the infant's ear the Shiah profession of faith: "God is
+God, there is but one God, and Mohammed is the Prophet
+of God, and Ali is the Lieutenant of God." A child
+becomes a Moslem as soon as this <i>Kelemah Islam</i> has
+been spoken into his ear; but a ceremony attends the
+bestowal of his name, which resembles that in use
+among the Buddhists of Tibet on similar occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Unless the father be very poor indeed, he makes a
+feast for his friends on an auspicious day, and invites the
+village <i>mollahs</i>. Sweetmeats are solemnly eaten after the
+guests have assembled. Then the infant, stiffened and
+mummied in its swaddling clothes, is brought in, and is
+laid on the floor by one of the <i>mollahs</i>. Five names are
+written on five slips of paper, which are placed between
+the leaves of the Koran, or under the edge of the carpet.
+The first chapter of the Koran is then read. One of the
+slips is then drawn at random, and a <i>mollah</i> takes up the
+child, and pronounces in its ear the name found upon it,
+after which he places the paper on its clothes.</p>
+
+<p>The relations and friends give it presents according to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
+their means, answering to our christening gifts, and
+thereafter it is called by the name it has received.
+Among men's names there is a preponderance of those
+taken from the Old Testament, among which Ibrahim,
+Ismail, Suleiman, Yusuf, and Moussa are prominent.
+Abdullah, Mahmoud, Hassan, Raouf, Baba Houssein, Imam
+are also common, and many names have the suffix of Ali
+among the Shiahs. Fatmeh is a woman's name, but girl-children
+usually receive the name of some flower or bird,
+or fascinating quality of disposition or person.</p>
+
+<p>The journey is beginning to tell on men and animals.
+One of the Arab horses has had a violent attack of pain
+from the cold, and several of the men are ailing and depressed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dizabad, Feb. 11.</i>&mdash;Nanej is the last village laid down
+on any map on the route we are taking for over a hundred
+miles, <i>i.e.</i> until we reach K&ucirc;m, though it is a caravan
+route, and it does not appear that any Europeans have published
+any account of it. Just now it is a buried country,
+for the snow is lying from one to four feet deep. It is
+not even possible to pronounce any verdict on the roads,
+for they are simply deep ruts in the snow, with "mule
+ladders." The people say that the plains are irrigated
+and productive, and that the hills pasture their sheep and
+cattle; and they all complain of the exactions of local
+officials. There is no variety in costume, and very little
+in dwellings, except as to size, for they are all built of
+mud or sun-dried bricks, within cattle yards, and have
+subterranean pens for cattle and goats. The people abound
+in diseases, specially of the eyes and bones.</p>
+
+<p>The salient features of the hills, if they have any, are
+rounded off by snow, and though many of them rise to
+a great height, none are really impressive but Mount
+Elwand, close to Hamadan. The route is altogether
+hilly, but the track pursues valleys and low passes as
+much as possible, and is never really steep.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yesterday we marched twenty-four miles in eight
+hours without any incident, and the "heavy division"
+took thirteen hours, and did not come in till ten at night!
+There are round hills, agglomerated into ranges, with easy
+passes, the highest 7026 feet in altitude, higher summits
+here and there in view, the hills encircling level plains,
+sprinkled sparsely with villages at a distance from the
+road, denoted by scrubby poplars and willows; sometimes
+there is a <i>kanaat</i> or underground irrigation channel with a
+line of pits or shafts, but whatever there was, or was not, it
+was always lonely, grim, and desolate. The strong winds
+have blown some of the hillsides bare, and they appear
+in all their deformity of shapeless mounds of black gravel,
+or black mud, with relics of last year's thistles and
+euphorbias upon them. So great is the destitution of
+fuel that even now people are out cutting the stalks of
+thistles which appear above the snow.</p>
+
+<p>As the hours went by, I did rather wish for the
+smashed <i>kajawehs</i>, especially when we met the ladies of
+a governor's <i>haram</i>, to the number of thirty, reclining
+snugly in pairs, among blankets and cushions, in panniers
+with tilts, and curtains of a thick material, dyed Turkey
+red. The cold became very severe towards evening.</p>
+
+<p>The geographical interest of the day was that we
+crossed the watershed of the region, and have left behind
+the streams which eventually reach the sea, all future
+rivers, however great their volume, or impetuous their
+flow, disappearing at last in what the Americans call
+"sinks," but which are known in Persia as <i>kavirs</i>, usually
+salt swamps. Near sunset we crossed a bridge of seven
+pointed arches with abutments against a rapid stream,
+and passing a great gaunt caravanserai on an eminence,
+and a valley to the east of the bridge with a few villages
+giving an impression of fertility, hemmed in by some
+shapely mountains, we embarked on a level plain,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span>
+bounded on all sides by hills so snowy that not a brown
+patch or outbreak of rock spotted their whiteness, and
+with villages and caravanserais scattered thinly over
+it. On the left, there are the extensive ruins of old
+Dizabad, and a great tract of forlorn graves clustering
+round a crumbling <i>imamzada</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun sank the distant hills became rose-flushed,
+and then one by one the flush died off into the paleness
+of death, and in the gathering blue-grayness, in desolation
+without sublimity, in ghastliness, impressive but only
+by force of ghastliness, and in benumbing cold, we rode
+into this village, and into a yard encumbered with mighty
+piles of snow, on one side of which I have a wretched
+room, though the best, with two doors, which do not shut, but
+when they are closed make it quite dark&mdash;a deep, damp, cobwebby,
+dusty, musty lair like a miserable eastern cowshed.</p>
+
+<p>I was really half-frozen and quite benumbed, and
+though I had plenty of blankets and furs, had a long and
+severe chill, and another to-day. M&mdash;&mdash; also has had
+bad chills, and the Afghan orderly is ill, and moaning
+with pain in the next room. Hadji has fallen into a state
+of chronic invalidism, and is shaking with chills, his teeth
+chattering, and he is calling on Allah whenever I am
+within hearing.</p>
+
+<p>The chilly dampness and the rise in temperature
+again may have something to do with the ailments, but
+I think that we Europeans are suffering from the want of
+nourishing food. Meat has not been attainable for some
+days, the fowls are dry and skinny, and milk is very
+scarce and poor. I cannot eat the sour wafers which
+pass for bread, and as Hadji cannot boil rice or make
+flour porridge, I often start in the morning having only
+had a cup of tea. I lunch in the saddle on dates, the
+milk in the holsters having been frozen lately; then is the
+time for finding the value of a double peppermint lozenge!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Snow fell heavily last night, and as the track has
+not been broken, and the <i>charvadars</i> dared not face it,
+we are detained in this miserable place, four other
+caravans sharing our fate. The pros and cons about
+starting were many, and Abbas Khan was sent on horseback
+to reconnoitre, but he came back like Noah's dove,
+reporting that it was a trackless waste of snow outside.
+It is a day of rest, but as the door has to be open on
+the snow to let in light, my hands are benumbed with
+the damp cold. Still, a bowl of Edwards' desiccated soup&mdash;the
+best of all travelling soups&mdash;has been very reviving,
+and though I have had a severe chill again, I do not mean
+to succumb. I do not dwell on the hardships, but they
+are awful. The soldiers and servants all have bad
+coughs, and dwindle daily. The little orderly is so ill
+to-day that we could not have gone on even had the track
+been broken.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saruk, Feb. 12.</i>&mdash;Unladen asses, followed by unladen
+mules, were driven along to break the track this morning,
+and as two caravans started before us, it was tolerable,
+though very deep. The solitude and desolation were
+awful. At first the snow was somewhat thawed, but
+soon it became immensely deep, and we had to plunge
+through hollows from which the beasts extricated themselves
+with great difficulty and occasionally had to be
+unloaded and reloaded.</p>
+
+<p>As I mentioned in writing of an earlier march, it is
+difficult and even dangerous to pass caravans when the
+only road is a deep rut a foot wide, and we had most
+tedious experience of it to-day, when some of our men,
+weakened by illness, were not so patient as usual.
+Abbas Khan and the orderly could hardly sit on their
+horses, and Hadji rolled off his mule at intervals. As
+the <i>charvadars</i> who give way have their beasts floundering
+in the deep snow and losing their loads, both
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
+attempt to keep the road, the result of which is a violent
+collision. The two animals which "collide" usually go
+down, and some of the others come on the top of them,
+and to-day at one time there were eight, struggling heels
+uppermost in the deep snow, all to be reloaded.</p>
+
+<p>This led to a serious <i>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</i>. The rival <i>charvadar</i>,
+aggravated by Hadji, struck him on the head, and down he
+went into the snow, with his mule apparently on the top
+of him, and his load at some distance. The same <i>charvadar</i>
+seized the halters of several of our mules, and drove
+them into the snow, where they all came to grief. Our
+<i>charvadar</i>, whose blue eyes, auburn hair and beard,
+and exceeding beauty, always bring to mind a sacred
+picture, became furious at this, and there was a
+fierce fight among the men (M&mdash;&mdash; being ahead) and
+much bad language, such epithets as "son of a dog" and
+"sons of burnt fathers" being freely bandied about.
+The fray at last died out, leaving as its result only the
+loss of an hour, some broken surcingles, and some bleeding
+faces. Even Hadji rose from his "gory bed" not
+much worse, though he had been hit hard.</p>
+
+<p>There was no more quarrelling though we passed several
+caravans, but even when the men were reasonable and
+good nature prevailed some of the mules on both sides
+fell in the snow and had to be reloaded. When the
+matter is not settled as this was by violence, a good
+deal of shouting and roaring culminates in an understanding
+that one caravan shall draw off into a place
+where the snow is shallowest, and stand still till the
+other has gone past; but to-day scarcely a shallow place
+could be found. I always give place to asses, rather
+to avoid a painful spectacle than from humanity. One
+step off the track and down they go, and they never get
+up without being unloaded.</p>
+
+<p>When we left Dizabad the mist was thick, and as it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span>
+cleared it froze in crystallised buttons, which covered
+the surface of the snow, but lifting only partially it
+revealed snowy summits, sun-lit above heavy white
+clouds; then when we reached a broad plateau, the
+highest plain of the journey, 7800 feet in altitude, gray
+mists drifted very near us, and opening in rifts divulged
+blackness, darkness, and tempest, and ragged peaks
+exposed to the fury of a snowstorm. Snow fell in
+showers on the plain, and it was an anxious time, for
+had the storm which seemed impending burst on that
+wild, awful, shelterless expanse, with tired animals, and
+every landmark obliterated, some of us must have
+perished. I have done a great deal of snow travelling,
+and know how soon every trace of even the widest and
+deepest path is effaced by drift, much more the narrow
+rut by which we were crossing this most exposed
+plateau. There was not a village in sight the whole
+march, no birds, no animals. There was not a sound
+but the venomous hiss of snow-laden squalls. It was
+"the dead of winter."</p>
+
+<p>My admirable mule was ill of cold from having my
+small saddle on him instead of his great stuffed pack-saddle,
+the <i>charvadar</i> said, and he gave me instead a
+horse that I could not ride. Such a gait I never felt;
+less than half a mile was unbearable. I felt as if my
+eyes would be shaken out of their sockets! The bit
+was changed, but in vain. I was obliged to get off, and
+M&mdash;&mdash; kindly put my saddle on a powerful Kirmanshah
+Arab. I soon found that my intense fatigue on this
+journey had been caused by riding mules, which have
+no elasticity of movement. I rode twenty miles to-day
+with ease, and could have ridden twenty more, and had
+several canters on the few places where the snow was
+well trodden.</p>
+
+<p>I was off the track trying to get past a caravan
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
+and overtake the others, when down came the horse and
+I in a drift fully ten feet deep. Somehow I was not
+quite detached from the saddle, and in the scrimmage
+got into it again, and a few desperate plunges brought us
+out, with the horse's breastplate broken.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached the great plateau above this village,
+a great blank sheet of snow, surrounded by mountains,
+now buried in white mists, now revealed, with snow
+flurries drifting wildly round their ghastly heads, I found
+that the Arab, the same horse which was so ill at Nanej,
+was "dead beat," and as it only looked a mile to the
+village I got off, and walked in the deep snow along the
+rungs of the "mule ladders," which are so fatiguing for
+horses. But the distance was fully three miles, with a
+stream to wade through, half a mile of deep wet soil to
+plunge through, and the thawed mud of a large village to
+splash through; and as I dared not mount again for fear
+of catching cold, I trailed forlornly into Saruk, following
+the men who were riding.</p>
+
+<p>Can it be said that they rode? They sat feebly on
+animals, swaddled in felts and furs, the <i>pagri</i> concealing
+each face with the exception of one eye in a blue
+goggle; rolling from side to side, clutching at ropes and
+halters, moaning "<i>Ya Allah!</i>"&mdash;a deplorable cavalcade.</p>
+
+<p>Saruk has some poplars, and is surrounded by a
+ruinous mud wall. It is a village of 150 houses, and is
+famous for very fine velvety carpets, of small patterns,
+in vivid vegetable dyes. At an altitude of 7500 feet, it
+has a severe climate, and only grows wheat and barley,
+sown in April and reaped in September. All this
+mountainous region that we are toiling through is blank
+on the maps, and may be a dead level so far as anything
+there is represented, though even its passes are in several
+cases over 7000 feet high.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saruk, Feb. 13.</i>&mdash;The circumstances generally are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
+unfavourable, and we are again detained. The Afghan
+orderly, who is also interpreter, is very ill, and though
+he is very plucky it is impossible for him to move; the
+cook seems "all to pieces," and is overcome by cough
+and lassitude; Abbas Khan is ill, and his face has lost
+its comicality; and in the same room Hadji lies, groaning
+and moaning that he will not live through the night.
+Even M&mdash;-'s herculean strength is not what it was.
+I have chills, but in spite of them and the fatigue
+am really much better than when I left Baghdad,
+so that though I exercise the privilege of grumbling at
+the hardships, I ought not to complain of them, though
+they are enough to break down the strongest men. I
+really like the journey, except when I am completely
+knocked up, or the smoke is exceptionally blinding.</p>
+
+<p>The snow in this yard is lying in masses twelve feet
+high, rising out of slush I do not know how many feet
+deep. It looks as if we had seen the last of the winter.
+The mercury is at 32&deg; now. It is very damp and cold
+sitting in a room with one side open to the snow, and
+the mud floor all slush from the drip from the roof.
+The fuel is wet, and though a man has attempted four
+times to light a fire, he has only succeeded in making
+an overpowering smoke, which prefers hanging heavily
+over the floor and me to making its exit through the
+hole in the roof provided for it. The door must be kept
+open to let in light, and it also lets in fowls and many
+cats. My <i>dhurrie</i> has been trampled into the slush, and
+a deadly cold strikes up through it. Last night a man
+(for Hadji was <i>hors de combat</i>) brought in some live
+embers, and heaped some gum tragacanth thorns and
+animal fuel upon them; there was no chimney, and the
+hole in the roof was stopped by a clod. The result was
+unbearable. I covered my head with blankets, but it
+was still blinding and stifling, and I had to extinguish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span>
+the fire with water and bear the cold, which then was
+about 20&deg;. Later, there was a tempest of snow and
+rain, with a sudden thaw, and water dripped with an
+irksome sound on my well-protected bed, no light would
+burn, and I had the mortification of knowing that the
+same drip was spoiling writing paper and stores which
+had been left open to dry! But a traveller rarely lies
+awake, and to-day by keeping my feet on a box, and
+living in a mackintosh, I am out of both drip and mud.
+Such a room as I am now in is the ordinary room of a
+Persian homestead. It is a cell of mud, not brick, either
+sun or kiln dried. Its sides are cracked and let in air.
+Its roof is mud, under which is some brushwood lying
+over the rafters. It has no light holes, but as the door
+has shrunk considerably from the door posts, it is not
+absolutely dark. It may be about twelve feet square.
+Every part of it is blackened by years of smoke.
+The best of it is that it is raised two feet from the
+ground to admit of a fowl-house below, and opens on a
+rough platform which runs in front of all the dwelling-rooms.
+With the misfitting door and cracked sides it is
+much like a sieve.</p>
+
+<p>I have waited to describe a Persian peasant's house
+till I had seen more of them. The yard is an almost
+unvarying feature, whether a small enclosure with a low
+wall and a gateway closed at night by a screen of reeds,
+or a great farmyard like this, with an arched entrance
+and dwelling-rooms for two or three generations along
+one or more of the sides.</p>
+
+<p>The house walls are built of mud, not sun-dried brick,
+and are only one story high. The soil near villages is
+mostly mud, and by leading water to a given spot, a pit of
+mortar for building material is at once made. This being
+dug up, and worked to a proper consistency by the feet
+of men, is then made into a wall, piece after piece being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>
+laid on by hand, till it reaches a height of four feet and
+a thickness of three&mdash;the imperative tradition of the
+Persian builder. This is allowed a few days for hardening,
+when another layer of similar height but somewhat
+narrower is laid upon it, <i>takchahs</i> or recesses a foot deep
+or more being worked into the thickness of the wall, and
+the process is repeated till the desired height is attained.
+When the wall is thoroughly dry it is plastered inside
+and outside with a mixture of mud and chopped straw,
+and if this plastering is repeated at intervals, the style of
+construction is very durable.</p>
+
+<p>The oven or <i>t&#257;nd&#363;r</i> is placed in the floor of one room,
+at least, and answers for cooking and heating. A peasant's
+house has no windows, and the roof does not project
+beyond the wall.</p>
+
+<p>All roofs are flat. Rude rafters of poplar are laid
+across the walls about two feet apart. In a <i>ketchuda's</i>
+or a wealthier peasant's house, above these are laid in rows
+peeled poplar rods, two inches apart, then a rush mat, and
+then the resinous thorns of the tragacanth bush, which
+are not liable to decay; but in the poorer houses the owner
+contents himself with a coarse reed mat or a layer of
+brushwood above the rafters. On this is spread a well-trodden-down
+layer of mud, then eight or ten inches of
+dry earth, and the whole is thickly plastered with mixed
+straw and mud. A slight slope at the back with a long
+wooden spout carries off the water. Such a roof is impervious
+to rain except in very severe storms if kept in
+order, that is, if it be plastered once a year, and well
+rolled after rain. Few people are so poor as not to have
+a neatly-made stone roller on their roofs. If this is
+lacking, the roof must be well tramped after rain by bare
+feet, and in all cases the snow must be shovelled off.</p>
+
+<p>These roofs, among the peasantry, have no parapets.
+They are the paradise of dogs, and in hot weather the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>
+people take up their beds and sleep there, partly for
+coolness and partly because the night breeze gives
+freedom from mosquitos. In simple country life, though
+the premises of the peasants for the sake of security are
+contiguous, there are seldom even balustrades to the roofs,
+though in summer most domestic operations are carried
+on there. Fifty years ago Persian law sanctioned the
+stoning without trial or mercy of any one caught in the
+act of gazing into the premises of another, unless the gazer
+were the king.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the courtyard stables, barns, and store-rooms
+open, but so far I notice that the granary is in the house,
+and that the six-feet-high clay receptacles for grain are in
+the living-room.</p>
+
+<p>Looking from above upon a plain, the poplars which
+surround villages where there is a sufficiency of water
+attract the eye. At this season they are nothing but a
+brown patch on the snow. The villages themselves are
+of light brown mud, and are surrounded usually by square
+walls with towers at the corners, and all have a great
+gate. Within the houses or hovels the families are
+huddled irregularly, with all their appurtenances, and in
+winter the flocks and herds are in subterranean pens
+beneath. In summer the animals go forth at sunrise and
+return at sunset. The walls, which give most of the
+villages a fortified aspect, used to afford the villagers a
+degree of protection against the predatory Turkomans,
+and now give security to the flocks against Lur and
+other robbers.</p>
+
+<p>Every village has its <i>ketchuda</i> or headman, who is
+answerable for the taxes, the safety of travellers, and other
+matters.</p>
+
+<p><i>Siashan, Feb. 16.</i>&mdash;The men being a little better, we
+left Saruk at nine on the 14th, I on a bright little
+Baghdadi horse, in such good case that he frequently
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>
+threw up his heels in happy playfulness. The temperature
+had fallen considerably, there had been a fresh snowfall,
+and the day was very bright. The Arab horses are
+suffering badly in their eyes from the glare of the snow.</p>
+
+<p>If I had not had such a lively little horse I should
+have found the march a tedious one, for we were six
+hours in doing eleven and a half miles on a level! The
+head <i>charvadar</i> had gone on early to make some arrangements,
+and the others loaded the animals so badly that
+Hadji and the cook rolled off their mules into the deep
+semi-frozen slush from the packs turning just outside
+the gates. We had three mules with us with worn-out
+tackle, and the loads rolled over many times, the riders,
+who were too weak to help themselves, getting bad falls.
+As each load, owing to the broken tackle, took fifteen
+minutes to put on again, and the men could do little,
+a great deal of hard, exasperating work fell on M&mdash;&mdash;.
+After one bad fall in a snowdrift myself, I rode on alone
+with one mule with a valuable burden. This, turning
+for the fourth time, was soon under his body, and he
+began to kick violently, quite dismaying me by the bang
+of his hoofs against cases containing scientific instruments.
+It was a droll comedy in the snow. I wanted to get
+hold of his halter, but every time I went near him he
+whisked round and flung up his heels, till I managed to
+cut the ragged surcingle and set him free, when I caught
+him in deep snow, in which my horse was very unwilling
+to risk himself.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after leaving Saruk, which, as I mentioned before,
+is famous for very fine carpets, we descended gently upon
+the great plain of Feraghan, perhaps the largest carpet-producing
+district of Persia. These carpets are very fine
+and their patterns are unique, bringing a very high price.
+This plain has an altitude of about 7000 feet, is 45 miles
+in length by from 8 to 15 in breadth, is officially stated
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
+to have 650 villages upon it, all agricultural and carpet
+producing, and is considerably irrigated by streams, which
+eventually lose themselves in a salt lake at its eastern
+extremity. It is surrounded by hills, with mountain
+ranges behind them, and must be, both as to productiveness
+and population, one of the most flourishing districts
+in Persia.</p>
+
+<p>We were to have marched to Kashgird, but on reaching
+the hamlet of Ahang Garang I found that Abbas
+Khan had taken quarters there, saying that Kashgird was
+in ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji, who had allowed himself to roll off several
+times, was moaning and weeping on the floor of my
+room, groaning out, with many cries of <i>Ya Allah</i>, "Let
+me stay here till I'm better; I don't want any wages; I
+shall be killed, oh, killed! Oh, my family! I shall
+never see Bushire any more!" Though there was much
+reason to think he was shamming, I did the little that he
+calls his "work," and left him to smoke his opium pipe
+and sleep by the fire in peace.</p>
+
+<p>I was threatened with snow-blindness in one eye; in
+fact I saw nothing with it, and had to keep it covered
+up. One of the <i>charvadars</i> lay moaning outside my
+room, poor fellow, taking chlorodyne every half-hour, and
+another had got a bad foot from frost-bite. They have
+been terribly exposed, and the soft snow at a higher
+temperature has been worse for them than the dry
+powdery snow at a low temperature, as it soaks their
+socks, shoes, and leggings, and then freezes. Making
+Liebig's beef tea warms one, and they like it even from
+a Christian hand. The Afghan orderly bore up bravely,
+but was very weak. Indeed the prospect of getting
+these men to Tihran is darkening daily.</p>
+
+<p>My room, though open to the snow at one end, was
+comfortable. The oven had been lighted twelve hours
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+before, and it was delightful to hang one's feet into the
+warm hole. There were holes for light in the roof, and
+cold though it was, so long as daylight lasted these were
+never free from veiled faces looking down.</p>
+
+<p>In order to become thoroughly warm it was necessary
+to walk long and briskly on the roof, and this brought
+all the villagers below it to stare the stare of vacuity
+rather than of curiosity. A snow scene is always beautiful
+at sunset, and this was exceptionally so, as the long
+indigo shadows on the plain threw into greater definiteness
+the gleaming, glittering hills, at one time dazzling in
+the sunshine, at another flushed in the sunset. The
+plain of Feraghan as seen from the roof was one smooth
+expanse of pure deep snow, broken only by brown
+splashes, where mud villages were emphasised by brown
+poplars, the unbroken, unsullied snow, two feet deep on
+the level and any number in the drifts, looking like a
+picture of the Arctic Ocean, magnificent in its solitude,
+one difficult track, a foot wide, the solitary link with the
+larger world which then seemed so very far away.</p>
+
+<p>Things went better yesterday on the whole, though
+the mercury fell to zero in the night, and I was awakened
+several times by the cold of my open room, and when a
+number of people came at daylight for medicines my
+fingers were so benumbed that I could scarcely measure
+them. What a splendid field for a medical missionary
+loving his profession this plain with its 650 villages
+would be, where there are curable diseases by the
+hundred! Many of the suffering people have told me
+that they would give lodging and the best of their
+food to any English doctor who would travel among
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The loads were well balanced yesterday, and Hadji
+only pulled his over once and only rolled off once,
+when Abbas Khan exclaimed, "He's not a man; why did
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
+Allah make such a creature?" We got off at nine, the
+roofs being crowded to see us start. Fuel is very scarce
+at Ahang Garang. For the cooking and "parlour" fire,
+the charge was forty-five <i>krans</i>, or about twenty-eight
+shillings! Probably this included a large <i>modakel</i>. For
+a room from two to four <i>krans</i> is expected.</p>
+
+<p>Through M&mdash;&mdash;'s kindness I now have a good horse
+to ride, and the difference in fatigue is incredible. We
+embarked again on the vast plain of snow. It was a
+grim day, and most ghastly and desolate this end of the
+plain looked, where the waters having done their fertilising
+work are lost in a salt lake, the absolutely white
+hills round the plain being emphasised by the blue
+neutral tint of the sky. For the first ten miles there
+was little more than a breeze, for the last ten a pitiless,
+ruthless, riotous north-easterly gale, blowing up the snow
+in hissing drifts, as it swept across the plain with a
+desolate screech.</p>
+
+<p>The coverings with which we were swaddled were
+soon penetrated. The cold seemed to enter the bones, and
+to strike the head and face like a red-hot hammer, stunning
+as it struck, the tears wrung from the eyes were
+frozen, at times even the eyelids were frozen together.
+The frozen snow hit one hard. Hands and feet were
+by turns benumbed and in anguish, terrific blasts loaded
+with hard lumps of snow came down from the hills,
+snow was drifting from all the white ranges above us; on
+the more exposed part of the track the gusts burst with
+such violence as to force some of the mules off it to
+flounder in the deep snow; my Arab was struck so
+mercilessly on his sore swollen eyes that at times I
+could scarcely, with my own useless hands, induce him to
+face the swirls of frozen snow. Swifter and more resistless
+were the ice-laden squalls, more and more obliterated
+became the track, till after a fight of over three hours,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
+and the ceaseless crossing of rolling hills and deep
+hollows, we reached the top of a wind-bared slope 7700
+feet in altitude and saw this village, looking from that
+distance quite imposing, on a hill on the other side of a
+stream crossed by a brick bridge, with a ruined fort on
+a height above it. It promised shelter&mdash;that was all.
+Below the village there was an expanse of snow, sloping
+up to pure white hills outlined against an indigo depth of
+ominous-looking clouds.</p>
+
+<p>While M&mdash;&mdash; went up a hill for some scientific work,
+I followed the orderly, who could scarcely sit on his
+horse from pain and weakness, into the most wretchedly
+ruinous, deserted-looking village I have yet seen, epitomising
+the disenchantment which a near view of an Eastern
+city brings, and up a steep alley to a ruinous yard heaped
+with snow-covered ruins, on one side of which were some
+ruinous rooms, their backs opening on a precipice above
+the river, and on the north-east wind. I tumbled off my
+horse, Abbas Khan, the least sick of the men, with benumbed
+hands breaking my fall. The severe cold had
+stiffened all my joints. We could scarcely speak; the
+bones of my face were in intense pain, and I felt as if
+the cold were congealing my heart.</p>
+
+<p>With Abbas Khan's help I chose the rooms, the worst
+we have ever had. The one I took for myself has an
+open-work door facing the wind, and it is impossible to
+have a fire, for the draught blows sticks, ashes, and
+embers over the room. The others are worse. It is an
+awful night, blowing and snowing; all the men but two
+are <i>hors de combat</i>. The poor orderly, using an Afghan
+phrase, said, "The wind has played the demon with me."
+He has a fearful cough, and h&aelig;morrhage from the lungs
+or throat. The cook is threatened with pleurisy. It may
+truly be called "Hospital Sunday." The day has been
+chiefly spent in making mustard poultices, which M&mdash;&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+is constantly crossing the yard in three feet of snow to
+put on, and protectors for the chests and backs, preparing
+beef tea, making up medicines, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Surely things must have reached their worst. Out of
+seven men only one servant, and he an Indian lad with
+a fearful squint and eyes so badly inflamed that he can
+hardly see where he puts things down, is able to do anything.
+Two of the <i>charvadars</i> are lying ill in the stable.
+Mustard plasters, Dover's powders, salicylate of soda,
+emetics, poultices, clinical thermometers, chlorodyne, and
+beef tea have been in requisition all day. The cook,
+the Afghan orderly, and Hadji seem really ill. At
+eight this morning groans at my door took me out, and
+one of the muleteers was lying there in severe pain, with
+the hard fine snow beating on him. Later I heard fresh
+moaning on my threshold, and found Hadji fallen there
+with my breakfast. I got him in and he fell again, upsetting
+the tea, and while I attended to him the big dogs
+ate up the <i>chapatties</i>! He had a good deal of fever, and
+severe rheumatism, and on looking at his eyes I saw
+that he was nearly blind. He lost his blue glasses some
+days ago. I sent him to bed in the "kitchen" for the
+whole day, where he lay groaning in comfort by the
+fire with his opium pipe and his tea. He thinks he will
+not survive the night, and has just given me his dying
+directions!</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards M&mdash;&mdash; came for the thermometer and
+chlorodyne, and remarked that my room was "unfit for a
+beast." The truth is I share it with several very big
+dogs. It did look grotesquely miserable last night&mdash;black,
+fireless, wet, dirty, with all my things lying on
+the dirty floor, having been tumbled about by these
+dogs in their search for my last box of Brand's meat
+lozenges, which they got out of a strong, tightly-tied-up
+bag, which they tore into strips. On going for my fur
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+cloak to-day, these three dogs, who, I believe, would take
+on civilisation more quickly than their masters, were all
+found rolled up under it, and lying on my bed.</p>
+
+<p>The mercury in the "parlour" with a large fire
+cannot be raised above 36&deg;. In my room to-night the
+wet floor is frozen hard and the mercury is 20&deg;. This
+is nothing after 12&deg; and 16&deg; below zero, but the furious
+east wind and a singular dampness in the air make it
+very severe. Yesterday, before the sky clouded over,
+there was a most remarkable ring or halo of prismatic
+colours round the sun, ominous of the storm which has
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>This place standing high without shelter is fearfully
+exposed; there is no milk and no comfort of any kind
+for the sick men. We have decided to wrap them up
+and move them to K&ucirc;m, where there is a Persian doctor
+with a European education; but it is a great risk, though
+the lesser of two. I have just finished four protectors
+for the back and chest, three-quarters of a yard long by
+sixteen inches wide, buttoning on the shoulders, of a very
+soft felt <i>namad</i> nearly half an inch thick&mdash;a precaution
+much to be commended.</p>
+
+<p>I think that Hadji, though in great pain, poor fellow,
+is partly shamming. He professed this evening to have
+violent fever, and the thermometer shows that he has
+none. Even the few things which I thought he had done
+for me, such as making <i>chapatties</i>, I find have been done
+by others. It is a pity for himself as well as for me
+that he should be so incorrigibly lazy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Taj Khatan, Feb. 18.</i>&mdash;Yesterday we had a severe
+march, and owing first to the depth of the snow, and
+then to the depth of the mud, we were seven hours in
+doing twenty-one miles. The wind was still intensely
+cold&mdash;bitter indeed. There are few remarks to be made
+about a country buried in snow. The early miles were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+across the fag end of the dazzling plain of Feraghan,
+which instead of being covered with villages is an
+uninhabited desert with a salt lake. Then the road
+winds among mountains of an altitude of 8000 and 9000
+feet and more, its highest point being 8350 feet, where
+we began a descent which will land us at Tihran at a
+level under 4000 feet. Snowy mountains and snowy
+plains were behind&mdash;bare brown earth was to come all
+too soon.</p>
+
+<p>Winding wearily round low hills, meeting caravans of
+camels to which we had to give way, and of asses
+floundering in the snow, we came in the evening to a
+broad slope with villages, poplars, walnuts, and irrigated
+lands, then to the large and picturesquely situated village
+of Givr on a steep bank above a rapid stream, and just
+at dusk to the important village of Jairud, also on high
+ground above the same river, and surrounded by gardens
+and an extraordinary number of fruit trees. The altitude
+is 6900 feet.<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> I had a <i>balakhana</i>, very cold, and was
+fairly benumbed for some time after the long cold march.</p>
+
+<p>A great many people applied for medicine, and some
+of the maladies, specially when they affect children, make
+one sick at heart. Hadji is affecting to be stone deaf, so
+he no longer interprets for sick people, which creates an
+additional difficulty. We left this morning at ten,
+descended 2000 feet, and suddenly left the snow behind.
+Vast, gray, and grim the snow-covered mountains looked
+as they receded into indigo gloom, with snow clouds
+drifting round their ghastly heads and across the dazzling
+snow plains in which we had been floundering for thirty
+days. It is strange to see mother earth once more&mdash;rocky,
+or rather stony hills, mud hills, mud plains, mud
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+slopes, a brown world, with a snow world above. Two
+pink hills rise above the brown plain, and some toothed
+peaks, but the rest of the view is simply hills and slopes
+of mud and gravel, bearing thorns, and the relics of last
+year's thistles and wormwood. The atmospheric colouring
+is, however, very fine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i159" id="i159"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-159.jpg" width="383" height="270" alt="PERSIAN BREAD-MAKING" title="" />
+<p class="caption">PERSIAN BREAD-MAKING.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This is a large village with beehive roofs in, and
+of, mud. A quagmire surrounds it and is in the centre
+of it, and the crumbling houses are thrown promiscuously
+down upon it. It is nearly the roughest place I
+have seen, and the worst accommodation, though Abbas
+Khan says it is the best house in the village.
+My room has an oven in the floor, neatly lined with
+clay, and as I write the women are making bread by a
+very simple process. The oven is well heated by the
+live embers of animal fuel. They work the flour and
+water dough, to which a piece of leaven from the last
+baking has been added, into a flat round cake, about
+eighteen inches in diameter and half an inch thick, place
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
+it quickly on a very dirty cushion, and clap it against
+the concave interior of the oven, withdrawing the cushion.
+In one minute it is baked and removed.</p>
+
+<p>A sloping hole in the floor leads to the fowl-house.
+The skin of a newly-killed sheep hangs up. A pack
+saddle and gear take up one corner, my bed another, and
+the owner's miscellaneous property fills up the rest of the
+blackened, cracked mud hovel, thick with the sooty
+cobwebs and dust of generations. The door, which can
+only be shut by means of a wooden bolt outside, is six
+inches from the ground, so that fowls and cats run in
+and out with impunity. Behind my bed there is a doorless
+entrance to a dark den, full of goat's hair, bones, and
+other stores. In front there is a round hole for letting
+in light, which I persistently fill up with a blanket which
+is as persistently withdrawn. There is no privacy, for
+though the people are glad to let their rooms, they only
+partially vacate them, and are in and out all the time.
+Outside there is mud a foot deep, then a steep slope, and
+a disgusting green pool, and the drinking water is
+nauseous and brackish. The village people here and
+everywhere seem of a very harmless sort.</p>
+
+<p><i>K&ucirc;m, Ash Wednesday, 1890.</i>&mdash;It was really very
+difficult to get away from Taj Khatan. The <i>charvadar</i>
+came on here, leaving only two men to load twelve
+mules. M&mdash;&mdash; practically had to load them himself,
+and to reload them when the tackle broke and the loads
+turned. Hadji and the cook were quite incapable, the
+Afghan orderly, who seemed like a dying man, was left
+behind; in fact there were no servants and no interpreters,
+and the groom was so ill he could hardly sit on a horse.</p>
+
+<p>The march of twenty-five miles took fully eight hours,
+but on the Arab horse, and with an occasional gallop, I
+got through quite comfortably, and have nothing to
+complain of. The road lies through a country of mud
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
+hills, brown usually, drab sometimes, streaked with deep
+madder red, and occasionally pale green clay&mdash;stones,
+thistles, and thorns their only crop. [I passed over much
+of this country in the spring, and though there were a
+few flowers, chiefly bulbs, and the thorns were clothed
+with a scanty leafage, and the thistles and artemisia were
+green-gray instead of buff, the general aspect of the
+region was the same.] There was not a village on the
+route, only two or three heaps of deserted ruins and two
+or three ruinous mud <i>imamzadas</i>, no cultivation, streams,
+or springs, the scanty pools brackish, here and there the
+glittering whiteness of saline efflorescence, not a tree or
+even bush, nothing living except a few goats, picking up,
+who knows how, a scanty living,&mdash;a blighted, blasted
+region, a land without a <i>raison d'&ecirc;tre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Then came low mud ranges, somewhat glorified by
+atmosphere, higher hills on the left, ghastly with snow
+which was even then falling, glimpses far away to the
+northward of snowy mountains among heavy masses of
+sunlit clouds, an ascent, a gap in the mud hills, some low
+peaks of white, green, and red clay, a great plain partly
+green with springing wheat, and in the centre, in the
+glow of sunset, the golden dome and graceful minarets of
+the shrine of Fatima, the sister of Reza, groups of trees,
+and the mud houses, mud walls, and many domes and
+minarets of the sacred city of K&ucirc;m.</p>
+
+<p>Descending, we trotted for some miles through irrigated
+wheat, passed a walled garden or two, rode along the
+bank of the Abi Khonsar or Abi K&ucirc;m, which we had
+followed down from Givr, admired the gleaming domes
+and tiled minarets of the religious buildings on its bank,
+and the nine-arched brick bridge which spans it, and
+reached a sort of hotel outside the gates, a superior
+caravanserai with good, though terribly draughty guest-rooms
+upstairs, furnished with beds, chairs, and tables,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>
+suited for the upper class of pilgrims who resort to this
+famous shrine.</p>
+
+<p>To have arrived here in good health, and well able
+for the remaining journey of nearly a hundred miles, is
+nothing else than a triumph of race, of good feeding
+through successive generations, of fog-born <i>physique</i>,
+nurtured on damp east winds!</p>
+
+<p>There is an air of civilisation about this place. The
+rooms have windows with glass panes and doors which
+shut, a fountain in front, beyond that a garden, and then
+the river, and the golden shrine of Fatima and its exquisite
+minarets. My door opens on a stone-flagged roof
+with a fine view of the city and hills&mdash;an excellent
+place for taking exercise. So strong is Mohammedan
+fanaticism here that much as I should like to see the city,
+it would be a very great risk to walk through it except in
+disguise.</p>
+
+<p>M&mdash;&mdash; borrowed a <i>taktrawan</i> from the telegraph
+clerk and sent it back with two horses to Taj Khatan for
+the orderly, who was left there very ill yesterday morning,
+under Abbas Khan's charge, the Khan feeling so ill that he
+lay down inside it instead of riding. Hadji gave up work
+altogether, so I unpacked and pitched my bed, glad to
+be warmed by exercise. Near 8 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> Abbas Khan burst
+into the "parlour" saying that the <i>taktrawan</i> horses
+were stuck in the mud. He evidently desired to
+avoid the march back, but two mules have been sent to
+replace the horses, and two more are to go to-morrow.
+The orderly was so ill that I expect his corpse rather
+than himself.</p>
+
+<p>This morning Hadji, looking fearful, told me that he
+should die to-day, and he and the cook are now in bed in
+opposite corners of a room below, with a good fire, feverish
+and moaning. It is really a singular disaster, and shows
+what the severity of the journey has been. The Persian
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>
+doctor, with a European medical education, on whom our
+hopes were built, when asked to come and see these poor
+men, readily promised to do so; but the Princess, the
+Shah's daughter, whose physician he is, absolutely refuses
+permission, on the ground that we have come through a
+region in which there is supposed to be cholera!</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER VII</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">K&ucirc;m</span>, <i>Feb. 21</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At five yesterday afternoon Abbas Khan rode in saying
+that the <i>taktrawan</i>, with the orderly much better, was
+only three miles off. This was good news; a mattress
+was put down for him next the fire and all preparations
+for his comfort were made. Snow showers had been
+falling much of the day, there was a pitiless east wind,
+and as darkness came on snow fell persistently. Two
+hours passed, but no <i>taktrawan</i> arrived. At 7.30 Abbas
+Khan was ordered to go in search of it with a good
+lantern; 8, 9, 10 o'clock came without any news. At
+10.30, the man whose corpse I had feared to see
+came in much exhausted, having crawled for two miles
+through the mire and snow. The <i>sowar</i>, who pretended
+to start with the lantern, never went farther than the
+coffee-room at the gate, where he had spent an unconscientious
+but cheery evening!</p>
+
+<p>In the pitch darkness the <i>taktrawan</i> and mules had
+fallen off the road into a gap, the <i>taktrawan</i> was smashed,
+and a good white mule, one of the "light division," was
+killed, her back being broken. This was not the only
+disaster. Hadji had lain down on the borrowed mattress
+and it had taken fire from the live ashes of his pipe and
+was burned, and he was a little scorched.</p>
+
+<p>The telegraphist was to have started for Isfahan the
+next morning with his wife and child in the litter, in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>
+order to vacate the house for the new official and his
+family, and their baggage had actually started, but now
+they are detained till this <i>taktrawan</i> can be repaired. In
+the meantime another official has arrived with his goods
+and a large family, a most uncomfortable situation for
+both parties, but they bear it with the utmost cheerfulness
+and good nature.</p>
+
+<p>Last night I made Hadji drink a mug of hot milk
+with two tablespoonfuls of brandy in it, and it worked
+wonders. This morning, instead of a nearly blind man
+groping his way about with difficulty, I beheld a man
+with nothing the matter but a small speck on one eye.
+It must have been snow-blindness. He looks quite
+"spry." It is not only the alcohol which has cured him,
+but that we are parting by mutual consent; and feeling
+sorry for the man, I have given him more than his wages,
+and his full demand for his journey back to Bushire, with
+additional warm clothing. M&mdash;&mdash; has also given him a
+handsome present.</p>
+
+<p>I fear he has deceived me, and that the stone deafness,
+feebleness, idiocy, and the shaking, palsied gait of
+a man of ninety&mdash;all but the snow-blindness&mdash;have been
+assumed in order to get his return journey paid, when
+he found that the opportunities for making money were
+not what he expected. It is better to be deceived
+twenty times than to be hard on these poor fellows
+once, but he has been exasperating, and I feel somewhat
+aggrieved at having worked so hard to help a man who
+was "malingering." The last seen of him was an active,
+erect man walking at a good pace by the side of his
+mule, at least forty years thrown off. [He did not
+then leave K&ucirc;m, but being seized with pleurisy was
+treated with great kindness by Mr. Lyne the electrician,
+and afterwards by the Amin-es-Sultan (the Prime
+Minister), who was visiting K&ucirc;m, and who, thinking to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
+oblige me, brought him up to Tihran in his train!]
+Those who had known him for years gave a very bad
+account of him, but said that if he liked he could be a
+good servant. It is the first time that I have been
+unfortunate in my travelling servant.</p>
+
+<p>The English telegraph line, and a post-office, open
+once a week, are the tokens of civilisation in K&ucirc;m.
+A telegraphic invitation from the British Minister in
+Tihran, congratulatory telegrams on our safety from
+Tihran, Bushire, and India, and an opportunity for
+posting letters, make one feel once more in the world.
+The weather is grim, bitterly cold, with a strong north-east
+wind, raw and damp, but while snow is whitening
+the hills only rain and sleet fall here. The sun has
+not shone since we came, but the strong cold air is
+invigorating like our own climate.</p>
+
+<p>Taking advantage of it being Friday, the Mohammedan
+day of rest, when most of the shops are closed and the
+bazars are deserted, we rode through a portion of them
+preceded by the wild figure of Abbas Khan, and took
+tea at the telegraph office, where they were most kind
+and pleasant regarding the accident which had put them
+to so much inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>K&ucirc;m is on the beaten track, and has a made road
+to Tihran. Almost every book of travels in Persia has
+something to say upon it, but except that it is the
+second city in Persia in point of sanctity, and that it
+thrives as much by the bodies of the dead which are
+brought in thousands for burial as by the tens of
+thousands of pilgrims who annually visit the shrine of
+Fatima, and that it is renowned for fanaticism, there is
+not much to say about it.</p>
+
+<p>Situated in a great plain, the gleam of its golden
+dome and its slender minarets is seen from afar, and
+the deep green of its orchards, and the bright green of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
+the irrigated and cultivated lands which surround it,
+are a splash of welcome fertility on the great brown
+waste. Singular toothy peaks of striated marl of brilliant
+colouring&mdash;red, blue, green, orange, and salt peaks
+very white&mdash;give a curious brilliancy to its environment,
+but this salt, which might be a source of wealth
+to the city, is not worked, only an ass-load or two at
+a time being brought in to supply the necessities of the
+market.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i167" id="i167"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-167.jpg" width="319" height="221" alt="THE SHRINE OF FATIMA" title="" />
+<p class="caption">THE SHRINE OF FATIMA.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The shrine of Fatima, the sister of Reza the eighth
+Imam, who sleeps at Meshed, is better to K&ucirc;m than
+salt mines or aught else. Moslems, though they regard
+women with unspeakable contempt, agree to reverence
+Fatima as a very holy and almost worshipful person,
+and her dust renders K&ucirc;m a holy place, attracting tens
+of thousands of pilgrims every year, although, unlike
+pilgrimages to Meshed and Kerbela, K&ucirc;m confers no
+lifelong designation on those by whom it exists. Its
+estimated population is 10,000 souls, and at times this
+number is nearly doubled. Pilgrimage consists in a
+visit to the tomb of Fatima, paying a fee, and in some
+cases adding a votive offering. Vows of abstinence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
+from some special sin are frequently made at the shrine
+and are carefully registered.</p>
+
+<p>The dead, however, who are annually brought in
+thousands to be buried in the sacred soil which surrounds
+the shrine, are the great source of the wealth of
+K&ucirc;m. These corpses travel, as to Kerbela, on mules,
+four being lashed on one animal occasionally, some fresh,
+some decomposing, others only bags of exhumed bones.
+The graves occupy an enormous area, of which the
+shrine is the centre. The kings of the Kajar dynasty,
+members of royal families, and 450 saints are actually
+buried within the precincts of the shrine. The price of
+interments varies with the proximity to the dust of
+Fatima from six <i>krans</i> to one hundred <i>tumans</i>. The
+population may be said to be a population of undertakers.
+Death meets one everywhere. The Ab-i-Khonsar, which
+supplies the drinking water, percolates through "dead
+men's bones and all uncleanness." Vestments for the
+dead are found in the bazars. Biers full and empty
+traverse the streets in numbers. Stone-cutting for gravestones
+is a most lucrative business. The <i>charvadars</i> of
+K&ucirc;m prosper on caravans of the dead. There is a
+legion of gravediggers. K&ucirc;m is a gruesome city, a
+vast charnel-house, yet its golden dome and minarets
+brighten the place of death.</p>
+
+<p>The dome of Fatima is covered with sheets of copper
+plated with gold an eighth of an inch in thickness, and
+the ornament at the top of the dome, which is of pure
+gold, is said to weigh 140 lbs. The slender minarets
+which front this <i>imamzada</i> are covered with a mosaic of
+highly-glazed tiles of exquisite tints, in which an azure blue,
+a canary yellow, and an iridescent green predominate, and
+over all there is a sheen of a golden hue. The shrine is
+inaccessible to Christians. I asked a Persian doctor if I
+might look in for one moment at the threshold of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
+outer court, and he replied in French, "Are you then
+weary of life?"<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>My Indian servant, an educated man on whose faithful
+though meagre descriptions I can rely, visited the shrine
+and describes the dome as enriched with arabesques in
+mosaic and as hung with <i>ex votos</i>, consisting chiefly of
+strips of silk and cotton. The tomb itself, he says, is
+covered with a wooden ark, with certain sacred sentences
+cut upon it, and this is covered by a large brown shawl.
+Round this ark, which is under the dome, Kerman,
+Kashmir, and Indian shawls are laid down as carpets.
+This open space is surrounded with steel railings inlaid
+with gold after the fashion of the <i>niello</i> work of Japan,
+and the whole is enclosed with a solid silver fence, the
+rails of which are "as thick as two thumbs, and as high
+as a tall man's head." This <i>imamzada</i> itself is regarded
+as of great antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Two Persian kings, who reigned in the latter part of
+the seventeenth century, are buried near the beautiful
+minarets, which are supposed to be of the same date.
+There are many mosques and minarets in K&ucirc;m, besides a
+quantity of conical <i>imamzadas</i>, the cones of which have
+formerly been covered with glazed blue tiles of a turquoise
+tint, some of which still remain. It was taken by the
+Afghans in 1772, and though partially rebuilt is very
+ruinous. It has a mud wall, disintegrating from neglect,
+surrounded occasionally by a ditch, and at other times
+by foul and stagnant ponds. The ruinousness of K&ucirc;m
+can scarcely be exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>The bazars are large and very busy, and are considerably
+more picturesque than those of Kirmanshah.
+The town lives by pilgrims and corpses, and the wares
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+displayed to attract the former are more attractive than
+usual. There are nearly 450 shops, of which forty-three
+sell Manchester goods almost exclusively. Coarse china,
+and pottery often of graceful shapes with a sky-blue
+glaze, and water-coolers are among the industries of this
+city, which also makes shoes, and tans leather with
+pomegranate bark.</p>
+
+<p>The Ab-i-Khonsar is now full and rapid, but is a
+mere thread in summer. The nine-arched bridge, with
+its infamously paved roadway eighteen feet wide, is an
+interesting object from all points of view, for while its
+central arch has a span of forty-five feet, the others have
+only spans of twenty. The gateway beyond the bridge
+is tawdrily ornamented with blue and green glazed tiles.
+After seeing several of the cities of Persia, I am quite
+inclined to give K&ucirc;m the palm for interest and beauty of
+aspect, when seen from any distant point of view.</p>
+
+<p>That it is a "holy" city, and that a pilgrimage to its
+shrine is supposed to atone for sin, are its great interests.
+Its population is composed in large proportion of <i>mollahs</i>
+and <i>Seyyids</i>, or descendants of Mohammed, and as a whole
+is devoted to the reigning Shiah creed. It has a theological
+college of much repute, established by Fath' Ali
+Shah, which now has 100 students. The women are
+said to be very devout, and crowd the mosques on Friday
+evenings, when their devotions are led by an <i>imam</i>. The
+men are fanatically religious, though the fanaticism is
+somewhat modified. No wine may be sold in K&ucirc;m, and
+no Jew or Armenian is allowed to keep a shop.</p>
+
+<p>K&ucirc;m, being a trading city, manufactures a certain
+amount of public opinion in its business circles, which
+differs not very considerably from that which prevails at
+Kirmanshah. The traders accept it as a foregone conclusion
+that Russia will occupy Persia as far as Isfahan
+on the death of the present Shah, and regard such a destiny
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
+as "fate." If only their religion is not interfered with,
+it matters little, they say, whether they pay their taxes to
+the Shah or the Czar. To judge from their speech, Islam
+is everything to them, and their country very little, and
+the strong bond of the faith which rules life and thought
+from the Pillars of Hercules to the Chinese frontier far
+outweighs the paltry considerations of patriotism. But
+my impression is that all Orientals prefer the tyrannies
+and exactions, and the swiftness of injustice or justice of
+men of their own creed and race to good government on
+the part of unintelligible aliens, and that though Persians
+seem pretty comfortable in the prospect of a double
+occupation of Persia, its actual accomplishment might
+strike out a flash of patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>Probably this ruinous, thinly-peopled country, with
+little water and less fuel, and only two roads which deserve
+the name, has possibilities of resurrection under greatly
+changed circumstances. Of the two occupations which
+are regarded as certain, I think that most men, at least
+in Central and Southern Persia, would prefer an English
+occupation, but every one says, "England talks and does
+not act," and that "Russia will pour 100,000 troops into
+Persia while England is talking in London."</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER VIII</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Caravanserai of Aliabad</span>, <i>Feb. 23</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve hours and a half of hard riding have brought us
+here in two days. No doctor could be obtained in K&ucirc;m,
+and it was necessary to bring the sick men on as quickly
+as possible for medical treatment. It was bitterly cold
+on the last day, though the altitude is only 3400 feet,
+and it was a tiresome day, for I had not only to look
+over and repack, but to clean the cooking utensils and
+other things, which had not been touched apparently since
+we left Baghdad!</p>
+
+<p>This is a tedious part of the journey, a "beaten track"
+with few features of interest, the great highway from
+Isfahan to Tihran, a road of dreary width; where it is
+a made road running usually perfectly straight, with
+a bank and a ditch on each side. The thaw is now
+complete, and travelling consists of an attempt to get on
+by the road till it becomes an abyss which threatens to
+prove bottomless, then there is a plunge and a struggle
+to the top of the bank, or over the bank to the trodden
+waste, but any move can be only temporary, the all-powerful
+mire regulates the march. The snow is nothing
+to the mud. Frequently carcasses of camels, mules, and
+asses, which have lain down to die under their loads, were
+passed, then caravans with most of the beasts entangled in
+the miry clay, unable to rise till they were unloaded
+by men up to their knees in the quagmire, and, worst of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
+all, mules loaded with the dead, so loosely tied up in
+planks that in some cases when the mule flounders and
+falls, the miserable relics of humanity tumble out upon
+the swamp; and these scenes of falling, struggling, and
+even perishing animals are repeated continually along
+the level parts of this scarcely passable highroad.</p>
+
+<p>Our loads, owing to bad tackle, were always coming
+off, the groom's mule fell badly, the packs came off another,
+and half an hour was spent in catching the animal, then
+I was thrown from my horse into soft mud.</p>
+
+<p>Cultivation ceases a short distance from K&ucirc;m, giving
+place to a brown waste, with patches of saline efflorescence
+upon it, on which high hills covered partially with snow
+send down low spurs of brown mud. The water nearly
+everywhere is brackish, and only just drinkable. After
+crossing a rapid muddy river, nearly dry in summer, by
+a much decayed bridge of seven or eight low arches,
+we reached <i>terra firma</i>, and a long gradual ascent and
+a series of gallops brought us to the large caravanserai of
+Shashgird, an immense place with imposing pretensions
+which are fully realised within. In the outer court
+camels were lying in rows. A fine tiled archway leads
+to an immense quadrangle, with a fine stone <i>abambar</i>
+or covered receptacle for water in the middle. All round
+the quadrangle are arched recesses or mangers, each with
+a room at the back, to the number of eighty. At two of
+the corners there are enclosed courtyards with fountains,
+several superior rooms with beds (much to be avoided),
+chairs, mirrors, and tables fairly clean&mdash;somewhat dreary
+luxury, but fortunately at this season free from vermin.
+That caravanserai can accommodate 1000 men in rooms,
+and 1500 mules.</p>
+
+<p>To-day's long march, which, however, has had more
+road suitable for galloping, has been over wild, weird,
+desolate, God-forsaken country, interesting from its desolation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>
+and its great wastes, forming part of the Kavir or
+Great Salt Desert of Persia, absolutely solitary, with scarcely
+a hamlet&mdash;miles of the great highway of Persia without
+a living creature, no house, no bush, nothing. Later, there
+were some vultures feasting on a dead camel, and a mule-load
+of two bodies down in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>Some miles from Shashgird, far from the road, there is
+a large salt lake over which some stationary mists were
+brooding. Beyond this an ascent among snow clouds
+along some trenched land where a few vines and saplings
+have been planted leads to a caravanserai built for the
+accommodation of state officials on their journeys, where
+in falling snow we vindicated our origin in the triumphant
+West by taking lunch on a windy verandah outside rather
+than in the forlorn dampness of the inside, and brought a
+look of surprise even over the impassive face of the
+<i>seraidar</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When we left the snow was falling in large wet flakes,
+and the snow clouds were drifting wildly among the peaks
+of a range which we skirted for a few miles and then
+crossed at a considerable height among wonderful volcanic
+formations, mounds of scori&aelig;, and outcrops of volcanic
+rock, hills of all shapes fantastically tumbled about,
+chiefly black, looking as if their fires had only just died
+out, streaked and splotched with brilliant ash&mdash;orange,
+carmine, and green&mdash;a remarkable volcanic scene, backed
+by higher hills looking ghastly in the snow.</p>
+
+<p>After passing over an absolutely solitary region of
+camel-brown plains and slopes at a gallop, M&mdash;&mdash; a little
+in front always, and Abbas Khan, the wildest figure
+imaginable, always half a length behind, the <i>thud</i> of the
+thundering hoofs mingling with the screech of the cutting
+north wind which, coming over the snowy Elburz range,
+benumbed every joint, on the slope of a black volcanic hill
+we came upon the lofty towers and gaudy tiled front of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span>
+this great caravanserai, imposing at a distance in the
+solitude and snow clouds, but shabby on a nearer view,
+and tending to disintegrate from the presence of saltpetre
+in the bricks and mortar.</p>
+
+<p>There are successions of terraces and tanks of water
+with ducks and geese upon them, and buildings round
+the topmost terrace intended to be imposing. The <i>seraidar</i>
+is expecting the Amin-es-Sultan (the Prime Minister) and
+his train, who will occupy rather a fine though tawdry
+"suite of apartments"; but though they were at our
+service, I prefer the comparative cosiness of a small, dark,
+damp room, though with a very smoky chimney, as I
+find to my cost.</p>
+
+<p><i>British Legation, Tihran, Feb. 26.</i>&mdash;The night was
+very cold, and the reveille specially unwelcome in the
+morning. The people were more than usually vague
+about the length of the march, some giving the distance
+at twenty-five miles, and others making it as high as
+thirty-eight. As we did a good deal of galloping and yet
+took more than seven hours, I suppose it may be about
+twenty-eight. Fortunately we could desert the caravan,
+as the caravanserais are furnished and supply tea and
+bread. The baggage mules took ten hours for the march.</p>
+
+<p>The day was dry and sunny, and the scenery, if such
+a tract of hideousness can be called scenery, was at its
+best. Its one charm lies in the solitude and freedom of
+a vast unpeopled waste.</p>
+
+<p>The "made road" degenerates for the most part into
+a track "made" truly, but rather by the passage of
+thousands of animals during a long course of ages than
+by men's hands. This track winds among low ranges of
+sand and mud hills, through the "Pass of the Angel of
+Death," crosses salt and muddy streams, gravelly stretches,
+and quagmires of mud and tenacious clay, passing through
+a country on the whole inconceivably hideous, unfinished,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>
+frothy, and saturated with salt&mdash;the great brown desert
+which extends from Tihran to Quetta in Beloochistan,
+a distance of 2000 miles.</p>
+
+<p>On a sunny slope we met the Prime Minister with a
+considerable train of horsemen. He stopped and spoke
+with extreme courtesy, through an interpreter, for, unlike
+most Persians of the higher class, he does not speak
+French. He said we had been for some time expected at
+Tihran, and that great fears were entertained for our
+safety, which we had heard at K&ucirc;m. He is a pleasant-looking
+man with a rather European expression, not more
+than thirty-two or thirty-three, and in spite of intrigues
+and detractors has managed to keep his hazardous position
+for some years. His mother was lately buried at K&ucirc;m,
+and he was going thither on pilgrimage. After the usual
+compliments he bowed his farewells, and the gay procession
+with its brilliant trappings and prancing horses
+flashed by. The social standing of a Persian is evidenced
+by the size of his retinue, and the first of the Shah's
+subjects must have been attended by fully forty well-mounted
+men, besides a number of servants who were
+riding with his baggage animals.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after passing him a turn among the hills
+brought the revelation through snow clouds of the magnificent
+snow-covered chain of the Elburz mountains, with
+the huge cone of Demavend, their monarch, 18,600 feet<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> in
+height, towering high above them, gleaming sunlit above the
+lower cloud-masses. Swampy water-courses, a fordable
+river crossed by a broad bridge of five arches, more low
+hills, more rolling desert, then a plain of mud irrigated
+for cultivation, difficult ground for the horses, the ruins
+of a deserted village important enough to have possessed
+two <i>imamzadas</i>, and then we reached the Husseinabad,
+which has very good guest-rooms, with mirrors on the walls.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This caravanserai is only one march from Tihran, and
+it seemed as if all difficulties were over. Abbas Khan
+and the sick orderly were sent on early, with a baggage
+mule loaded with evening dress and other necessities
+of civilisation; the caravan was to follow at leisure, and
+M&mdash;&mdash; and I started at ten, without attendants, expecting
+to reach Tihran early in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>It is six days since that terrible ride of ten hours
+and a half, and my bones ache as I recall it. I never
+wish to mount a horse again. It had been a very cold
+night, and for some time after we started it was doubtful
+whether snow or rain would gain the day, but after an
+hour of wet snow it decided on rain, and there was a
+steady downpour all day. The Elburz range, which the
+day before had looked so magnificent when fifty miles
+off, was blotted out. This was a great disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>An ascent of low, blackish volcanic hills is made by
+a broad road of gray gravel, which a torrent has at some
+time frequented. Thorns and thistles grow there, and
+skeletons of animals abound. Everything is grim and
+gray. From these hills we descended into the Kavir, a
+rolling expanse of friable soil, stoneless, strongly impregnated
+with salt, but only needing sufficient water to wash
+the salt out of it and to irrigate it to become as prolific as
+it is now barren.</p>
+
+<p>It is now a sea of mud crossed by a broad road indicated
+by dykes, that never-to-be-forgotten mud growing
+deeper as the day wore on. Hour after hour we plunged
+through it, sometimes trying the road, and on finding
+it impassable scrambling through the ditches and over
+the dykes to the plain, which after offering firmer foothold
+for a time became such a "slough of despond" that
+we had to scramble back to the road, and so on, hour after
+hour, meeting nothing but one ghastly caravan of corpses,
+and wretched asses falling in the mud.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At mid-day, scrambling up a gravel hill with a little
+wormwood upon it, and turning my back to the heavy
+rain, I ate a lunch of dates and ginger, insufficient sustenance
+for such fatigue. On again!&mdash;the rain pouring,
+the mud deepening, my spine in severe pain. We turned
+off to a caravanserai, mostly a heap of ruins, the roofs
+having given way under the weight of the snow, and there
+I sought some relief from pain by lying down for the short
+thirty minutes which could be spared in the <i>seraidar's</i>
+damp room. It was then growing late in the afternoon,
+all landmarks had disappeared in a brooding mist, there
+were no habitations, and no human beings of whom to
+ask the way.</p>
+
+<p>The pain returned severely as soon as I mounted, and
+increased till it became hardly bearable. Ceaseless mud,
+ceaseless heavy rain, a plain of mud, no refuge from mud
+and water, attempts to gallop were made with the risk of
+the horses falling into holes and even <i>kanaats</i>. M&mdash;&mdash; rode
+in front. Not a word was spoken. A gleaming
+dome, with minarets and wood, appeared below the Shimran
+hills. Unluckily, where two roads met one looked
+impassable and we took the other, which, though it
+eventually took us to Tihran, was a <i>d&eacute;tour</i> of some
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, when I was hoping that Tihran was
+at hand, we reached the town of Shah Abdul Azim, built
+among the ruins of an ancient city, either Rhages or Rhei.
+The gilded dome is the shrine of Abdul Azim, and is a
+great place of pilgrimage of the picnic order from Tihran.
+The one railroad of Persia runs from the capital to this
+town. As we floundered in darkness along wide roads
+planted with trees, there was the incongruity of a railway
+whistle, and with deep breathing and much glare an
+engine with some carriages passed near the road, taking
+away with its harsh Western noises that glorious freedom
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+of the desert which outweighs all the hardship even of a
+winter journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was several miles from thence to the gate of Tihran.
+It was nearly pitch dark when we got out of Abdul Azim
+and the rain still fell heavily. In that thick rainy darkness
+no houses were visible, even if they exist, there
+were no passengers on foot or on horseback, it was a
+"darkness which might be felt."</p>
+
+<p>There was a causeway which gave foothold below the
+mud, but it was full of holes and broken culverts, deep
+in slime, and seemed to have water on each side not
+particular in keeping within bounds. It was necessary to
+get on, lest the city gates should be shut, and by lifting
+and spurring the jaded horses they were induced to trot
+and canter along that road of pitfalls. I have had many
+a severe ride in travelling, but never anything equal to
+that last two hours. The severe pain and want of food
+made me so faint that I was obliged to hold on to
+the saddle. I kept my tired horse up, but each flounder
+I thought would be his last. There was no guidance
+but an occasional flash from the hoofs of the horse in
+front, and the word "spur" ringing through the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour of riding in this desperate fashion
+we got into water, and among such dangerous holes
+that from that point we were obliged to walk our
+horses, who though they were half dead still feebly responded
+to bit and spur. We reached the dimly-lighted
+city gate just as half of it was shut, and found Abbas
+Khan waiting there. The caravan with the other sick
+men never reached Tihran till late the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate we learned that it was two miles farther
+to the British Legation, and that there was no way for
+me to get there but on horseback. One lives through a
+good deal, but I all but succumbed to the pain and faintness.
+Inside the gate there was an open sea of liquid mud,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>
+across which, for a time, certain lights shed their broken
+reflections. There was a railway shriek, and then the
+appearance of a station with shunting operations vaguely
+seen in a vague glare.</p>
+
+<p>Then a tramway track buried under several inches of
+slush came down a slope, and crowded tramway cars with
+great single lamps came down the narrow road on
+horses too tired to be frightened, and almost too tired to
+get out of the way. Then came a street of mean houses
+and meaner shops lighted with kerosene lamps, a region
+like the slums of a new American city, with <i>caf&eacute;s</i> and
+saloons, barbers' shops, and European enormities such as
+gazogenes and effervescing waters in several windows.
+Later, there were frequent foot passengers preceded by
+servants carrying huge waxed cambric lanterns of a
+Chinese shape, then a square with barracks and artillery,
+a causewayed road dimly lit, then darkness and heavier
+rain and worse mud, through which the strange spectacle
+of a carriage and pair incongruously flashed.</p>
+
+<p>By that time even the courage and stamina of an
+Arab horse could hardly keep mine on his legs, and with
+a swimming head and dazed brain I could hardly guide
+him, as I had done from the gate chiefly by the wan
+gleam of Abbas Khan's pale horse; and expecting to fall
+off every minute, I responded more and more feebly and
+dubiously to the question frequently repeated out of the
+darkness, "Are you surviving?"</p>
+
+<p>Just as endurance was on the point of giving way, we
+turned from the road through a large gateway into the
+extensive grounds which surround the British Legation,
+a large building forming three sides of a quadrangle,
+with a fine stone staircase leading up to the central door.
+Every window was lighted, light streamed from the open
+door, splashed carriages were dashing up and setting
+down people in evening dress, there were crowds of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
+servants about, and it flashed on my dazed senses that
+it must be after eight, and that there was a dinner party!</p>
+
+<p>Arriving from the mud of the Kavir and the slush of
+the streets, after riding ten hours in ceaseless rain on
+a worn-out horse; caked with mud from head to foot,
+dripping, exhausted, nearly blind from fatigue, fresh from
+mud hovels and the congenial barbarism of the desert,
+and with the rags and travel-stains of a winter journey
+of forty-six days upon me, light and festivity were overwhelming.</p>
+
+<p>Alighting at a side door, scarcely able to stand, I sat
+down in a long corridor, and heard from an English steward
+that "dinner is waiting." His voice sounded very far off,
+and the once familiar announcement came like a memory
+out of the remote past. Presently a gentleman appeared
+in evening dress, wearing a star, which conveyed to my fast-failing
+senses that it was Sir H. Drummond Wolff. It
+was true that there was a large dinner party, and among the
+guests the Minister with thoughtful kindness had invited
+all to whom I had letters of introduction. But it was
+no longer possible to make any effort, and I was taken up
+to a room in which the comforts of English civilisation
+at first made no impression upon me, and removing only
+the mackintosh cloak, weighted with mud, which had
+served me so well, I lay down on the hearthrug before a
+great coal fire till four o'clock the next morning. And "so
+the tale ended," and the winter journey with its tremendous
+hardships and unbounded mercies was safely accomplished.<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">NOTES ON TIHRAN<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor_h">[25]</a></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is a matter of individual taste, but few cities in the
+East interest me in which national characteristics in
+architecture, costume, customs, and ways generally are
+either being obliterated or are undergoing a partial
+remodelling on Western lines. An Eastern city pure and
+simple, such as Canton, Niigata, or Baghdad, even with
+certain drawbacks, forms a harmonious whole gratifying
+to the eye and to a certain sense of fitness; while Cairo,
+Tokio, Lahore, and I will now add Tihran, produce the
+effect of a series of concussions.</p>
+
+<p>Tihran&mdash;set down on a plain, a scorched desert, the
+sublimity of which is interfered with by <i>kanaats</i> or underground
+watercourses with their gravel mounds and ruinous
+shafts&mdash;has few elements of beauty or grandeur
+in its situation, even though "the triumphant barbarism
+of the desert" sweeps up to its gates, and the scored and
+channelled Shimran range, backed by the magnificent
+peak, or rather cone, of Demavend, runs to the north-east
+of the city within only ten miles of its walls.</p>
+
+<p>The winter with its snow and slush disappeared
+abruptly two days after I reached Tihran, and as abruptly
+came the spring&mdash;a too transient enjoyment&mdash;and in a few
+days to brownness and barrenness succeeded a tender
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
+mist of green over the trees in the watered gardens,
+rapidly thickening into dark leafage in which the <i>bulbul</i>
+sang, and nature helped by art spread a carpet of violets
+and irises over the brown earth. But all of verdure and
+greenery that there is lies within the city walls. Outside
+is the unconquerable desert, rolling in endless shades
+of buff and brown up to the Elburz range, and elsewhere
+to the far horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Situated in the most depressed part of an uninteresting
+waste in Lat. 35&deg; 40&prime; N. and Long. 51&deg; 25&prime; E.,
+and at an altitude of 3800 feet, the climate is one
+of extremes, the summer extreme being the most severe.
+For some weeks the heat is nearly insupportable, and the
+Legations, and all of the four hundred Europeans who are
+not bound to the city by a fate which they execrate,
+betake themselves to "yailaks," or summer quarters on
+the slopes of the adjacent mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Entering Tihran in the darkness, it was not till I saw
+it coming back from Gulahek, the "yailak" of the British
+Legation, when the mud was drying up and the willows
+were in their first young green, that I formed any definite
+idea of its aspect, which is undeniably mean, and presents
+no evidences of antiquity; indeed, it has no right to present
+any, for as a capital it only came into existence a century
+ago, with the first king of the present Kajar dynasty.
+The walls are said to be eleven miles in circuit, and give
+the impression of being much too large, so many are the
+vacant spaces within them. They consist chiefly of a
+broad ditch, and a high sloping rampart without guns.
+Twelve well-built domed gateways give access to the city.
+These are decorated with glazed tiles of bright colours
+and somewhat gaudy patterns and designs, representing
+genii, lions, and combats of mythical heroes.</p>
+
+<p>Above the wall are seen tree-tops, some tile-covered
+minarets, the domes of two mosques, and the iron ribs of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
+a roofless theatre in the Shah's garden, in which under a
+temporary awning the <i>Tazieh</i> or Passion Play (elsewhere
+referred to) is acted once a year in presence of the Shah
+and several thousand spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Entering by a gateway over which is depicted a scene
+in the life of Rustem, the Achilles of Persia, or by the
+Sheikh Abdul Azim gate, where the custom-house is
+established and through which all caravans of goods
+must reach Tihran, the magnitude of the untidy vacant
+spaces, and the shabby mud hovels which fringe them,
+create an unfavourable impression. Then there are the
+inevitable ruinousness, the alleys with broken gutters in
+the centre, the pools of slime or the heaps of dust according
+to the weather, and the general shabbiness of blank
+walls of sun-dried bricks which give one the impression,
+I believe an unjust one, of decay and retrogression. I
+never went through those mean outskirts of Tihran
+which are within the city walls without being reminded
+of a man in shabby clothes preposterously too big for him.</p>
+
+<p>The population is variously estimated at from 60,000
+to 160,000 souls. It varies considerably with the
+presence or absence of the Court. The streets and
+bazars are usually well filled with people, and I did not
+see many beggars or evidences of extreme poverty, even
+in the Jewish quarter. On the whole it impressed me
+as a bustling place, but the bustle is not picturesque. It
+is framed in mean surroundings, and there is little variety
+in costume, and much sober if not sad colouring.</p>
+
+<p>In "old" Tihran the alleys are crooked, dirty, and
+narrow, and the bazars chiefly frequented by the poor are
+very mean and untidy; but the better bazars, whether
+built as some are, round small domed open spaces, or in
+alleys roofed with low brick domes, are decidedly handsome,
+and are light, wide, clean, and in every way adapted for
+the purposes of buying and selling. European women,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
+even though unattended, can walk through them quite
+freely without being mobbed or stared at.</p>
+
+<p>The best bazars are piled with foreign merchandise, to
+the <i>apparent</i> exclusion of native goods, which, if they are
+of the better quality, must be searched for in out-of-the-way
+corners. Indeed, if people want fine carpets, <i>curios</i>, rich
+embroideries, inlaid arms, and Kerman stuffs, they must
+resort to the itinerant dealers, who gauge the tastes and
+purchasing powers of every European resident and visitor,
+and who may be seen at all hours gliding in a sort of
+surreptitious fashion round the Legation compounds,
+conveying their beautiful temptations on donkeys' backs.</p>
+
+<p>It is chiefly in the fine lofty saddlery bazar and some
+small bazars that native manufactures are <i>en &eacute;vidence</i>.
+All travelling is on horseback, and the Persian, though
+sober in the colours of his costly clothing, loves crimson
+and gold in leather and cloth, embroidered housings and
+headstalls, and gorgeous saddle-covers for his horse. The
+usual saddle is of plain wood, very high before and behind,
+and without stuffing. A thick soft <i>namad</i> or piece of
+felt covers the horse's back, and over this are placed two
+or more saddle-cloths covered with a very showy and
+often highly ornamental cover, with tasselled ends,
+embroidered in gold and silks and occasionally with real
+gems. The saddle itself is smoothly covered with a soft
+ornamental cover made to fit it, and the crupper, breastplate,
+and headstall are frequently of crimson leather
+embroidered in gold, or stitched ingeniously with turquoise
+beads.</p>
+
+<p>The mule, whether the pacing saddle-mule worth
+from &pound;60 to &pound;80, much affected by rich Persians in
+Tihran, or the humbler beast of burden, is not forgotten by
+the traders in the great saddlery bazar. Rich <i>charvadars</i>
+take great pride in the "outfit" of their mules, and do
+not grudge twenty <i>tumans</i> upon it. Hence are to be seen
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
+elaborate headstalls, breastplates, and straps for bells, of
+showy embroidery, and leather stitched completely over
+with turquoise beads and cowries&mdash;the latter a favourite
+adornment&mdash;while cowried headstalls are also ornamented
+with rows of woollen tassels dyed with beautiful vegetable
+dyes. In this bazar too are found <i>khurjins</i>&mdash;the great
+leather or carpet saddle-bags without which it is inconvenient
+to travel&mdash;small leather portmanteaus for strapping
+behind the saddles of those who travel <i>chapar</i>, <i>i.e.</i> post,&mdash;cylindrical
+cases over two feet long which are attached
+in front of the saddle&mdash;decorated holsters, the multifarious
+gear required for the travelling pipe-bearers, the deep leather
+belts which are worn by <i>chapar</i> riders, the leathern water-bottles
+which are slung on the saddles, the courier bags,
+and a number of other articles of necessity or luxury
+which are regarded as essential by the Persian traveller.</p>
+
+<p>In most of the bazars the shops are packed to the
+ceiling with foreign goods. It looks as if there were
+cottons and woollen cloth for the clothing of all Persia.
+I saw scarcely any rough woollen goods or shoddy. The
+Persian wears superfine, smooth, costly cloth, chiefly black
+and fawn, stiff in texture, and with a dull shine upon
+it. The best comes exclusively from Austria, a slightly
+inferior quality from Germany, and such cloth fabrics
+as are worn by Europeans from England and Russia.</p>
+
+<p>The European cottons, which are slowly but surely
+displacing the heavy durable native goods, either undyed,
+or dyed at Isfahan with madder, saffron, and indigo, are
+of colours and patterns suited to native taste, white and
+canary yellow designs on a red ground predominating, and
+are both of Russian and English make, and the rivalry
+which extends from the Indian frontier, through Central
+Asia, is at fever-heat in the cotton bazars of Tihran. It
+does not appear that at present either side can claim the
+advantage.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In a search for writing paper, thread, tapes, and what
+are known as "small wares," I never saw anything that
+was not Russian. The cheap things, such as oil lamps,
+<i>samovars</i>, coarse coloured prints of the Russian Imperial
+family in tawdry frames, lacquered tin boxes, fitted work-boxes,
+glass teacups, china tea-pots, tawdry lacquered
+trays, glass brooches, bead necklaces, looking-glasses, and
+a number of other things which are coming into use at
+least in the south-west and the western portions of the
+Empire, are almost exclusively Russian, as is natural, for
+the low price at which they are sold would leave no margin
+of profit on such imports from a more distant country.</p>
+
+<p>A stroll through the Tihran bazars shows the observer
+something of the extent and rapidity with which Europe
+is ruining the artistic taste of Asia. Masses of rubbish,
+atrocious in colouring and hideous in form, the principle
+of shoddy carried into all articles along with the quintessence
+of vulgarity which is pretence, goods of nominal
+utility which will not stand a week's wear, the refuse of
+European markets&mdash;in art Philistinism, in most else
+"Brummagem," without a quality of beauty or solidity to
+recommend them&mdash;are training the tastes and changing
+the habits of the people.</p>
+
+<p>One squarish bazar, much resorted to for glass and
+hardware and what the Americans call "assorted notions,"
+is crammed with Austrian glass, kerosene lamps of all
+sizes in hundreds, chandeliers, etc. The amount of glass
+exhibited there for sale is extraordinary, and not less
+remarkable is the glut of cheap hardware and worthless
+<i>bijouterie</i>. It is the Lowther Arcade put down in Tihran.</p>
+
+<p>Kerosene and candles may be called a Russian monopoly,
+and Russia has completely driven French sugar from
+the markets. In the foreign town, as it may be called,
+there are two or three French shops, an American shop
+for "notions," and a German chemist.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The European quarter is in the northern part of Tihran,
+and is close to vacant and airy spaces. There are
+the Turkish Embassy, and the Legations of England,
+France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Austria, and
+America, and a Dutch Consulate-General, each with its
+Persian <i>gholams</i> who perform escort duty. Their large
+and shady compounds, brightened by their national flags,
+and the stir and circumstance which surround them, are
+among the features of the city. The finest of all the
+Legation enclosures is that of England, which is beautifully
+wooded and watered. The reception-rooms and hall of the
+Minister's residence are very handsome, and a Byzantine
+clock tower gives the building a striking air of distinction.
+The grounds contain several detached houses, occupied by
+the secretaries and others.</p>
+
+<p>A very distinct part of the foreign quarter is that
+occupied by the large and handsome buildings of the
+American Presbyterian Mission, which consist of a church
+occupied at stated hours by a congregation of the Reformed
+Armenian Church, and in which in the afternoons of
+Sundays Dr. Potter, the senior missionary, reads the
+English Liturgy and preaches an English sermon for the
+benefit of the English-speaking residents, very fine boarding-schools
+for Armenian girls and boys, and the houses of
+the missionaries&mdash;three clerical, one medical, and several
+ladies, one of whom is an M.D.</p>
+
+<p>Outside this fine enclosure is a Medical Missionary
+Dispensary, and last year, in a good situation at a considerable
+distance, a very fine medical missionary hospital
+was completed. The boys' and girls' schools are of a very
+high class. To my thinking the pupils are too much
+Europeanised in dress and habits; but I understand that
+this is at the desire of the Armenian parents. The
+missionaries are not allowed to receive Moslem pupils;
+but besides Armenians they educate Jewish youths, some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span>
+of whom have become Christians, and a few Guebres or
+Zoroastrians.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think that the capital is a hopeful place for
+missionary work. The presence of Europeans of various
+creeds and nationalities complicates matters, and the fine,
+perhaps too fine, mission buildings in proximity to the
+houses of wealthy foreigners are at so great a distance
+from the Moslem and Jewish quarters, that persons who
+might desire to make inquiries concerning the Christian
+faith must be deterred both by the space to be traversed
+and the conspicuousness of visiting a mission compound
+in such a position. The members of the mission church
+last year were altogether Armenians. The education and
+training given in the schools are admirable.</p>
+
+<p>Indications of the changes which we consider improvements
+abound in Tihran. There are many roads accessible
+to wheeled vehicles. There are hackney carriages. A
+tramway carrying thousands of passengers weekly has
+been laid down from the <i>Maidan</i> or central square to one
+of the southern gates. There are real streets paved with
+cobble stones, and bordered with definite sidewalks, young
+trees, and shops. There is a railroad about four miles
+long, from the city to the village of Sheikh Abdul Azim.
+There are lamp-posts and fittings, though the light is
+somewhat of a failure. There is an organised city police,
+in smart black uniforms with violet facings, under the
+command of Count Monteforte, an Italian. Soldiers
+in Europeanised uniforms abound, some of them, the
+"Persian Cossacks," in full Russian uniforms; and military
+bands instructed by a French bandmaster play European
+airs, not always easily recognisable, for the pleasure of
+the polyglot public.</p>
+
+<p>All ordinary business can be transacted at the
+Imperial Bank, which, having acquired the branches and
+business of the New Oriental Bank, bids fair to reign
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
+supreme in the commercial world of Persia, the Shah,
+who has hitherto kept his hoards under his own eye,
+having set an example of confidence by becoming a
+depositor.</p>
+
+<p>European tailors, dressmakers, and milliners render a
+resort to Europe unnecessary. There are at least two
+hotels where a European may exist. About five hundred
+European carriages, many of them Russian, with showy
+Russian horses harnessed <i>&agrave; la Russe</i>, dash about the
+streets with little regard to pedestrians, though an
+accident, if a European were the offender, might lead to a
+riot. The carriages of the many Legations are recognisable
+by their outriders, handsomely-dressed <i>gholams</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But even the European quarter and its newish road,
+on which are many of the Legations, some of the foreign
+shops, and the fine compound and handsome buildings of
+the Imperial Bank, has a Persian admixture. Some of
+the stately houses of official and rich Persians are there,
+easily recognisable by their low closed gateways and
+general air of seclusion. Many of these possess exquisite
+gardens, with fountains and tanks, and all the arrangements
+for the out-of-doors life which Persians love. In
+the early spring afternoons the great sight of the road
+outside the British Legation is the crowd of equestrians,
+or rather of the horses they ride. However much the
+style of street, furniture, tastes, art, and costume have
+been influenced by Europe, fortunately for picturesque
+effect the Persian, even in the capital, retains the Persian
+saddle and equipments.</p>
+
+<p>From later observation I am inclined to think very
+highly of the hardiness and stamina of the Persian horse,
+though at the time of my visit to Tihran I doubted both.
+Such showy, magnificent-looking animals, broken to a
+carriage which shows them to the best advantage, fine-legged,
+though not at the expense of strength, small-eared,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
+small-mouthed, with flowing wavy manes, "necks clothed
+with thunder," dilated nostrils showing the carmine
+interior, and a look of scorn and high breeding, I never
+saw elsewhere. The tail, which in obedience to fashion
+we mutilate and abridge, is allowed in Persia its full
+development, and except in the case of the Shah's white
+horses, when it is dyed magenta, is perfectly beautiful,
+held far from the body like a flag. The arched neck,
+haughty bearing, and easy handling which Easterns love
+are given by very sharp bits; and a crowd of these
+beautiful animals pawing the ground, prancing, caracoling,
+walking with a gait as though the earth were too vulgar
+for their touch, or flashing past at a gallop, all groomed to
+perfection and superbly caparisoned, ridden by men who
+know how to ride, and who are in sympathy with their
+animals, is one of the fascinations of Tihran.</p>
+
+<p>Creeping along by the side-walk is often seen a
+handsome pacing saddle-mule, or large white ass, nearly
+always led, carrying a Persian lady attended by servants&mdash;a
+shapeless black bundle, with what one supposes to be
+the outline of a hand clutching the enshrouding black
+silk sheet tightly over her latticed white mask: so
+completely enveloped that only a yellow shoe without a
+heel, and a glimpse of a violet trouser can be seen above
+the short stirrups.</p>
+
+<p>Another piece of Orientalism unaffected by Western
+influence is the music performed daily at sunset in the
+upper stories of some of the highly-decorated tiled gateways
+which lead into and out of the principal squares.
+This is evoked from drums, fifes, cymbals, and huge
+horns, and as the latter overpower all the former, the
+effect is much like that of the braying of the colossal
+silver horns from the roofs of the Tibetan <i>lamaserais</i>.
+Many people suppose that this daily homage to the
+setting sun is a relic of the ancient fire or sun worship.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Two great squares, one of them with a tank in the
+middle with a big gun at each corner, artillery barracks
+on three sides, and a number of smooth-bore twenty-four-pounder
+guns on the fourth, are among the features of
+Tihran. In this great <i>Maidan</i> there are always soldiers
+in multifarious uniforms lounging, people waiting for the
+tram-cars, and Royal footmen, whose grotesque costumes
+border on the ridiculous. They are indeed a fitting
+accompaniment to the Royal horses with their magenta tails
+and spots, for they wear red coats with ballet-dancer
+skirts and green facings, green knee-breeches, white
+stockings, and tall stiff erections resembling a fool's cap
+on the head, topped by crests suggestive of nothing but
+a cock's comb.</p>
+
+<p>A gateway much ornamented leads from the artillery
+square, or <i>Maidan Topkhaneh</i>, by a short road shaded
+with trees to the Citadel or Ark, which is an immense
+enclosure, rather mangy and unprepossessing in its
+exterior, which contains the palace of the Shah, the
+arsenal, certain public offices, the royal colleges, etc.
+Over the gateway floats rather grandly the Royal
+standard, bearing the Lion and the Sun in yellow on a
+green ground.</p>
+
+<p>The Shah's palace is very magnificent, and the shady
+gardens, beautifully kept, with their fountains and tanks
+of pale blue tiles, through which clear water constantly
+moves, are worthy of a Royal residence. From the outside
+above the high wall the chief feature is a very
+lofty pavilion, brilliantly and elaborately painted, with
+walls inclining inwards, and culminating in two high
+towers. This striking structure contains the <i>andarun</i> or
+<i>haram</i> of the sovereign and his private apartments.</p>
+
+<p>This hasty sketch exhausts those features of Tihran
+which naturally arrest the stranger's attention. There is
+no splendour about it externally, but there is splendour
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span>
+within it, and possibly few European residences can
+exceed in taste and magnificence the palaces of the
+Minister of Justice (the <i>Muschir-u-Dowleh</i>), the <i>Naib-es-Sultan</i>,
+the <i>Zil-es-Sultan</i>, and a few others, though I
+regret that much of the furniture has been imported
+from Europe, as it vexes the eye more or less with
+its incongruity of form and colouring. The current of
+European influence, which is affecting externals in Tihran,
+is not likely now to be stemmed. Eastern civilisation is
+doomed, and the transition period is not beautiful, whatever
+the outcome may be.</p>
+
+<p>So much for what is within the walls. That which
+is outside deserves a passing notice as the environment of
+the capital. The sole grandeur of the situation lies in
+the near neighbourhood of the Shimran mountains&mdash;a
+huge wall, white or brown according to the season, with
+some irrigated planting near its base, which is spotted
+with villages and the <i>yailaks</i> not only of the numerous
+Legations but of rich Europeans and Persians. Otherwise
+the tameless barbarism of a desert, which man has
+slashed, tunnelled, delved, and heaped, lies outside the
+city walls, deformed by the long lines of <i>kanaats</i>&mdash;some
+choked, others still serviceable&mdash;by which the city is
+supplied with water from the mountains, their shafts
+illustrating the Scriptural expression "ruinous heaps."
+In the glare of the summer sun, with the mercury
+ranging from 95&deg; to 110&deg; in the shade, and with the
+heated atmosphere quivering over the burning earth,
+these wastes are abandoned to carcasses and the vultures
+which fatten on them, and travelling is done at night,
+when a breeze from the Shimran range sends the
+thermometer down from 10&deg; to 15&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Curving to the south-west of Tihran, the mountains
+end in a bare ridge, around the base of which, according
+to many arch&aelig;ologists, lie vestiges of the ancient city of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
+Rhages, known in later days as Rhei. A tomb of
+brick with angular surfaces, sacred to the memory
+of an ancient and romantic attachment, remains of fortifications,
+and the Parsee cemetery on a ledge overlooking
+these remains, break the monotony of the waste in
+that direction.</p>
+
+<p>This cemetery, or "Tower of Silence," a white splash
+on the brown hillside, is visible from afar. The
+truncated cones which in many places mark seats of the
+ancient Zoroastrian worship have been mentioned here
+and there, but it is only in Tihran and Yezd that the
+descendants of the ancient fire-worshippers are found in
+such numbers as to be able to give prominence to their
+ancient rites of sepulture. Probably throughout Persia
+their number does not exceed 8000. Their head resides
+in Tihran. They bear a good character for uprightness,
+and except in Yezd, where they weave rich stuffs, they
+are chiefly agriculturists. They worship firelight and the
+sun on the principles symbolised by both, they never use
+tobacco, and it is impolite to smoke in their presence
+because of the sacredness of fire.</p>
+
+<p>Their belief has been, and is, that to bury the dead in
+the earth is to pollute it; and one among the reasons of
+the persecution of the early Christians by the Zoroastrians
+was their abhorrence of the desecration of the ground
+produced by the modes of Christian burial.</p>
+
+<p>This "Tower of Silence" near Tihran is a large round
+edifice of whitewashed mud and stone. On the top of it,
+a few feet below the circular parapet, the dead are laid
+to be devoured by birds and consumed by exposure to
+the elements. The destiny of the spirit is supposed to
+be indicated by the eye which is first devoured by the
+fowls of the air, the right eye signifying bliss.</p>
+
+<p>In a northern direction, to which the eye always
+turns to be refreshed by the purity of the icy cone of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>
+Demavend, or to watch the rosy light deepening into
+purple on the heights of Shimran, are palaces and country
+seats in numbers, with a mass of irrigated plantations
+extending for twenty miles, from Van&#275;k on the east to
+Kamarani&#275;h on the west. These are reached by passing
+through the Shimran gate, the most beautiful of the outer
+gates, tiled all over with yellow, black, blue, and green
+tiles in conventional designs, and with an immense
+coloured mosaic over the gateway representing Rust&#275;m,
+Persia's great mythical hero, conquering some of his
+enemies.</p>
+
+<p>On the slopes of the hills are palaces and hunting
+seats of the Shah, beginning with the imposing
+mass of the Kasr-i-Kaj&#257;r, on a low height, surrounded by
+majestic groves, in which are enormous tanks. Palaces
+and hunting seats of ministers and wealthy men succeed
+each other rapidly, a perfect seclusion having been
+obtained for each by the rapid growth of poplars and
+planes, each dwelling carrying out in its very marked
+individuality a deference to Persian custom, and each if
+possible using running water as a means of decoration.
+Many of these palaces are princely, and realise some of
+the descriptions in the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, with the beauty
+of their decorated architecture, the deep shade of their
+large demesnes, the cool plash of falling water, the songs
+of nightingales, and the scent of roses&mdash;sensuous Paradises
+in which the Persian finds the summer all too short.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this enchanting region, and much higher up
+on the mountain slopes, are the hunting grounds of the
+Shah and his sons, well stocked with game and rigidly
+preserved; for the Shah is a keen sportsman, and is said
+to prefer a free life under canvas and the pleasures of
+the chase to the splendid conventionalities of the Court
+of Tihran.</p>
+
+<p>The two roads and the many tracks which centre in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+capital after scoring the desert for many miles around it,
+are a feature of the landscape not to be overlooked, the
+Meshed, Resht, Bushire, and Tabriz roads being the most
+important, except the route from Baghdad by Kirmanshah
+and Hamadan, which in summer can be travelled by
+caravans in twenty-eight days, and by which many bulky
+articles of value, such as pianos, carriages, and valuable
+furniture, find their way to Tihran.<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>These are some of the features of the environments
+of Tihran. A traveller writing ten years hence may
+probably have to tell that the city has extended to its
+walls, that Western influence is nearly dominant in
+externals, and possibly that the <i>concessionaires</i> who for
+years have been hanging about the Palace in alternations
+of hope and despondency have made something of their
+concessions, and that goods reach the capital in another
+way than on the backs of animals.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER IX</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">British Legation, Tihran,</span> <i>March 18</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Three weeks have passed quickly by since that terrible
+ride from Husseinabad. The snow is vanishing from the
+Shimran hills, the spring has come, and I am about to
+leave the unbounded kindness and hospitality of this
+house on a long and difficult journey. It is very
+pleasant to go away carrying no memories but those
+of kindness, received not only from Europeans and
+Americans, but from Persians, including the Amin-es-Sultan
+and the Muschir-u-Dowleh.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to bear away other than pleasant
+impressions of Tihran society. Kindness received personally
+always sways one's impressions of the people
+among whom one is thrown, and even if I had any unfavourable
+criticisms to make I should not make them.</p>
+
+<p>Society, or rather I should say the European population,
+is divided into classes and knots. There are the
+eleven American missionaries, whose duties and interests
+lie apart from those of the rest of the community, the
+diplomatic body, which has a monopoly of political
+interests, the large staff of the Indo-European telegraph,
+married and single, with Colonel Wells at its head, and
+the mercantile class, in which the manager and <i>employ&eacute;s</i>
+of the Imperial Bank may be included. Outside of these
+recognised classes there is a shifting body of passing
+travellers, civil and military, and would-be <i>concessionaires</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
+and adventurers, besides a few Europeans in Persian
+employment.</p>
+
+<p>From four to five hundred Europeans is a large foreign
+settlement, and it is a motley one, very various in its
+elements, "and in their idiosyncrasies, combinations,
+rivalries, and projects is to be found an inexhaustible
+fund of local gossip," writes Mr. Curzon in one of his
+recent brilliant letters to the <i>Times</i>, "as well as almost
+the sole source of non-political interest."</p>
+
+<p>Outside of the diplomatic circle the relations of
+England and Russia with each other and with the Shah
+afford a topic of ceaseless interest. England is just now
+considered to be in the ascendant, so far as her diplomacy
+is concerned, but few people doubt that Russian policy
+will eventually triumph, and that North Persia at least
+will be "absorbed."</p>
+
+<p>One or two specially pleasant things I must mention.
+Sir H. Drummond Wolff kindly wrote asking permission
+from the Shah for me to see his Museum, <i>i.e.</i> his treasure-house,
+and we, that is the Minister, the whole party from
+the Legation, and Dr. Odling of the telegraph staff and
+Mrs. Odling, went there yesterday. There was a great
+crowd outside the Palace gates, where we were received
+by many men in scarlet. The private gardens are
+immense, and beautifully laid out, in a more formal style
+than I have hitherto seen, with straight, hard gravel walks,
+and straight avenues of trees. The effect of the clear
+running water in the immense tanks lined with blue tiles
+is most agreeable and cool. Continuous rows of orange
+trees in tubs, and beds of narcissus, irises, and tulips, with
+a wealth of trellised roses just coming into leaf, are full of
+the promise of beauty. These great pleasure gardens
+are admirably kept, I doubt whether a fallen leaf
+would not be discovered and removed in five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>The great irregular mass of the Palace buildings on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span>
+the garden front is very fine, the mangy and forlorn
+aspect being confined to the side seen by the public. The
+walls are much decorated, chiefly with glazed and coloured
+tiles geometrically arranged, and the general effect is
+striking.</p>
+
+<p>The "Museum," properly the audience chamber, and
+certainly one among the finest halls in the world,
+is approached by a broad staircase of cream-coloured
+alabaster. We were received by the Grand Vizier's two
+brothers, and were afterwards joined by himself and
+another high official.</p>
+
+<p>The decorations of this magnificent hall are in blue
+and white stucco of the hard fine kind, hardly distinguishable
+from marble, known as <i>gatch</i>, and much glass is
+introduced in the ceiling. The proportions of the room
+are perfect. The floor is of fine tiles of exquisite
+colouring arranged as mosaic. A table is overlaid
+with beaten gold, and chairs in rows are treated in
+the same fashion. Glass cases round the room and
+on costly tables contain the fabulous treasures of the
+Shah and many of the Crown jewels. Possibly the
+accumulated splendours of pearls, diamonds, rubies,
+emeralds, sapphires, basins and vessels of solid gold,
+ancient armour flashing with precious stones, shields
+studded with diamonds and rubies, scabbards and sword
+hilts incrusted with costly gems, helmets red with rubies,
+golden trays and vessels thick with diamonds, crowns
+of jewels, chains, ornaments (masculine solely) of every
+description, jewelled coats of mail dating back to the
+reign of Shah Isma&euml;l, exquisite enamels of great antiquity,
+all in a profusion not to be described, have no
+counterpart on earth. They are a dream of splendour
+not to be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>One large case contains the different orders bestowed
+on the Shah, all blazing with diamonds, a splendid display,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
+owing to the European cutting of the stones, which
+brings out their full beauty. There are many glass cases
+from two to three feet high and twelve inches or more
+broad, nearly full of pearls, rubies, diamonds, sapphires,
+emeralds, flashing forth their many-coloured light&mdash;treasures
+not arranged, but piled like tea or rice. Among the
+extraordinarily lavish uses of gold and gems is a golden
+globe twenty inches in diameter, turning on a frame of solid
+gold. The stand and meridian are of solid gold set with
+rubies. The equator and elliptic are of large diamonds.
+The countries are chiefly outlined in rubies, but Persia
+is in diamonds. The ocean is represented by emeralds.
+As if all this were not enough, huge gold coins, each
+worth thirty-three sovereigns, are heaped round its base.</p>
+
+<p>At the upper end of the hall is the Persian throne.
+Many pages would be needed for a mere catalogue of
+some of the innumerable treasures which give gorgeousness
+to this hall. Here indeed is "Oriental splendour,"
+but only a part of the possessions of the Shah; for many
+gems, including the Dar-i-nur or Sea of Light, the second
+most famous diamond in the world, are kept elsewhere in
+double-locked iron chests, and hoards of bullion saved
+from the revenues are locked up in vaults below the
+Palace.</p>
+
+<p>If such a blaze of splendour exists in this shrunken,
+shrivelled, "depopulated" empire, what must have been
+the magnificence of the courts of Darius and Xerxes, into
+which were brought the treasures of almost "all the
+kingdoms of the world and the glory of them"? Since
+seeing this treasure-house I think that many of the early
+descriptions of wealth, which I have regarded as Oriental
+hyperbole, were literal, and that there was a time in
+Persia, as in Judea, when "silver was not accounted of."
+And to come down from the far off-glories of Darius,
+Xerxes, and Khosroe and the Parthian kings, there have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
+been within almost modern times Persian sovereigns celebrated
+among other things for their successful "looting"
+of foreign kingdoms&mdash;Shah Abbas the great, and Nadir
+Shah, who scarcely two hundred years ago returned from
+the sack of Delhi with gems valued at twenty millions of
+our money.</p>
+
+<p>After we had seen most of what was to be seen
+the Vizier left us, and we went to the room in which
+stands the celebrated Peacock Throne, brought by Nadir
+Shah from Delhi, and which has been valued at
+&pound;2,500,000. This throne is a large stage, with parapets
+and a high fan back, and is reached by several steps.
+It is entirely of gold enamel, and the back is incrusted
+with rubies and diamonds. Its priceless carpet has a
+broad border, the white arabesque pattern of which is
+formed of pearls closely stitched. You will think that I
+am lapsing into Oriental exaggeration!</p>
+
+<p>While we were admiring the beautiful view of the
+gardens from the windows of this room, Hassan Ali Khan,
+better known as "the Nawab," suggested that we should
+retire, as the Shah is in the habit of visiting and enjoying
+his treasures at a later hour. However, at the foot of
+the stairs on the threshold of the vestibule stood the
+Shah, the "King of Kings," the "Asylum of the Universe,"
+and that his presence there was not an accident was
+shown by the fact that the Grand Vizier was with him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Henry advanced, attended by "the Nawab," and
+presented me, lifting his hat to the king, who neither
+then nor when he left us made the slightest inclination
+of his head. Hassan Ali Khan, in answer to a question,
+mentioned some of my travels, and said that with His
+Majesty's permission I wished to visit the Bakhtiari
+country.<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The king pushed up his big horn spectacles
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+and focused his eyes, about which there is something
+very peculiar, upon me, with a stare which would have
+been disconcerting to a younger person, asked if I were
+going to travel alone in his dominions, and if fitting
+arrangements had been made; if I had been in Pekin,
+and had visited Borneo and the Celebes; said a few
+other things, and then without a bow turned round
+abruptly and walked down the garden with the Amin-es-Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>This accidental and informal presentation was a very
+pleasant incident. The Shah is not what I expected
+from his various portraits. His manner (though he was
+said to be very affable on this occasion) has neither
+Eastern nor Western polish. He is a somewhat rough-looking
+man, well on in middle life, rather dark in
+complexion, and wearing a thick dark moustache, probably
+dyed, as is the custom. The long twisted moustache
+conceals the expression of his mouth, and the spectacles
+with thick horn rims that of his eyes. He was very
+simply dressed. The diamond aigrette and sword with
+jewelled hilt with which pictures and descriptions have
+familiarised us were absent, and this splendid monarch,
+the heir of splendour, and the possessor of fabulous
+treasures, wore the ordinary Persian high cap of Astrakan
+lambskin without any ornament, close-fitting dark
+trousers with a line of gold braid, a full-skirted coat of
+dull-coloured Kerman silk brocade, loose and open, under
+which were huddled one or more coats. A watch-chain
+composed of large diamonds completed his costume. He
+did not wear gloves, and I noticed that his hands, though
+carefully attended to, were those of a man used to muscular
+exercise, strong and wiry.</p>
+
+<p>As the sovereign and his prime minister walked away,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
+it was impossible not to speculate upon coming events: what
+will happen, for instance, when Nasr-ed-Din, possibly the
+ablest man in the country which he rules, and probably
+the best and most patriotic ruler among Oriental despots,
+goes "the way of all the earth"? and again, whether Ali
+Askar Khan, who has held his post for five years, and
+who at thirty-two is the foremost man in Persia after
+the king, will weather the storm of intrigue which rages
+round his head, and resist the undermining influence of
+Russia?</p>
+
+<p>I have had two interesting conversations with him,
+and he was good enough to propose success to my journey
+at a dinner at the Legation; and though, as he does
+not speak French, the services of an interpreter were
+necessary, he impressed me very favourably as a man
+of thought, intelligence, and patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>He made one remark which had a certain degree of
+pathos in it. After speaking of the severe strictures and
+harsh criticisms of certain recent writers, which he said
+were very painful to Persians, he added, "I hope if you
+write you will write kindly, and not crush the aspirations
+of my struggling country as some have done."</p>
+
+<p>This Amin-es-Sultan, the faithful or trusted one of the
+sovereign, the Grand Vizier or Prime Minister, the second
+person in the empire, who unites in his person at this
+time the ministries of the Treasury, the Interior, the
+Court, and Customs, is of humble antecedents, being the
+son of a man who was originally an inferior attendant on
+the Shah in his hunting expeditions, and is the grandson
+of an Armenian captive. Certain persons of importance
+are bent upon his overthrow, and it can only be by the
+continued favour and confidence of the Shah that he can
+sustain himself against their intrigues, combined with
+those of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>My visit to the Palace terminated with the sight of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
+another throne-room opening upon the garden in which a
+few days hence, with surroundings of great magnificence,
+the Shah will receive the congratulations of the diplomatic
+corps, and afterwards give a general audience to the
+people.</p>
+
+<p>This is an annual ceremony at the festival of No Ruz
+when the Persian New Year begins, at the time of the
+spring solstice, and is probably a relic of the Zoroastrian
+worship, though the modern Persians, as Mohammedans,
+allege that it is observed to celebrate the birthday of the
+Prophet's mother.<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>Some hours after the close of a splendid ceremony in
+the audience chamber, chiefly religious, at which the Shah
+burns incense on a small brazier, he descends to the
+garden, and walking alone along an avenue of Royal
+Guards, with the crown of the Kaj&#257;rs, blazing with
+jewels, carried in front of him, he seats himself on an
+alabaster throne, the foreign ministers having been received
+previously. This throne is a large platform, with
+a very high back and parapets of bold stone fretwork,
+supported on marble lions and other figures, and is
+ascended by three or four steps.</p>
+
+<p>The populace, which to the number of many thousands
+are admitted into the garden, see him seated on his throne,
+their absolute master, the lord of life and death. A voice
+asks if they are content, and they say they are. A hymn
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>
+of congratulation is sung, a chief of the Kaj&#257;r tribe offers
+the congratulations of the people of Persia, the Hakim of
+the people hands the king a jewelled <i>kalian</i>, which he
+smokes, and showers of gold fall among the populace.</p>
+
+<p>The British Minister is understood to be at this time
+the most powerful foreigner in Persia; and as we drove
+through the crowd which had assembled at the Palace
+gates, he was received with all Oriental marks of respect.</p>
+
+<p>All my intercourse with Persians here has been
+pleasant, and if I mention one person particularly, it is
+owing to a certain interest which attaches to himself and
+his possible future, and because some hours spent at
+his splendid palace were among the pleasantest of the
+many pleasant and interesting ones which I shall hereafter
+recall.</p>
+
+<p>Yahia Khan, Minister of Justice and Commerce,
+whose official title is Muschir-u-Dowleh, was formerly
+Minister of Foreign Affairs, but forfeited the confidence
+of the British Government in supposed connection with the
+escape of Ayoub Khan, and being suspected of Russian
+proclivities, which he denies, lost his position. He speaks
+French perfectly, is credited with very great abilities,
+and not only has courteous and charming manners, but
+thoroughly understands the customs of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>As the possessor of one of the most magnificent
+palaces in Persia, married to the Shah's sister, his son, a
+youth of eighteen, married to a daughter of the Vali-'ahd,
+the heir-apparent, and as the brother of Mirza Hussein
+Khan&mdash;for long Grand Vizier and <i>Sipah Salar</i>, or Commander-in-Chief,
+whose gorgeous mosque, scarcely finished,
+the finest mosque built in late years by any but a royal
+personage, adjoins his house, Yahia Khan is in every way
+an important personage.</p>
+
+<p>He is the fourth husband of the Shah's sister, who
+has had a tragic life and is a very accomplished woman.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+Her first husband, Mirza Taghi, when Prime Minister,
+attempted reforms which would have tended to diminish
+the hideous corruption which is the bane of Persian
+officialism, and consequently made many enemies, who
+induced the Shah, then a young man, to depose him.
+Worse than deposition was apprehended, and as it was
+not etiquette to murder a husband of a royal princess
+in her presence, his wife, who loved him, watched him
+night and day with ceaseless vigilance for some weeks.
+But the fatal day at last came, and a good and powerful
+man, whose loss is said to have been an irreparable one
+to Persia, was strangled by the Shah's messengers, it is
+said, in the bath.</p>
+
+<p>Her son, who has married the Shah's grand-daughter,
+is courteous like his father, but is apparently without his
+force.</p>
+
+<p>The Muschir-u-Dowleh invited me to breakfast, along
+with General Gordon and Hassan Ali Khan. The
+<i>deje&ucirc;ner</i> was altogether in European style, except that
+in the centre of the table, among lilies and irises, a concealed
+fountain sent up jets of rose-water spray. S&egrave;vres
+and Dresden porcelain, the finest damask, and antique
+and exquisitely beautiful silver adorned the table. The
+cooking was French. The wines and liqueurs, an
+innovation on Moslem tables now common, but of recent
+date, were both French and Persian. The service was
+perfection. The host conversed both thoughtfully and
+agreeably, and expressed himself remarkably well in
+French.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards we were invited to go over the palace and
+its grounds, which are remarkably beautiful, and then
+over the magnificent mosque. Shiah mosques are
+absolutely tabooed to Christians; but as this has not
+yet been used for worship, our entrance was not
+supposed to desecrate it. When quite finished it will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span>
+be one of the most magnificent buildings dedicated to
+religious use in the world, and its four tile-covered
+minarets, its vast dome, and arches and fa&ccedil;ades in tiled
+arabesques and conventional patterns and exquisite
+colouring, show that the Persian artist when adequately
+encouraged has not lost his old feeling for beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the mosque there is a fine building, the low
+roof of which is supported by innumerable columns, all
+of plain brick, resembling a crypt, which will be used
+for winter worship. In addition, a lavish endowment
+has provided on the grounds a theological college and
+a hospital, with most, if not all, of the funds needed for
+their maintenance; and on every part of the vast pile
+of buildings the architect has lavished all the resources
+of his art.</p>
+
+<p>No houses are to my thinking more beautiful and
+appropriate to the climate and mode of living than those
+of the upper classes of Persians, and the same suitability
+and good taste run down through the trading classes
+till one reaches the mud hovel, coarse and un-ideal, of
+the workman and peasant.</p>
+
+<p>My memory does not serve me for the details of the
+Muschir-u-Dowleh's palace, which, though some of the
+rooms are furnished with European lounges, tables, and
+chairs in <i>marqueterie</i> and brocade, is throughout distinctively
+Persian; but the impression produced by the
+general <i>coup d'&oelig;il</i>, and by the size, height, and perfect
+proportion of the rooms, galleries, staircases, and halls,
+is quite vivid. The rooms have dados of primrose-coloured
+Yezd alabaster in slabs four feet high by three
+broad, clouded and veined most delicately by nature.
+The banqueting hall is of immense size, and the floor
+is covered with a dark fawn <i>namad</i> three-quarters of
+an inch thick, made, I understood, in one piece eighty
+feet long by fifty broad. The carpets are the most
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
+beautiful which can be turned out by Persian looms, and
+that is saying a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>The roofs, friezes, and even the walls of this house,
+like those of others of its class, have a peculiarity of
+beauty essentially Persian. This is the form of <i>gatch</i>
+or fine stucco-work known as <i>ainah karee</i>. I saw it
+first at Baghdad, and now at Tihran wonder that such
+beautiful and costly decoration does not commend itself
+to some of our millionaires. Arches filled with honeycomb
+decoration, either pure white or tastefully coloured
+and gilded, are among the architectural adornments which
+the Alhambra borrowed from Persia. My impression is
+that this exquisite design was taken from snow on the
+hillsides, which is often fashioned by a strong wind into
+the honeycomb pattern.</p>
+
+<p>But the glory of this form of decoration reaches its
+height when, after the <i>gatch</i> ceiling and cornice or deep
+frieze have been daringly moulded by the workman into
+distinct surfaces or facets, he lays on mirrors while the
+plaster is yet soft, which adhere, and even at their edges
+have scarcely the semblance of a joining. Sometimes,
+as in the new summer palace of the Shah's third son,
+the Naib-es-Sultaneh, the whole wall is decorated in
+this way; but I prefer the reception-rooms of Yahia
+Khan, in which it is only brought down a few feet.
+Immense skill and labour are required in this process
+of adornment, but it yields in splendour to none, flashing
+in bewildering light, and realising the fabled glories of the
+palaces of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>. One of the <i>salons</i>, about
+sixty feet by fifty, treated in this way is about the
+most beautiful room I ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>The Persian architect also shows great art in his windows.
+He masses them together, and by this means gives
+something of grandeur even to an insignificant room.
+The beauty of the designs, whether in fretwork of wood
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>
+or stone, is remarkable, and the effect is enhanced by the
+filling in of the interstices with coloured glass, usually
+amber and pale blue. So far as I have seen, the Persian
+house is never over-decorated, and however gorgeous the
+mirror-work, or involved the arrangement of arches, or
+daring the dreams in <i>gatch</i> ceilings and pillars, the fancy
+of the designer is always so far under control as to give
+the eye periods of rest.</p>
+
+<p>Under the palace of the Muschir-u-Dowleh, as under
+many others, is a sort of glorified <i>serdab</i>, used in hot
+weather, partly under ground, open at each end, and
+finished throughout with marble, the roof being supported
+on a cluster of slender pillars with capitals picked out in
+gold, and the air being cooled by a fountain in a large
+marble basin. But this <i>serdab</i> is far eclipsed by a summer
+hall in the palace of the Shah's third son, which, as to
+walls and ceiling, is entirely composed of mirror-work,
+the floor of marble being arranged with marble settees
+round fountains whose cool plash even now is delicious.
+The large pleasure gardens which surround rich men's
+houses in the city are laid out somewhat in the old
+French style of formality, and are tended with scrupulous
+care.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see the <i>andarun</i> of this or any house here,
+owing to the difficulty about an interpreter, but it is not
+likely that the ladies are less magnificently lodged than
+their lords. The <i>andarun</i> has its own court, no one is
+allowed to open a window looking upon it, it is as
+secluded as a convent. No man but the master of the
+house may enter, and when he retires thither no man
+may disturb him. To all inquirers it is a sufficient
+answer to say that he is in the <i>andarun</i>. To the Shah,
+however, belongs the privilege of looking upon the unveiled
+face of every woman in Persia. The domestic life
+of a Moslem is always shrouded in mystery, and even in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+the case of the Shah "the fierce light that beats upon a
+throne" fails to reveal to the outer world the number of
+wives and women in his <i>andarun</i>, which is variously stated
+at from sixty to one hundred and ninety.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy in any Eastern city to get exactly what
+one wants for a journey, especially as a European cannot
+buy in the bazars; and the servant difficulty has been a
+great hindrance, particularly as I have a strong objection to
+the regular interpreter-servant who has been accustomed
+to travel with Europeans.</p>
+
+<p>I have now got a Persian cook with sleepy eyes, a
+portion of a nose, and a grotesquely "hang-dog" look.
+For an interpreter and personal attendant I have an
+educated young Brahmin, for some years in British post-office
+service in the Gulf, and lately a teacher in the
+American school here. He speaks educated English, and
+is said to speak good Persian. He has never done any
+"menial" work, but is willing to do anything in order to
+get to England. He has a frank, independent manner and
+"no nonsense about him." Taking him is an experiment.<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER X</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">K&ucirc;m</span>, <i>March 23</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This so far is a delightful journey. All the circumstances
+are favourable. A friend who was sending his servants,
+horses, and baggage to Isfahan has lent me a thoroughbred,
+and with a trustworthy young soldier as my escort
+I do not trouble myself about the caravan at all, and get
+over much of the ground at a gallop. The roads have
+nearly dried up, the country looks cheerful, travellers are
+numerous, living and dead, the sun is bright but the air
+is cool and bracing, and the insects are still hybernating,
+Mirza Yusuf is getting into my "ways," and is very
+pleasant. I did not think that I could have liked
+Persian travelling so well. A good horse and a good
+pace make an immense difference. It is not the custom
+for European ladies to travel unattended by European
+gentlemen in Persia, but no objection to my doing so
+was made in the highest quarters, either English or
+Persian, and so far there have been no difficulties or
+annoyances.</p>
+
+<p>I left the British Legation at noon four days ago.
+The handsome Arab, with a sheepskin coat rolled on the
+front of the saddle, holsters, and Persian housings, looked
+like a life-guardsman's horse. I nearly came to grief as
+soon as I got out of the Legation gate; for he would not
+stand my English snaffle, and reared and threw himself
+about, and my spur touching him as he did so made him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
+quite wild, and I endured much apprehension all through
+Tihran, expecting to find myself on the rough pavement;
+but I took off the offending spur, and rode him on the
+sharp bit he is used to, and when we were outside the
+gate he quietened down, and I had a long gallop.</p>
+
+<p>How different it all looks! No more floundering
+through mud! The trees of Abdul Azim are green.
+Caravans are moving fast and cheerily. Even the dead
+on their last journey look almost cheerful under the
+sunny skies. We did not reach Husseinabad till long
+after dark. It was so unspeakably dark that my horse
+and I fell off the road into deep water, and we passed
+the caravanserai without knowing that we were near it.</p>
+
+<p>The usual disorder of a first night was somewhat
+worse than usual. The loads were mixed up, and the
+servants and <i>charvadars</i> were quarrelling, and I did not
+get my dinner till ten; but things are all right now, and
+have been since the following morning, when I assumed
+the reins of government and saw the mules loaded myself,
+an efficient interpreter making my necessary self-assertion
+intelligible.</p>
+
+<p>Though the spring has set in, most of the country
+between this and Tihran looks a complete desert. In
+February it was a muddy waste&mdash;it is now a dusty
+waste, on which sheep, goats, and camels pick up a gray
+herbage, which without search is not obvious to the
+human eye, and consists mostly of wormwood and other
+bitter and aromatic plants. Off the road a few tulips
+and dwarf irises coming up out of the dry ground show
+the change of season.</p>
+
+<p>I came for some distance on one day by a road
+which caravans avoid because of robbers. It crosses a
+reddish desert with a few salt streams and much saline
+efflorescence, a blasted region without a dwelling or
+patch of cultivation. Yet a four-mile gallop across one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
+part of it was most inspiriting. As the two Arabs,
+excited by the pace, covering great spaces of ground with
+each powerful stride, dashed over the level gravel I
+thought, "They'll have fleet steeds that follow"; but no
+steed or rider or bird or beast was visible through all
+that hungry land. We passed also close to a salt lake on
+the Kavir, seen in the distance on the former journey,
+near which are now pitched a quantity of Ilyat tents, all
+black. The wealth of these nomads is in camels, sheep,
+and goats. Though the camps, five in number, were
+small, they had over 200 camels among them.</p>
+
+<p>Where four weeks ago there was deep mud there is
+now the glittering semblance of unsullied snow, and the
+likeness of frost crystals fills the holes. <i>Miles</i> of camels
+loaded with cotton march with stately stride in single
+file, the noble mountain camel, with heavy black fur on
+neck, shoulder, fore-arm, and haunch, and kindly gentle
+eyes, looking, as he is, the king of baggage animals, not
+degraded by servitude, though he may carry 800 lbs.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the sights of the road were painful. For
+instance, just as I passed a caravan of the dead bound
+for K&ucirc;m a mule collided with another and fell, and the
+loosely-put-together boxes on its back gave way and
+corpses fell out in an advanced stage of decomposition.
+A camel just dead lay in a gully. On a ledge of rock
+above it seven gorged vultures (not the bald-headed) sat
+in a row. They had already feasted on him to repletion.
+I passed several dead camels, and one with a pleading
+pathetic face giving up the ghost on the road.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday I rode in here from the magnificent caravanserai
+of Shashgird, sixteen miles in three hours before
+lunch, and straight through the crowded bazars to the
+telegraph office unmolested, an Afghan camel-driver's
+coat, with the wool outside, having proved so good a
+disguise that the <i>gholam</i> who was sent to meet me returned
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
+to his master saying that he had not seen a lady, but that
+a foreign soldier and <i>sahib</i> had come into K&ucirc;m.</p>
+
+<p>When my visit was over and I had received from Mr.
+Lyne the route to Isfahan, and such full information
+about rooms, water, and supplies as will enable me to
+give my own orders, and escape from the tyranny of the
+<i>charvadars</i>, having sent the horses to the caravanserai I
+disguised myself as a Persian woman of the middle class
+in the dress which Mrs. Lyne wears in the city, a thick
+white <i>cr&ecirc;pe</i> veil with open stitch in front of the eyes, a
+black sheet covering me from head to foot, the ends
+hanging from the neck by long loops, and held with the
+left hand just below the eyes, and so, though I failed to
+imitate the totter and shuffle of a Persian lady's walk, I
+passed unnoticed through the long and crowded streets
+of this fanatical city, attended only by a <i>gholam</i>, and at
+the door of my own room was prevented from entering
+by the servants till my voice revealed my identity.</p>
+
+<p>Twice to-day I have passed safely through the city in
+the same disguise, and have even lingered in front of
+shops without being detected. Mr. and Mrs. Lyne have
+made the two days here very pleasant, by introducing me
+to Persians in whose houses I have seen various phases of
+Persian life. On reaching one house, where Mrs. Lyne
+arrived an hour later, I was a little surprised to be received
+by the host in uniform, speaking excellent French,
+but without a lady with him.</p>
+
+<p>He had been very kind to Hadji, who, he says, is rich
+and has three wives. The poor fellow's lungs have been
+affected for two years, and the affection was for the time
+aggravated by the terrible journey. He talked a good
+deal about Persian social customs, especially polygamy.</p>
+
+<p>He explained that he has only one wife, but that this
+is because he has been fortunate. He said that he regards
+polygamy as the most fruitful source of domestic unhappiness,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+but that so long as marriages are made for men by
+their mothers and sisters, a large sum being paid to the
+bride's father, a marriage is really buying "a pig in a
+poke," and constantly when the bride comes home she is
+ugly or bad-tempered or unpleasing and cannot manage
+the house. "This," he said, "makes men polygamists
+who would not otherwise be so.</p>
+
+<p>"Then a man takes another wife, and perhaps this is
+repeated, and then he tries again, and so on, and the house
+becomes full of turmoil. There are always quarrels in a
+polygamous household," he said, "and the children dispute
+about the property after the father's death." Had he not
+been fortunate, and had not his wife been capable of
+managing the house, he said that he must have taken
+another wife, "for," he added, "no man can bear a badly-managed
+house."</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the number of men in England who have
+to bear it without the Moslem resource.</p>
+
+<p>A lady of "position" must never go out except on
+Fridays to the mosque, or with her husband's permission
+and scrupulously veiled and guarded, to visit her female
+friends. Girl-children begin to wear the <i>chadar</i> between
+two and three years old, and are as secluded as their
+mothers, nor must any man but father or brother see
+their faces. Some marry at twelve years old.</p>
+
+<p>"La vie des femmes dans la Perse est tr&egrave;s triste," he
+said. The absence of anything like education for girls,
+except in Tihran, and the want of any reading-book but
+the Koran for boys and girls, he regards as a calamity.
+He may be a pessimist by nature: he certainly has no
+hope for the future of Persia, and contemplates a Russian
+occupation as a certainty in the next twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>After a long conversation I asked for the pleasure, not
+of seeing his wife, but the "mother of his children," and
+was rewarded by the sight of a gentle and lovely woman
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
+of twenty-one or twenty-two, graceful in every movement
+but her walk, exquisitely refined-looking, with a most
+becoming timidity of expression, mingled with gentle
+courtesy to a stranger. She was followed by three very
+pretty little girls. The husband and wife are of very good
+family, and the lady has an unmistakably well-bred look.</p>
+
+<p>Though I knew what to expect in the costume of a
+woman of the upper classes, I was astonished, and should
+have been scandalised even had women only been present.
+The costume of ladies has undergone a great change in
+the last ninety years, and the extreme of the fashion is
+as lacking in delicacy as it is in comfort. However, much
+travelling compels one to realise that the modesty of the
+women of one country must not be judged of by the
+rules of another, and a lady costumed as I shall attempt
+to describe would avert her eyes in horror by no means
+feigned from an English lady in a Court or evening-dress
+of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The under garment, very much <i>en &eacute;vidence</i>, is a short
+chemise of tinselled silk gauze, or gold-embroidered
+muslin so transparent as to leave nothing to the imagination.
+This lady wore a skirt of flowered silver brocade,
+enormously full, ten or twelve yards wide, made to stand
+nearly straight out by some frills or skirts of very stiffly
+starched cotton underneath, the whole, not even on a
+waistband round the waist, but drawn by strings, and
+suspended over the hips, the skirts coming down to within
+a few inches of the knee, leaving the white rounded
+limbs uncovered. The effect of this exaggerated
+<i>bouffante</i> skirt is most singular. White socks are worn.
+Over the transparent <i>pirah&#257;n</i>, or chemise, she wore a
+short velvet jacket beautifully embroidered in gold,
+with its fronts about ten inches apart, so as to show
+the flowered chemise. Her eyebrows were artificially
+curved and lengthened till they appeared to meet above
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+her nose, her eyelashes were marked round with <i>kohl</i>, and
+a band of blue-black paint curving downwards above the
+nose crossed her forehead, but was all but concealed by
+a small white square of silk <i>cr&ecirc;pe</i>, on the head and brow
+and fastened under the chin by a brooch.</p>
+
+<p>Had she been in another house she would have worn
+a large square of gold-embroidered silk, with the points
+in front and behind, and fastened under the chin. Under
+the <i>cr&ecirc;pe</i> square there was a small skull-cap of gold-embroidered
+velvet, matching her little zouave jacket,
+with an aigrette of gems at the side. Her arms were
+covered with bracelets, and a number of valuable necklaces
+set off the beauty of her dazzlingly white neck.</p>
+
+<p>Persian ladies paint, or rather smear, but her young
+pure complexion needed no such aids. Her front hair,
+cut to the level of her mouth, hung down rather straight,
+and the remainder, which was long, was plaited into many
+small glossy plaits. Contrary to custom, it was undyed,
+and retained its jet-black colour. Most Persian ladies
+turn it blue-black with indigo, or auburn with <i>henna</i>, and
+with the latter the finger-nails and palms of the hands
+are always stained.</p>
+
+<p>Her jewellery was all of solid gold; hollow gold and
+silver ornaments being only worn by the poor. She wore
+a chain with four scent caskets attached to it exhaling
+attar of roses and other choice perfumes.</p>
+
+<p>She was a graceful and attractive creature in spite of
+her costume. She waited on her husband and on me,
+that is, she poured out the tea and moved about the
+room for hot water and <i>bonbons</i> with the feeble, tottering
+gait of a woman quite unaccustomed to exercise, and to
+whom the windy wastes outside the city walls and a
+breezy gallop are quite unknown. The little girls were
+dressed in the style of adults, and wore tinselled gauze
+<i>chad&#257;rs</i> or <i>chargats</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After seeing a good deal of home life during some
+months in Persia, I have come to the conclusion
+that there is no child life. Swaddled till they can
+walk, and then dressed as little men and women, with
+the adult tyrannies of etiquette binding upon them,
+and in the case of girls condemned from infancy to the
+seclusion of the <i>andarun</i>, there is not a trace of the
+spontaneity and nonsense which we reckon as among
+the joys of childhood, or of such a complete and beautiful
+child life as children enjoy in Japan. There does not
+appear to be any child talk. The Persian child from
+infancy is altogether interested in the topics of adults;
+and as the conversation of both sexes is said by those
+who know them best to be without reticence or modesty,
+the purity which is one of the greatest charms of childhood
+is absolutely unknown. Parental love is very
+strong in Persia, and in later days the devotion of the
+mother to the boy is amply returned by the grown-up
+son, who regards her comfort as his charge, and her
+wishes as law, even into old age.</p>
+
+<p>When tea was over the host retired with the remark
+that the ladies would prefer to amuse themselves alone,
+and then a Princess and another lady arrived attended
+by several servants. This Princess came in the black
+silk sheet with a suggestion of gold about its border which
+is the street disguise of women of the richer classes,
+and she wore huge bag-like violet trousers, into which
+her voluminous skirts were tucked.</p>
+
+<p>She emerged from these wrappings a "harmony" in
+rose colour&mdash;a comely but over-painted young woman in
+rose and silver brocade skirts, a rose velvet jacket embroidered
+in silver, a transparent white muslin <i>pirah&#257;n</i>
+with silver stars upon it, and a <i>chargat</i> of white muslin
+embroidered in rose silk.</p>
+
+<p>She and the hostess sat on a rug in front of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>
+fire, and servants now and then handed them <i>kalians</i>.
+The three little girls and the guest's little girl were in
+the background. The doors were then fastened and a
+number of servants came in and entertained their
+mistresses. Two sang and accompanied themselves on
+a sort of tambourine. Tea was handed round at intervals.
+There was dancing, and finally two or three women acted
+some little scenes from a popular Persian play. By
+these amusements, I am told, the women of the upper
+classes get rid of time when they visit each other; and
+they spend much of their lives in afternoon visiting,
+taking care to be back before sunset. After a long time
+the gentle hostess, reading in my face that I was not
+enjoying the performances, on which indeed unaccustomed
+English eyes could not look, brought them to a close,
+and showed me some of her beautiful dresses and embroidered
+fabrics.</p>
+
+<p>Putting on my disguise and attended by a servant I
+walked a third time unrecognised and unmolested through
+the crowded bazars, through the gate and across the
+bridge, when a boy looked quite into my shroud, which
+I was not perhaps clutching so tightly as in the crowd,
+and exclaiming several times <i>Kafir</i>, ran back into the
+city. I did not run, but got back to the "hotel" as
+fast as possible.</p>
+
+<p>It is very noisy, and my room being on the ground
+floor, and having three doors, there is little peace
+either by day or night. Thirteen days from the <i>No
+Ruz</i> or New Year, which was March 21, are kept as a
+feast before the severe fast of the Ramazan, and this
+city of pilgrims is crowded, and all people put on new
+clothes, the boys being chiefly dressed in green.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow I begin my journey over new ground.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XI</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Kashan</span>, <i>March 26</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen the last of K&ucirc;m and hotels and made roads
+for many months. So much the better! I had to ride
+the whole length of the bazars and the city, a mile and
+a half, but the camel-driver's coat served again as a
+disguise, and I heard no remarks except from two boys.
+Indeed I am delighted to find that the "foreign soldier"
+who rides in front of me attracts so much curiosity that
+I pass in his wake unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>The ruinous condition of K&ucirc;m is fearful. Once
+outside the houses and bazars which surround the
+shrine of Fatima, the town is mostly rubbish and litter,
+with forlorn, miserable houses created out of the
+rubbish, grouped near festering pools; broken causeways
+infamously paved, full of holes, heaps of potsherds,
+bones obtruding themselves, nothing to please
+and everything to disgust the eye and sadden the
+spirit, religious intolerance, a diminished population, and
+desolation.</p>
+
+<p>The pottery bazar, abounding in blue glazed ware of
+graceful shapes, and a number of shrines of saints, are
+the only objects of interest. The domes of the latter
+were once covered with blue tiles, but these have nearly
+all peeled off, leaving the universal mud&mdash;a mud so
+self-asserting everywhere that Persia may be called the
+"Great Mud Land." The cherry and apricot trees are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span>
+in full bloom, but as yet there is little greenery round
+K&ucirc;m, and the area of cultivation is very limited.</p>
+
+<p>I am now on the road which, with the exception of
+that from Tihran to Resht, is best known to travellers,<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>
+but I cannot help sketching it briefly, though the interests
+are few considering the distance travelled, 280 miles
+from Tihran to Isfahan. I now see Persia for the first
+time; for traversing a country buried in snow is not
+seeing it. It would be premature to express the opinion
+that the less one sees of it the more one is likely to
+admire it.</p>
+
+<p>I have been <i>en route</i> for a week under the best
+possible circumstances&mdash;the nights always cool, the days
+never too warm, the accommodation tolerable, the caravan
+in excellent working order, no annoyances, and no grievances.
+The soldier who attends me arranges everything
+for my comfort, and is always bright and kind. I have
+no ambition to "beat the record," but long gallops on a
+fine Arab horse turn marches of from twenty-two to
+thirty miles into delightful morning rides of from three
+and a half to four and a half hours, with long pleasant
+afternoons following them, and sound sleep at night. These
+are my halcyon days of Persian travelling; and yet I
+cannot write that Persia is beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>It is early spring, and tulips and irises rise not out of a
+carpet of green but, to use the descriptive phrase of Isaiah,
+"as a root out of a dry ground," the wormwood is dressed
+in its gray-green, the buds of the wild dwarf-almond
+show their tender pink, the starry blossom of the narcissus
+gleams in moist places, the sky is exquisitely blue,
+and shining cloud-masses fleck the brown hillsides with
+violet shadows. Where there is irrigation carpets of
+young wheat cover the ground; but these, like the villages,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+occur only at long intervals, for the road passes mainly
+through a country destitute of water, or rather of arrangements
+for storing it.</p>
+
+<p>As to natural trees there are none, and even the bushes
+are few and unlovely, chiefly camel thorn and a rigid and
+thorny tamarisk. Beyond K&ucirc;m there is no made road.
+A track worn by the caravans of ages exists,&mdash;sometimes
+parallel ruts for a width of half a mile, sometimes not
+two yards wide, and now and then lapsing into illegibility.
+There are large and small caravanserais of an
+inferior class along the route, and <i>chapar khanas</i> at intervals.
+Water is often bad and sometimes brackish. It
+is usually supplied from small brick <i>abambars</i>, or covered
+reservoirs. Milk is hard to obtain, often impossible; at
+some places fowls can be bought for eightpence each, and
+"flap jacks" everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Except the snowy cone of Demavend, with purple
+ranges curtaining his feet, no special object of admiration
+exists; the plains are reddish, yellowish, barren,
+gravelly, or splotched with salt; the ranges of hills,
+which are never far off (for Persia is a land of mountains),
+are either shapeless and gravelly, or rocky, rugged,
+and splintered, their hue reddish and purplish, their sides
+scored by the spring rush of wasted torrents, their aspect
+one of complete desolation, yet not without a certain
+beauty at this season&mdash;rose-flushed in the early morning,
+passing through shades of cobalt and indigo through the
+day, and dying away at sunset in translucent amethyst
+against a sky of ruddy gold.</p>
+
+<p>But, take away the atmospheric colouring&mdash;which the
+advancing heat will abolish&mdash;and the plain English of the
+route is this, that in every direction, far as the eye can
+reach, the country is a salt waste or a gravelly waste,
+with a few limited oases of cultivation on the plains and
+in the folds of the hills, always treeless, except round
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+a few of the villages, where there are small groves of
+poplars and willows. The villages are clusters of mud
+hovels, scarcely distinguishable from the wastes, and many
+of them are ruined and deserted, oppressive exactions or
+a failure of water being common reasons for a migration.
+These dismal ruins are shapeless heaps of mud,
+the square towers of the square walls alone retaining any
+semblance of form.</p>
+
+<p>Long lines of choked <i>kanaats</i>, denoted by their crumbling
+shafts, attest the industrious irrigation of a former
+day. Tracks wind wearily among shrunken villages, or
+cross ridges of mud or gravel to take their unlovely way
+over arid stony plains. Unwatered tracts of land, once
+cultivated, as the <i>kanaats</i> show, but now deserts of sand
+and stones, send up gyrating clouds of gritty dust.</p>
+
+<p>Such is Persia between its two capitals; and yet I
+repeat that in cool weather, and on a good horse, the
+journey is a very pleasant one. Most European men
+ride <i>chapar</i>, that is, post; but from what I see of the
+<i>chapar</i> horses, I would not do it for the sake of doubling
+the distance travelled in the day, and therefore cannot
+describe either its pleasures or tortures from experience.</p>
+
+<p>On certain roads, as from Tihran to Shiraz, there are
+post stations (<i>chapar khana</i>) with horses and men at
+distances of from twenty to twenty-five miles, with a
+charge of one <i>kran</i> (eightpence) per <i>farsakh</i> (four miles)
+for each horse engaged, an order having been previously
+obtained from a government official. Besides your own
+horse you have to take one for the <i>shasgird chapar</i>, or
+post-boy, who has to take the horses back, and one for the
+servant. The two latter carry the very limited kit,
+which includes a long cotton bag, which, being filled
+with chopped straw at night, forms the traveller's bed.
+The custom is to ride through all the hours of daylight
+whenever horses are to be got, doing from sixty to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
+ninety miles a day, always inspired by the hope of
+"cutting the record," even by half an hour, and winning
+undying fame.</p>
+
+<p>The horses, which are kept going at a canter so long
+as they can be thrashed into one, are small and active,
+and do wonders; but from the strain put upon them, bad
+feeding, sore backs, and general dilapidation and exhaustion,
+are constantly tumbling down. Several times I
+have seen wretched animals brought into the yards,
+apparently "dead beat," and after getting some chopped
+straw and a little barley thrashed into a canter again
+for twenty-five miles more, because the traveller could
+not get a remount. They often fall down dead under
+their riders, urged by the heavy <i>chapar</i> whip to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Riding <i>chapar</i>, journeying in a <i>taktrawan</i> or litter, or in
+a <i>kajaweh</i>, or riding caravan pace, by which only about
+thirty miles a day can be covered, are the only modes
+of travelling in Persia, though I think that with capable
+assistance a carriage might make the journey from Tihran
+as far as Kashan.</p>
+
+<p>I lodge in the <i>chapar khanas</i> whenever I can. They
+consist of mud walls fourteen feet high, enclosing yards
+deep in manure, with stabling for the <i>chapar</i> horses on
+two sides, and recesses in their inner walls for mangers.
+The entrance is an arched gateway. There are usually
+two dark rooms at the sides, which the servants occupy
+and cook in, and over the gateway is the <i>balakhana</i>, an
+abortive tower, attained by a steep and crumbling stair,
+in which I encamp. The one room has usually two
+doors, half-fitting and non-shutting, and perhaps a
+window space or two, and the ashes of the last traveller's
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Such a breezy rest just suits me, and when my camp
+furniture has been arranged and I am enjoying my
+"afternoon tea," I feel "monarch of all I survey," even
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
+of the boundless desert, over which the cloud shadows
+chase each other till it purples in the light of the sinking
+sun. If there is the desert desolation there is also
+the desert freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The first halt was delicious after the crowds and
+fanaticism of K&ucirc;m. A broad plain with irrigated
+patches and a ruinous village was passed; then came
+the desert, an expanse of camel-brown gravel thickly
+strewn with stones, with a range of low serrated
+brown hills, with curious stratification, on the east. A
+few caravans of camels, and the <i>haram</i> of the Governor
+of Yezd in closely-covered <i>kajawehs</i>, alone broke the
+monotony. Before I thought we were half-way we
+reached the <i>abambars</i>, the small brown caravanserai, and
+the <i>chapar khana</i> of Passangh&#257;m, having ridden in three
+hours a distance on which I have often expended eight.</p>
+
+<p>Cool and breezy it was in my room, and cooler and
+breezier on the flat mud roof; and the lifting of some
+clouds in the far distance to the north, beyond the great
+sweep of the brown desert, revealed the mighty Elburz
+range, white with new-fallen snow. At Sinsin the next
+evening it was gloriously cold. There had been another
+heavy snowfall, and in the evening the Elburz range,
+over a hundred miles away, rose in unsullied whiteness
+like a glittering wall, and above it the colossal cone of
+Demavend, rose-flushed.</p>
+
+<p>The routine of the day is simple and easy. I get the
+caravan off at eight, lie on the floor for an hour, gallop and
+walk for about half the march, rest for an hour in some
+place, where Mahboud, the soldier, always contrives to
+bring me a glass of tea, and then gallop and walk to the
+halting-place, where I rest for another hour till the
+caravan comes in. I now know exactly what to pay,
+and by giving small presents get on very easily.</p>
+
+<p>There were many uncomfortable prophecies about the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
+annoyances and rudenesses which a lady travelling alone
+would meet with, but so far not one has been fulfilled.
+How completely under such circumstances one has to
+trust one's fellow-creatures! There are no fastenings on
+the doors of these breezy rooms, and last night there
+was only the longitudinal half of a door, but I fell asleep,
+fearing nothing worse than a predatory cat.</p>
+
+<p>The last two days' marches have been chiefly over
+stony wastes, or among low hills of red earth, gray gravel,
+and brown mud, with low serrated ranges beyond, and
+farther yet high hills covered with snow, after which the
+road leaves the hills and descends upon a pink plain,
+much of the centre of which is snow-white from saline
+efflorescence. The villages Kasseinabad, Nasrabad, and
+Aliabad are passed on the plain, with small fruit trees
+and barley surrounding them, and great mud caravanserais
+at intervals, only remarkable for the number of
+camels lying outside of them in rows facing each other.
+In the fresh keen air of evening the cone of Demavend
+was painted in white on the faint blue sky, reddening
+into beauty as the purple-madder shadows deepened over
+the yellow desert.</p>
+
+<p>Tea made with saltish water, and salt sheep's milk,
+have been the only drawbacks of the six days' march.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from Kashan we entered on a great
+alluvial plain formed of fine brown earth without a
+single stone&mdash;a prolific soil if it had water, as the fruit
+trees and abundant crops of young wheat round the
+villages show. So level, and on the whole so smooth, is
+this plain that it possesses the prodigy of a public conveyance,
+an omnibus with four horses abreast, which
+makes its laborious way with the aid of several attendants,
+who lift the wheels out of holes, prevent it from capsizing,
+and temporarily fill up the small irrigation ditches which
+it has to cross. Its progress is less "by leaps and bounds"
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+than by jolts and rolls, and as my Arab horse bounded
+past I wondered that six men could be found to exchange
+the freedom of the saddle for such a jerky, stuffy box.</p>
+
+<p>Five hundred yards from the gate of Kashan there is
+a telegraph station of the Indo-European line, where
+M. du Vignau and his wife expected me, and have
+received me with great kindness and hospitality. The
+electricians at these stations are allowed to receive guests
+in what is known as the "Inspectors' Room," and they
+exercise this liberty most kindly and generously. Many
+a weary traveller looks back upon the "Inspectors' Room"
+as upon an oasis in the desert of dirt; and though I
+cannot class myself just now with "weary travellers," I
+cordially appreciate the kindness which makes one "at
+home," and the opportunity of exchanging civilised ideas
+for a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>I must not go beyond Kashan without giving a few
+words to the Persian section of the Indo-European
+telegraph line, one of the greatest marvels of telegraph
+construction, considering the nature of the country which
+the line traverses. Tihran is the centre of telegraphic
+control, and the residence of Colonel Wells, R.E., the
+Director, with a staff of twenty telegraphists, who work
+in relays day and night, and a Medical Officer. Julfa is
+another place of importance on the line, and at Shiraz
+there is another Medical Officer.</p>
+
+<p>The prompt repair of the wires in cases of interruption
+is carefully arranged for. At suitable places, such as
+K&ucirc;m, Soh, Kashan, and other towns or villages from fifty
+to eighty miles apart, there are control or testing stations,
+each being in charge of a European telegraphist, who has
+under him two Persian horsemen, who have been well
+trained as linesmen. At stated hours the clerks place
+their instruments in circuit, and ascertain if all is right.</p>
+
+<p>If this testing reveals any fault, it can be localised at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
+once, and horsemen are despatched from the control
+stations on either side of it, with orders to ride rapidly
+along the line until they meet at the fault and repair it.
+As the telegraph crosses passes such as Kuhr&#363;d, at an
+altitude of over 8000 feet, the duties of both inspectors
+and linesmen are most severe, full not only of hardship
+but of danger in terrible winter storms and great depths
+of snow, yet on their ceaseless watchfulness and fidelity
+the safety of our Indian Empire may some day depend.</p>
+
+<p>The skill brought to bear upon the manipulation of
+this Government line from the Gulf, and throughout the
+whole system of which it is a part, is wonderful.
+Messages from any part of the United Kingdom now
+reach any part of India in less than an hour and a half,
+and in only about one word in two hundred does even
+the most trifling mistake occur in transmission, a result
+all the more surprising when it is remembered that the
+telegrams are almost entirely either in code or cypher,
+and that over 1000 are transmitted in the course of a
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Among these are the long despatches continually
+passing between the Viceroy of India and the India
+Office on vitally important subjects, and press telegrams
+of every noteworthy event. The "exhaustive summary"
+of Indian news which appears weekly in the <i>Times</i>,
+accompanied by a commentary on events, is an altogether
+un-padded telegram, and is transmitted with punctuation
+complete, and even with inverted commas for
+quotations.<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>The English staff, numbering from fifty to sixty men,
+is scattered along a line of 1900 miles. Some of them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span>
+are married, and most occupy isolated positions, so far
+as other Europeans are concerned. It is the universal
+testimony of Englishmen and Persians that the relations
+between them have been for many years of the most
+friendly character, full of good-will and mutual friendly
+offices, and that the continual contact brought about by
+the nature of the duties of the electricians has been productive
+not of aversion and distrust, but of cordial appreciation
+on both sides.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XI (<i>Continued</i>)</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Kashan is one of the hottest places on the great Persian
+plateau, but has the rare luxury of a good water supply
+brought from a reservoir some distance off in the Kuhr&#363;d
+mountains. It has a much-diminished population, said
+now to number 30,000 souls. Much of it is in ruins,
+and much more is ruinous. It has a thriving colony of
+Jews. It is noted for its silks and velvets; but the
+modern productions are regarded by judges as degenerate.
+It is still famous for its work in copper and for its
+great copper bazar.</p>
+
+<p>Silk produced at Resht is brought here to be spun
+and dyed. Then it is sent to Sultanabad to be woven
+into carpets, and is brought back again to have the
+pile cut by the sharp instruments used for cutting
+velvet pile, and the finished carpets are sent to Tihran
+for sale. They are only made in small sizes, and
+are more suitable for <i>porti&egrave;res</i> than for laying on the
+floor. The colouring is exquisite, and the metallic sheen
+and lustre are unique. Silk carpets are costly luxuries.
+The price of even a fairly good one of very small size is
+&pound;50, the silk alone costing &pound;20.</p>
+
+<p>Kashan is a great place for <i>curio</i> buyers, who enlist
+the Jews in their service. There are some valuable
+antiques in this house&mdash;embroideries, carpet squares in
+silk, glass whose greenish colour and grace of form
+remind me of Venetian glass, enamels on porcelain, tiles,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>
+metal inlaying and damascening, pierced brasswork, and
+many other articles of <i>vertu</i>, the art of making which is
+either lost or has greatly degenerated.</p>
+
+<p>It is unaccountable, but it is certain that the secret
+of producing the higher types of beauty in various arts,
+especially the Keramic, died out more than one hundred
+and fifty years ago, and that there are no circumstances
+of that date to account for its decease, except that it is
+recorded that when the Afghan conqueror Mahmoud
+destroyed Isfahan he massacred the designers of <i>refl&ecirc;t</i>
+tiles and other Keramic beauties, because they had
+created works which gave great umbrage to the Sunni
+sect to which he belonged.</p>
+
+<p>These <i>refl&ecirc;ts</i>, for which collectors give fabulous sums,
+are intrinsically beautiful, both in the elegant conceptions
+of their designs and the fantastic richness of their
+colouring. There are designs in shades of brown
+on a lapis-lazuli ground, or in blue and green on a
+purple or umber ground, some of them star-shaped, with
+a pure white border composing the rest of the square, on
+which are inscribed phrases from the Koran. Looked
+at from above or frontwise, one exclaims, "What a beautiful
+tile!" but it is on turning it to the light that
+one's stereotyped phrases of admiration are exchanged for
+silence in presence of a singular iridescence which transfigures
+the tile, making it seem to gleam from within
+with golden purples and rosy gold.</p>
+
+<p>The mosaic tiles are also beautiful, especially where
+the mosaic is on a lapis-lazuli or canary-yellow ground,
+neither of them reproducible at this day; and this also
+refers to other shades of blue, and to various reds and
+browns of exceeding richness, the art of making which
+has been lost for a century. But enough of art!</p>
+
+<p>Possibly there may be a resurrection for Persian art;
+but in the meantime aniline dyes, tawdry European
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span>
+importations, and Western models without either grace
+or originality are doing their best to deprave it here, as
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Roads from Tihran, Gulpaigan, Yezd, and Isfahan
+meet here, and it is something of what the Americans
+call "a distributing point," but it is a most uninviting place,
+in situation and general aspect, and its unsightly mud
+ruins, as in other Persian cities, are eloquent of nothing
+but paralysis and retrogression.</p>
+
+<p><i>Murcheh Khurt, Palm Sunday, March 30.</i>&mdash;Three very
+pleasant marches, equal to seventy-six miles, have brought
+me here, and now Isfahan is only two days off, and it
+will end my palmy days of Persian travelling.</p>
+
+<p>The first day's march from Kashan was only seven
+<i>farsakhs</i> (the <i>parasang</i> of Xenophon), twenty-eight miles,
+but it is equivalent to thirty-five, owing to the roughness
+of the road and the long ascent. There was scarcely any
+ground for galloping, the way was lost once, and the
+march took over eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>The track, for only in places did it attain to the
+dignity of a bridle-road, lay for hours over a stony
+desert, and then entered the mountains, where I halted for
+an hour at the once magnificent caravanserai of Gaberabad,
+in a romantic situation, but falling fast into ruins, and
+deserted for no reason, so far as I could make out, but
+that people used to be robbed and have their throats cut
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond it the scenery became very wild, and the rocks
+and mountains highly coloured and snow-patched, and
+after ascending along the side of a stream and up a
+causewayed sort of stair past the reservoir which supplies
+Kashan with water, we entered the rising valley of
+Kuhr&#363;d, where the snow came nearly down to the road,
+and every slope was terraced and every level cultivated,
+and young wheat was springing and fruit orchards
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
+flourished, with green sward under the branches, and great
+poplars in picturesque groups towered above the lower
+woods.</p>
+
+<p>We lost the way in the snow, and then took to the
+pebbly river as the safest track, and had an hour of
+fumbling in water and snow under apple and pear trees
+for the halting-place. The twilight of a frosty evening
+was coming on when we reached the village of Kuhr&#363;d&mdash;500
+houses in terraces on a mountain side, and clustering
+round a fort on a projecting spur.</p>
+
+<p>It is surrounded and interpenetrated by groves of
+walnut, apricot, cherry, peach, plum, apple, pear, poplar,
+and vine, with roses climbing over everything and planted
+in rows like vines, and through it passes a fair, bright
+stream of living water, a stream "whose waters fail not,"
+turning the mountain valley into an oasis. But at that
+altitude of something like 7000 feet, the buds are only
+just swelling, and the crimson catkins of the hazels were
+the only reminder of spring. It is the one place that I
+should care to revisit.</p>
+
+<p>The snow was piled in great heaps in the village and
+against the wall of the very wretched, ruinous <i>chapar
+khana</i> in which I sought rest and shelter. Mahboud
+went up to the loft over the gateway, and came down
+looking dejected, mustering English enough to say, "No,
+no, mem Sahib!" I actually had to occupy one of the
+two gateway rooms, an inferior stable, without the smallest
+window hole, and no door except two unconnected boards
+with which one could cover a part of the doorway. Even
+when these were not put up a candle was necessary. It
+was freezing hard, but one could not have a fire because
+there was no smoke-hole. The walls were slimily and
+inkily black from the smoke of the fires of people who
+were less particular than I am. The dust and rubbish
+of the floor were swept into one corner. If one wanted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>
+a place to store boxes in, and looked into that room, one
+would exclaim dubiously, "Well, it <i>might</i> do for glass and
+china!"</p>
+
+<p>Mahboud put a rug on the floor and brought a bowl
+of delicious milk, and with an inverted saddle for a pillow
+I rested quite comfortably, being too tired to be impatient,
+till Mirza Yusuf arrived with my luxuries, and the news
+that the caravan could not get in for another hour, for
+that several of the mules had fallen and the loads were
+slipping round constantly. Indeed it was ten before I
+had dinner. It is very fortunate to have an attendant
+always cheerful, never fussy, caring nothing for personal
+comfort, and always ready to interpret.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>ketchuda</i> called with the usual proffer of service,
+"I am your sacrifice," etc., and induced me to buy some
+of the specialties of Kuhr&#363;d, rose-water in bottles without
+corks, and a paste made of rose-water, pounded walnuts,
+and sugar. The rose-water is not very clear, but it has
+much of the overpowering, lingering odour of attar of roses.</p>
+
+<p>Kuhr&#363;d seems prosperous. Besides exporting large
+quantities of rose-water and walnut paste formed into
+blocks and done up in white skins, it sends wheat and
+fruit in abundance to Kashan.</p>
+
+<p>Freedom, good sleep, and satisfactory travelling make
+up for all annoyances but vermin, and these are still
+hybernating. In that precarious privacy I slept soundly,
+and got the caravan off at eight the next morning&mdash;a
+glorious winter morning, the icy roads and the snow-covered
+valley glittering with frost crystals. We lost
+the way again among the pretty orchards, then got into
+a valley between high mud mountains, whose shapelessness
+is now judiciously concealed by snow from one to
+three feet deep, through which a track has been broken
+a foot wide. It is six miles from Kuhr&#363;d to the summit
+of the Kuhr&#363;d Pass, which is over 8000 feet, and it grew
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span>
+very cold and gray, and ragged masses of cloud swept
+angrily round the mountain-tops.</p>
+
+<p>On the steepest part of the ascent it was extremely
+slippery, and the horses not being roughed slipped badly,
+and I was just fearing an accident to my borrowed horse
+and planning some method of dismounting when down he
+came on his nose and then on the side of his head, and
+fell several times again in his struggles to get up, his feet
+slipping from under him. When he did succeed in
+getting on his legs I was convinced that he had cut his
+knees, and slipped off him somehow to examine them; but
+my fears were groundless, and I had great difficulty in
+getting out of the drift into which I had descended, which
+was nearly up to my shoulders. His nose was bleeding
+a little, but that was all.</p>
+
+<p>There was no way of remounting on a path a foot
+wide between walls of snow, and besides I was afraid
+of another accident, so I slipped the snaffle rein over
+his head and led him. It was horribly slippery, and
+having nails in my boots I fell several times just under
+his feet, but the sweet creature always stopped when
+I fell.</p>
+
+<p>From the top there was a truly fearful view of
+"blackness, darkness, and tempest," inky mists, white
+mountain-tops showing momentarily through them to
+be lost again, and great sheets of very deep snow. Soon
+the gathering storm burst, a "blizzard" in which the
+snow was quite blinding, snow drifting and hissing as it
+went by, the wind tempestuous, mountains, valleys, path
+obliterated, even the soldier in front of me constantly
+lost to sight. An hour of this and I could walk no
+more, and somehow scrambled into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the descent the sky cleared, the sun
+shone, and we picked up the caravan, which had had
+rather a hard time. The succeeding route was through
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span>
+an absolutely uninhabited and uninhabitable country,
+clay and mud hills, purple, red, gray, pink, brown, an
+utter desolation, till we came in sight of the good-sized
+and at a distance imposing-looking village of Soh in a
+keen wind with frequent snow showers. Soh is a
+telegraph testing station.</p>
+
+<p>The electrician was absent, but had kindly left
+directions that I was to be received, and I found a most
+comfortable guest-room quite ready. A little later an
+Englishman riding <i>chapar</i> to Isfahan threw a packet of
+English letters in at my door&mdash;a delightful surprise,
+which made havoc of the rest of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>The desolation of this part of the route may be
+judged of from the fact that except the village of Kuhr&#363;d
+there is not an inhabited house for forty-six miles. The
+country traversed reminds me much of the least interesting
+part of the route from Lesser Tibet into Kulu.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday morning there was ice, and the roads were
+very slippery on the gradual descent from the plain
+which opens out after passing Bideshk, the <i>chapar</i> station,
+an hour from Soh. The twenty-four miles' ride over
+this gravelly waste, quite uninhabited, was very pleasant,
+as it was possible to gallop much of the way, and besides
+the beauty of the atmospheric colouring the mirage
+occurring in most remarkable forms rendered monotony
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>There were no caravans on the road, but I met
+several dervishes, and there is one here to whom I have
+given what he demanded&mdash;a night's lodging. He carries
+a large carved almsholder; and the panther skin on his
+shoulders, the knotted club, and his lean, hungry, fanatical
+face give him a dangerous look. All I have seen on
+this march have worn long matted bushy hair, often
+covering their shoulders, an axe in the girdle, and
+peculiar turbans decorated with phrases from the Koran.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span>
+They are the "mendicant friars" of Persia, and are under
+vows of poverty. Some are said to be learned; but they
+object to discussing religious matters with infidels, and
+almost nothing is known as
+to their beliefs. They hold
+universally the sanctity of
+idleness, and the duty of
+being supported by the
+community. The lower
+classes hold them in reverence,
+and the upper, though
+they are apt to loathe them,
+treat them with great respect,
+for fear of laying
+themselves open to the
+charge of laxity in religious
+matters.</p>
+
+<div class="figright"><a name="i237" id="i237"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-237.jpg" width="215" height="418" alt="A DERVISH" title="" />
+<p class="caption">A DERVISH.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Many of them deal in
+charms, and are consulted
+as astrologers. Some are
+professed tellers of stories,
+to which I am told no
+European could degrade
+himself by listening, but
+which are most palatable
+to a village audience;
+and at this moment this unwelcome guest of mine has
+a crowd listening to a narrative partly told and partly
+acted.</p>
+
+<p>They are credited with many vices, among the least
+of which are hazy ideas as to mine and thine, opium and
+bhang smoking to excess, and drunkenness.</p>
+
+<p>They have recognised heads or chiefs, to whom they
+show great deference. One of their vows is that of
+obedience; and besides paying to the chief a part of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span>
+alms they receive, he gives them orders as to the houses
+they are to infest, and though the nuisance is not so
+common as formerly, a dervish at the door is still a sign
+of being great or rich, or both. Their cries, and their
+rude blasts on the buffalo horn, which is a usual part
+of their equipment, are most obnoxious. In the larger
+towns, such as K&ucirc;m and Kirmanshah, there are shops for
+the sale of their outfit&mdash;the tiger and panther skins, the
+axes, the knotted clubs, the almsbowls, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Some are respectable, and enjoy much consideration,
+and I hope that many even of those whom a careful
+writer has called "disgusting vagabonds" are not humbugs;
+but the presumption is so much the other way
+that I am always glad when the ground admits of
+galloping past them, otherwise the dervish comes forward,
+with his knotted club much <i>en &eacute;vidence</i>, with many
+compliments and good wishes, or else silently extends his
+almsholder, ejaculating <i>Huk</i> ("my right"). I usually
+have the means of appeasing, if not of satisfying him,
+but on the rare occasions when I have had no money
+the yells and maledictions have been awful.</p>
+
+<p>The light and profane use of the Divine name is
+universal. The dervishes curse, but every one uses the
+name <i>Allah</i> wherever they can bring it in. The <i>Ya
+Allah</i>, as an expression of fatigue, or discontent, or
+interest, or nothing, is heard all day, and the boy who
+drives a cow, or a team, or a mule in a caravan, cries <i>Ya
+Allah</i> incessantly as an equivalent of "go along," and the
+gardener pushing his spade into the ground, the chopper
+with every blow of the axe, the labourer throwing up
+bricks, ejaculates the same. <i>Mashallah</i>, <i>Inshallah</i>, interlard
+all conversation. When men are building, the
+perpetual sing-song of phrases such as these is heard,
+"Brother, in God's name toss me a brick," the other
+replying, "Brother, in God's name here is a brick."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The vocabulary of abuse is also very large, and often
+involves serious reflections on the female relatives of the
+person abused. I hear such harmless phrases as "son
+of a burnt father," "son of a dog," "offspring of a pig,"
+etc., on all occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Murcheh Khurt is a large village with a good deal
+of cultivation about it, a mosque or more, a <i>hammam</i>,
+a <i>chapar khana</i>, and a caravanserai. Here again I
+found that the smart foreign soldier attracted all the
+notice, and that before the people ceased to wonder at
+him I had passed them. The <i>chapar khana</i> was full
+of men, so I have had to sink to the level of a recessed
+den with a manger in front in a ruinous caravanserai
+crowded with Persian travellers, muleteers, mules, horses,
+and asses, and the courtyard half-choked with ruins. I
+had not seen the inside of one of these dens before.
+Travellers have exhausted the vocabulary of abuse upon
+them; possibly they deserve it in the "vermin season";
+but there is nothing worse than a square and perfectly
+dark room, with unplastered walls blackened by the smoke
+and cobwebs of ages, and a door which will not fasten.</p>
+
+<p>The air is cool and the sky blue, and sitting at the
+open door is very pleasant. Mahboud and two of the
+servants caught cold at Kuhr&#363;d and are ill, and my Arab
+has a chill too. He is a very stupid horse. His gentle
+eyes never change their expression, and his small ears
+rarely move. He has little sense or affection, but when
+he is patted his proud neck takes on a loftier arch.
+Gentle as he is to people he is a brute to other horses.
+He would like to fight every one of them, to stand on his
+hind-legs and grapple them round the shoulders with his
+fore-feet and bite their necks, roaring and squealing all the
+time. He and Mahboud's horse are inveterate enemies,
+and one of the few difficulties of the journey is the keeping
+them from a regular stand-up fight.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This village is an oasis in the desert. I have been
+through its gates, barely wide enough to admit an ass
+loaded with brushwood, with the <i>seraidar</i> and Mirza,
+walked through its narrow alleys, and inadvertently
+stumbled into a mosque where a great crowd of women
+were listening to a story of one of the twelve Imams
+told by a <i>mollah</i>, looked down upon it and over the
+adjacent country from a house roof, visited several houses,
+in which some of the inmates were ill and desired "Feringhi
+medicine," had a long conversation with the <i>ketchuda</i>, who
+came to see me to ask for eye lotion, and with the <i>seraidar</i>,
+and altogether have had quite a pleasant day.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chapar Khana, Gez.</i>&mdash;I am sitting in one of the three
+doorless doorways of my loft, grieving that the journey
+is just over, and that this is the last night of the exhilarating
+freedom of the desert. I rode twenty-four miles
+before one o'clock to-day, over a level uncultivated plain,
+bordered as usual by ranges of mountains. In fact, while
+I write of levels and plains it must be understood that
+Persia is chiefly a land of hills rising from a table-land
+from 3400 feet to 6000 feet in altitude, and that the
+traveller is rarely, if ever, more than fourteen or fifteen
+miles from mountains from 2000 to 6000 feet above
+the plain from which they rise, crowned by Demavend,
+whose imposing summit is 18,600 feet above the sea. The
+hills beyond Isfahan have assumed lofty proportions, and
+some of the snowy mountains of Luristan are to be seen
+in the far distance.</p>
+
+<p>It is nearly an unmitigated waste between Murcheh
+Khurt and Gez, destitute even of tufts of wormwood; but
+the latter part of the march is through a stoneless alluvial
+desert of dry friable soil, soft springy galloping ground
+which water would turn into a paradise of fertility; and
+water there has once been, for not far from the road are
+the remains of some <i>kanaats</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The questions naturally arise in a traveller's mind, first,
+what becomes of the enormous amount of snow which
+falls on the mountains; and next, how in a country so arid
+as the plateaus of Central Asia water for irrigation, and
+for the basins and fountains which abound in rich men's
+houses, is obtained.</p>
+
+<p>Wells, unless the artesian borings shortly to be begun
+in the Tihran desert should be successful, are all but
+unknown, except for supplying drinking water, and there
+are scarcely any reservoirs, but ingenuity has devised a
+plan of subterranean water-channels, which besides their
+other advantages prevent loss by evaporation. Tihran
+has thirty-five of them, and the water which they distribute
+is naturally expensive, as the cost of making them
+is great.</p>
+
+<p>It is on the slope of a hill that the spring is found
+which is the original source of supply; this is tapped at
+some depth, and its waters are led along a tunnel about
+four feet high by two feet wide lined with baked pottery
+where the ground is soft, and having a slight fall to
+the next spring or well, which may be from twenty-five
+to even sixty yards off.</p>
+
+<p>As the labourers dig they draw up the earth and
+arrange it in a circle round the shaft, and as they come
+to water they draw up the mud and pour it on the top
+of the earth, where it dries and hardens, and below, the
+water is conducted as a running underground stream
+across great plains, its progress marked by mounds which
+have been compared to ant-hills and craters, but to my
+thinking are more like the shafts of disused mines.</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of these <i>kanaats</i> are seen, ruined and dry,
+and are the resort of porcupines and jackals. To construct
+a <i>kanaat</i> may call a village or series of villages
+into being. The letting it fall to ruin is one cause of
+deserted villages. Those which are not lined require
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>
+annual repairs, which are now going on, but frequently
+the complete fall of the roof destroys the fall of the
+water, and the tunnel becomes irreparable.</p>
+
+<p>The peasants are obliged to buy the water, for they
+cannot steal it, and the making of a <i>kanaat</i> is often a
+lucrative speculation. Pigeons live in them, and many
+of them are full of fish, which foreigners amuse themselves
+by poisoning by throwing a mixture of <i>cocculus indicus</i>
+with dough down the wells, when the poisoned but
+wholesome fish rise to the surface. They usually recover
+when they are left in the water. Dr. Wills describes them
+as having a muddy taste. The <i>kanaats</i> are a feature of
+Persia.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since leaving K&ucirc;m all the dry and hard parts of
+the road have been covered with the industrious "road
+beetle," which works, like the ant, in concert, and carries
+on its activities at all seasons, removing from the road to
+its nest all the excreta of animals, except in regions
+where even animal fuel is so exceptionally scarce that
+boys with asses and ponies follow caravans for the same
+purpose. These beetles hover over the road on the wing,
+and on alighting proceed to roll the ball towards the nest,
+four or five of them standing on their hind-legs and
+working it forwards, or else rolling it with their heads
+close to the ground. Their instinct is wonderful, and
+they attract the attention of all travellers. They are
+about the size of a small walnut. Otherwise there is
+little of animated life to be seen on this route.</p>
+
+<p>No day has had fewer noticeable objects. Two or
+three <i>abambars</i>, several caravanserais in absolute ruins,
+and a magnificent one in partial ruins are its record.</p>
+
+<p>Gez consists of this post-house and a decaying
+caravanserai. From the roof as I write I watch the
+grooming of a whole row of <i>chapar</i> horses. As each pad
+is removed there is a horrid revelation of wounds, deep
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
+ulcers, sores often a foot long, and in some cases the
+white vertebr&aelig; of the spine are exposed. These are the
+wretched animals which often carry men from
+fourteen to seventeen stone  who ride fifty miles in a day. It is
+hard enough even with extreme carefulness to keep the
+back of a horse all right on a continuous journey, but I
+never before saw animals ridden in such a state. They
+wince pitifully when their pads are put on again.</p>
+
+<p>The desert is all around, purpling in the sunset, sweeping
+up to low broken ridges, and to some higher hills in
+the north-west covered with new-fallen snow. That the
+waste only requires water to make it prolific is apparent,
+for below these walls wheat is growing luxuriantly in
+some deep pits, irrigated from a dirty ditch out of which
+the drinking water comes. Nothing can be got, except
+by sending to a village a mile away.</p>
+
+<p>Four of the men are ill, one with inflammation of the
+eyes, another with an abscess, and a third, a very strong
+man, with something like bilious fever, and a <i>charvadar</i>
+with malarial fever. The strong man's moans often
+become howls. He insists that he shall die to-night.
+These two afternoons have been much taken up with
+making poultices and medicines, and I shall be glad for
+the poor fellows to reach Isfahan and the care of a
+competent doctor.</p>
+
+<p><i>Julfa, April 2.</i>&mdash;I daresay this journey seems longer
+to you than it did to me. It was very pleasant, and its
+goal is pleasant, and a most kind welcome and the
+refinement of cultured English people go far to compensate
+for the loss of the desert freedom and the easy
+stride of the Arab horse.</p>
+
+<p>I started the caravan at nine yesterday, with two
+men with bandaged eyes, and other two hardly able to
+sit on their mules; Mahboud, who is really more seriously
+ill than any of them, keeping up his pluck and capableness
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
+to the last. The man who threatened to die at
+Gez was very much better the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after leaving Gez the country changes its aspect,
+the road becomes very bad, and passes through nine miles
+of rich cultivation&mdash;wheat, barley, opium, and vegetables
+growing abundantly; orchards are numerous, villages with
+trees and gardens succeed each other rapidly, water
+abounds, and before the gate of Isfahan is reached,
+domes and minarets rising among cypresses, planes, and
+poplars indicate the remains of the former capital of
+Persia.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the shabby gateway the road to Julfa lies
+among rows of mean mud houses, heaps of ruins, and
+shabby provision bazars; and that mile or more of Isfahan
+was the one disagreeable part of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the last day of the holidays, and the
+bazars, alleys, and open spaces were full of men in gay
+attire, and companies of shrouded women were moving
+along the quieter roads. It was too warm for the sheepskin
+coat which had served me so well at K&ucirc;m, and I
+had dressed with some regard to European sensibilities.
+The boys began to shout "A Feringhi woman! a Nazarene
+woman!" and then to call bad names; then men began
+to make up fiendish laughs,<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> and the howls and outcries
+gathered strength as I went on at the inevitable foot's
+pace, spitting being quite common, poor Mahboud constantly
+turning to me a perturbed wretched face, full
+of annoyance at the insults of his co-religionists, which
+it would have been dangerous to resent. It was a bad
+half-hour.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Before passing the residence of the Amir-i-Panj (the
+commander of 5000) near the Julfa gate the uproar
+died away, and once through the gate and in the
+<i>Chahar Bagh</i> (four gardens) there was peace. A bad
+road of cobble stones, with a double avenue of once
+magnificent planes, some once ornamental tanks, very
+high walls, pierced by storied gates, ornamented with
+wild designs on plaster in flaring colours, above which
+a blue dome is a conspicuous object, leads to a handsome
+bridge of thirty-three arches, with a broad level roadway,
+and corridors for foot passengers on either side, over
+the Zainderud, then came fields with springing wheat, a
+few houses, a narrow alley, and two or three miles from
+Isfahan the gate of its Armenian suburb, Julfa.</p>
+
+<p>At once on crossing the bridge there was a change.
+Ruddy, cheery-looking unveiled women in red gowns,
+and pure white <i>chadars</i> completely enveloping their
+persons, moved freely about, and the men wore neither
+the becoming turban nor the ominous scowl of Islam.
+In the quaint narrow streets were churches with
+open vestibules, through which pictures of the thorn-crowned
+Christ and of sweet-faced Madonnas were visible;
+priests in black robes and women in white glided
+along the narrow roads. There was the fresher, purer
+air of Christianity, however debased and corrupted. In
+the low-browed churches divine honours are paid to a
+crowned and risen Christ, and the white-robed women
+have been baptized into His name. Never again will
+the Julfa alleys be so peaceful and lovable as yesterday,
+when they offered a haven from the howling bigots of
+Isfahan.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bruce has not returned from Baghdad, but Mrs.
+and Miss Bruce welcomed me very kindly, and I am
+already forgetting my unpleasant reception.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I. L. B.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XII</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Julfa</span>, <i>April 17</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. George Curzon wrote of Julfa: "The younger Julfa
+is a place wholly destitute of superficial attractions, consisting
+as it does of a labyrinth of narrow alleys closed
+by doors and plentifully perforated with open sewers.
+Life there is 'cabined, cribbed, confined' to an intolerable
+degree, and it is a relief to escape from its squalid
+precincts."</p>
+
+<p>I dare not write thus if I would! It is now the
+early spring. The "sewers" are clear rapid streams,
+margined by grass and dandelions, and shaded by ash
+trees and pollard willows in their first flush of green.
+The "narrow alleys" are scrupulously clean, and there is
+neither mud nor dust. If I go up on the roof I see a
+cultivated oasis, gardens prolonged indefinitely concealing
+the desert which lies between them and the bold mountain
+ranges which surround this lofty and breezy plain.
+Every breeze is laden with the delicious odour of the
+bean blossom. A rapid river spanned by noble bridges
+hurries through the oasis it has helped to create, and on
+its other side the domes and minarets of Isfahan rise out
+of masses of fine trees, and bridges and mosques, minarets
+and mountains, are all seen through a most exquisite pink
+mist, for hundreds of standard peach trees are in full
+bloom, and look where one may everything is <i>couleur de
+rose</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I quite admit that Julfa consists of a "labyrinth of
+alleys." I can never find my way about it. One alley
+with its shady central stream (or "sewer"), its roughly
+paved paths on either side, its mud walls pierced by low
+doors, is very much like another, and however lucky one
+may be in "happening on" the right road, it is always a
+weary time before one escapes from between mud walls
+into the gardens and wheatfields, to the blossoming beans,
+and the exquisite wild-flowers among the wheat.</p>
+
+<p>As to the "cabined, cribbed, confined" life, I can
+give no testimony from personal knowledge. All life in
+European settlements in the East appears to me "cabined,
+cribbed, confined," and greatly devoid of external interests.
+Perhaps Julfa is deficient in the latter in an eminent degree,
+and in a very small foreign community people are interested
+chiefly in each other's affairs, sayings, and doings.
+Lawn tennis, picnics, and dinner parties are prevalent,
+the ordinary etiquette of European society prevails, and
+in all cases of need the residents are kind to each other
+both in life and death.</p>
+
+<p>The European society is divided into three circles&mdash;the
+missionaries, the mercantile community, and the
+telegraph staff. The British agent, Mr. Aganoor, is an
+Armenian.<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> No Christians, Armenian or European, live
+in Isfahan, and it is practically <i>d&eacute;fendu</i> to European
+women. This transpontine restriction undoubtedly
+narrows the life and interests of Julfa. It is aggravating
+and tantalising to be for ever looking at a city of
+60,000 or 70,000 people, the fallen capital of the Sufari
+dynasty, and never be able to enter it.</p>
+
+<p>This Christian town of Julfa has a certain accessible
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>
+historic interest. Shah Abbas, justly surnamed the Great,
+conceived the sagacious project of introducing among his
+Persian subjects at Isfahan&mdash;then, in the latter part of
+the sixteenth century, a magnificent capital&mdash;the Christian
+habits of trading, sagacity, and thrift, for then as now
+the Armenians had commercial dealings with China, India,
+and Europe, and had imported several arts into Persia.</p>
+
+<p>This project he carried out in truly despotic fashion
+by moving almost the whole population of Julfa on the
+Araxes, on the modern Russo-Persian frontier, to the
+banks of the Zainderud, making over to it the best lands
+in the neighbourhood of Isfahan. Many years later the
+new Julfa was a place with twenty-four churches, great
+prosperity, and an estimated population of 40,000. Its
+agriculturists were prosperous market-gardeners for the
+huge city of Isfahan, and it had likewise a great trading
+community, and was renowned for the making of jewellery
+and watches.</p>
+
+<p>It has now a dwindling population of about 3000,
+chiefly elderly men, women, and girls, the young men,
+after receiving a good education in the Church Mission
+and other schools, flying from its stagnation to India,
+Java, and even Europe. The twenty-four churches are
+reduced to twelve, and these with the vast cemetery in
+the desert at the base of Kuh Sufi are its chief objects of
+interest, apart from those which are human and living.</p>
+
+<p><i>April 22.</i>&mdash;The peach blossoms have long since fallen,
+but perhaps I still see Julfa <i>couleur de rose</i>, even after
+three weeks, so very great is the kindness under this roof,
+and so fully is my time occupied with various interests,
+and the preparations for a difficult journey.</p>
+
+<p>This, as you know, is the Church Mission House.
+Dr. Bruce has been here for twenty years, and until lately,
+when the Archbishop of Canterbury's mission to the
+Assyrian Christians began its work at Urmi, near the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>
+Turkish frontier in the north-west, this was the only
+English mission in the Empire. It was contemplated as
+a mission to the Mohammedans, but in this respect
+has been an apparent failure. It is true that much prejudice
+has been disarmed, and, as I have heard from
+some leading Mohammedans, Dr. Bruce's zeal and good
+works have won their respect. A large part of the Bible
+has been translated into Persian and very widely
+circulated through the adjacent country by means of
+colporteurs of the British and Foreign Bible Society. His
+preaching of Christianity is listened to respectfully, and
+even with interest, wherever he itinerates, and Moslems
+daily call on him, and show much friendliness, but the
+results, as results are usually estimated, are <i>nil</i>&mdash;that is,
+no Mohammedans openly profess Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>There is actual though not legal toleration, but
+Moslem children may not attend a mission school, and
+a Moslem who becomes a Christian loses his means of
+living, and probably his life is sacrificed to fanaticism.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of these difficulties, and certain
+encouragements in another direction, the <i>ostensible</i> work
+of the mission is among Armenians. Dr. Bruce has not
+been afraid of incurring the stigma of being a proselytiser,
+and has a large congregation of Armenians worshipping
+after the English form, ninety-four being communicants
+of the Church of England. On Easter Eve there was an
+evening Communion, and the great row of women kneeling
+at the rail in the pure white robes which cover them
+from head to foot, and then moving back to their places
+in the dim light, was very picturesque and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Good works have been added one after another, till
+the mission is now a very large establishment. The
+C.M.S. has been liberal to this, its only Persian agency,
+and Dr. Bruce, having private means, has generously
+expended them largely on missionary work in Julfa.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The chief features of the compounds are the church,
+which is both simple and ecclesiastical in its exterior and
+interior, and the library adjoining it, where Dr. Bruce works
+at the translation of the Old Testament into Persian and
+the revision of the New, aided by a <i>munshi</i>, and where
+through much of the day he is receiving Moslems, some
+of whom come to inquire into Christianity, others for
+religious disputations, and a third and numerous class out
+of mere friendliness. The latter are generally invited
+into the Mission House, and are regaled with coffee and
+<i>kalians</i>, in orthodox Persian fashion. Among the latter
+visitors has been the Amir-i-Panj, who came to ask me
+to call on his wife, accompanied by a general of cavalry,
+whose name I cannot spell, and who speaks French remarkably
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Among the other buildings are those of the Medical
+Mission, which include a roomy courtyard, where the
+animals which carry the patients are tethered, rooms for
+the doctor, a well-arranged dispensary and consulting-room,
+with waiting-rooms for both sexes, and rooms above
+in which serious surgical cases are received for treatment,
+and where at present there are eleven patients, although
+just now there is no European doctor, and they are being
+treated by the native assistants, most kindly helped by
+Dr. Scully of the telegraph staff. This hospital and
+dispensary are largely taken advantage of by Moslems,
+who highly appreciate this form of Christian benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>The boys' school, with 205 pupils, has been a great
+benefit to Julfa. The head-master, Mr. Johannes, was
+educated in England and was formerly a master of the
+Nassik School in India. This school provides the
+education of one of our best middle-class schools, and the
+teaching is thorough. <i>Smattering</i> would be infinitely
+despised by teachers and pupils. In this thorough fashion
+Latin, French, the first four books of Euclid, and algebra
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>
+are taught to the young men of the upper form. The
+boys have a large playground, with a great tank for
+bathing, and some of the equipments of a gymnasium, a
+vaulting pole, parallel bars, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The girls' schools, containing 100 girls, have their own
+courtyard, and they need enlarging, though the process
+has been more than once repeated. Mrs. Aidin, an English
+teacher, is at their head, and exercises that strong
+influence which love and firmness give. The girls are a
+mass of red, a cool red, without yellow, and when they
+disperse they enliven the Julfa alleys with their carnation
+dresses and pure white <i>chadars</i>. The education is
+solid and suitable, and special attention is given to needlework.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these there is an orphanage, begun for the
+benefit of those whose parents died in the famine, in
+which are twenty boys. Outside are many other works,
+a Bible House, from which colporteurs at intervals proceed
+on journeys, a Young Men's Christian Association, or
+something like it, etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the Mission House itself, which has to
+accommodate Dr., Mrs., and Miss Bruce, Mr. Carless, a
+clerical missionary, and two English lady missionaries.
+So much has been written lately about the "style of
+living" of missionaries, their large houses, and somewhat
+unnecessary comfort in general, that I am everywhere
+specially interested in investigating the subject, having
+formed no definite opinion on the question whether living
+as natives or living as Europeans is the more likely mode
+of producing a salutary impression.</p>
+
+<p>The Mission House here is a native building, its
+walls and ceilings simply decorated with pale brown
+arabesques on a white ground. There are a bedroom and
+parlour, with an ante-room between giving access to both
+from the courtyard, a storeroom, and a kitchen. Across
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>
+the court are servants' quarters and a guest-room for
+natives. Above these, reached by an outside stair, are a
+good room, occupied by Mr. Carless as study and bedroom,
+and one small guest-room. Another stair leads to two
+rooms above some of the girls' school premises, having
+enclosed alcoves used as sleeping and dressing rooms.
+These are occupied by two ladies. One room serves as
+eating-room for the whole mission party, at present six
+in number, and as drawing-room and workroom. Books,
+a harmonium, Persian rugs on the floor, and just enough
+furniture for use constitute its "luxury."</p>
+
+<p>There are two servants, both of course men, and all
+the ladies do some housework. At present the only
+horse is the dispensary horse, a beast of such rough and
+uneven paces that it is a penance to ride him. The
+food is abundant, well cooked, and very simple.</p>
+
+<p>The life, all round, is a very busy one. Visitors are
+never refused at any hour. The long flat mud roofs from
+which one can see the gardens and the hills are used for
+exercise, otherwise some of the party would never have
+anything better than mud walls for their horizon, and
+life in courtyards is rather depressing for Europeans. I
+have told facts, and make no comments, and it must be
+remembered that both Dr. Bruce and Miss V&mdash;&mdash;, a lady
+of rare devotion who has lately arrived,<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> are to a certain
+extent "honorary" missionaries, and have the means, if
+they had the desire, of surrounding themselves with
+comforts.</p>
+
+<p>This is about the twenty-third mission circle with
+which I have become acquainted during the last eight
+months, and I see in nearly all the same difficulties,
+many of them of a nature which we can hardly realise at
+home.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Women coming to the East as missionaries are by far
+the greatest sufferers, especially if they are young, for
+Eastern custom, which in their position cannot be defied
+with advantage, limits free action and abridges all the
+comforts of independence. Thus a woman cannot take
+a walk or a ride or go to a house without a trusty
+man-servant in attendance on her, and this is often
+inconvenient, so she does not go out at all, contenting
+herself with a walk on the roof or in the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>The wave of enthusiasm on which a lady leaves her
+own country soon spends its force. The interest which
+has centred round her for weeks or even months is left
+behind. The enthusiastic addresses and farewell meetings,
+the journey "up the country" with its excitement and
+novelties, and the cordial welcome from the mission circle
+to which she is introduced, soon become things of the
+past. The circle, however kind, has its own interests and
+work, and having provided her with a <i>munshi</i>, necessarily
+goes on its own way more or less, and she is left to face
+the fearful difficulties of languages with which ours has
+no affinity, in a loneliness which is all the more severely
+felt because she is usually, for a time at least, one
+nominally of a family circle.</p>
+
+<p>Unless she is a doctor or nurse she can do nothing
+till she has learned the language, and the difficulty of
+learning is increased by the loss of the flexible mind and
+retentive memory which are the heritage of extreme youth.
+The temptation is to "go at it" violently. Then come the
+aching head, the loss of sleep, the general lassitude and
+nervousness, and the self-questionings as to whether she
+was right in leaving her fruitful work in England.</p>
+
+<p>Then, instead of realising the truth of the phrases used
+at home&mdash;"multitudes flocking as the doves to their windows"&mdash;"fields
+white unto the harvest," etc.&mdash;she finds
+that the work instead of seeking her has to be made by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>
+her most laboriously, and oftentimes the glowing hope
+of telling of the Redeemer's love and death to throngs of
+eager and receptive listeners is fulfilled in the drudgery
+of teaching sewing and the rudiments of English during
+the first year.</p>
+
+<p>It is just this first year under which many women
+succumb. Then how many of the failings and weaknesses
+of the larger world must be epitomised in a
+mission group exposed, as Mr. Heyde of Kyelang feelingly
+said, "to the lowering influence of daily contact
+with a courteous and non-repulsive Heathenism and
+Mohammedanism"! Missionaries are not likely to possess,
+as they certainly are the last to claim, superior sanctity,
+and the new-comer, dreaming of a circle in all respects
+consecrated, finds herself among frictions, strong differences
+as to methods of working, not always gently expressed,
+and possible jealousies and criticisms, and an
+exaggeration of the importance of trifles, natural where
+large events are rare. A venerable American missionary in
+Turkey said, "Believe me, the greatest trial of missionaries
+is missionaries."</p>
+
+<p>The small group is frequently destitute of social resources
+outside itself, it is cut off from friendly visits,
+services, lectures, music, new books, news, and the many recreative
+influences which all men regard as innocent. The
+life-work seems at times thrown away, the heat, the flies,
+and the mosquitos are depressing and exhausting, and in
+the case of young women, especially till they can use the
+language colloquially, there is little if any outside movement.
+Is it wonderful that supposed slights, tiffs, criticisms
+which would be utterly brushed away if a good
+walk in the open or a good gallop were possible, should
+be brooded over till they attain a magnitude which
+embitters and depresses life?</p>
+
+<p>A man constantly finds the first year or two very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>
+trying till he has his tools&mdash;the language&mdash;at command,
+and even men at times rub each other the wrong way, but
+a man can take a good walk or a solitary gallop, or better
+still, a week of itinerating among the villages. People
+speak of the dangers and privations of missionary life. I
+think that these are singularly over-estimated. But the
+trials which I have alluded to, and which, with the hot
+climates and insufficient exercise, undermine the health
+of very many female missionaries, cannot be exaggerated,
+and demand our deep sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think that the ordinary pious woman, the
+successful and patient worker in district visiting, Bible
+classes, mothers' meetings, etc., is necessarily suited to be
+a foreign missionary, but that a heart which is a well-spring
+of human love, and a natural "enthusiasm of
+humanity" are required, as well as love to the Master,
+the last permeating and sanctifying the others, and giving
+them a perennial freshness. Fancy G. G&mdash;&mdash; grumbling
+and discontented and magnifying unpropitious trifles, when
+her heart goes out to every Chinawoman she sees in a
+perfect passion of love!<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p>With the <i>medical</i> missionary, whether man or woman,
+the case is different. The work seeks the worker even
+before he is ready for it, claims him, pursues him, absorbs
+him, and he is powerful to heal even where he is impotent
+to convert.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have been to the hospital to see a woman from the
+Kuhr&#363;d mountains, who was brought here to undergo an
+operation. She had spent all her living on native
+physicians without result, and her husband has actually
+sold his house to get money to give his wife a last chance
+of recovery. Fifteen years ago this man nearly took Dr.
+Bruce's life. Now, he says, "The fruits of Christianity
+are good."</p>
+
+<p>Daily the "labyrinth of alleys" becomes denser with
+leafage, and the sun is hot enough to make the shade
+very pleasant, while occasional showers keep the greenery
+fresh. Indeed it is warm enough in my room to make
+the cool draught from the <i>b&#257;dg&#299;r</i> very pleasant. These
+wind-towers are a feature of all Persian cities, breaking
+the monotony of the flat roofs.</p>
+
+<p>Letters can be sent once a week from Isfahan, and
+there is another opportunity very safe and much taken
+advantage of, the "Telegraph <i>chapar</i>," a British official
+messenger, who rides up and down between Bushire and
+Tihran at stated intervals. The Persian post is a
+wretched institution, partaking of the general corruption
+of Persian officialism, and nowhere, unless <i>registered</i>, are
+letters less safe than in Tihran.<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> I shall send this,
+scrappy as it is, as I may not be here for another week's
+mail.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XIII</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">Julfa</span>, <i>April 29</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Each day has been completely filled up since I wrote,
+and this is probably the last here. My dear old Cabul
+tent, a <i>shuldari</i>, also Indian, and a servants' tent made
+here on a plan of my own, are pitched in one of the
+compounds to exercise the servants in the art, and it
+really looks like going after many delays.</p>
+
+<p>A few festivities have broken the pleasant monotony
+of life in this kindly and hospitable house&mdash;dinner parties,
+European and Armenian; a picnic on the Kuh Sufi, from
+which there is a very fine panoramic view of the vast
+plain and its surrounding mountains, and of the immense
+ruins of Isfahan and Julfa, with the shrunken remains of
+both; and a "church picnic."</p>
+
+<p>From Kuh Sufi is seen how completely, and with a
+sharp line of definition, the arid desert bounds the green
+oasis of cultivated and irrigated gardens which surround
+the city, and which are famous for the size and lusciousness
+of their fruit. From a confusion of ruinous or ragged
+walls of mud, of ruined and modern houses standing complacently
+among heaps of rubbish, and from amidst a
+greenery which redeems the scene, the blue tiled dome
+of the Masjid-i-Shah, a few minarets, and the great dome
+of the Medresseh, denuded of half its tiles, rise conspicuously.
+Long lines of mud streets and caravanserais,
+gaunt in their ruin, stretch into the desert, and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
+city once boasting of 650,000 inhabitants and a splendid
+court survives with a population of less than 80,000 at
+the highest estimate.</p>
+
+<p>The "church picnic" was held in a scene of decay, but
+260 people, with all the women but three in red, enlivened
+it. It was in the grounds of the old palace of Haft
+Dast, in which Fatteh Ali Shah died, close to one of the
+three remarkable bridges of Isfahan, the Pul-i-Kaj&#363;.
+These bridges are magnificent. Their construction is
+most peculiar, and their roadways being flat they are
+almost unique in Persia.</p>
+
+<p>The Pul-i-Kaj&#363;, though of brick, has stone piers of immense
+size, which are arched over so as to form a level
+causeway. On this massive structure the upper bridge is
+built, comprising a double series of rooms at each pier
+with doorways overlooking the river, and there are staircases
+and rooms also in the upper piers.</p>
+
+<p>The Chahar Bagh bridge is also quaint and magnificent,
+with its thirty-three arches, some of them very large, its
+corridors for foot passengers, and chambers above each
+pier, each chamber having three openings to the river.
+These bridges have a many-storied look, from their
+innumerable windows at irregular altitudes, and form a
+grand approach to the city.</p>
+
+<p>As at first, so now at last the most impressive thing to
+me about the Zainderud next to its bridges is the extent
+to which rinsing, one of the processes of dyeing, is carried
+on upon its shingle flats. Isfahan dyed fabrics are famous
+and beautiful, heavy cottons of village make and unbleached
+cottons of Manchester make being brought here
+to be dyed and printed.</p>
+
+<p>There is quite a population of dyers, and now that
+the river is fairly low, many of them have camped for
+the season in little shelters of brushwood erected on the
+gravel banks. For fully half-a-mile these banks are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>
+covered with the rinsers of dyed and printed calicoes,
+and with mighty heaps of their cottons. Hundreds of
+pieces after the rinsing are laid closely together to dry,
+indigo and turquoise blue, brown and purple madder,
+Turkey red and saffron predominating, a vile aniline
+colour showing itself here and there. Some of the
+smaller dyers have their colour vats by the river, but
+most of the cotton is brought from Isfahan, ready dyed,
+on donkeys' backs, with the rinsers in attendance.</p>
+
+<p>Along the channels among the shingle banks are rows
+of old millstones, and during much of the day a rinser
+stands in front of each up to his knees in water. His
+methods are rough, and the cotton must be good which
+stands his treatment. Taking in his hands a piece of
+soaked half-wrung cotton, from fifteen to twenty yards long,
+he folds it into five feet and bangs it on the millstone
+with all his might, roaring a tuneless song all the time,
+till he fails from fatigue. The noise is tremendous, and
+there will be more yet, for the river is not nearly at its
+lowest point. When the piece has had the water beaten
+out of it a boy spreads it out on the gravel, and keeps it wet
+by dashing water over it, and then the process of beating
+is repeated. The coloured spray rising from each millstone
+in the bright sunshine is very pretty. Each rinser
+has his watchdog to guard the cottons on the bank, and
+between the banging, splashing, and singing, the barking
+of the dogs and the shouts of the boys, it is a noisy
+and cheery scene.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard that certain unscrupulous English
+makers were in the habit of sending "loaded" cottons
+here, but that the calico printers have been a match for
+them, for the calico printer weighs his cloth before he
+buys it, washes and dries it, and then weighs it again.
+A man must "get up very early" if he means to cheat a
+Persian.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The patterns and colours are beautiful. Quilts, "table-cloths"
+(for use on the floor), and <i>chadars</i> are often things
+of exquisite beauty. Indeed I have yielded to temptation,
+and to gratify my own tastes have bought some beautiful
+"table-cloths" for Bakhtiari women, printed chiefly in
+indigo and brown madder on a white ground.</p>
+
+<p>The temptations are great. I really need many
+things both for my own outfit and for presents to the
+Bakhtiaris, and pedlars come every day and unpack their
+tempting bundles in the small verandah. No Europeans
+and no women of the upper classes can enjoy the delights
+of shopping in Persia, consequently the pedlar is a
+necessary institution.</p>
+
+<p>Here they are of the humbler sort. They have
+learned that it is useless to display rich Turkestan and
+Feraghan carpets, gold and silver jewellery, inlaid arms,
+stuffs worked with gold thread, or any of the things
+which tempt the travelling Feringhi, so they bring all
+sorts of common fabrics, printed cambrics, worthless
+woollen stuffs, and the stout piece cottons and exquisitely-printed
+cotton squares of Isfahan.</p>
+
+<p>At almost any hour of the day a salaaming creature
+squatting at the door is seen, caressing a big bundle,
+which on seeing you he pats in a deprecating manner,
+looks up appealingly, declares that he is your "sacrifice,"
+and that with great trouble and loss he has got just
+the thing the <i>khanum</i> wants. If you hesitate for one
+moment the bundle is opened, and on his first visit he
+invariably shows flaring Manchester cottons first; but if
+you look and profess disgust, he produces cottons printed
+here, strokes them lovingly, and asks double their value
+for them. You offer something about half. He recedes
+and you advance till a compromise is arrived at representing
+the fair price.</p>
+
+<p>But occasionally, as about a table-cloth, if they see
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>
+that you admire it very much but will not give the price
+asked, they swear by Allah that they will not abate a
+fraction, pack up their bundle, and move off in well-simulated
+indignation, probably to return the next day
+to offer the article on your own terms. Mrs. Bruce has
+done the bargaining, and I have been only an amused
+looker-on. I should prefer doing without things to the
+worry and tedium of the process of buying them.</p>
+
+<p>The higher class of pedlars, such as those who visit
+the <i>andaruns</i> of the rich, go in couples, with a donkey or
+servant to carry their bundles.</p>
+
+<p>I mentioned that the Amir-i-Panj had called and had
+asked me to visit his wife. I sent a message to say that
+my entrance into Isfahan had been so disagreeable that
+I should be afraid to pass through its gates again, to
+which he replied that he would take care that I met
+with no incivility. So an afternoon visit was arranged,
+and he sent a splendid charger for me, one of the finest
+horses I have seen in Persia, a horse for Mirza Yusuf,
+and an escort of six cavalry soldiers, which was increased
+to twelve at the city gate. The horse I rode answered
+the description&mdash;"a neck clothed with thunder,"&mdash;he
+was perfectly gentle, but his gait was that of a creature
+too proud to touch the earth. It was exhilarating to be
+upon such an animal.</p>
+
+<p>The cavalry men rode dashing animals, and wore
+white Astrakan high caps, and the <i>cort&egrave;ge</i> quite filled
+up the narrow alley where it waited, and as it passed
+through the Chahar Bagh and the city gate, with much
+prancing and clatter, no "tongue wagged" either of
+dervish or urchin.</p>
+
+<p>At the entrance to the Amir's house I was received
+by an <i>aide-de-camp</i> and a number of soldier-servants, and
+was "conducted" into a long room opening by many
+windows upon a beautiful garden full of peach blossom,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span>
+violets, and irises; the table was covered with very pretty
+confectionery, including piles of <i>gaz</i>, a favourite sweetmeat,
+made of manna which is chiefly collected within
+eighty miles of Isfahan. Coffee was served in little cups
+in filigree gold receptacles, and then the Amir-i-Panj
+appeared in a white uniform, with a white lambskin cap,
+and asked "permission to have the honour of accompanying
+me to the <i>andarun</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Persian politeness is great, and the Amir, though I
+think he is a Turk and not a Persian, is not deficient in it.
+Such phrases as "My house is purified by your presence,
+I live a thousand years in this visit," etc., were freely used.</p>
+
+<p>This man, who receives from all a very high character,
+and whom Moslems speak of as a "saint," is the
+most interesting Moslem I have met. In one sense a
+thoroughly religious man, he practises all the virtues
+which he knows, almsgiving to the extent of self-denial,
+without distinction of creed, charity in word and deed,
+truth, purity, and justice.</p>
+
+<p>I had been much prepossessed in his favour not only
+from Dr. Bruce's high opinion of him but by the unbounded
+love and reverence which my interpreter has for
+him. Mirza Yusuf marched on foot from Bushire to
+Isfahan, without credentials, an alien, and penniless, and
+this good man hearing of him took him into his house,
+and treated him as a welcome guest till a friend of his, a
+Moslem, a general in the Persian army, also good and
+generous, took him to Tihran, where he remained as his
+guest for some months, and was introduced into the best
+Persian society. From him I learned how beautiful and
+pure a life may be even in a corrupt nation. When he
+bowed to kiss the Amir's hand, with grateful affection in
+his face, his "benefactor," as he always calls him, turned
+to me and said, "He is to me as a dear son, God will be
+with him."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The garden is well laid out, and will soon be full of
+flowers. The Amir seemed to love them passionately.
+He said that they gave rest and joy, and are "the fringes
+of the garment of God." He could not cut them, he said,
+"Their beauty is in their completeness from root to
+petals, and cutting destroys it."</p>
+
+<p>A curtained doorway in the high garden wall, where
+the curtains were held aside by servants, leads into the
+court of the <i>andarun</i>, where flowers again were in the
+ascendant, and vines concealed the walls. The son, a
+small boy, met us and kissed my hand. Mirza had told
+me that he had never passed through this wall, and
+had never seen the ladies, but when I proposed to leave
+him outside, the Amir said he would be welcome, that he
+wished for much conversation, and for his wife to hear
+about the position and education of women in England.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful reception-room looked something like
+home. The pure white walls and honeycombed ceiling
+are touched and decorated with a pale shade of blue, and
+the ground of the patterns of the rich carpets on the floor
+is in the same delicate colour, which is repeated in the
+brocaded stuffs with which the divans are covered. A
+half-length portrait of the Amir in a sky-blue uniform,
+with his breast covered with orders, harmonises with the
+general "scheme" of colour. The <i>takchahs</i> in the walls
+are utilised for vases and other objects in alabaster, jade,
+and bronze. A tea-table covered with sweetmeats, a
+tea equipage on the floor, and some chairs completed
+the furnishing.</p>
+
+<p>The Amir stood till his wife came in, and then asked
+permission to sit down, placing Mirza, who discreetly
+lowered his eyes when the lady entered, and never raised
+them again, on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>She is young, tall, and somewhat stout. She was
+much rouged, and her eyes, to which the arts of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>
+toilet could add no additional beauty, were treated
+with <i>kohl</i>, and the eyebrows artificially extended. She
+wore fine gray socks, white skin-fitting tights, a black
+satin skirt, or rather flounce, embroidered in gold, so
+<i>bouffante</i> with flounces of starched crinoline under it that
+when she sat down it stood out straight, not even touching
+the chair. A chemise of spangled gauze, and a pale
+blue gold-embroidered zouave jacket completed a costume
+which is dress, not clothing. The somewhat startling
+effect was toned down by a beautiful Constantinople silk
+gauze veil, sprigged in pale pink and gold, absolutely
+transparent, which draped her from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>I did not get away in less than two hours. The
+Amir and Mirza, used to each other's modes of expression,
+found no difficulties, and Mirza being a man of education
+as well as intelligence, thought was conveyed as easily as
+fact. The lady kept her fine eyes lowered except when
+her husband spoke to her.</p>
+
+<p>The chief topics were the education and position of
+women in England, religion, politics, and the future of
+Persia, and on all the Amir expressed himself with a
+breadth and boldness which were astonishing. How far
+the Amir has gone in the knowledge of the Christian
+faith I cannot say, nor do I feel at liberty to repeat his
+most interesting thoughts. A Sunni, a liberal, desiring
+complete religious liberty, absolutely tolerant to the <i>B&#257;bis</i>,
+grateful for the kindness shown to some of them by the
+British Legation, and for the protection still given to them
+at the C.M.S. house, admiring Dr. Bruce's persevering
+work, and above all the Medical Mission, which he regards
+as "the crown of beneficence" and "the true imitation of
+the life of the Great Prophet, Jesus," all he said showed
+a strongly religious nature, and a philosophical mind
+much given to religious thought. "All true religions aim
+at one thing," he said, "to make the heart and life pure."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He asked a good deal about my travels, and special
+objects of interest in travelling, and was surprised when
+I told him that I nearly always travel alone; but after a
+moment's pause he said, "I do not understand that you
+were for a moment alone, for you had everywhere the
+love, companionship, and protection of God."</p>
+
+<p>He regards as the needs of Persia education, religious
+liberty (the law which punishes a Moslem with death for
+embracing Christianity is still on the statute-book), roads,
+and railroads, and asked me if I had formed any opinion
+on the subject. I said that it appeared to me that security
+for the earnings of labour, and equal laws for rich and
+poor, administered by incorruptible judges, should accompany
+education. I much fear that he thinks incorruptible
+judges a vision of a dim future!</p>
+
+<p>The subject of the position of women in England
+and the height to which female education is now carried
+interested him extremely. He wished his wife to understand
+everything I told him. The success of women in
+examinations in art, literature, music, and other things,
+and the political wisdom and absolutely constitutional rule
+of Queen Victoria, all interested him greatly. He asked
+if the women who took these positions were equally good
+as wives and mothers? I could only refer again to
+Queen Victoria. An Oriental cannot understand the
+position of unmarried women with us, or dissociate it
+from religious vows, and the Amir heard with surprise that
+a very large part of the philanthropic work which is done
+in England is done by women who either from accident
+or design have neither the happiness nor the duties of
+married life. He hopes to see women in Persia educated
+and emancipated from the trammels of certain customs,
+"but," he added, "all reform in this direction must come
+slowly, and grow naturally out of a wider education, if
+it is to be good and not hurtful."
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He asked me what I should like to see in Isfahan,
+but when I mentioned the prison he said he should be
+ashamed to show it, and that except for political offences
+imprisonment is not much resorted to, that Persian
+justice is swift and severe&mdash;the bastinado, etc., not
+incarceration.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards I paid a similar visit to the house of
+Mirza Yusuf's other "benefactor," also a good and charitable
+man, who, as he speaks French well, acted as interpreter
+in the <i>andarun</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later the Amir-i-Panj, accompanied by
+General Faisarallah Khan, called on Dr. Bruce and on
+me, and showed how very agreeable a morning visit might
+be made, and the following day the Amir sent the same
+charger and escort for me, and meeting him and Dr.
+Bruce in the Chahar Bagh, we visited the <i>Medresseh</i>, a
+combined mosque and college, and the armoury, where we
+were joined by two generals and were afterwards entertained
+at tea in the Standard Room, while a military
+band played outside. The Amir had ordered some
+artificers skilled in the brass-work for which Isfahan is
+famous to exhibit their wares in one of the rooms at
+the armoury, and in every way tried to make the visit
+more agreeable than an inspection of the jail! He
+advises me not to wear a veil in the Bakhtiari country,
+and to be "as European as possible."</p>
+
+<p>The armoury, of which he has had the organising, does
+not fall within my province. There are many large
+rooms with all the appliances of war in apparently
+perfect order for the equipment of 5000 men.</p>
+
+<p>With equal brevity I pass over the <i>Medresseh</i>, whose
+silver gates and exquisite tiles have been constantly
+described. Decay will leave little of this beautiful
+building in a few years. The tiles of the dome, which
+can be seen for miles, are falling off, and even in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>
+halls of instruction and in the grand mosque under the
+dome, which are completely lined and roofed by tiles, the
+making of some of which is a lost art, one may augur
+the approach of ruin from the loss or breakage here and
+there. In the rooms or cells occupied by the students,
+who study either theology or law, there are some very
+fine windows executed in the beautiful tracery common
+to Persia and Kashmir, but the effect of beauty passing
+into preventible decay is very mournful.</p>
+
+<p>Isfahan too I barely notice, for the best of all reasons,
+that I have not seen it! Though a fourth part of it is
+in ruins, and its population is not an eighth of what it
+was in the days of Shah Abbas, it is a fairly thriving
+commercial emporium with an increasing British trade.
+Indeed here Russian commercial influence may be said
+to cease, and that of England to become paramount.
+It is the paradise of Manchester and Glasgow cottons:
+woollen goods come from Austria and Germany, glass
+from Austria, crockery from England, candles and kerosene
+represent Russia. Our commercial supremacy in Isfahan
+cannot be disputed. I am almost tired of hearing of it.
+Opium, tobacco, carpets from the different provinces,
+and cotton and rice for native consumption, are the chief
+exports. Opium is increasingly grown round the city,
+and up the course of the Zainderud. Of the 4500 cases
+exported, worth &pound;90 a case, three-fourths go to China.
+Its cultivation is so profitable and has increased so
+rapidly to the neglect of food crops that the Prince
+Governor has issued an order that one part of cereals
+shall be sown for every four of the opium poppy.</p>
+
+<p>The cotton in the bazars, through which one can walk
+under cover for between two and three miles, is of the
+best quality, owing to the successful measures taken by
+the calico printers to defeat the roguery of the cheating
+manufacturers. All the European necessaries and many
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>
+of the luxuries of life are obtainable, and the Isfahan
+bazars are the busiest in Persia except those of Tabriz.</p>
+
+<p>It is only fair to this southern capital to say that if one
+can walk over two miles under the roofs of its fine
+bazars, one can ride for many miles among its ruins,
+which have desolation without stateliness, and are chiefly
+known for the production of the excellent wild asparagus
+which is used lavishly on European tables at this season.</p>
+
+<p>The "Persian Versailles," the Palace of Forty Pillars,
+each pillar formed of shafts enriched with colour and
+intricate work, and resting on a marble lion, the shaking
+Minarets, the Masjid-i-Shah with its fine dome of peacock-blue
+tiles, all falling into premature decay, remain
+to attest its former greatness; the other noble palaces,
+mosques, caravanserais, and <i>Medressehs</i> are ruinous, the
+superb pleasure gardens are overgrown with weeds or
+are used for vetches and barley, the tanks are foul or
+filled up, the splendid plane trees have been cut down
+for fuel, or are dragging out a hollow existence&mdash;every
+one, as elsewhere in Persia, destroys, no one restores.
+The armoury is the one exception to the general law of
+decay.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Isfahan covered an area of twenty-four miles in
+circumference, and with its population of 650,000 souls
+was until the seventeenth century one of the most magnificent
+cities of the East. Its destruction last century by
+an Afghan conqueror, who perpetrated a fifteen days'
+massacre, and the removal of the court to Tihran, have
+reduced it to a mere commercial centre, a "distributing
+point," and as such, its remains may take a new lease of
+life. It has a newspaper called the <i>Farhang</i>, which
+prints little bits of news, chiefly personal. Its editor
+moves on European lines so far as to have "interviewed"
+me!</p>
+
+<p>There are manufactures in Isfahan other than the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>
+successful printing and dyeing of cottons; viz., earthenware,
+china, brass-work, velvet, satin, tents, coarse cottons,
+glass, swords, guns, pistols, jewellery, writing paper and
+envelopes, silk brocades, satins, gunpowder, bookbinding,
+gold thread, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The plateau on which Isfahan stands, about seventy
+miles from east to west and twenty from north to south,
+and enclosed by high mountains with a striking outline,
+lies 5400 feet above the sea. The city has a most salubrious
+climate, and is free from great extremes both of
+heat and cold. The Zainderud, on whose left bank it is
+situated, endows much of the plain with fertility on its
+way to its undeserved doom in a partially-explored swamp.</p>
+
+<p>This Christian town, called a suburb, though it is
+really two and a half miles from Isfahan, is a well-built
+and well-peopled nucleus. It is not mixed up with
+ruins as Isfahan is. They have a region to themselves
+chiefly in the direction of the Kuh Sufi. My impression
+of it after a month is that it is clean and comfortable-looking,
+Mr. Curzon's is that it is "squalid." I prefer
+mine!</p>
+
+<p>It is a "city of waters." Streams taken from a
+higher level of the Zainderud glide down nearly all its
+lanes, shaded by pollard mulberries, ash, elm, and the
+"sparrow-tongue" willow, which makes the best firewood,
+and being "planted by the rivers of water," grows so fast
+that it bears lopping annually, and besides affording fuel
+supplies the twigs which are used for roofing such rooms
+as are not arched.</p>
+
+<p>The houses, some of which are more than three
+centuries old, are built of mud bricks, the roofs are
+usually arched, and the walls are from three to five feet
+thick. All possess planted courtyards and vineyards, and
+gardens into which channels are led from the streams in
+the streets. These streams serve other purposes: continually
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>
+a group of Armenian women may be seen washing
+their clothes in them, while others are drinking or drawing
+water just below. The lanes are about twenty feet
+wide and have narrow rough causeways on both sides
+of the water-channel. It is difficult on horseback to
+pass a foot passenger without touching him in some of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Great picturesqueness is given to these leafy lanes by
+the companies of Armenian women in bright red dresses
+and pure white robes, slowly walking through them at
+all hours of daylight, visions of bright eyes and rosy
+cheeks. I have never yet seen a soiled white robe!
+Long blank mud walls, low gateways, an occasional row
+of mean shops, open porches of churches, dim and cool,
+and an occasional European on foot or horseback, and
+groups of male Armenians, whose dress so closely
+approaches the European as to be without interest, and
+black-robed priests gliding to the churches are all that is
+usually to be seen. It sounds dull, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the houses of the rich Armenians, some of
+which are now let to Europeans, are extremely beautiful
+inside, and even those occupied by the poorer classes, in
+which a single lofty room can be rented for twopence a
+week, are very pretty and appropriate. But no evidence of
+wealth is permitted to be seen from the outside. It is
+only a few years since the Armenians were subject to
+many disabilities, and they have even now need to walk
+warily lest they give offence. As, for instance, an
+Armenian was compelled to ride an ass instead of a
+horse, and when that restriction was relaxed, he had to
+show his inferiority by dismounting from his horse before
+entering the gates of Isfahan.</p>
+
+<p>They were not allowed to have bells on their churches,
+(at Easter I wished they had none still), but now the
+<i>Egglesiah Wang</i> (the great church) has a fine campanile
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>
+over 100 feet high in its inner court. The ancient mode
+of announcing the hours of worship is still affectionately
+adhered to, however. It consists of drumming with a
+mallet on a board hanging from two posts, and successfully
+breaks the sleep of the neighbourhood for the daily
+service which begins before daylight.</p>
+
+<p>The Armenians, like the rich Persians, prudently keep
+to the low gateways, which, with the absence of windows
+and all exterior ornament, give the lanes so mean an
+aspect, and tend to make one regard the beauty and even
+magnificence within with considerable surprise.</p>
+
+<p>In England a rich man, partly for his own delectation,
+and partly, if he be "the architect of his own fortune,"
+to impose his position ocularly on his poorer neighbours,
+displays his wealth in all ways and on most occasions.
+In Persia his chief pleasure must be to hoard it and contemplate
+it, for any unusual display of it in equipages or
+furnishings is certain to bring down upon him a "squeeze,"
+at Tihran in the shape of a visit from the Shah with its
+inevitable consequences, and in the Provinces in that of
+a requisition from the governor.</p>
+
+<p>For a man to "enlarge his gates" is to court destruction.
+Poor men have low gates, which involve stooping,
+to prevent rich men's servants from entering their houses
+on horseback on disagreeable errands. Christian churches
+have remarkably low doors elsewhere than in Julfa, to
+prevent the Moslems from stabling their cattle in them.
+Rich men affect mean entrances in order not to excite the
+rapacity of officialism, according to the ancient proverb,
+"He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction" (Proverbs
+xvii. 19). Only Royal gates and the gates of officials who
+represent Royalty are high.</p>
+
+<p>The Armenian merchants have, like the Europeans,
+their offices in Isfahan. The rest of the people get
+their living by the making and selling of wine, keeping
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span>
+small shops, making watches and jewellery, carpentering,
+in which they are very skilful, and market-gardening;
+they are thrifty and industrious, and there is very little
+real poverty.</p>
+
+<p>The selling of wine does not conduce to the peace of
+Julfa. A mixture of sour wine and <i>arak</i>, a coarse spirit,
+is very intoxicating, and Persians, when they do drink,
+drink till they are drunk, and the abominable concealed
+traffic in liquor with the Moslems of the town is apt
+to produce disgraceful brawls.</p>
+
+<p>Wine can be bought for fourpence a quart, but the
+upper classes make their own, and it costs less than this.
+Wines are both red and white, and one red wine is said
+to be like good Chianti. The Armenians tipple and also
+get drunk, priests included. It is said that some of the
+jars used in fermenting are between 200 and 300 years
+old.</p>
+
+<p>The excellent education given in the C.M.S. schools
+has had the effect of stimulating the Armenian schools,
+and of producing among the young men a large
+emigration to India, Batavia, Constantinople, and even
+England. Only the dullards as a rule remain in Julfa.
+Some rise high in Persian and even in Turkish employment.</p>
+
+<p>The Armenian women are capital housewives and
+very industrious. In these warm evenings the poorer
+women sit outside their houses in groups knitting.
+The knitting of socks is a great industry, and a woman
+can earn 4s. a month by it, which is enough to live upon.</p>
+
+<p>In Julfa, and it may be partly owing to the presence
+of a European community, the Christians have nothing to
+complain of, and, so far as I can see, they are on terms of
+equality with the Persians.</p>
+
+<p>However, Isfahan is full of religious intolerance which
+can easily be excited to frenzy, and the arrogance of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span>
+<i>mollahs</i> has increased since the fall from almost regal
+state of the Zil-i-Sultan, the Shah's eldest son, into the
+position of a provincial governor, for he curbed them somewhat,
+and now the restraint is removed. However, it is
+against the Jews and the <i>B&#257;bis</i>, rather than the Christians,
+that their hostility is directed.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks ago some <i>B&#257;bis</i> were peaceably returning
+to a neighbouring village, when they were attacked,
+and seven of their number were massacred under atrocious
+circumstances, the remainder taking refuge for a time in
+the British Telegraph office. Several of both sexes who
+escaped are in concealment here in a room in the Hospital
+compound, one of them with a broken jaw.</p>
+
+<p>The hiding of these <i>B&#257;bis</i> has given great umbrage to
+the bigots of Isfahan, though the Amir-i-Panj justified
+it on all grounds, and about the time I arrived it was
+said that a thousand city fanatics purposed to attack the
+mission premises. But at one of the mosques there is a
+<i>mollah</i>, who with Gamaliel-like wisdom urged upon them
+"that if 300 Moslems were killed nothing would happen,
+but if a single European were killed, what then?"<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>I cannot close this letter without a few words on the
+Armenian churches, some of which I visited with Mr.
+and Dr. Aganoor, and others with Dr. Bruce. The ceremony
+representing the washing of the disciples' feet on
+the Armenian Holy Thursday was a most magnificent one
+as regards the antique splendour and extreme beauty of
+the vestments and jewels of the officiating bishop, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>
+the feet, which are washed in rose-water and anointed,
+are not, as in Rome, those of beggars, but of neophytes
+costumed in pure white. Incense, embroideries, crowds
+of white-robed women, and other accessories made the
+function an imposing one.</p>
+
+<p>The Cathedral, a part of the Monastery, has a narrow
+winding approach and a thick door, for ecclesiastics were
+not always as safe as they are now. In the outer court is
+the campanile before mentioned. The floor is paved with
+monumental slabs, and among the graves are those of
+several Europeans. Piles of logs look as if the Julfa
+carpenters seasoned their wood in this court!</p>
+
+<p>The church is divided by a rail into two compartments.
+The dome is rich with beaten gold, and the dado is of
+very fine tiles, which produce a striking effect. The
+embroideries and the carpets, some of which are worth
+fabulous sums, are between two and three centuries old.
+The vestments and ornaments of the priests are very
+fine, and suggest the attire of the Aaronic priesthood.</p>
+
+<p>It is a striking building, and the amount of gold and
+colour, toned into a certain harmony by time, produces a
+gorgeous effect. The outer compartment has a singular
+interest, for 230 years ago its walls were decorated
+with religious paintings, on a large scale, of events in
+Bible history, from the creation downwards. Some are
+copies, others original, and they are attributed to Italian
+artists. They are well worth careful study as representing
+the conceptions which found favour among the
+Armenian Christians of that day. They are terribly
+realistic, but are certainly instructive, especially the
+illustrations of the miracles and parables.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the latter a man with a huge beam sticking
+out of one eye is represented as looking superciliously
+with the other at a man with an insignificant spike projecting.
+The death of Dives is a horrible representation.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span>
+His soul, in the likeness of a very small nude figure, is
+represented as escaping from the top of his head, and is
+being escorted to the entrance of the lower regions by
+a flight of small black devils. The idea of the soul
+emerging from the top of the head is evidently borrowed
+from the Moslems.</p>
+
+<p>Our Lord is, I think, everywhere depicted as short,
+dark, and dark-haired, with eyebrows much curved,
+and a very long upper lip, without beauty or dignity, an
+ordinary Oriental workman.</p>
+
+<p><i>The</i> picture of the Cathedral is an enormous canvas,
+representing the day when "before Him shall be gathered
+all nations." The three persons of the Trinity are there,
+and saints and angels are portrayed as worshipping, or
+as enjoying somewhat earthly but perfectly innocent
+delights.</p>
+
+<p>In this the conception is analogous to those celebrated
+circular pictures in which the Buddhistic future is unrolled,
+and which I last saw in the monasteries of
+Lesser Tibet. The upper or heavenly part is insignificant
+and very small, while the torments of the lost in
+the lower part are on a very large scale, and both the
+devils and the nude human sufferers in every phase of
+anguish have the appearance of life size. The ingenuity
+of torment, however, is not nearly so great, nor are the
+scenes so revolting as those which Oriental imagination
+has depicted in the Buddhist hells. A huge mythical
+monster represents the mouth of hell, and into his flaming
+and smoking jaws the impenitent are falling. Does any
+modern Armenian believe that any of those whose bones
+lie under the huge blocks of stone in the cemetery in the
+red desert at the foot of Kuh Sufi have passed into "this
+place of torment"?</p>
+
+<p>The other church which claims one's interest, though
+not used for worship, is that of St. George, the hero of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span>
+fraudulent contract in bacon, as well as of the dragon
+fight, to whom the Armenians as well as ourselves render
+singular honour.</p>
+
+<p>This church is a great place for "miracles" of healing,
+and cells for the sick who come from a distance are
+freely provided. In a covered court are some large stones
+in a group, one of them evidently the capital of a column.
+Two of them have cavities at the top, and the sick kneel
+before them, and as the voluble women who were there
+told us, "they first pray to God and then to the stones,"
+and finally pour water into these cavities and drink it.
+The cure is either instantaneous or occurs at any time
+within fifteen days, and in every case the patient hears
+the voice of St. George telling him to go home when it
+is complete.</p>
+
+<p>These stones, according to the legend told by the
+women and popularly believed by the uneducated, took
+it into their heads to come from Etchmiadzin in
+Armenia, the residence of the <i>Catholicos</i>, in one night,
+and deposited themselves where the church now stands.
+Seven times they were taken into Faraidan, eighty miles
+from Julfa, and as often returned, and their manifest predilection
+was at last rewarded by a rest of centuries.
+There were a number of sick people waiting for healing,
+for which of course fees are bestowed.</p>
+
+<p>The Armenians, especially the women, pay great
+attention to the externals of their religion. Some of its
+claims are very severe, such as the daily service before
+daylight, winter and summer, and the long fasts, which
+they keep with surprising loyalty, <i>i.e.</i> among the poor in
+towns and in the villages. For at least one-sixth of the
+year they are debarred from the use of meat or even
+eggs, and are permitted only vegetable oils, fruits, vegetables,
+and grain. Spirits and wine, however, are not
+prohibited.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I really believe that their passionate attachment to
+their venerable church, the oldest of all national churches,
+is fostered by those among them who have ceased to
+believe its doctrines, as a necessity of national existence.
+I doubt very much whether the "Reformed" congregations,
+which have been gathered out here and elsewhere,
+would survive the withdrawal of foreign aid. Rather, I
+think, they would revert to the original type.</p>
+
+<p>Superstitions without number are mixed up with their
+beliefs, and are countenanced by the priests. The <i>meron</i>
+or holy oil used in baptism and for other purposes has
+the stamp of charlatanism upon it. It is made in
+Etchmiadzin.</p>
+
+<p>Rose leaves are collected in an immense vat, which is
+filled with water, and at a set time the monks and nuns
+form a circle round it, and repeat prayers till "fermentation"
+begins. They claim that the so-called fermentation
+is a miracle due to the prayers offered. Oil, probably
+attar of roses, rises to the surface, and this precious
+<i>meron</i> is sent to the Armenian churches throughout the
+world about once in four or five years. In Persia those
+who bear it are received with an <i>istikbal</i> or procession of
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>It is used not only in baptism and other rites but at
+the annual ceremony of washing the Cross at Christmas,
+when some of it is poured into the water and is drunk
+by the worshippers. In the villages they make a paste
+by mixing this water and oil with earth, which is made
+into balls and kept in the houses for "luck." If a
+dog licks a bowl or other vessel, and thus renders it
+unclean, rubbing it round with one of these balls restores
+it to purity.</p>
+
+<p>At a village in Faraidan there is an ancient New
+Testament, reputed to be of the sixth century. To this
+MS. people come on pilgrimage from all quarters, even
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span>
+from Fars, Tihran, and Armenia, to be healed of their
+diseases, and they make offerings to it, and practically
+render it worship.</p>
+
+<p>To go and pray on a newly-made grave is a remedy
+for childlessness much resorted to by childless wives.
+When two boys fight, and one of them is hurt, or when
+any one is injured by a dog or by a tree falling, they
+wash the damaged person in water, and then throw the
+water over the boy, dog, or tree which has been the cause
+of the injury, believing that in this way the mischief
+is transferred.</p>
+
+<p>When any one is ill of fright and the cause is not
+known, the nuns come to the house, and pour wax into
+a basin of boiling water, noting the form it takes, such
+as a snake, a dog, or a frog. In a case lately they
+went out and killed a snake, for the thing whose form
+the wax takes ought to be killed; but as this might often
+be difficult or unsuitable, they compromise the matter
+by throwing the water (not boiling, I hope) over the
+nearest dog or toad, or anything else which is supposed
+to be the culprit.</p>
+
+<p>On the first Monday in Lent the women wash their
+knitting needles for luck in a stream which runs through
+Julfa. The children educated in the Mission schools
+laugh at these and many other superstitions.</p>
+
+<p>The dress of the Armenian women is very showy, but
+too much of a <i>huddle</i>. Red is the dominant colour, a
+carnation red with white patterns sprawling over it,
+They wear coloured trousers concealed by a long skirt.
+The visible under-garment is a long, "shaped" dress of
+Turkey red. Over this is worn a somewhat scanty gown
+of red and white cotton, open in front, and very short-waisted,
+and over this a plain red pelisse or outer garment,
+often quilted, open in front, gashed up the sides,
+and falling below the knees. Of course this costume is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span>
+liable to many modifications in the way of material, and
+embroidered jackets, heavily trimmed with jewellery and
+the like. As fashion is unchanging the acquisition and
+hoarding of garments are carried to a great extent.</p>
+
+<p>There are two marked features of Armenian dress, one,
+the massive silver girdle made of heavy chased-silver links
+four inches long by two deep, often antique and always
+of antique design, which falls much below the waist in
+front, and is used to confine the ends of the white sheet
+which envelops an Armenian woman out of doors, so that
+it may hang evenly all round. The other is a skull-cap
+of embroidered silk or cloth, placed well back on the head
+above the many hanging plaits in which the hair is worn,
+with a black velvet coronet in front, from which among
+the richer women rows of coins depend. This, which is
+very becoming to the brilliant complexion and comely
+face below it, is in its turn covered by a half handkerchief,
+and over this is gracefully worn, when not gracelessly
+clutched, a <i>chadar</i> or drapery of printed cambric or
+muslin. A white band bound across the chin up to the
+lips suggests a broken jaw, and the <i>tout ensemble</i> of the
+various wrappings of the head a perennial toothache.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XIV</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead">
+<span class="smcap">Julfa</span>, <i>April 30</i>.</p>
+
+<p>You will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully
+expected to have left it a fortnight ago, but unavoidable
+delays have occurred. My caravan and servants started
+this morning, and I leave myself in a few hours.</p>
+
+<p>Upon my horse I have bestowed the suggestive
+name of <i>Screw</i>. He is fairly well-bred, big-headed,
+big-eared, small-bodied, bright bay, fine-coated, slightly
+flat-footed, and with his fore hoofs split in several places
+from the coronet nearly to the shoe. He is an undoubted
+<i>yabu</i>, and has carried loads for many a day.
+He has a long stride, shies badly, walks very fast, canters
+easily, and at present shows no tendency to tumble
+down.<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have had pleasant rides alone, crossing the definite
+dividing line between the desert and the oasis of
+cultivation and irrigation, watching the daily development
+of the various crops and the brief life of the wild
+flowers, creeping through the green fields on the narrow
+margins of irrigating ditches, down to the Pul-i-Kaj&#363;,
+and returning to the green lanes of Julfa by the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>
+bright waters of the Zainderud crimsoning in the setting
+sun.</p>
+
+<p>For in the late cool and breezy weather, not altogether
+free from clouds and showers, there have been some
+gorgeous sunsets, and magnificent colouring of the depth
+and richness which people call tropical, has blazed extravagantly;
+and from the violet desert to the indigo
+storm-clouds on the still snow-patched Kuhr&#363;d mountains,
+from the vivid green of the oasis to the purple
+crags in dark relief against a sky of flame, all things have
+been new.</p>
+
+<p>Two Sundays witnessed two incidents, one the baptism
+of a young Moslem in a semi-private fashion, who
+shortly afterwards renounced Christianity, and the other
+that of a respectable Mohammedan merchant in Isfahan,
+who has long pleaded for baptism, presenting himself at
+the altar rails at the Holy Communion, resolved that if
+he were not permitted to confess Christ as Divine in one
+way he would in another. He was passed over, to my
+great regret, if he be sincere, but I suppose the Rubric
+leaves no choice.<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have written little about my prospective journey
+because there has been a prolonged uncertainty about it,
+and even now I cannot give any definite account of the
+project, except that the route lies through an altogether
+mountainous region, in that part of the province of
+Luristan known in Persia colloquially as the "Bakhtiari
+country," from being inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs,
+chiefly nomads. The pros and cons as to my going have
+been innumerable, and the two people in Persia who
+know the earlier part of the route say that the character
+of the people makes it impossible for a lady to travel
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>
+among them. On the other hand, I have the consent
+and help of the highest authorities, Persian and English,
+and shall not go too far, but shall return to Isfahan in
+case things should turn out as is feared. The exploration
+of a previously unexplored region will be in itself interesting,
+but whether there will be sufficient of the human
+interests, which I chiefly care for, I doubt; in that case
+the journey will be dull.</p>
+
+<p>At all events I shall probably have to return here in
+two months,<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> but such a journey for myself and two servants
+in such a region requires extensive preparations,
+and I have brought all my own travelling "dodges" into
+requisition, with a selection of those of other people.</p>
+
+<p>It is considered desirable to carry stores from Isfahan
+for forty days, except flour and rice, which can be obtained
+a week's march from here. At the British Legation
+I was kindly supplied with many tins of preserved meat,
+and milk, and jam, and besides these I am only taking
+a quantity of Edwards' Desiccated Soup, portable and
+excellent, twelve pounds of tea, and ten pounds of candles.
+The great thing in planning is to think of what one can
+do without. Two small bottles of saccharin supply the
+place of forty pounds of sugar.</p>
+
+<p>Two <i>yekdans</i> contain my stores, cooking and table utensils
+and personal luggage, a waterproof bag my bedding,
+and a divided packing-case, now empty, goes for the flour
+and rice. Everything in the <i>yekdans</i> is put up in bags
+made of the coarse cotton of the country. The tents and
+tent-poles, which have been socketed for easier transport
+on crooked mountain paths, and a camp-bed made from
+a Kashmiri pattern in Tihran, are all packed in covers
+made from the gunny bags in which sugar is imported,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span>
+and so are double sets of large and small iron tent-pegs.</p>
+
+<p>Presents for the "savages" are also essential, and I
+have succeeded in getting 100 thimbles, many gross
+of small china buttons which, it is said, they like to sew
+on children's caps, 1000 needles, a quantity of Russian
+thread, a number of boxes with mirror tops, two dozen
+double-bladed knives, and the same number of strong
+scissors, Kashmir <i>kamarbands</i>, gay handkerchiefs for
+women's heads, Isfahan printed "table-cloths," dozens of
+bead bracelets and necklaces, leather purses and tobacco
+pouches, and many other things.</p>
+
+<p>I take three tents, including a <i>shuldari</i>, five feet
+square, and only weighing ten pounds. My kit is reduced
+to very simple elements, a kettle, two copper pots which
+fit into each other, a frying pan, cooking knife and spoon,
+a tray instead of a table, a chair, two plates, a teacup and
+saucer, a soup plate, mug, and teapot, all of course in
+enamelled iron, a knife, fork, and two spoons. This is
+ample for one person for any length of time in camp.</p>
+
+<p>For this amount of baggage and for the sacks of flour
+and rice, weighing 160 lbs., which will hereafter be
+carried, I have four mules, none heavily laden, and two
+with such light loads that they can be ridden by my
+servants. These mules, two <i>charvadars</i>, and a horse are
+engaged for the journey at two <i>krans</i> (16d.) a day each,
+the owner stipulating for a <i>bakhsheesh</i> of fifty <i>krans</i>, if at
+the end I am satisfied. This sum is to cover food and
+all risks.</p>
+
+<p>The animals are hired from a well-known <i>charvadar</i>,
+who has made a large fortune and is regarded as very
+trustworthy; Dr. Bruce calls him the "prince of
+<i>charvadars</i>." He and his son are going on the "trip."
+He has a quiet, superior manner, and when he came to
+judge of the weight of my loads, he said they were
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>
+"very good&mdash;very right," a more agreeable verdict than
+muleteers are wont to pass upon baggage.<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
+
+<p>The making of the contract with Hadji involved two
+important processes, the writing of it by a scribe and
+the sealing of it. The scribe is one of the most
+important persons in Persia. Every great man has one
+or more, and every little man has occasion for a scribe's
+services in the course of a year. He is the trusted
+depositary of an infinity of secrets. He moves with
+dignity and deliberation, his "writer's inkhorn" pendent
+from his girdle, and his physiognomy has been trained
+to that reticent, semi-mysterious expression common to
+successful solicitors in England.</p>
+
+<p>Writing is a fine art in Persia. The characters are
+in themselves graceful, and lend themselves readily to
+decoration. The old illuminated MSS. are things of
+beauty; even my contract is ornamental. The scribe
+holds the paper in his left hand, and uses a reed
+pen with the nib cut obliquely, writing from right to
+left. The ink is thick, and is carried with the pens in
+a <i>papier-mach&eacute;</i> inkhorn.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji tells me with much pride that his son, Abbas
+Ali, can write "and will be very useful."</p>
+
+<p>Sealing is instead of signing. As in Japan, every
+adult male has his seal, of agate or cornelian among the
+rich, and of brass or silver among the poor. The name
+is carefully engraved on the seal at a cost of from a half-penny
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>
+to 18s. a letter. Tihran is celebrated for its seal-cutters.
+No document is authentic without a seal as its
+signature.</p>
+
+<p>Hadji took the contract and applied it to his forehead
+in token of respect, touched the paper with his
+tongue to make it moist and receptive, waved it in the
+air to rid it of superfluous moisture, wetted his fingers on
+a spongy ball of silk full of Indian ink in the scribe's
+inkstand, rubbed the ink on the seal, breathed on it, and
+pressed it firmly down on the paper, which he held over
+the forefinger of his left hand. The smallest acts in
+Persia are regulated by rigid custom.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining portion of my outfit, but not the least
+important, consists of a beautiful medicine chest of the
+most compact and portable make, most kindly given to
+me by Messrs. Burroughes and Wellcome, containing fifty
+small bottles of their invaluable "tabloids," a hypodermic
+syringe, and surgical instruments for simple cases. To
+these I have added a quantity of quinine, and Dr.
+Odling at Tihran gave me some valuable remedies. A
+quantity of bandages, lint, absorbent cotton, etc., completes
+this essential equipment. Among the many uncertainties
+of the future this appears certain, that the Bakhtiaris will
+be clamorous for European medicine.</p>
+
+<p>I have written of my servants. Mirza Yusuf pleases
+me very much, Hassan the cook seems quiet, but not
+active, and I picture to myself the confusion of to-night
+in camp, with two men who know nothing about camp
+life and its makeshifts!</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the summer brings, this is probably my last
+letter written from under a roof till next winter. I am
+sorry to leave Julfa and these kind friends, but the
+prospect of the unknown has its charms.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">NOTES ON THE "BAKHTIARI COUNTRY" OR
+LURI-BUZURG</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">In introducing the following journal of a summer spent
+in Luri-Buzurg or Greater Luristan by a few explanatory
+notes, I desire to acknowledge the labours of those
+travellers who have preceded me over some of the
+earlier portions of the route, and my obligations to those
+careful explorers of half a century ago, who turned the
+light of modern research upon the antiquities of Lower
+Elam and the condition of its modern inhabitants, and
+whose earnestness and accuracy the traveller in Upper
+Elam and the Bakhtiari country may well desire to
+emulate.<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p>For the correction of those portions of my letters
+which attempt to describe a part of mountainous
+Luristan previously unexplored, I am deeply indebted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>
+to a recent unpublished Geographical Report, to which
+any geographical interest which they may possess is
+altogether due. For the customs and beliefs of the
+Bakhtiaris I have had to depend entirely on my own
+investigations, made through an intelligent and faithful
+interpreter, whose desire for accuracy was scarcely
+exceeded by my own.</p>
+
+<p>The accompanying sketch map represents an area of
+15,000 square miles, lying, roughly speaking, between
+Lat. 31&deg; and 34&deg; N., and between Long. 48&deg; and 51&deg;
+E., and covering a distance of 300 miles from the Khana
+Mirza to Khuramabad.</p>
+
+<p>The itinerary covers a distance of about 700 miles, a
+journey of three and a half months, chiefly in the region
+of the Upper Karun and its affluents, among which
+must be included the head-waters of the Ab-i-Diz.</p>
+
+<p>During this time the Karun was traced, wherever
+the nature of its bed admitted of it, from the gorge of
+Dupulan, below which several travellers have investigated
+and reported its extraordinary windings, up to the Sar-Cheshmeh-i-Kurang,
+its reputed source, a vigorous
+fountain spring with an altitude of 8000 feet in the
+steep limestone face of the north-eastern side of the
+Zard Kuh range, and upwards to its real source in the
+Kuh-i-Rang or "variegated mountain."</p>
+
+<p>The Ab-i-Diz was found to carry off the water of a
+larger area than had been supposed; the north-west
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span>
+branches, the Ab-i-Burujird and the Kamandab, which
+drain the well-watered plain of Silakhor, almost yielding
+in importance to the Guwa and Gokun, which, uniting
+to form what, for convenience' sake, was termed the
+Ab-i-Basnoi, receive the drainage of the upper part of
+Faraidan, an important district of Persia proper.</p>
+
+<p>A lake of marvellously coloured water, two and a half
+miles long by one mile wide, very deep, and with a
+persistent level, was found to occupy a hollow at the
+inner foot of the grand mountain Shuturun, and this,
+having no native name, was marked on the map as Lake
+Irene.</p>
+
+<p>The Bakhtiari mountains are chains of precipitous
+parallel ranges, generally running north-west and south-east,
+the valleys which divide them and carry off their
+waters taking the same directions as far as the Kuh-i-Rang,
+where a remarkable change takes place, noticed in Letter
+XVII. This great mountain region, lying between the
+lofty plateau of Central Persia and the plains of Khuzistan,
+has continuous ranges of singular steepness, but
+rarely broken up into prominent peaks, the Kuh-i-Rang,
+the Kuh-i-Shahan, the Shuturun Kuh, and Dalonak being
+detached mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The great ranges of the Kuh-i-Sukhta, the Kuh-i-Gerra,
+the Sabz Kuh, the Kala Kuh, and the Zard Kuh
+were crossed and recrossed by passes from 8000 to
+11,000 feet in altitude; many of the summits were
+ascended, and the deep valleys between them, with their
+full-watered, peacock-green streams, were followed up
+wherever it was possible to do so. The magnificent
+mountain Kuh-i-Rang was ascertained to be not only a
+notable water-parting, but to indicate in a very marked
+manner two distinct mountain systems with remarkable
+peculiarities of drainage, as well as to form a colossal
+barrier between two regions which, for the sake of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>
+intelligible description, were called "Upper Elam" and
+the "Bakhtiari country."</p>
+
+<p>The same authority, for the same purpose, designated
+the two main and highest chains of mountains
+by the terms "Outer" and "Inner" ranges, the former
+being the one nearest the great Persian plateau, the latter
+the chain nearest to the Khuzistan plains. The conjectural
+altitudes of the peaks in this hitherto unexplored
+region have been brought down by some thousands of
+feet, and the "eternal snow" with which rumour had
+crested them has turned out a myth, the altitude of the
+highest summit being estimated at only a trifle over
+13,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>The nearly continuous ranges south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang
+are pierced for the passage of water by a few
+remarkable rifts or <i>tangs</i>&mdash;the Outer range by the Tang-i-Ghezi,
+the outlet of the Zainderud towards Isfahan, and
+the Tang-i-Darkash Warkash, by which the drainage of
+the important districts of the Chahar Mahals passes to
+the Karun, the Inner range being pierced at the Tang-i-Dupulan
+by the Karun itself. North-west of the Kuh-i-Rang
+the rivers which carry the drainage of certain
+districts of south-west Persia to the sea pierce the main
+mountain ranges at right angles, passing through magnificent
+gorges and chasms from 3000 to 5000 feet in
+depth.</p>
+
+<p>Among the mountains, but especially in the formation
+south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang, there are many alpine
+valleys at altitudes of from 7000 to 8500 feet, rich
+summer pastures, such as Gurab, Chigakhor, Shorab, and
+Cheshmeh Zarin.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the valleys are of considerable width, many
+only afford room for narrow tracks above the streams
+by which they are usually watered, while others are
+mere rifts for torrents and are inaccessible. Among the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span>
+limestone ranges fountain springs are of frequent occurrence,
+gushing out of the mountain sides with great
+volume and impetuosity&mdash;the perennial sources of perennial
+streams.</p>
+
+<p>Much of the country is absolutely without wood, producing
+nothing fit even for fuel but the <i>Astragalus verus</i>
+and the <i>Astragalus tragacantha</i>. This is especially the case
+on the outer slopes of the Outer range, which are formed
+of rocky ribs with a covering of gravel, and are "barren,
+treeless, waterless, and grassless." From the same crest
+to the outer slopes of the Inner range, which descend on
+Khuzistan, there are splendid pasturage, abundant water,
+and extensive forests in the deep valleys and on the hill
+slopes.<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>
+
+<p>The trees, however, can rarely be defined as "forest
+trees." They are small in girth and are usually stunted
+and wizened in aspect, as if the conditions of their existence
+were not kindly.</p>
+
+<p>Flowers are innumerable in the months of May and
+June, beginning with the tulip, the iris, the narcissus, and
+a small purple gladiolus, and a little later many of the
+hillsides above an altitude of 7000 feet are aflame with
+a crimson and terra-cotta <i>Fritillaria imperialis</i>, and a
+carnation-red anemone, while the margins of the snow-fields
+are gay with pink patches of an exquisite alpine
+primula. Chicory, the dark blue centaurea, a large orange
+and yellow snapdragon, and the scarlet poppy attend
+upon grain crops there as elsewhere, and the slopes above
+the upper Karun are brilliant with pink, mauve, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>
+white hollyhocks. But it must be admitted that the chief
+interest of many of the flowers is botanical only. They
+are leathery, woolly, thorny, and sticky, adapted rather
+for arid circumstances than to rejoice the eye.</p>
+
+<p>Among the economic plants observed were the <i>Centaurea
+alata</i>, which grows in singular abundance at a
+height of from 5500 to 7000 feet, and is cut and stacked
+for fodder; a species of celery of very strong flavour,
+which is an important article of food for man and beast,
+and the flower-stalks of which, six feet high, are woven into
+booths by some of the tribes; the blue linum, red madder,
+the <i>Eryngium c&aelig;ruleum</i>, which is cut and stacked for
+fodder; a purple garlic, the bulbs of which are eaten;
+liquorice, and the <i>Ferula asafetida</i> in small quantities.</p>
+
+<p>It is a surprise to the traveller to find that a large
+area is under cultivation, and that the crops of wheat and
+barley are clean, and up to the Persian average, and that
+the removal of stones and a laborious irrigation system
+are the work of nomads who only occupy their <i>yailaks</i>
+for five months of the year. It may be said that nearly
+every valley and hill-slope where water is procurable is
+turned to account for grain crops.</p>
+
+<p>No part of the world in this latitude is fuller of
+streams and torrents, but three only attain to any geographical
+dignity&mdash;the Zainderud, or river of Isfahan,
+which after a course full of promise loses itself ignominiously
+in a partially-explored swamp; the Karun, with its
+Bakhtiari tributaries of the Ab-i-Bazuft, the Darkash
+Warkash, the Ab-i-Sabzu, and the Dinarud; and the Ab-i-Diz,
+which has an important course of its own before its
+junction with the Karun at Bandakir. None of these
+rivers are navigable during their course through the
+Bakhtiari mountains. They are occasionally spanned by
+bridges of stone or wickerwork, or of yet simpler construction.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With the exception of the small area of the Outer
+range, which contains the head-waters of the Zainderud,
+the Bakhtiari country proper consists of the valleys of
+the upper Karun and its tributaries.</p>
+
+<p>The tracks naturally follow the valleys, and are fairly
+easy in their gradients to the south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang.
+To the north-west, however, being compelled to cross
+rivers which pierce the ranges at right angles to their
+directions, ascents and descents of several thousand feet
+are involved at short intervals, formed of rock ladders,
+which may be regarded as "impassable for laden animals."</p>
+
+<p>The so-called roads are nothing better than tracks
+worn in the course of centuries by the annual passage of
+the nomads and their flocks to and from their summer
+pastures. In addition to the tracks which follow the lie
+of the valleys, footpaths cross the main ranges where
+foothold can be obtained.</p>
+
+<p>There are but two bridle tracks which deserve mention
+as being possible for caravan traffic between Isfahan and
+Shuster, one crossing the God-i-Murda at a height of
+7050 feet and the Karun at Dupulan, the other, which
+considerably diminishes the distance between the two
+commercial points, crossing the Zard Kuh by the Cherri
+Pass at an altitude of 9550 feet and dropping down
+a steep descent of over 4000 feet to the Bazuft river.
+These, the Gurab, and the Gil-i-Shah, and Pambakal
+Passes, which cross the Zard Kuh range at elevations of
+over 11,000 feet, are reported as closed by snow for
+several months in winter. In view of the cart-road from
+Ahwaz to Tihran, which will pass through the gap of
+Khuramabad, the possible importance of any one of these
+routes fades completely away.</p>
+
+<p>The climate, though one of extremes, is healthy.
+Maladies of locality are unknown, the water is usually
+pure, and malarious swamps do not exist. Salt springs
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>
+produce a sufficiency of salt for wholesome use, and
+medicinal plants abound. The heat begins in early June
+and is steady till the end of August, the mercury rising
+to 102&deg; in the shade at altitudes of 7000 feet, but it is
+rarely oppressive; the nights are cool, and greenery and
+abounding waters are a delightful contrast to the arid
+hills and burning plains of Persia. The rainfall is
+scarcely measurable, the snowfall is reported as heavy,
+and the winter temperatures are presumably low.</p>
+
+<p>There are few traces of a past history, and the legends
+connected with the few are too hazy to be of any value,
+but there are remains of bridges of dressed stone, and of
+at least one ancient road, which must have been trodden
+by the soldiers of Alexander the Great and Valerian, and
+it is not impossible that the rude forts here and there
+which the tribesmen attribute to mythical heroes of their
+own race may have been built to guard Greek or Roman
+communications.</p>
+
+<p>The geology, entomology, and zoology of the Bakhtiari
+country have yet to be investigated. In a journey of
+three months and a half the only animals seen were a
+bear and cubs, a boar, some small ibex, a blue hare, and
+some jackals. Francolin are common, and storks were
+seen, but scarcely any other birds, and bees and butterflies
+are rare. It is the noxious forms of animated life which
+are abundant. There are snakes, some of them venomous,
+a venomous spider, and a stinging beetle, and legions of
+black flies, mosquitos, and sand-flies infest many localities.</p>
+
+<p>This area of lofty ranges, valleys, gorges, and alpine
+pasturages is inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, classed
+with the savage or semi-savage races, who, though they
+descend to the warmer plains in the winter, invariably
+speak of these mountains as "their country." On this
+journey nearly all the tribes were visited in their own
+encampments, and their arrangements, modes of living,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>
+customs, and beliefs were subjects of daily investigation,
+the results of which are given in the letters which
+follow.</p>
+
+<p>Their own very hazy traditions, which are swift to
+lose themselves in the fabulous, represent that they came
+from Syria, under one chief, and took possession of the
+country which they now inhabit. A later tradition states
+that a descendant of this chief had two wives equally
+beloved, one of whom had four sons, and the other
+seven; and that after their father's death the young men
+quarrelled, separated, and bequeathed their quarrel to
+posterity, the seven brothers forming the Haft Lang
+division of the Bakhtiaris, and the four the Chahar Lang.<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Haft Lang, though originally far superior in
+numbers, weakened their power by their unending
+internal conflicts, and in 1840, when Sir A. H. Layard
+visited a part of Luristan not embraced in this route, and
+sojourned at Kala-i-Tul, the power and headship of
+Mehemet Taki Khan, the great chief of their rivals the
+Chahar Lang, were recognised throughout the region.</p>
+
+<p>The misfortunes which came upon him overthrew the
+supremacy of his clan, and now (as for some years past)
+the Haft Lang supply the ruling dynasty, the Chahar
+Lang being, however, still strong enough to decide any
+battles for the chieftainship which may be fought among
+their rivals. Time, and a stronger assertion of the
+sovereignty of Persia, have toned the feud down into a
+general enmity and aversion, but the tribes of the two
+septs rarely intermarry, and seldom encamp near each
+other without bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>The great divisions of the Bakhtiaris, the Haft Lang,
+the Chahar Lang, and the Dinarunis, with the dependencies
+of the Janiki Garmsir, the Janiki Sardsir, and the
+Afshar tribe of Gunduzlu, remain as they were half a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>
+century ago, when they were the subject of careful investigation
+by Sir A. H. Layard and Sir H. Rawlinson.</p>
+
+<p>The tribes (as enumerated by several of the Khans
+without any divergence in their statements) number
+29,100 families, an increase in the last half-century.
+Taking eight to a household, which I believe to be a
+fair estimate, a population of 232,800 would be the
+result.<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>
+
+<p>A few small villages of mud hovels at low altitudes
+are tenanted by a part of their inhabitants throughout
+the winter, the other part migrating with the bulk of the
+flocks; and 3000 families of the two great Janiki
+divisions are <i>deh-nishins</i> or "dwellers in cities," <i>i.e.</i> they
+do not migrate at all; but the rest are nomads, that is,
+they have winter camping-grounds in the warm plains of
+Khuzistan and elsewhere, and summer pastures in the
+region of the Upper Karun and its affluents, making two
+annual migrations between their <i>garmsirs</i> and <i>sardsirs</i>
+(hot and cold quarters).</p>
+
+<p>Though a pastoral people, they have (as has been
+referred to previously) of late years irrigated, stoned, and
+cultivated a number of their valleys, sowing in the early
+autumn, leaving the crops for the winter and early
+spring, and on their return weeding them very carefully
+till harvest-time in July.</p>
+
+<p>They live on the produce of their flocks and herds, on
+leavened cakes made of wheat and barley flour, and on a
+paste made of acorn flour.</p>
+
+<p>In religion they are fanatical Moslems of the Shiah
+sect, but combine relics of nature worship with the tenets
+of Islam.</p>
+
+<p>The tribes, which were to a great extent united under
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span>
+the judicious and ambitious policy of Mehemet Taki
+Khan and Hussein Kuli Khan, nominally acknowledge
+one feudal head, the Ilkhani, who is associated in power
+with another chief called the Ilbegi. The Ilkhani, who
+is appointed by the Shah for a given period, capable of
+indefinite extension, is responsible for the tribute, which
+amounts to about two <i>tumans</i> a household, and for the
+good order of Luri-Buzurg.</p>
+
+<p>The Bakhtiaris are good horsemen and marksmen.
+Possibly in inter-tribal war from 10,000 to 12,000 men
+might take the field, but it is doubtful whether more
+than from 6000 to 8000 could be relied on in an
+external quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>The Khan of each tribe is practically its despotic
+ruler, and every tribesman is bound to hold himself at
+his disposal.</p>
+
+<p>As concerns tribute, they are under the government of
+Isfahan, with the exception of three tribes and a half,
+which are under the government of Burujird.</p>
+
+<p>They are a warlike people, and though more peaceable
+than formerly, they cherish blood-feuds and are always
+fighting among themselves. Their habits are predatory
+by inclination and tradition, but they have certain
+notions of honour and of regard to pledges when
+voluntarily given.<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p>
+
+<p>They deny Persian origin, but speak a dialect of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span>
+Persian. Conquered by Nadir Shah, who took many
+of them into his service, they became independent after
+his death, until the reign of Mohammed Shah. Though
+tributary, they still possess a sort of <i>quasi</i> independence,
+though Persia of late years has tightened her grip upon
+them, and the Shah keeps many of their influential
+families in Tihran and its neighbourhood as hostages for
+the good behaviour of their clans.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Feili Lurs, the nomads of Luri-Kushak or the
+Lesser Luristan, the region lying between the Ab-i-Diz
+and the Assyrian plains, with the province of Kirmanshah
+to the north and Susiana to the south, little was seen.
+These tribes are numerically superior to the Bakhtiaris.
+Fifty years ago, according to Sir H. Rawlinson, they
+numbered 56,000 families.</p>
+
+<p>They have no single feudal chieftain like their
+neighbours, nor are their subdivisions ruled, as among
+them, by powerful Khans. They are governed by
+<i>Tushmals</i> (lit. "master of a house") and four or five of
+these are associated in the rule of every tribal subdivision.
+On such occasions as involve tribal well-being or the
+reverse, these <i>Tushmals</i> consult as equals.</p>
+
+<p>Sir H. Rawlinson considered that the Feili Lur form of
+government is very rare among the clan nations of Asia,
+and that it approaches tolerably near to the spirit of a
+confederated republic. Their language, according to the
+same authority, differs little from that of the Kurds of
+Kirmanshah.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Unlike the Bakhtiaris, they neglect agriculture, but
+they breed and export mules, and trade in carpets,
+charcoal, horse-furniture, and sheep.</p>
+
+<p>In faith they are Ali Ilahis, but are grossly ignorant
+and religiously indifferent; they show scarcely any respect
+to Mohammed and the Koran, and combine a number of
+ancient superstitions and curious sacrificial rites with a
+deep reverence for Sultan Ibrahim, who under the name
+of <i>B&#257;b&#257; Buzurg</i> (the great father) is worshipped throughout
+Luri-Kushak.</p>
+
+<p>For the tribute payable to Persia no single individual
+is responsible. The sum to be levied is distributed
+among the tribes by a general council, after which each
+subdivision apportions the amount to be paid by the
+different camps, and the <i>Rish-Sefid</i> (lit. gray-beard) or
+head of each encampment collects from the different
+families according to their means.</p>
+
+<p>The task of the Persian tax-collector is a difficult
+one, for the tribes are in a state of chronic turbulence,
+and fail even in obedience to their own general council,
+and the collection frequently ends in an incursion of
+Persian soldiers and a Government raid on the flocks and
+herds. Many of these people are miserably poor, and
+they are annually growing poorer under Persian maladministration.</p>
+
+<p>The Feili Lurs are important to England commercially,
+because the cart-road from Ahwaz to Tihran, to be
+completed within two years, passes partly through their
+country,<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> and its success as the future trade route from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span>
+the Gulf depends upon their good-will, or rather upon their
+successful coercion by the Persian Government.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XIV</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">Kahva Rukh, Chahar Mahals,</span> <i>May 4.</i></p>
+
+<p>I left Julfa on the afternoon of April 30, with Miss
+Bruce as my guest and Mr. Douglas as our escort for the
+first three or four days. The caravan was sent forward
+early, that my inexperienced servants might have time to
+pitch the tents before our arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Green and pleasant looked the narrow streets and
+walled gardens of Julfa under a blue sky, on which black
+clouds were heavily massed here and there; but greenery
+was soon exchanged for long lines of mud ruins, and the
+great gravelly slopes in which the mountains descend
+upon the vast expanse of plain which surrounds Isfahan,
+on which the villages of low mud houses are marked by
+dark belts of poplars, willows, fruit-trees, and great
+patches of irrigated and cultivated land, shortly to take
+on the yellow hue of the surrounding waste, but now
+beautifully green.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through Pul-i-Wargun, a large and much
+wooded village on the Zainderud, there a very powerful
+stream, affording abundant water power, scarcely used, we
+crossed a bridge 450 feet long by twelve feet broad, of
+eighteen brick arches resting on stone piers, and found the
+camps pitched on some ploughed land by a stream, and
+afternoon tea ready for the friends who had come to
+give us what Persians call "a throw on the road." I
+examined my equipments, found that nothing essential
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span>
+was lacking, initiated my servants into their evening
+duties, especially that of tightening tent ropes and driving
+tent pegs well in, and enjoyed a social evening in the
+adjacent camp.</p>
+
+<p>The next day's journey, made under an unclouded sky,
+was mainly along the Zainderud, from which all the
+channels and rills which nourish the vegetation far and
+near are taken. A fine, strong, full river it is there and
+at Isfahan in spring, so prolific in good works that one
+regrets that it should be lost sixty miles east of Isfahan
+in the Gas-Khana, an unwholesome marsh, the whole of
+its waters disappearing in the <i>Kavir</i>. Many large villages
+with imposing pigeon-towers lie along this part of its
+course, surrounded with apricot and walnut orchards,
+wheat and poppy fields, every village an oasis, and every
+oasis a paradise, as seen in the first flush of spring. On
+a slope of gravel is the Bagh-i-Washi, with the remains of
+an immense enclosure, where the renowned Shah Abbas
+is said to have had a menagerie. Were it not for the
+beautiful fringe of fertility on both margins of the
+Zainderud the country would be a complete waste. The
+opium poppy is in bloom now. The use of opium in
+Persia and its exportation are always increasing, and as
+it is a very profitable crop, both to the cultivators and
+to the Government, it is to some extent superseding
+wheat.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the greenery we turned into a desert of gravel,
+crossed some low hills, and in the late afternoon came
+down upon the irrigated lands which surround the large
+and prosperous village of Riz, the handsome and lofty
+pigeon-towers of which give it quite a fine appearance
+from a distance.</p>
+
+<p>These pigeon-towers are numerous, both near Isfahan
+and in the villages along the Zainderud, and are everywhere
+far more imposing than the houses of the people.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>
+Since the great famine, which made a complete end of
+pigeon-keeping for the time, the industry has never
+assumed its former proportions, and near Julfa many of
+the towers are falling into ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The Riz towers, however, are in good repair. They are
+all built in the same way, varying only in size and height,
+from twenty to fifty feet in diameter, and from twenty-five
+to eighty feet from base to summit. They are
+"round towers," narrowing towards the top. They are
+built of sun-dried bricks of local origin, costing about two
+<i>krans</i> or 16d. a thousand, and are decorated with rings
+of yellowish plaster, with coarse arabesques in red ochre
+upon them. For a door there is an opening half-way up,
+plastered over like the rest of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Two walls, cutting each other across at right angles,
+divide the interior. I am describing from a ruined tower
+which was easy of ingress. The sides of these walls, and
+the whole of the inner surface of the tower, are occupied
+by pigeon cells, the open ends of which are about twelve
+inches square. According to its size a pigeon-tower
+may contain from 2000 to 7000, or even 8000, pairs
+of pigeons. These birds are gray-blue in colour.</p>
+
+<p>A pigeon-tower is a nuisance to the neighbourhood,
+for its occupants, being totally unprovided for by their
+proprietor, live upon their neighbours' fields. In former
+days it must have been a grand sight when they
+returned to their tower after the day's depredations.
+"Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to
+their windows?" probably referred to a similar arrangement
+in Palestine.</p>
+
+<p>The object of the towers is the preservation and
+collection of "pigeon guano," which is highly prized for
+the raising of early melons. The door is opened once a
+year for the collection of this valuable manure. A large
+pigeon-tower used to bring its owner from &pound;60 to &pound;75
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span>
+per annum, but a cessation of the great demand for early
+melons in the neighbourhood of Isfahan has prevented
+the re-stocking of the towers since the famine.</p>
+
+<p>Our experiences of Riz were not pleasant. One of the
+party during a short absence from his tent was robbed of
+a very valuable scientific instrument. After that there
+was the shuffling sound of a multitude outside the tent
+in which Miss Bruce and I were resting, and women
+concealed from head to foot in blue and white checked
+sheets, revealing but one eye, kept lifting the tent
+curtain, and when that was laced, applying the one eye
+to the spaces between the lace-holes, whispering and
+tittering all the time. Hot though it was, their persevering
+curiosity prevented any ventilation, and the steady
+gaze of single eyes here, there, and everywhere was most
+exasperating. It was impossible to use the dressing tent,
+for crowds of boys assembled, and rows of open mouths
+and staring eyes appeared between the <i>fly</i> and the
+ground. Vainly Miss Bruce, who speaks Persian well
+and courteously, told the women that this intrusion on
+our privacy when we were very tired was both rude and
+unkind. "We're only women," they said, "<i>we</i> shouldn't
+mind it, we've never seen so many Europeans before."
+Sunset ended the nuisance, for then the whole crowd,
+having fasted since sunrise, hurried home for food.</p>
+
+<p>The great fast of the month of Ramazan began before
+we left Julfa. Moslems are not at their best while it
+lasts. They are apt to be crabbed and irritable; and
+everything that can be postponed is put off "till after
+Ramazan."</p>
+
+<p>Much ostentation comes out in the keeping of it; very
+pious people begin to fast before the month sets in. A
+really ascetic Moslem does not even swallow his saliva
+during the fast, and none but very old or sick people,
+children, and travellers, are exempt from the obligation
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span>
+to taste neither food nor water, and not even to smoke
+during daylight, for a whole month. The penance is a
+fearful one, and as the night is the only time for feasting,
+the Persians get through as much of the day as possible
+in sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Welcome indeed is the sunset. With joy men fill
+their pipes and drink tea as a prelude to the meal eaten
+an hour afterwards. Hateful is the dawn and the cry
+an hour before it, "Water! oh, water and opium!"&mdash;the
+warning to the faithful to drink largely and swallow an
+opium pill before sunrise. The thirst even in weather
+like this, and the abstention from smoking, are severer
+trials than the fasting from food. The Persian either
+lives to smoke, or smokes to live.</p>
+
+<p>Although travellers are nominally exempt from the
+fast from water at least, pious Moslems do not avail
+themselves of the liberty. Hadji Hussein, for instance, is
+keeping it as rigidly as any one, and, like some others,
+marches with the end of his <i>pagri</i> tucked over his
+mouth and nose, a religious affectation, supposed to
+prevent the breaking of the fast by swallowing the
+animalcul&aelig; which are believed to infest the air!</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Riz, everywhere there are arid yellow mountains
+and yellow gravelly plains, except along the Zainderud,
+where fruit-trees, wheat, and the opium poppy relieve the
+eyes from the glare. We took leave of the Zainderud
+at Pul-i-Kala, where it is crossed by a dilapidated but
+passable and very picturesque stone bridge of eight arches,
+and the view from the high right bank of wood, bridge,
+and the vigorous green river is very pretty.</p>
+
+<p>Little enough of trees or greenery have we seen since.
+This country, like much of the great Iranian plateau, consists
+of high mountains with broad valleys or large or
+small plateaux between them, absolutely treeless, and even
+now nearly verdureless, with scattered oases wherever a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>
+possibility of procuring water by means of laboriously-constructed
+irrigation canals renders cultivation possible.</p>
+
+<p>Water is scarce and precious; its value may be
+gathered from the allusions made by the Persian poets
+to fountains, cascades, shady pools, running streams, and
+bubbling springs. Such expressions as those in Scripture,
+"rivers of waters," "a spring of water whose waters fail
+not," convey a fulness of meaning to Persian ears of which
+we are quite ignorant. The first inquiry of a Persian about
+any part of his own country is, "Is there water?" the
+second, "Is the water good?" and if he wishes to extol
+any particular region he says "the water is abundant all
+the year, and is sweet, there is no such water anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>The position of a village is always determined by the
+water supply, for the people have not only to think of
+water for domestic purposes, but for irrigating their crops,
+and this accounts for the packing of hamlets on steep
+mountain sides where land for cultivation can only be
+obtained by laborious terracing, but where some perennial
+stream can be relied on for filling the small canals.
+The fight for water is one of the hardest necessities of the
+Persian peasant. A water famine of greater or less degree
+is a constant peril.</p>
+
+<p>Land in Persia is of three grades, the wholly irrigated,
+the partially irrigated, and the "rain-lands," usually uplands,
+chiefly suited for pasturage. The wholly irrigated
+land is the most productive. The assessments for taxes
+appear to leave altogether out of account the relative
+fertility of the land, and to be calculated solely on the
+supply of water. A winter like the last, of heavy snow,
+means a plenteous harvest, <i>i.e.</i> "twelve or fourteen grains
+for one," as the peasants put it; a scanty snowfall means
+famine, for the little rain which falls is practically of
+scarcely any use.</p>
+
+<p>The plan for the distribution of water seems to be far
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span>
+less provocative of quarrels than that of some other
+regions dependent on irrigation, such as Ladak and Nubra.
+Where it is at all abundant, as it is in this Zainderud
+valley, it is only in the great heats of summer that it is
+necessary to apportion it with any rigidity. It is then
+placed in the hands of a <i>mirab</i> or water officer, who allows
+it to each village in turn for so many days, during which
+time the villages above get none, or the <i>ketchudas</i> manage
+it among themselves without the aid of a <i>mirab</i>, for the sad
+truth, which is applicable to all Persian officialism, applies
+in the <i>mirab's</i> case, that if a village be rich enough to
+bribe him it can get water out of its turn.</p>
+
+<p>The blessedness of the Zainderud valley is exceptional,
+and the general rule in the majority of districts is that
+the water must be carefully divided and be measured by
+"<i>tashts</i>," each <i>tasht</i> being equivalent to the use of the
+water supply for eleven minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"This space of time is estimated in a very ancient
+fashion by floating a copper bowl with a needle hole
+in the bottom in a large vessel of water. The <i>tasht</i>
+comes to an end as the bowl sinks. The distribution
+is regulated by the number of <i>tashts</i> that each man
+has a right to. If he has a right to twenty he will
+receive water for three and three-quarter hours of the
+day or night every tenth day." Land without water in
+Persia is about as valuable as the "south lands" were
+which were given to Caleb's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I can learn, the Persian peasant enjoys a
+tolerable security of tenure so long as he pays his rent.
+A common rate of rent is two-thirds of the produce, but
+on lands where the snow lies for many months, even
+when they are "wet lands," it is only one-third; but this
+system is subject to many modifications specially arising
+out of the finding or non-finding of the seed by the owner,
+and there is no uniformity in the manner of holding land
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>
+or in assessing the taxes or in anything else, though the
+system established 1400 years ago is still the basis of the
+whole.<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p>
+
+<p>The line between the oasis and the desert is always
+strongly marked and definite. There is no shading away
+between the deep green of the growing wheat and the
+yellow or red gravel beyond. The general impression is
+one of complete nakedness. The flowers which in this
+month bloom on the slopes are mostly stiff, leathery, and
+thorny. The mountains themselves viewed from below
+are without any indication of green. The usual colouring
+is grayish-yellow or a feeble red, intensifying at sunset,
+but rarely glorified owing to the absence of "atmosphere."</p>
+
+<p>It is a very solitary route from Pul-i-Kala, without
+villages, and we met neither caravans nor foot passengers.
+The others rode on, and I followed with two of the
+Bakhtiari escort, who with Rustem Khan, a minor chief,
+had accompanied us from Julfa. These men were most
+inconsequent in their proceedings, wheeling round me at
+a gallop, singing, or rather howling, firing their long guns,
+throwing themselves into one stirrup and nearly off their
+horses, and one who rides without a bridle came up
+behind me with his horse bolting and nearly knocked
+me out of the saddle with the long barrel of his gun.
+When the village of Charmi came in sight I signed to
+them to go on, and we all rode at a gallop, the horsemen
+uttering wild cries and going through the pantomime of
+firing over the left shoulders and right flanks of their
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>The camps were pitched on what might be called the
+village green. Charmi, like many Persian villages, is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span>
+walled, the wall, which is much jagged by rain and frost,
+having round towers at intervals, and a large gateway.
+Such walls are no real protection, but serve to keep the
+flocks and herds from nocturnal depredators. Within the
+gate is a house called the Fort, with a very fine room
+fully thirty feet long by fifteen high, decorated with a
+mingled splendour and simplicity surprising in a rural
+district. The wall next the courtyard is entirely of
+very beautiful fretwork, filled in with amber and pale
+blue glass. The six doors are the same, and the walls and
+the elaborate roof and cornices are pure white, the projections
+being "picked out" in a pale shade of brown,
+hardly darker than amber.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning Miss Bruce left on her return
+home, and Mr. Douglas and I rode fourteen miles to the
+large village of Kahva Rukh, where we parted company.
+It is an uninteresting march over formless gravelly hills and
+small plains thinly grassed, until the Gardan-i-Rukh, one
+of the high passes on the Isfahan and Shuster route, is
+reached, with its extensive view of brown mountains and
+yellow wastes. This pass, 7960 feet in altitude, crossing
+the unshapely Kuh-i-Rukh, is the watershed of the
+country, all the streams on its southern side falling into
+the Karun. It is also the entrance to the Chahar Mahals
+or four districts, Lar, Khya, Mizak, and Gandaman, which
+consist chiefly of great plains surrounded by mountains,
+and somewhat broken up by their gravelly spurs.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond, and usually in sight, is the snow-slashed Kuh-i-Sukhta
+range, which runs south-east, and throws out a
+spur to Chigakhor, the summer resort of the Bakhtiari
+chiefs. The Chahar Mahals, for Persia, are populous,
+and in some parts large villages, many of which are
+Armenian and Georgian, occur at frequent intervals, most
+of them treeless, but all surrounded by cultivated lands.
+The Armenian villages possess so-called relics and ancient
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span>
+copies of the Gospels, which are credited with the power
+of working miracles.<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Chahar Mahals have been farmed to the Ilkhani
+of the Bakhtiaris for about 20,000 <i>tumans</i> (&pound;6000) a
+year, and his brother, Reza Kuli Khan, has been appointed
+their governor. Thus on crossing the Kahva Rukh pass
+we entered upon the sway of the feudal head of the
+great Bakhtiari tribes.</p>
+
+<p>We camped outside the village, my tents being pitched
+in a ruinous enclosure. The servants are in the habit
+of calling me the <i>Hak&#299;m</i>, and the report of a Frank <i>Hak&#299;m</i>
+having arrived soon brought a crowd of sick people, who
+were introduced and their ailments described by a blue
+horseman, one of the escort.</p>
+
+<p>His own child was so dangerously ill of pneumonia
+that I went with him to his house, put on a mustard
+poultice, and administered some Dover's powder. The
+house was crammed and the little suffering creature had
+hardly air to breathe. The courtyard was also crowded,
+so that one could scarcely move, all the people being quite
+pleasant and friendly. I saw several sick people, and
+was surprised to find the village houses so roomy and
+comfortable, and so full of "plenishings." It was in vain
+that I explained to them that I am not a doctor, scarcely
+even a nurse. The fame of Burroughes and Wellcome's
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span>
+medicine chest has spread far and wide, and they think
+its possessor <i>must</i> be a <i>Hak&#299;m</i>. The horseman said that
+medicine out of that chest would certainly cure his
+child.<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> I was unable to go back to the tea which had
+been prepared in the horseman's house, on which he
+expressed great dismay, and said I must be "enraged
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>Persians always use round numbers, and the <i>ketchuda</i>
+says that the village has 300 Persian houses, and 100
+more, inhabited during the winter by Ilyats. It has
+mud walls with towers at intervals, two mosques, a
+clear stream of water in the principal street, some very
+good houses with <i>balakhanas</i>, and narrow alleys between
+high mud walls, in which are entrances into courtyards
+occupied by animals, and surrounded by living-rooms.
+The only trees are a few spindly willows, but wheat
+comes up to the walls, and at sunset great herds of cattle
+and myriads of brown sheep converge to what seems
+quite a prosperous village.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 5.</i>&mdash;Yesterday, Sunday, was intended to be a
+day of rest, but turned out very far from it. After the
+last relay of "patients" left on Saturday evening, and
+the last medicines had been "dispensed," my tent was
+neatly arranged with one <i>yekdan</i> for a table, and the other
+for a washstand and medicine stand. The latter trunk contained
+some English gold in a case along with some valuable
+letters, and some bags, in which were 1000 <i>krans</i>, for
+four months' travelling. This <i>yekdan</i> was padlocked. It
+was a full moon, the other camps were quite near, all
+looked very safe, and I slept until awakened by the sharpness
+of the morning air.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw but one <i>yekdan</i> where there had been
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span>
+two! Opening the tent curtain I found my washing
+apparatus and medicine bottles neatly arranged on the
+ground outside, and the trunk without its padlock among
+some ruins a short distance off. The money bags were
+all gone, leaving me literally penniless. Most of my
+store of tea was taken, but nothing else. Two men
+must have entered my tent and have carried the trunk
+out. Of what use are any precautions when one sleeps
+so disgracefully soundly? When the robbery was made
+known horsemen were sent off to the Ilkhani, whose
+guest I have been since I entered his territory, and
+at night a Khan arrived with a message that "the
+money would be repaid, and that the village would be
+levelled with the ground!" Kahva Rukh will, I hope,
+stand for many years to come, but the stolen sum will be
+levied upon it, according to custom.</p>
+
+<p>The people are extremely vexed at this occurrence,
+and I would rather have lost half the sum than that it
+should have happened to a guest. In addition to an
+escort of a Khan and four men, the Ilkhani has given
+orders that we are not to be allowed to pay for anything
+while in the country. This order, after several battles,
+I successfully disobey. This morning, before any steps
+were taken to find the thief, and after all the loads
+were ready, officials came to the camps, and, by our wish,
+every man's baggage was unrolled and searched. Our
+servants and <i>charvadars</i> are all Moslems, and each of
+them took an oath on the Koran, administered by a
+<i>mollah</i>, that he was innocent of the theft.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ardal, May 9.</i>&mdash;I left rather late, and with the
+blue horseman, to whom suspicion generally pointed,
+rode to Shamsabad, partly over gravelly wastes, passing
+two mixed Moslem and Armenian villages on a plain,
+on which ninety ploughs were at work on a stiff whitish
+soil.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Shamsabad is a most wretched mud village without
+supplies, standing bare on a gravelly slope, above a clear
+quiet stream, an affluent of the Karun. This country
+has not reached that stage of civilisation in which a
+river bears the same name from mouth to source, and as
+these streams usually take as many names as there are
+villages on their course, I do not burden my memory
+with them. There is a charming camping-ground of
+level velvety green sward on the right bank of the river,
+with the towering mass of Jehanbin (sight of the world),
+12,000 feet high, not far off. This lawn is 6735 feet
+above the sea, and the air keen and pleasant. The
+near mountain views are grand, and that evening the rare
+glory of a fine sunset lingered till it was merged in the
+beauty of a perfect moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Shamsabad the road passes through
+a rather fine defile, crosses the Shamsabad stream by a
+ten-arched bridge between the Kuh-i-Zangun and the
+Kuh-i-Jehanbin, and proceeds down a narrow valley now
+full of wild flowers and young wheat to Khariji, a village
+of fifty houses, famous for the excellent quality of its
+opium. From Khariji we proceeded through low grassy
+hills, much like the South Downs, and over the low but
+very rough Pasbandi Pass into an irrigated valley in
+which is the village of Shalamzar. I rode through it
+alone quite unmolested, but two days later the Sahib,
+passing through it with his servants, was insulted and
+pelted, and the people said, "Here's another of the dog
+party." These villagers are afflicted with "divers
+diseases and torments," and the crowd round my tent
+was unusually large and importunate. In this village of
+less than fifty houses nearly all the people had one or
+both eyes more or less affected, and fourteen had only
+one eye.</p>
+
+<p>Between Shalamzar and Ardal lies the lofty Gardan-i-Zirreh,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span>
+by which the Kuh-i-Sukhta is crossed at a height
+of 8300 feet. The ascent begins soon after leaving the
+village, and is long and steep&mdash;a nasty climb. The upper
+part at this date is encumbered with snow, below which
+primulas are blooming in great profusion, and lower down
+leathery flowers devoid of beauty cover without adorning
+the hillside. Two peasants went up with me, and from
+time to time kindly handed me clusters of small raisins
+taken from the breasts of dirty felt clothing. On reaching
+the snow I found Rustem Khan's horse half-buried
+in a drift, so I made the rest of the ascent on foot. The
+snow was three feet deep, but for the most part presented
+no difficulties, even to the baggage animals.</p>
+
+<p>At the summit there were no green things except
+some plants of <i>artemisia</i>, not even a blade of grass, but
+among the crevices appeared small fragile snow-white
+tulips with yellow centres, mixed with scarlet and mauve
+blossoms of a more vigorous make. At that great height
+the air was keen and bracing, and to eyes for months accustomed
+to regions buried in dazzling snow and to glaring
+gravelly wastes, there was something perfectly entrancing
+about the view on the Bakhtiari side. Though treeless, it
+looked like Paradise. Lying at the foot of the pass is the
+deep valley of Seligun, 8000 feet high, with the range
+of the Kuh-i-Nassar to the south, and of the Kuh-Shah-Purnar
+to the north&mdash;green, full of springs and streams,
+with two lakes bringing down the blue of heaven to earth,
+with slopes aflame with the crimson and terra-cotta <i>Fritillaria
+imperialis</i>, and levels one golden glory with a yellow
+ranunculus. Rich and dark was the green of the grass,
+tall and deep on the plain, but when creeping up the
+ravines to meet the snows, short green sward enamelled
+with tulips. Great masses of naked rock, snow-slashed,
+and ranges of snow-topped masses behind and above,
+walled in that picture of cool serenity, its loneliness only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>
+broken by three black tents of Ilyats far away. So I saw
+Seligun, but those who see it a month hence will find
+only a brown and dusty plain!</p>
+
+<p>The range we crossed divides the Chahar Mahals from
+the true Bakhtiari country, a land of mountains which
+rumour crests with eternal snow, of unexplored valleys
+and streams, of feudal chiefs, of blood feuds, and of
+nomad tribes moving with vast flocks and herds.</p>
+
+<p>Mehemet Ali, a new and undesirable acquisition, was
+loaded with my <i>shuldari</i>, and we clambered down the
+hillside, leading our horses amidst tamarisk scrub and a
+glory of tulips, till we reached the level, when a gallop
+brought us to the camps, pitched near a vigorous spring
+in the green flower-enamelled grass.</p>
+
+<p>That halt was luxury for man and beast. Later the
+air was cool and moist. The sun-lit white fleeces which
+had been rolling among the higher hills darkened and
+thickened into rain-clouds, drifting stormily, and only
+revealing here and there through their rifts glimpses of
+blue. A few flocks of sheep on the mountains, and the
+mules and horses revelling knee-deep in the juicy grass,
+were the sole representatives of animated life. It was
+a real refreshment to be away from the dust of mud
+villages, and to escape from the pressure of noisy and
+curious crowds, and the sight of sore eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening, a gallop on the Arabs with the
+Bakhtiari escort took us to the camp of the lately-arrived
+Ilyats. Orientals spend much of their time in the quiet
+contemplation of cooking pots, and these nomads were
+not an exception, for they were all sitting round a brushwood
+fire, on which the evening meal of meat broth with
+herbs was being prepared. The women were unveiled.
+Both men and women are of quite a different type from
+the Persians. They are completely clothed and in
+appearance are certainly only semi-savages. These tents
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span>
+consisted of stones rudely laid to a height of two feet at
+the back, over which there is a canopy with an open
+front and sides, of woven goat's-hair supported on poles.
+Such tents are barely a shelter from wind and rain, but in
+them generations of Ilyats are born and die, despising
+those of their race who settle in villages.</p>
+
+<p>There were great neutral-tint masses of rolling clouds,
+great banks of glistering white clouds, a cold roystering
+wind, a lurid glow, and then a cloudy twilight. <i>Hak&#299;m</i>
+threw up his heels and galloped over the moist grass, the
+Bakhtiaris, two on one horse, laughed and yelled&mdash;there
+was the desert freedom without the desert. It was the
+most inspiriting evening I have spent in Persia. Truth
+compels me to add that there were legions of black flies.</p>
+
+<p>In the early morning, after riding round the south-east
+end of the valley, we passed by the lake Seligun or
+Albolaki, banked up by a revetment of rude masonry.
+The wind was strong, and drove the foam-flecked water
+in a long line of foam on the shore. Red-legged storks
+were standing in a row fishing. Cool scuds of rain made
+the morning homelike. Then there was a hill ascent,
+from which the view of snowy mountains, gashed by
+deep ravines and backed by neutral-tint clouds, was
+magnificent, and then a steep and rocky defile, which
+involved walking, its sides gaudy with the <i>Fritillaria
+imperialis</i>, which here attains a size and a depth of colouring
+of which we have no conception.</p>
+
+<p>In this pass we met a large number of Ilyat families
+going up to their summer quarters, with their brown
+flocks of sheep and their black flocks of goats. Their
+tents with all their other goods were packed in convenient
+parcels on small cows, and the women with
+babies and big wooden cradles were on asses. The
+women without babies, the elder children, and the men
+walked.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Whatever beauty these women possessed was in the
+Meg Merrilees style, with a certain weirdness about it.
+They had large, dark, long eyes, with well-marked eyebrows,
+artificially prolonged, straight prominent noses,
+wide mouths with thin lips, long straight chins, and
+masses of black hair falling on each side of the face.
+Their dress consisted of enormously full dark blue cotton
+trousers, drawn in at the ankles, and suspended over the
+hips, not from the waist (the invariable custom in
+Persia), and loose sleeved vests, open in front. The
+adult women all wear a piece of cotton pinned on the
+head, and falling over the back and shoulders. The men
+had their hair in many long plaits, hanging from under
+felt skull-caps, and wore wide blue cotton trousers, white
+or printed cotton shirts over these, and girdles in which
+they carried knives, pipes, and other indispensables.
+All wore shoes or sandals of some kind. These men
+were very swarthy, but the younger women had rich
+brunette complexions, and were unveiled.</p>
+
+<p>Some bad horse-fights worried the remainder of the
+march, which included the ascent of an anemone-covered
+hill, 7700 feet high, from which we got the first view of
+the Ardal valley, much cultivated, till it narrows and is
+lost among mountains, now partly covered with snow.
+In the centre is a large building with a tower, the spring
+residence of the Ilkhani, whose goodwill it is necessary
+to secure. Through a magnificent gorge in the mountains
+passes the now famous Karun. A clatter of rain and a
+strong wind greeted our entrance into the valley, where
+we were met by some horsemen from the Ilkhani.</p>
+
+<p>The great Ardal plateau is itself treeless, though the
+lower spurs of the Kuh-i-Sabz on the south side are well
+wooded with the <i>belut</i>, a species of oak. There is much
+cultivation, and at this season the uncultivated ground
+is covered with the great green leaves of a fodder plant,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>
+the <i>Centaurea alata</i>, which a little later are cut, dried,
+and stacked. The rivers of the plateau are the Karun
+and Sabzu on the south side, and the river of Shamsabad,
+which brings to the Karun the drainage of the Chahar
+Mahals, and enters the valley through a magnificent <i>tang</i>
+or chasm on its north side, called Darkash Warkash.
+The village of Ardal is eighty-five miles from Isfahan,
+on the Shuster caravan route, and is about 200 from
+Shuster. Its altitude is 5970 feet, its Long. 50&deg; 50&prime; E.
+and its Lat. 32&deg; N.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving here the grandeur of the Ilkhani's house
+faded away. Except for the fortified tower it looks like
+a second-rate caravanserai. The village, such as there is
+of it, is crowded on a steep slope outside the "Palace."
+It is a miserable hamlet of low windowless mud hovels,
+with uneven mud floors, one or two feet lower than the
+ground outside, built in yards with ruinous walls, and
+full of heaps and holes. It is an <i>olla podrida</i> of dark,
+poor, smoky mud huts; narrow dirt-heaped alleys, with
+bones and offal lying about; gaunt yelping dogs; bottle-green
+slimy pools, and ruins. The people are as dirty
+as the houses, but they are fine in physique and face, as
+if only the fittest survive. There is an <i>imamzada</i>, much
+visited on Fridays, on an adjacent slope. The snow lies
+here five feet deep in winter, it is said.</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived the roofs and balconies of the
+Ilkhani's house were crowded with people looking out
+for us. The Agha called at once, and I sent my letter
+of introduction from the Amin-es-Sultan. Presents
+arrived, formal visits were paid, the Ilkhani's principal
+wife appointed an hour at which to receive me, and a
+number of dismounted horsemen came and escorted me
+to the palace. The chief feature of the house is a large
+audience-chamber over the entrance, in which the chief
+holds a daily <i>durbar</i>, the deep balcony outside being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span>
+usually thronged by crowds of tribesmen, all having free
+access to him. The coming and going are incessant.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i318" id="i318"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-318.jpg" width="406" height="275" alt="CASTLE OF ARDAL" title="" />
+<p class="caption">CASTLE OF ARDAL.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The palace or castle is like a two-storied caravanserai,
+enclosing a large untidy courtyard, round which are
+stables and cow-houses, and dens for soldiers and
+servants. In the outer front of the building are deep
+recessed arches, with rooms opening upon them, in which
+the Isfahan traders, who come here for a month, expose
+their wares. Passing under the Ilkhani's audience-chamber
+by a broad arched passage with deep recesses
+on both sides, and through the forlorn uneven courtyard,
+a long, dark arched passage leads into a second courtyard,
+where there is an attempt at ornament by means
+of tanks and willows. Round this are a number of
+living-rooms for the Ilkhani's sons and their families, and
+here is the <i>andarun</i>, or house of the women. On the far
+side is the Fort, a tall square tower with loopholes and
+embrasures.</p>
+
+<p>A Cerberus guards the entrance to the <i>andarun</i>, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span>
+he allowed Mirza to accompany me. A few steps lead
+up from the courtyard into a lofty oblong room, with a
+deep cushioned recess containing a fireplace. The roof
+rests on wooden pillars. The front of the room facing
+the courtyard is entirely of fretwork filled in with pale
+blue and amber glass. The recess and part of the floor
+were covered with very beautiful blue and white grounded
+carpets, made by the women. The principal wife, a
+comely wide-mouthed woman of forty, advanced to meet
+me, kissed my hand, raised it to her brow, and sat down
+on a large carpet squab, while the other wives led me
+into the recess, and seated me on a pile of cushions,
+taking their places in a row on the floor opposite, but
+scarcely raising their eyes, and never speaking one word.
+The rest of the room was full of women and children
+standing, and many more blocked up the doorways, all
+crowding forward in spite of objurgations and smart slaps
+frequently administered by the principal wife.</p>
+
+<p>The three young wives are Bakhtiaris, and their style
+of beauty is novel to me&mdash;straight noses, wide mouths,
+thin lips, and long chins. Each has three stars tattooed
+on her chin, one in the centre of the forehead, and
+several on the back of the hands. The eyebrows are
+not only elongated with indigo, but are made to meet
+across the nose. The finger-nails, and inside of the
+hands, are stained with henna. The hair hangs round
+their wild, handsome faces, down to their collar-bones, in
+loose, heavy, but not uncleanly masses.</p>
+
+<p>Among the "well-to-do" Bakhtiari women, as among
+the Persians, the hair receives very great attention,
+although it is seldom exhibited. It is naturally jet
+black, and very abundant. It is washed at least once a
+week with a thin paste of a yellowish clay found among
+the Zard-Kuh mountains, which has a very cleansing effect.</p>
+
+<p>But the women are not content with their hair as it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span>
+is, and alter its tinge by elaborate arts. They make a
+thick paste of henna, leave it on for two hours, and then
+wash it off. The result is a rich auburn tint. A similar
+paste, made of powdered indigo leaves, is then plastered
+over the hair for two hours. On its removal the locks
+are dark green, but in twenty-four hours more they
+become a rich blue-black. The process needs repeating
+about every twenty days, but it helps to fill up the
+infinite leisure of life. It is performed by the bath
+attendants.</p>
+
+<p>In justice to my sex I must add that the men dye
+their hair to an equal extent with the women, from the
+shining blue-black of the Shah's moustache to the brilliant
+orange of the beard of Hadji Hussein, by which he
+forfeits, though not in Persian estimation, the respect
+due to age.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the Ilkhani's children and grand-children
+have the hair dyed with henna alone to a rich auburn
+tint, which is very becoming to the auburn eyes and
+delicate paleness of some of them.</p>
+
+<p>The wives wore enormously full black silk trousers,
+drawn tight at the ankles, with an interregnum between
+them and short black vests, loose and open in front; and
+black silk sheets attached to a band fixed on the head
+enveloped their persons. They have, as is usual among
+these people, small and beautiful hands, with taper
+fingers and nails carefully kept. The chief wife, who
+rules the others, rumour says, was also dressed in black.
+She has a certain degree of comely dignity about her,
+and having seen something of the outer world in a
+pilgrimage to Mecca vi&acirc; Baghdad, returning by Egypt and
+Persia, and having also lived in Tihran, her intelligence
+has been somewhat awakened. The Bakhtiari women
+generally are neither veiled nor secluded, but the higher
+chiefs who have been at the capital think it <i>chic</i> to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span>
+adopt the Persian customs regarding women, and the
+inferior chiefs, when they have houses, follow their
+example.</p>
+
+<p>My conversation with the "queen" consisted chiefly
+of question and answer, varied by an occasional divergence
+on her part into an animated talk with Mirza
+Yusuf. Among the many questions asked were these:
+at what age our women marry? how many wives the
+Agha has? how long our women are allowed to keep
+their boys with them? why I do not dye my hair? if I
+know of anything to take away wrinkles? to whiten
+teeth? etc., if our men divorce their wives when they
+are forty? why Mr. &mdash;&mdash; had refused a Bakhtiari wife?
+if I am travelling to collect herbs? if I am looking for
+the plant which if found would turn the base metals
+into gold? etc.</p>
+
+<p>She said they had very dull lives, and knew nothing
+of any customs but their own; that they would like to see
+the Agha, who, they heard, was a head taller than their
+tallest men; that they hoped I should be at Chigakhor
+when they were there, as it would be less dull, and she
+apologised for not offering tea or sweetmeats, as it is the
+fast of the Ramazan, which they observe very strictly. I
+told them that the Agha wished to take their photographs,
+and the Hadji Ilkhani along with them. They were
+quite delighted, but it occurred to them that they must
+first get the Ilkhani's consent. This was refused, and
+one of his sons, whose wife is very handsome, said, "We
+cannot allow pictures to be made of our women. It is
+not our custom. We cannot allow pictures of our women
+to be in strange hands. No good women have their
+pictures taken. Among the tribes you may find women
+base enough to be photographed." The chief wife offered
+to make me a present of her grandson, to whom I am
+giving a tonic, if I can make him strong and cure his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span>
+deafness. He is a pale precocious child of ten, with
+hazel eyes and hair made artificially auburn.</p>
+
+<p>When the remarkably frivolous conversation flagged,
+they brought children afflicted with such maladies as
+ophthalmia, scabies, and sore eyes to be cured, but rejected
+my dictum that a copious use of soap and water must
+precede all remedies. Among the adults headaches, loss
+of appetite, and dyspepsia seem the prevailing ailments.
+Love potions were asked for, and charms to bring back
+lost love, with special earnestness, and the woful looks
+assumed when I told the applicants that I could do
+nothing for them were sadly suggestive. There could
+not have been fewer than sixty women and children in
+the room, many, indeed most of them, fearfully dirty in
+dress and person. Among them were several negro and
+mulatto slaves. When I came away the balconies and
+arches of the Ilkhani's house were full of men, anxious
+to have a good view of the Feringhi woman, but there
+was no rudeness there, or in the village, which I walked
+through afterwards with a courtesy escort of several dismounted
+horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>After this the Ilkhani asked me to go to see a man
+who is very ill, and sent two of his retainers with me.
+It must be understood that Mirza Yusuf goes with me
+everywhere as attendant and interpreter. The house was
+a dark room, with a shed outside, in a filthy yard, in
+which children, goats, and dogs were rolling over each
+other in a foot of powdered mud. Crowds of men were
+standing in and about the shed. I made my way through
+them, moving them to right and left with my hands, with
+the recognised supremacy of a <i>Hak&#299;m</i>! There were some
+wadded quilts on the ground, and another covered a
+form of which nothing was visible but two feet, deadly
+cold. The only account that the bystanders could give
+of the illness was, that four days ago the man fainted,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span>
+and that since he had not been able to eat, speak, or
+move. The face was covered with several folds of a very
+dirty <i>chadar</i>. On removing it I was startled by seeing,
+not a sick man, but the open mouth, gasping respiration,
+and glassy eyes of a dying man. His nostrils had been
+stuffed with moist mud and a chopped aromatic herb.
+The feet were uncovered, and the limbs were quite cold.
+There was no cruelty in this. The men about him were
+most kind, but <i>absolutely ignorant</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I told them that he could hardly survive the night,
+and that all I could do was to help him to die comfortably.
+They said with one clamorous voice that they
+would do whatever I told them, and in the remaining
+hours they kept their word. I bade them cleanse the
+mud from his nostrils, wrap the feet and legs in warm
+cloths, give him air, and not crowd round him. Under
+less solemn circumstances I should have been amused
+with the absolute docility with which these big savage-looking
+men obeyed me. I cut up a blanket, and when
+they had heated some water in their poor fashion,
+showed them how to prepare fomentations, put on the
+first myself, and bathed his face and hands.</p>
+
+<p>He was clothed in rags of felt and cotton, evidently
+never changed since the day they were put on, though he
+was what they call "rich,"&mdash;a great owner of mares, flocks,
+and herds,&mdash;and the skin was scaly with decades of dirt.
+I ventured to pour a little sal-volatile and water down his
+throat, and the glassy eyeballs moved a little. I asked
+the bystanders if, as Moslems, they would object to his
+taking some spirits medicinally? They were willing, but
+said there was no <i>arak</i> in the Bakhtiari country, a happy
+exemption! The Agha's kindness supplied some whisky,
+of which from that time the dying man took a teaspoonful,
+much diluted, every two hours, tossed down his throat
+with a spoon, Allah being always invoked. There was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span>
+no woman's gentleness to soothe his last hours. A wife
+in the dark den inside was weaving, and once came out
+and looked carelessly at him, but men did for him all
+that he required with a tenderness and kindness which
+were very pleasing. Before I left they asked for directions
+over again, and one of the Ilkhani's retainers wrote them
+down.</p>
+
+<p>At night the Ilkhani sent to say that the man was
+much better and he hoped I would go and see him.
+The scene was yet more weird than in the daytime.
+A crowd of men were sitting and standing round a fire
+outside the shed, and four were watching the dying man.
+The whisky had revived him, his pulse was better, the
+fomentation had relieved the pain, and when it was reapplied
+he had uttered the word "good." I tried to make
+them understand it was only a last flicker of life, but
+they thought he would recover, and the Ilkhani sent to
+know what food he should have.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn "death music," wild and sweet, rang out on
+the still air; he died painlessly at midnight, and was
+carried to the grave twelve hours later.</p>
+
+<p>When people are very ill their friends give them
+food and medicine (if a <i>Hak&#299;m</i> be attainable), till, in
+their judgment, the case is hopeless. Then they send
+for a <i>mollah</i>; who reads the Koran in a very loud sing-song
+tone till death ensues, the last thirst being alleviated
+meantime by <i>sharbat</i> dropped into the mouth. Camphor
+and other sweet spices are burned at the grave. If they
+burn well and all is pure afterwards, they say that the
+deceased person has gone to heaven; if they burn feebly
+and smokily, and there is any unpleasantness from the
+grave, they say that the spirit is in perdition. A
+Bakhtiari grave is a very shallow trench.</p>
+
+<p>The watchers were kind, and carried out my directions
+faithfully. I give these minute details to show how much
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span>
+even simple nursing can do to mitigate suffering among
+a people so extremely ignorant as the Bakhtiaris are not
+only of the way to tend the sick, but of the virtues of
+the medicinal plants which grow in abundance around
+them. A medical man itinerating among their camps
+with a light hospital tent and some simple instruments
+and medicines could do a great deal of healing, and
+much also to break down the strong prejudice which
+exists against Christianity. Here, as elsewhere, the
+<i>Hak&#299;m</i> is respected. Going in that capacity I found
+the people docile, respectful, and even grateful. Had I
+gone among them in any other, a Christian Feringhi
+woman would certainly have encountered rudeness and
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>The Ilkhani, who has not been in a hurry to call,
+made a formal visit to-day with his brother, Reza Kuli
+Khan, his eldest son Lutf, another son, Ghulam, with bad
+eyes, and a crowd of retainers. The Hadji Ilkhani,&mdash;Imam
+Kuli Khan, the great feudal chief of the Bakhtiari
+tribes, is a quiet-looking middle-aged man with a short
+black beard, a parchment-coloured complexion, and a face
+somewhat lined, with a slightly sinister expression at
+times. He wore a white felt cap, a blue full-skirted
+coat lined with green, another of fine buff kerseymere
+under it, with a girdle, and very wide black silk trousers.</p>
+
+<p>He is a man of some dignity of deportment, and his
+usual expression is somewhat kindly and courteous. He
+is a devout Moslem, and has a finely-illuminated copy of
+the Koran, which he spends much time in reading. He
+is not generally regarded as a very capable or powerful
+man, and is at variance with the Ilbegi, who, though
+nominally second chief, practically shares his power. In
+fact, at this time serious intrigues are going on, and some
+say that the adherents of the two chiefs would not be
+unwilling to come to open war.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i326" id="i326"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-326.jpg" width="336" height="326" alt="IMAM KULI KHAN" title="" />
+<p class="caption">IMAM KULI KHAN.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The greatest men who in this century have filled the
+office of Ilkhani both perished miserably. The fate of
+Sir H. Layard's friend, Mehemet Taki Khan, is well known
+to all readers of the <i>Early Recollections</i>, but it was
+possibly less unexpected than that of Hussein Kuli Khan,
+brother of the present Ilkhani, and father of the Ilbegi
+Isfandyar Khan. This man was evidently an enlightened
+and able ruler; he suppressed brigandage with a firm hand,
+and desired to see the Mohammerah-Shuster-Isfahan
+route fairly opened to trade. He went so far as to
+promise Mr. Mackenzie, of one of the leading Persian
+Gulf firms, in writing, that he would hold himself
+personally responsible for the safety of caravans in their
+passage through his territory, and would repay any losses
+by robbery. He agreed to take a third share of the
+cost of the necessary steamers on the Karun, and to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span>
+furnish 100 mules for land transport between Shuster
+and Isfahan.<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>
+
+<p>It appears that Persian jealousy was excited by
+his enterprising spirit; he fell under the displeasure
+of the Zil-es-Sultan, and in 1882 was put to death
+by poison while on his annual visit of homage. The
+present Ilkhani, who succeeded him, warned possibly by
+his brother's fate, is said to show little, if any, interest
+in commercial enterprise, and to have made the somewhat
+shrewd remark that the English "under the dress
+of the merchant often conceal the uniform of the soldier."</p>
+
+<p>In 1888 the Shah relented towards Hussein Kuli
+Khan's sons, the eldest of whom, Isfandyar Khan, had
+been in prison for seven years, and they with their uncle,
+Reza Kuli Khan, descended with their followers and a
+small Persian army upon the plain of Chigakhor, where
+they surprised and defeated the Hadji Ilkhani. His
+brother, Reza, was thereupon recognised by the Shah as
+Ilkhani, and Isfandyar as Ilbegi, with the substance of
+power. Another turn of the wheel of fortune, and the
+brothers became respectively Ilkhani and Governor of the
+Chahar Mahals, and their nephew is reinstated as Ilbegi.<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Ilkhani's word is law, within broad limits, among
+the numerous tribes of Bakhtiari Lurs who have consented
+to recognise him as their feudal head, and it has
+been estimated that in a popular quarrel he could bring
+from 8000 to 10,000 armed horsemen into the field. He
+is judge as well as ruler, but in certain cases there is a
+possible appeal to Tihran from his decisions. He is
+appointed by the Shah, with a salary of 1000 <i>tumans</i>
+a year, but a strong man in his position could be
+practically independent.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It can scarcely be supposed that the present Ilkhani
+will long retain his uneasy seat against the intrigues at
+the Persian court, and with a powerful and popular
+rival close at hand. It is manifestly the interest of the
+Shah's government to weaken the tribal power, and
+extinguish the authority and independence of the
+principal chiefs, and the Oriental method of attaining
+this end is by plots and intrigues at the capital, by
+creating and fomenting local quarrels, and by oppressive
+taxation. It is not wonderful, therefore, that many of
+the principal Khans, whose immemorial freedom has been
+encroached upon in many recent years by the Tihran
+Government, should look forward to a day when one of
+the Western powers will occupy south-west Persia, and
+give them security.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Hadji</i> Ilkhani, for the people always prefix the
+religious title, discussed the proposed journey, promised
+me an escort of a horseman and a <i>tufangchi</i>, or foot-soldier,
+begged us to consider ourselves here and everywhere
+as his guests, and to ask for all we want, here and
+elsewhere. His brother, Reza Kuli Khan, who has played
+an important part in tribal affairs, resembles him, but
+the sinister look is more persistent on his face. He
+was much depressed by the fear that he was going blind,
+but on trying my glasses he found he could see. The
+surprise of the old-sighted people when they find that
+spectacles renew their youth is most interesting.</p>
+
+<p>Another visitor has been the Ilbegi, Isfandyar Khan.
+Though not tall, he is very good-looking, and has
+beautiful hands and feet. He is able, powerful, and
+ambitious, inspires his adherents with great personal
+devotion, and is regarded by many as the "coming man."
+He was in Tihran when I was in Julfa, and hearing
+from one of the Ministers that I was about to visit the
+Bakhtiari country, he wrote to a general of cavalry in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span>
+Isfahan, asking him to provide me with an escort if I
+needed it. I was glad to thank him for his courtesy in
+this matter, and for more substantial help. Before his
+visit, his retainer, Mansur, brought me the money of
+which I had been robbed in Kahva Rukh! This man
+absolutely refused a present, saying that his liege lord
+would nearly kill him if he took one. Isfandyar Khan
+welcomed me kindly, regretting much that my first night
+under Bakhtiari rule should have been marked by a
+robbery. He said that before his day the tribesmen not
+only robbed, but killed, and that he had reduced them to
+such order that he was surprised as well as shocked at
+this occurrence. I replied that it occurred in a Persian
+village, and that in many countries one might be robbed,
+but in none that I knew of would such quick restitution
+be made.</p>
+
+<p>In cases of robbery, the Ilkhani sends round to the
+<i>ketchudas</i> or headmen of the camps or villages of the
+offending district, to replace the money, as in my case, or
+the value of the thing taken, after which the thief must
+be caught if possible. When caught, the headmen
+consult as to his punishment, which may be the cutting
+off of a hand or nose, or to be severely branded. In any
+case he must be for the future a marked man. I gather
+that the most severe penalties are rarely inflicted. I
+hope the fine of 800 <i>krans</i> levied on Kahva Rukh may
+stimulate the people to surrender the thief. I agreed to
+forego 200 <i>krans</i>, as Isfandyar Khan says that his men
+raised all they could, and the remaining sum would have
+to be paid by himself.</p>
+
+<p>After a good deal of earnest conversation he became
+frivolous! He asked the Agha his age, and guessed it at
+thirty-five. On being enlightened he asked if he dyed
+his hair, and if his teeth were his own. Then he said
+that he dyed his own hair, and wore artificial teeth. He
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span>
+also asked my age. He and Lutf and Ghulam, the
+Ilkhani's sons, who accompanied him, possess superb
+watches, with two dials, and an arrangement for showing
+the phases of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>Having accepted an invitation from the Ilbegi to visit
+him at Naghun, a village ten miles from Ardal, accompanied
+by Lutf and Ghulam, we were ready at seven,
+the hour appointed, as the day promised to be very hot.
+Eight o'clock came, nine o'clock, half-past nine, and on
+sending to see if the young Khans were coming, the
+servants replied that they had "no orders to wake them."
+So we Europeans broiled three hours in the sun at the
+pleasure of "barbarians"!</p>
+
+<p>During the Ramazan these people revel from sunset
+to sunrise, with feasting, music, singing, and merriment,
+and then they lie in bed till noon or later, to abridge the
+long hours of the fast. "Is it such a fast that I have
+chosen?" may well be asked.</p>
+
+<p>The noise during the night in the Ilkhani's palace is
+tremendous. The festivities begin soon after sunset and
+go on till an hour before dawn. Odours agreeable to
+Bakhtiari noses are wafted down to my tent, but I do
+not find them appetising. An eatable called <i>zalabi</i> is in
+great request during the Ramazan. It is made by mixing
+sugar and starch with oil of sesamum, and is poured on
+ready heated copper trays, and frizzled into fritters.
+Masses of eggs mixed with rice, clarified butter, and jams,
+concealing balls of highly-spiced mincemeat, <i>kabobs</i>, and
+mutton stewed with preserved lemon juice and onions are
+favourite dishes at the Ilkhani's.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the music and singing, the "Court" entertains
+itself nightly with performing monkeys and dancing men,
+besides story-tellers, and reciters of the poetry of Hafiz.
+It is satisfactory to know that the uproarious merriment
+which drifts down to my tent along with odours of perpetual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span>
+frying, owes none of its inspiration to alcohol,
+coffee and <i>sharbat</i> being the drinks consumed.</p>
+
+<p>We rode without a guide down the Ardal valley, took
+the worst road through some deep and blazing gulches,
+found the sun fierce, and the treelessness irksome, saw
+much ploughing, made a long ascent, and stopped short
+of the village of Naghun at a large walled garden on the
+arid hillside, which irrigation has turned into a shady
+paradise of pear, apricot, and walnut trees, with a
+luxurious undergrowth of roses and pomegranates. The
+young Khans galloped up just as we did, laughing heartily
+at having slept so late. All the village men were
+gathered to see the Feringhis, and the Ilbegi and his
+brothers received us at the garden gate, all shaking hands.
+Certainly this Khan has much power in his face, and his
+dignified and easy manner is that of a leader of men.
+His dress was becoming, a handsome dark blue cloak
+lined with scarlet, and with a deep fur collar, over his
+ordinary costume.</p>
+
+<p>So much has been said and written about the Bakhtiaris
+being "savages" or "semi-savages," that the entertainment
+which followed was quite a surprise to me.
+Two fine canopy tents were pitched in the shade, and
+handsome carpets were laid in them, and under a spreading
+walnut tree a <i>karsi</i>, or fire cover, covered with a rug,
+served as a table, and cigarettes, a bowl of ice, a glass jug
+of <i>sharbat</i>, and some tumblers were neatly arranged upon
+it. Iron chairs were provided for the European guests,
+and the Ilbegi, his brothers, the Ilkhani's sons, and others
+sat round the border of the carpet on which they were
+placed. There were fully fifty attendants. Into the
+midst of this masculine crowd, a male nurse brought the
+Ilbegi's youngest child, a dark, quiet, pale, wistful little
+girl of four years old, a daintily-dressed little creature,
+with a crimson velvet cap, and a green and crimson velvet
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span>
+frock. She was gentle and confiding, and liked to remain
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>After a long conversation on subjects more or less
+worth speaking upon, our hosts retired, to sleep under the
+trees, leaving us to eat, and a number of servants brought
+in a large <i>karsi</i> covered with food. Several yards of
+blanket bread, or "flapjacks," served as a table-cloth, and
+another for the dish-cover of a huge <i>pillau</i> in the centre.
+Cruets, plates, knives and forks, iced water, Russian
+lemonade, and tumblers were all provided. The dinner
+consisted of <i>pillau</i>, lamb cutlets, a curried fowl, celery
+with sour sauce, clotted cream, and sour milk. The
+food was well cooked and clean, and the servants, rough
+as they looked, were dexterous and attentive.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, by the Ilbegi's wish, I paid a visit to
+the ladies of his <i>haram</i>. Naghun rivals the other
+villages of the tribes in containing the meanest and
+worst permanent habitations I have ever seen. Isfandyar
+Khan's house is a mud building surrounding a courtyard,
+through which the visitor passes into another, round
+which are the women's apartments. Both yards were
+forlorn, uneven, and malodorous, from the heaps of offal
+and rubbish lying under the hot sun. I was received by
+fifteen ladies in a pleasant, clean, whitewashed apartment,
+with bright rugs and silk-covered pillows on the floor,
+and glass bottles and other ornaments in the <i>takchahs</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the room I was welcomed, not by the
+principal wife, but by a portly middle-aged woman, the
+Khan's sister, and evidently the duenna of the <i>haram</i>, as
+not one of the other women ventured to speak, or to offer
+any courtesies. A chair was provided for me with a
+<i>karsi</i> in front of it, covered with trays of <i>gaz</i> and other
+sweetmeats. Mirza and a male attendant stood in the
+doorway, and outside shoals of women and children on
+tip-toe were struggling for a glance into the room.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span>
+Several slaves were present, coal-black, woolly-headed,
+huge-mouthed negresses. The fifteen ladies held their
+gay <i>chadars</i> to their faces so as to show only one eye, so
+I sent Mirza behind a curtain and asked for the pleasure
+of seeing their faces, when they all unveiled with shrieks
+of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The result was disappointing. The women were all
+young, or youngish, but only one was really handsome.
+The wives are brunettes with long chins. They wore
+gay <i>chadars</i> of muslin, short gold-embroidered jackets,
+gauze chemises, and bright-coloured balloon trousers.
+Three of the others wore black satin balloon trousers,
+black silk jackets, yellow gauze vests, and black <i>chadars</i>
+spotted with white. These three were literally moon-faced,
+like the representations of the moon on old clocks,
+a type I have not yet seen. All wear the hair brought
+to the front, where it hangs in wavy masses on each side
+of the face. They wore black silk gold-embroidered
+skull-caps, set back on their heads, and long chains of
+gold coins from the back to the ear, with two, three, or
+four long necklaces of the same in which the coins were
+very large and handsome. One wife, a young creature,
+was poorly dressed, very dejected-looking, and destitute
+of ornaments. Her mother has since pleaded for something
+"to bring back her husband's love." The eyebrows
+were painted with indigo and were made to meet in a
+point on the bridge of the nose. Each had one stained
+or tattooed star on her forehead, three on her chin, and a
+galaxy on the back of each hand.</p>
+
+<p>Before Mirza reappeared they huddled themselves up
+in their <i>chadars</i> and sat motionless against the wall as
+before. After tea I had quite a lively conversation with
+the Khan's sister, who has been to Basrah, Baghdad, and
+Mecca.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the usual questions as to my age, dyeing my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span>
+hair, painting my face, etc., with suggestions on the
+improvement which their methods would make on my
+eyes and eyebrows, she asked a little about my journeys,
+about the marriage customs of England, about divorce, the
+position of women with us, their freedom, horsemanship,
+and amusements. She said, "We don't ride, we sit on
+horses." Dancing for amusement she could not understand.
+"Our servants dance for us," she said. The
+dancing of men and women together, and the evening
+dress of Englishwomen, she thought contrary to the
+elementary principles of morality. I wanted them to have
+their photographs taken, but they said, "It is not the
+custom of our country; no good women have their pictures
+taken, we should have many things said against us if
+we were made into pictures."</p>
+
+<p>They wanted to give me presents, but I made my
+usual excuse, that I have made a rule not to receive
+presents in travelling; then they said that they would
+go and see me in my tent at Chigakhor, their summer
+quarters, and that I could not refuse what they took in
+their own hands. They greatly desired to see the Agha,
+of whose imposing <i>physique</i> they had heard, but they said
+that the Khan would not like them to go to the garden,
+and that their wish must remain ungratified. "We lead
+such dull lives," the Khan's sister exclaimed; "we never
+see any one or go anywhere." It seems that the slightest
+development of intellect awakens them to the consciousness
+of this deplorable dulness, of which, fortunately,
+the unawakened intelligence is unaware. As a fact, two
+of the ladies have not been out of the Ardal valley, and
+are looking forward to the migration to the Chigakhor
+valley as to a great gaiety.</p>
+
+<p>They asked me if I could read, and if I made carpets?
+They invariably ask if I have a husband and children,
+and when I tell them that I am a widow and childless,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span>
+they simulate weeping for one or two minutes, a hypocrisy
+which, though it proceeds from a kindly feeling, has a
+very painful effect. Their occupation in the winter is a
+little carpet-weaving, which takes the place of our "fancy-work."
+They also make a species of <i>nougat</i>, from the
+manna found on the oaks on some of their mountains,
+mixed with chopped almonds and rose-water. When I
+concluded my visit they sent a servant with me with a
+tray of this and other sweetmeats of their own making.</p>
+
+<p>The party in the garden was a very merry one. The
+Bakhtiaris love fun, and shrieked with laughter at many
+things. This jollity, however, did not exclude topics of
+interesting talk. During this time <i>Karun</i>, a handsome
+chestnut Arab, and my horse <i>Screw</i> had a fierce fight, and
+Karim, a Beloochi, in separating them had his arm severely
+crunched and torn, the large muscles being exposed and
+lacerated. He was brought in faint and bleeding and in
+great pain, and will not be of any use for some time.
+The Agha asked the Ilbegi for two lads to go with him
+to help his servants. The answer was, "We are a wandering
+people, Bakhtiaris cannot be servants, but some of
+our young men will go with you,"&mdash;and three brothers
+joined us there, absolute savages in their ways. A cow
+was offered for the march, and on the Agha jocularly
+saying that he should have all the milk, the Ilbegi said
+that I should have one to myself, and sent two. He
+complained that I did not ask for anything, and said
+that I was their guest so long as I was in their country,
+and must treat them as brothers and ask for all I need.
+"Don't feel as if you were in a foreign land" he said; "we
+love the English."</p>
+
+<p class="sig">I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="letter">LETTER XV</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="letterhead"><span class="smcap">Ardal</span>, <i>May 14</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The week spent here has passed rapidly. There is much
+coming and going. My camp is by the side of a
+frequented pathway, close to a delicious spring, much
+resorted to by Ilyat women, who draw water in <i>mussocks</i>
+and copper pots, and gossip there. The Ilyats are on
+the march to their summer quarters, and the steady tramp
+of their flocks and herds and the bleating of their sheep
+is heard at intervals throughout the nights. Sometimes
+one of their horses or cows stumbles over the tent ropes
+and nearly brings the tent down. Servants of the Ilkhani
+with messages and presents of curds, celery pickled in
+sour cream, and apricots, go to and fro. Sick people
+come at intervals all day long, and the medicine chest is
+in hourly requisition.</p>
+
+<p>The sick are not always satisfied with occasional
+visits to the <i>Hak&#299;m's</i> tent: a man, who has a little
+daughter ill of jaundice, after coming twice for medicine,
+has brought a tent, and has established himself in it with
+his child close to me, and a woman with bad eyes has
+also pitched a tent near mine; at present thirteen people
+come twice daily to have zinc lotion dropped into their
+eyes. The fame of the "tabloids" has been widely
+spread, and if I take common powders out of papers, or
+liquids out of bottles, the people shake their heads and
+say they do not want those, but "the fine medicines out of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span>
+the leather box." To such an extent is this preference
+carried that they reject decoctions of a species of <i>artemisia</i>,
+a powerful tonic, unless I put tabloids of permanganate of
+potash (Condy's fluid) into the bottle before their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>They have no idea of the difference between curable
+and incurable maladies. Many people, stone blind, have
+come long distances for eye-lotion, and to-night a man
+nearly blind came in, leading a man totally blind for
+eight years, asking me to restore his sight. The blind
+had led the blind from a camp twenty-four miles off!
+Octogenarians believe that I can give them back their
+hearing, and men with crippled or paralysed limbs think
+that if I would give them some "Feringhi ointment," of
+which they have heard, they would be restored. Some
+come to stare at a Feringhi lady, others to see my tent,
+which they occasionally say is "fit for Allah," and the
+general result is that I have very little time to myself.</p>
+
+<p>The Ardal plateau is really pretty at this season, and
+I have had many pleasant evening gallops over soft green
+grass and soft red earth. The view from the tent is
+pleasant: on the one side the green slopes which fall
+down to the precipices which overhang the Karun, with
+the snowy mountains, deeply cleft, of the region which is
+still a geographical mystery beyond them; on the other,
+mountains of naked rock with grass running up into
+their ravines, and between them and me billows of grass
+and wild flowers. A barley slope comes down to my
+tent. The stalks are only six inches long, and the ears,
+though ripe, contain almost nothing. Every evening a
+servant of the Ilkhani brings three little wild boars to
+feed on the grain. Farther down the path are the
+servants' and muleteers' camps, surrounded by packing-cases,
+<i>yekdans</i>, mule-bags, nose-bags, gear of all kinds,
+and the usual litter of an encampment.</p>
+
+<p>The men, whether Indian, Persian, Beloochi, or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>
+Bakhtiari, are all quiet and well-behaved. The motto of
+the camps is "Silence is golden." Hadji Hussein is
+quiet in manner and speech, and though he has seven
+muleteers, yells and shouts are unknown.</p>
+
+<p>There is something exciting in the prospect of travelling
+through a region much of which is unknown and
+unmapped, and overlooked hitherto by both geographical
+and commercial enterprise; and in the prospective good
+fortune of learning the manners and customs of tribes
+untouched by European influence, and about whose reception
+of a Feringhi woman doleful prophecies have
+been made.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tur, May 18.</i>&mdash;The last day at Ardal was a busy
+one. Several of the Khans called to take leave. I made
+a farewell visit to the Ilkhani's <i>haram</i>; people came for
+medicines at intervals from 5 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> till 9 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>; numberless
+eye-lotions had to be prepared; stores, straps, ropes, and
+equipments had to be looked to; presents to be given
+to the Ilkhani's servants; native shoes, with webbing
+tops and rag soles, to be hunted for to replace boots
+which could not be mended, and it was late before the
+preparations were completed. During the night some of
+my tent ropes were snapped by a stampede of mules,
+and a heavy thunderstorm coming on with wind and
+rain, the tent flapped about my ears till dawn.</p>
+
+<p>It was very hot when we left the next morning. The
+promised escort was not forthcoming. The details of
+each day's march have been much alike. I start early,
+taking Mirza with me with the <i>shuldari</i>, halt usually
+half-way, and have a frugal lunch of milk and biscuits,
+read till the caravan has passed, rest in my tent
+for an hour, and ride on till I reach the spot chosen
+for the camp. Occasionally on arriving it is found
+that the place selected on local evidence is unsuitable,
+or the water is scanty or bad, and we march farther.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span>
+The greatest luxury is to find the tent pitched, the camp
+bed put up, and the kettle boiling for afternoon tea.
+I rest, write, and work till near sunset, when I dine
+on mutton and rice, and go to bed soon after dark, as I
+breakfast at four. An hour or two is taken up daily
+with giving medicines to sick people.</p>
+
+<p>There are no villages, but camps occur frequently.
+The three young savages brought from Naghun are very
+amusing from the savage freedom of their ways, but they
+exasperate the servants by quizzing and mimicking them.
+The cows are useless. Between them they give at most
+a teacupful of milk, and generally none. Either the
+calves or the boys take it, or the marches are too much
+for them. In the Ilyat camps there is plenty, but as it
+is customary to mix the milk of sheep, goats, and cows,
+and to milk the animals with dirty hands into dirty
+copper pots, and almost at once to turn the milk into a
+sour mass, like whipped cream in appearance, by shaking
+it with some "leaven" in a dirty goat-skin, a European
+cannot always drink it. Indeed, it goes through every
+variety of bad taste.</p>
+
+<p>The camps halt on Sundays, and the men highly
+appreciate the rest. They sleep, smoke, wash and mend
+their clothes, and are in good humour and excellent trim
+on Monday morning, and the mules show their unconscious
+appreciation of a holiday by coming into camp
+kicking and frolicking.</p>
+
+<p>The baggage animals are fine, powerful mules and
+horses, with not a sore back among them. The pack
+saddles and tackle are all in good order. The caravan
+is led by a horse caparisoned with many bells and tassels,
+a splendid little gray fellow, full of pluck and fire, called
+Cock o' the Walk. He comes in at the end of a long
+march, arching his neck, shaking his magnificent mane,
+and occasionally kicking off his load. Sometimes he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span>
+knocks down two or three men, dashes off with his load at
+a gallop, and even when hobbled manages to hop up to the
+two Arabs and challenge them to a fight. These handsome
+horses have some of the qualities for which their breed is
+famous, and are as surefooted as goats, but they are very
+noisy, and they hate each other and disturb the peace of
+the camp by their constant attempts to fight. My horse,
+<i>Screw</i>, can go wherever a mule can find foothold. He
+is ugly, morose, a great fighter, and most uninteresting.
+The donkeys and a fat retriever are destitute of "salient
+points."</p>
+
+<p>Hadji Hussein, the <i>charvadar</i>, has elevated his profession
+into an art. On reaching camp, after unloading,
+each muleteer takes away the five animals for which he
+is responsible, and liberates them, with the saddles on, to
+graze. After a time they drive them into camp, remove the
+saddles, and groom them thoroughly, while the saddler goes
+over the equipments, and does any repairs that are needed.
+After the grooming each muleteer, having examined the
+feet of his animals, reports upon them, and Hadji replaces
+all lost shoes and nails. The saddles and the <i>juls</i> or
+blankets are then put on, the mules are watered in
+batches of five, and are turned loose for the night to feed,
+with two muleteers to watch them by turns. Hadji, whose
+soft voice and courteous manners make all dealings with
+him agreeable, receives his orders for the morrow, and he
+with his young son, Abbas Ali, and the rest of the muleteers,
+camp near my tent, cook their supper of blanket
+bread with <i>mast</i> or curds, roll their heads and persons in
+blankets, put their feet to the fire, and are soon asleep,
+but Hadji gets up two or three times in the night to look
+after his valuable property.</p>
+
+<p>At 4 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> or earlier, the mules are driven into camp,
+and are made fast to ropes, which are arranged the previous
+night by pegging them down in an oblong forty feet by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span>
+twenty. Nose-bags with grain are put on; and as the
+loads are got ready the mules are loaded, with Hadji's help
+and supervision. No noise is allowed during this operation.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour or more the caravan moves, led by Cock
+o' the Walk, usually with two men at his head to moderate
+his impetuosity for a time, with a guide; and Hadji
+on his fine-looking saddle mule looks after the safety of
+everything. He is punctual, drives fast and steadily, and
+always reaches the camping-ground in good time. When
+he gets near it he dismounts, and putting on the air of
+"your most obedient servant," leads in Cock o' the Walk.
+He is really a very gentlemanly man for his position, but
+is unfortunately avaricious, and though he has amassed
+what is, for Persia, a very large fortune, he wears very
+poor clothes, and eats sparingly of the poorest food. He
+is a big man of fifty, wears blue cotton clothing and a
+red turban, is very florid, and having a white or very gray
+beard, has dyed it an orange red with henna.</p>
+
+<p>My servants have fallen fairly well into their work,
+but are frightfully slow. All pitch the tents, and Hassan
+cooks, washes, packs the cooking and table equipments,
+and saddles my horse. Mirza Yusuf interprets, waits on
+me, packs the tent furnishings, rides with me, and is
+always within hearing of my whistle. He is good,
+truthful, and intelligent, sketches with some talent, is
+always cheerful, never grumbles, is quite indifferent to
+personal comfort, gets on well with the people, is obliging
+to every one, is always ready to interpret, and though
+well educated has the good sense not to regard any work
+as "menial." Mehemet Ali, the "superfluity," is a scamp,
+and, I fear, dishonest. The servants feed themselves on
+a <i>kran</i> (8d.) a day, allowed as "road money." Sheep
+are driven with us, and are turned into mutton as required.
+Really, they follow us, attaching themselves to
+the gray horses, and feeding almost among their feet.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span>
+My food consists of roast mutton, rice, <i>chapatties</i>, tea,
+and milk, without luxuries or variety. Life is very
+simple and very free from purposeless bothers. The days
+are becoming very hot, but the nights are cool. The
+black flies and the sand-flies are the chief tormentors.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving Ardal we passed very shortly into a region
+little traversed by Europeans, embracing remarkable
+gorges and singularly abrupt turns in ravines, through
+which the Karun, here a deep and powerful stream, finds
+its way. A deep descent over grassy hills to a rude
+village in a valley and a steep ascent took us to the four
+booths, which are the summer quarters of our former
+escort, Rustem Khan, who received us with courteous
+hospitality, and regaled us with fresh cow's milk in a
+copper basin. He introduced me to twelve women and
+a number of children, nearly all with sore eyes. There
+is not a shadow of privacy in these tents, with open
+fronts and sides. The carpets, which are made by the
+women, serve as chairs, tables, and beds, and the low
+wall of roughly-heaped stones at the back for trunks and
+wardrobe, for on it they keep their "things" in immense
+saddle-bags made of handsome rugs. The visible furniture
+consists of a big copper bowl for food, a small one
+for milk, a huge copper pot for clarifying butter, and a
+goat-skin suspended from three poles, which is jerked by
+two women seated on the ground, and is used for churning
+butter and making curds.</p>
+
+<p>A steep ascent gives a superb view of a confused sea
+of mountains, and of a precipitous and tremendous gorge,
+the Tang-i-Ardal, through which the Karun passes, making
+a singularly abrupt turn after leaving a narrow and
+apparently inaccessible ca&ntilde;on or rift on the south side of
+the Ardal valley. A steep zigzag descent of 600 feet
+in less than three-quarters of a mile brings the path
+down to the Karun, a deep bottle-green river, now
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span>
+swirling in drifts of foam, now resting momentarily in
+quiet depths, but always giving an impression of volume
+and power. Large and small land turtles abound in
+that fiercely hot gorge of from 1000 to 2000 feet deep.
+The narrow road crosses the river on a bridge of two
+arches, and proceeds for some distance at a considerable
+height on its right bank. There I saw natural wood for
+the first time since crossing the Zagros mountains in
+January, and though the oak, ash, and maple are poor and
+stunted, their slender shade was delicious. Roses, irises,
+St. John's wort, and other flowers were abundant.</p>
+
+<p>The path ascends past a clear spring, up steep zigzags
+to a graveyard in which are several stone lions, rudely
+carved, of natural size, facing Mecca-wards, with pistols,
+swords, and daggers carved in relief on their sides, marking
+the graves of fighting men. On this magnificent point
+above the Karun a few hovels, deserted in summer, surrounded
+by apricot trees form the village of Duashda
+Imams, which has a superb view of the extraordinary and
+sinuous chasm through which the Karun passes for many
+miles, thundering on its jagged and fretted course between
+gigantic and nearly perpendicular cliffs of limestone and
+conglomerate. Near this village the pistachio is abundant,
+and planes, willows, and a large-leaved clematis vary the
+foliage.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the river at this point, a somewhat illegible
+path leads through "park-like" scenery, fair slopes of
+grass and flowers sprinkled with oaks singly or in clumps,
+glades among trees in their first fresh green, and evermore
+as a background gray mountains slashed with snow.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these pretty uplands is the Ilyat
+encampment of Martaza, with its black tents, donkeys,
+sheep, goats, and big fierce dogs, which vociferously rushed
+upon <i>Downie</i>, the retriever, and were themselves rushed
+upon and gripped by a number of women. The people,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span>
+having been informed of our intended arrival by Reza Kuli
+Khan, had arranged a large tent with carpets and cushions,
+but we pitched the camps eventually on an oak-covered
+slope, out of the way of the noise, curiosity, and evil odours
+of Martaza. Water is very scarce there, three wells or
+pools, fouled by the feet of animals, being the only
+supply.</p>
+
+<p>I rested on my <i>dhurrie</i> under an oak till the caravan
+came up. It was a sweet place, but was soon invaded,
+and for the rest of the day quiet and privacy were out
+of the question, for presently appeared a fine, florid,
+buxom dame, loud of speech, followed by a number of
+women and children, all as dirty as it is possible to be,
+and all crowded round me and sat down on my carpet.
+This <i>Khanum Shirin</i> is married to the chief or headman,
+but being an heiress she "bosses" the tribe. She brought
+up bolsters and quilts, and begged us to consider themselves,
+the whole region, and all they had as <i>pishkash</i> (a present
+from an inferior to a superior), but when she was asked if
+it included herself, she blushed and covered her face.
+After two hours of somewhat flagging conversation she
+led her train back again, but after my tent was pitched
+she reappeared with a much larger number of women,
+including two betrothed girls of sixteen and seventeen
+years old, who are really beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>These maidens were dressed in clean cotton costumes,
+and white veils of figured silk gauze enveloped them
+from head to foot. They unveiled in my tent, and
+looked more like <i>houris</i> than any women I have seen in
+the East; and their beauty was enhanced by the sweetness
+and maidenly modesty of their expression. I wished
+them to be photographed, and they were quite willing,
+but when I took them outside some men joined the
+crowd and said it should not be, and that when their
+betrothed husbands came home they would tell them
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span>
+how bold and bad they had been, and would have them
+beaten. Although these beauties had been most modest
+and maidenly in their behaviour, they were sent back
+with blows, and were told not to come near us again.
+The Agha entertained the <i>Khanum Shirin</i> for a long time,
+and the conversation was very animated, but when he set
+a very fine musical box going for their amusement the
+lady and the rest of the crowd became quite listless and
+apathetic, and said they much preferred to talk. When
+their prolonged visit came to an end the <i>Khanum</i> led
+her train away, with a bow which really had something
+of graceful dignity in it.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning her husband, the <i>Mollah-i-Martaza</i>,
+and his son, mounted on one horse, came with us as
+guides, and when we halted at their camp the <i>Khanum</i>
+took the whip out of my hand and whipped the women
+all round with it, except the offending beauties, who
+were not to be seen. The <i>mollah</i> is a grave, quiet, and
+most respectable-looking man, more like a thriving
+merchant than a nomad chief, though he does carry
+arms. He is a devout Moslem, and is learned, <i>i.e.</i> he
+can read the Koran.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time the woodland beauty is exchanged
+for weedy hills and slopes strewn with boulders. Getting
+other guides at an Ilyat camp, we ascended Sanginak, a
+mountain 8200 feet high, from the top of which a
+good idea of the local topography is gained. The most
+striking features are the absence of definite peaks and
+the tremendous gorges and abrupt turns of the Karun,
+which swallows in its passage all minor streams.
+Precipitous ranges of great altitude hemmed in by
+ranges yet loftier, snow-covered or snow-patched, with
+deep valleys between them, well grassed and often well
+wooded, great clefts, through which at some seasons
+streams reach the Karun; mountain meadows spotted with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span>
+the black tents of Ilyats, and deserted hovels far below,
+with patches of wheat and barley, make up the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>These hills are covered with celery of immense size.
+The leaves are dried and stacked for fodder, and the
+underground stalks, which are very white, are a great
+article of food, both fresh and steeped for a length of
+time in sour milk. After resting in some Ilyat tents,
+where the people were friendly and dirty, we had a
+most tiresome march over treeless hills covered with
+herbs, and down a steep descent into the Gurab plain,
+on which a great wall of rocky mountains of definite
+and impressive shapes descends in broken spurs. My
+guide, who had never been certain about the way, led
+me wrong. No tents were visible, the nomads I met
+had seen neither tents nor caravan. Two hours went by
+in toiling round the bases of green hills, and then there
+was the joyful surprise of coming upon my tent pitched,
+the kettle boiling, the mules knee-deep in food, close by
+the Chesmeh-i-Gurab, a copious spring of good water, of
+which one could safely drink.</p>
+
+<p>This Gurab plain, one of very many lying high up
+among these Luristan mountains, is green and pretty now&mdash;a
+sea of bulbs and grass, but is brown and dusty from
+early in June onwards. It is about four miles long by
+nine or ten broad, and is watered by a clear and wonderfully
+winding stream, which dwindles to a thread later
+on. The nomads are already coming up.</p>
+
+<p>The rest was much broken by the critical state of
+Karim's arm, which was swelled, throbbing, and inflamed
+all round the wound inflicted by <i>Karun</i> on May 13,
+and he had high fever. It was a helpless predicament,
+the symptoms were so like those of gangrene. I thought
+he would most likely die of the hot marches. It was
+a very anxious night, as all our methods of healing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span>
+were exhausted, and the singular improvement which
+set in and has continued must have been the work of
+the Great Physician, to whom an appeal for help was
+earnestly made. The wound is daily syringed with
+Condy's fluid, the only antiseptic available, and has a
+drainage tube. To-day I have begun to use eucalyptus
+oil, with which the man is delighted, possibly because he
+has heard that it is very expensive, and that I have
+hardly any left!</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday I had the amusement of shifting the camps
+to another place, and Hadji was somewhat doubtful of my
+leadership. On arriving at the beautiful crystal spring
+which the guide had indicated as the halting-place for
+Sunday, I found that it issued from under a mound of
+grass-grown graves, was in the full sun blaze, and at
+the lowest part of the plain. The guide asserted that it
+was the only spring, but having seen a dark stain of
+vegetation high among the hills, I halted the caravan
+and rode off alone in search of the water I hoped it
+indicated, disregarding the suppressed but unmistakably
+sneering laughter of the guide and <i>charvadars</i>. In less
+than a mile I came upon the dry bed of a rivulet, a little
+higher up on a scanty, intermittent trickle, higher still on
+a gurgling streamlet fringed by masses of blue scilla, and
+still higher on a small circular spring of very cold water,
+with two flowery plateaux below it just large enough for
+the camps, in a green quiet corrie, with the mountains
+close behind. Hadji laughed, and the guide insisted that
+the spring was not always there. A delightful place it
+is in which to spend Sunday quietly, with its musical
+ripple of water, its sky-blue carpet of scilla, its beds of
+white and purple irises, its slopes ablaze with the
+<i>Fritillaria imperialis</i>, and its sweet, calm view of the green
+Gurab plain and the silver windings of the Dinarud.</p>
+
+<p>Above the spring is the precipitous hill of Tur, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span>
+the remains of a rude fort on its shattered rocky summit.
+Two similar ruins are visible from Tur, one on a
+rocky ledge of an offshoot of the Kuh-i-Gerra, on the
+other side of the Dinarud valley, the other on the crest
+of a noble headland of the Sanganaki range, which is
+visible throughout the whole region. The local legend concerning
+them is that long before the days of the Parthian
+kings, and when bows and arrows were the only weapons
+known, iron being undiscovered, there was in the neighbourhood
+of Gurab a king called Faruk Padishah, who
+had three sons, Salmon, Tur, and Iraj. It does not
+appear to be usual among the Bakhtiaris for sons to "get
+on" together after their father's death, and the three
+youths quarrelled and built these three impregnable
+forts&mdash;Killa Tur, the one I examined, Killa Iraj, and
+Killa Salmon.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful valley was evidently too narrow for
+their ambition, and leaving their uncomfortable fastnesses
+they went northwards, and founded three empires, Salmon
+to the Golden Horn, where he founded Stamboul,
+Tur to Turkistan, and Iraj became the founder of the
+Iranian Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Killa Tur is a stone building mostly below the surface
+of the hill-top, of rough hewn stone cemented with lime
+mortar of the hardness of concrete. The inner space of
+the fort is not more than eighty square yards. The walls
+are from three to six feet thick.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chigakhor, May 31.</i>&mdash;The last twelve days have been
+spent in marching through a country which has not been
+traversed by Europeans, only crossed along the main
+track. On leaving the pleasant camp of Tur we descended
+to the Gurab plain, purple in patches with a
+showy species of garlic, skirted the base of the Tur spur,
+and rode for some miles along the left bank of the
+Dinarud, which, after watering the plain of Gurab,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span>
+sparkles and rushes down a grassy valley bright with
+roses and lilies, and well wooded with oak, elm, and hawthorn.
+This river, gaining continually in volume, makes
+a turbulent descent to the Karun a few miles from the
+point where we left it. This was the finest day's march
+of the journey. The mountain forms were grander and
+more definite, the vegetation richer, the scenery more
+varied, and a kindlier atmosphere pervaded it. In the
+midst of a wood of fine walnut trees, ash, and hawthorn,
+laced together by the tendrils of vines, a copious stream
+tumbles over rocks fringed with maiden-hair, and sparkles
+through grass purple with orchises. This is the only
+time that I have seen the one or the other in Persia, and
+it was like an unexpected meeting with dear friends.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the Dinarud on a twig bridge, fording a turbulent
+affluent, which bursts full fledged from the mountain
+side, and ascending for some hours through grassy glades
+wooded with oak and elm, we camped for two days on the
+alpine meadow of Arjul, scantily watered but now very
+green. Oak woods come down upon it, the vines are magnificent,
+and there is some cultivation of wheat, which is sown
+by the nomads before their departure in the late autumn,
+and is reaped during their summer sojourn. There are
+no tents there at present, yet from camps near and far,
+on horseback and on foot, people came for eye-lotions, and
+remained at night to have them dropped into their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I was awakened at dawn by Mirza's
+voice calling to me, "Madam, Hadji wants you to come
+down and sew up a mule that's been gored by a wild
+boar." Awfully gored it was. A piece of skin about
+ten inches square was hanging down between its forelegs,
+and a broad wound the depth of my hand and fully a
+foot long extended right into its chest, with a great piece
+taken out. I did what I could, but the animal had to
+be left behind to be cured by the Mollah-i-Martaza, who
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span>
+left us there. Another misfortune to Hadji was the loss
+of the fiery leader of the caravan, Cock o' the Walk, but
+late at night he was brought into camp at Dupulan quite
+crestfallen, having gone back to the rich pastures which
+surround the Chesmeh-i-Gurab. The muleteer who went
+in search of him was attacked by some Lurs and stripped
+of his clothing, but on some men coming up who said
+his master was under the protection of the Ilkhani, his
+clothes and horse were returned to him.</p>
+
+<p>The parallel ranges with deep valleys between them,
+which are such a feature of this country, are seen in perfection
+near Arjul. Some of the torrents of this mountain
+region are already dry, but their broad stony beds,
+full of monstrous boulders, arrest the fury with which at
+times they seek the Karun. One of these, the Imamzada,
+passes through the most precipitous and narrow gorge
+which it is possible to travel, even with unloaded mules.
+The narrow path is chiefly rude rock ladders, threading a
+gorge or chasm on a gigantic scale, with a compressed
+body of water thundering below, concealed mainly by
+gnarled and contorted trees, which find root-hold in every
+rift. Where the chasm widens for a space before
+narrowing to a throat we forded it, and through glades
+and wooded uplands reached Arjul, descending and
+crossing the torrent by the same ford on the march to
+Dupulan the next day.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the loss of two baggage animals and the
+necessary re-adjustment of the loads, I was late in starting
+from Arjul, and the heat as we descended to the
+lower levels was very great, the atmosphere being misty
+as well as sultry. Passing upwards, through glades
+wooded with oaks, the path emerges on high gravelly
+uplands above the tremendous gorge of the Karun, the
+manifold windings of which it follows at a great height.
+From the first sight of this river in the Ardal valley to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span>
+its emergence at Dupulan, just below these heights, it
+has come down with abrupt elbow-like turns and singular
+sinuosities&mdash;a full, rapid, powerful glass-green volume of
+water, through a ravine or gorge or chasm from 1000 to
+2000 feet in depth, now narrowing, now widening, but
+always <i>the</i> feature of the landscape. It would be natural
+to use the usual phrase, and write of the Karun having
+"carved" this passage for itself, but I am more and more
+convinced that this is not the case, but that its waters
+found their way into channels already riven by some of
+those mighty operations of nature which have made of
+this country a region of walls and clefts.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i351" id="i351"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-351-f.jpg" width="450" height="603" alt="THE KARUN AT DUPULAN" title="" />
+<p class="caption">THE KARUN AT DUPULAN.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A long, very steep gravelly descent leads from these
+high lands down to the Karun, and to one of the routes&mdash;little
+used, however&mdash;from Isfahan to Shuster. It is
+reported as being closed by snow four months of the year.
+The scenery changed its aspect here, and for walls and
+parapets of splintered rock there are rounded gravelly
+hills and stretching uplands.</p>
+
+<p>The three groups of most wretched mud hovels which
+form the village of Dupulan ("Two Bridge Place") are
+on an eminence on the left bank of the Karun, which
+emerges from its long imprisonment in a gorge in the
+mountains by a narrow passage between two lofty walls
+of rock so smooth and regular in their slope and so perfect
+a gateway as to suggest art rather than nature. This
+river, the volume of which is rapidly augmenting on its
+downward course, is here compressed into a width of
+about twenty yards.</p>
+
+<p>At this point a stone bridge, built by Hussein Kuli
+Khan, of one large pointed arch with a smaller one for
+the flood, and a rough roadway corresponding to the arch
+in the steepness of its pitch, spans the stream, which
+passes onwards gently and smoothly, its waters a deep
+cool green. Below Dupulan the Karun, which in that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span>
+direction has been explored by several travellers, turns to
+the south-west, and after a considerable bend enters the
+levels above Shuster by a north-westerly course. Near
+the bridge the Karun is joined by the Sabzu, a very
+vigorous torrent from the Ardal plain, which is crossed
+by a twig bridge, safer than it looks.</p>
+
+<p>The camps were pitched in apricot orchards in the
+Sabzu ravine, near some <i>el&aelig;gnus</i> trees, which are now
+bearing their sweet gray and yellow blossoms, which will
+be succeeded by auburn tresses of a woolly but very
+pleasant fruit. Dupulan has an altitude of only 4950
+feet, and in its course from the Kuh-i-Rang to this point
+the Karun has descended about 4000 feet. Though
+there was a breeze, and both ends of my tent and the
+<i>kanats</i> were open, the mercury was at 86&deg; inside, and at
+5 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> at 72&deg; outside (on May 21). There were no supplies,
+and even milk was unattainable.</p>
+
+<p>The road we followed ascends the Dupulan Pass,
+which it crosses at a height of 6380 feet. The path is
+very bad, hardly to be called a path. The valley which
+it ascends is packed with large and small boulders, with
+round water-worn stones among them, and such track as
+there is makes sharp zigzags over and among these rocks.
+<i>Screw</i> was very unwilling to face the difficulties, which
+took two hours to surmount. The ascent was hampered
+by coming upon a tribe of Ilyats on the move, who
+at times blocked up the pass with their innumerable
+sheep and goats and their herds of cattle. Once entangled
+in this migration, it was only possible to move
+on a few feet at a time. It straggled along for more than
+a mile,&mdash;loaded cows and bullocks, innumerable sheep,
+goats, lambs, and kids; big dogs; asses loaded with black
+tents and short tent-poles on the loads; weakly sheep tied
+on donkeys' backs, and weakly lambs carried in shepherds'
+bosoms; handsome mares, each with her foal, running
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span>
+loose or ridden by women with babies seated on the tops
+of loaded saddle-bags made of gay rugs; tribesmen on foot
+with long guns slung behind their shoulders, and big two-edged
+knives in their girdles; sheep bleating, dogs barking,
+mares neighing, men shouting and occasionally firing off
+their guns, the whole ravine choked up with the ascending
+tribal movement.</p>
+
+<p>Half-way up the ascent there is a most striking view
+of mountain ranges cleft by the great chasm of the Karun.
+The descent is into the eastern part of the Ardal valley,
+over arid treeless hillsides partially ploughed, to the
+village of Dehnau, not yet deserted for the summer.
+Fattiallah Khan expected us, and rooms were prepared
+for me in the women's house, which I excused myself
+from occupying by saying that I cannot sleep under a
+roof. I managed also to escape partaking of a huge
+garlicky dinner which was being cooked for me.</p>
+
+<p>The Khan's house or fort, built like all else of mud,
+has a somewhat imposing gateway, over which are the
+men's apartments. The roof is decorated with a number of
+ibex horns. Within is a rude courtyard with an uneven
+surface, on which servants and negro slaves were skinning
+sheep, winnowing wheat, clarifying butter, carding wool,
+cooking, and making cheese. The women's apartments
+are round the courtyard, and include the usual feature
+of these houses, an <i>atrium</i>, or room without a front, and a
+darkish room within. The floor of the <i>atrium</i> was covered
+with brown felts, and there was a mattress for me to sit
+upon. The ruling spirit of the <i>haram</i> is the Khan's
+mother, a comely matron of enormous size, who occasionally
+slapped her son's four young and comely wives when they
+were too "forward." She wore a short jacket, balloon-like
+trousers of violet silk, and a black coronet, to which was
+attached a black <i>chadar</i> which completely enveloped her.</p>
+
+<p>The wives wore figured white <i>chadars</i>, print trousers,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span>
+and strings of coins. Children much afflicted with
+cutaneous maladies crawled on the floor. Heaps of
+servants, negro slaves, old hags, and young girls crowded
+behind and around, all talking at once and at the top of
+their voices, and at the open front the village people
+constantly assembled, to be driven away at intervals
+by a man with a stick. A bowl of cow's milk and
+some barley bread were given to me, and though a
+remarkably dirty negress kept the flies away by flapping
+the milk bowl with a dirty sleeve, I was very grateful
+for the meal, for I was really suffering from the heat and
+fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>A visit to a <i>haram</i> is not productive of mutual
+elevation. The women seem exceedingly frivolous, and
+are almost exclusively interested in the adornment of
+their persons, the dress and ailments of their children,
+and in the frightful jealousies and intrigues inseparable
+from the system of polygamy, and which are fostered by
+the servants and discarded wives. The servile deference
+paid by the other women to the reigning favourite before
+her face, and the merciless persistency of the attempts
+made behind her back to oust her from her position,
+and the requests made on the one hand for charms or
+potions to win or bring back the love of a husband, and
+on the other for something which shall make the favourite
+hateful to him, are evidences of the misery of heart
+which underlies the outward frivolity.</p>
+
+<p>The tone of Fattiallah Khan's <i>haram</i> was not higher
+than usual. The ladies took off my hat, untwisted my
+hair, felt my hands, and shrieked when they found that
+my gloves came off; laughed immoderately at my Bakhtiari
+shoes, which, it seems, are only worn by men; put
+their rings on my fingers, put my hat on their own
+heads, asked if I could give them better hair dyes than
+their own, and cosmetics to make their skins fair; paid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span>
+the usual compliments, told me to regard everything as
+<i>pishkash</i>, asked for medicines and charms, and regretted
+that I would not sleep in their house, because, as they
+said, they "never went anywhere or saw anything."</p>
+
+<p>They have no occupation, except occasionally a little
+embroidery. They amuse themselves, they said, by
+watching the servants at work, and by having girls to
+dance before them. They find the winter, though spent
+in a warm climate, very long and wearisome, and after
+dark employ female professional story-tellers to entertain
+them with love stories. At night the elder lady
+sent three times for a charm which should give her
+daughter the love of her husband. She is married to
+another Khan, and I recalled her as the forlorn-looking
+girl without any jewels who excited my sympathies in
+his house.</p>
+
+<p>Marriages are early among these people. They are
+arranged by the parents of both bride and bridegroom.
+The betrothal feast is a great formality. The "settlements"
+having been made by the bridegroom's father
+and mother, they distribute sweetmeats among the
+members of the bride's family, and some respectable
+men who are present tie a handkerchief round the head
+of the bride, and kiss the hands of her parents as a sign
+of the betrothal. The engagement must be fulfilled by
+the bride's parents under pain of severe penalties, from
+which the bridegroom's parents are usually exempt.
+But, should he prove faithless, he is a marked man.
+It appears that "breach of promise of marriage" is very
+rare. The betrothal may take place at the tenderest age,
+but the marriage is usually delayed till the bride is
+twelve years old, or even older, and the bridegroom is
+from fifteen to eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>The "settlements" made at the betrothal are paid at
+the time of marriage, and consist of a sum of money or
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span>
+cattle, mares, or sheep, according to the circumstances
+of the bridegroom's parents. It is essential among all
+classes that a number of costumes be presented to the
+bride. After the marriage is over her parents bestow a
+suit of clothes on her husband, but these are usually of
+an inferior, or, as my interpreter calls them, of a "trivial"
+description.</p>
+
+<p>A Bakhtiari marriage is a very noisy performance.
+For three days or more, in fact as long as the festivities
+can be afforded, the relations and friends of both parties
+are assembled at the tents of the bride's parents, feasting
+and dancing (men and women on this occasion dancing
+together), performing feats of horsemanship, and shooting
+at a mark. The noise at this time is ceaseless. Drums,
+tom-toms, reeds, whistles, and a sort of bagpipe are all
+in requisition, and songs of love and war are chanted.
+At this time also is danced the national dance, the
+<i>chapi</i>, of which on no other occasion (except a burial)
+can a stranger procure a sight for love or money. It is
+said to resemble the <i>arnaoutika</i> of the modern Greeks;
+any number of men can join in it. The dancers form
+in a close row, holding each other by their <i>kamarbands</i>,
+and swinging along sidewise. They mark the time by
+alternately stamping the heel of the right and left foot.
+The dancers are led by a man who dances apart, waving
+a handkerchief rhythmically above his head, and either
+singing a war song or playing on a reed pipe. After
+the marriage feast the bride follows her husband to his
+father's tent, where she becomes subject to her mother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>The messenger, after looking round to see that there
+were no bystanders, very mysteriously produced from his
+girdle a black, flattish oval stone of very close texture,
+weighing about a pound, almost polished by long handling.
+He told me that it was believed that this stone, if
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span>
+kept in one family for fifty years and steadily worn by
+father and son, would then not only turn to gold, but
+have the power of transmuting any metal laid beside it
+for five years, and he wanted to know what the wisdom
+of the Feringhis knew about it.</p>
+
+<p>I went up to my camp above the village and tried to
+rest there, but the buzz of a crowd outside and the ceaseless
+lifting of curtains and <i>kanats</i> made this quite impossible.
+When I opened the tent I found the crowd
+seated in a semicircle five rows deep, waiting for medicines,
+chiefly eye-lotion, quinine, and cough mixtures. These
+daily assemblages of "patients" are most fatiguing. The
+satisfaction is that some "lame dogs" are "helped over
+stiles," and that some prejudice against Christians is
+removed.</p>
+
+<p>After this Fattiallah Khan, with a number of retainers,
+paid a formal visit to the Agha, who kindly sent for me,
+as I do not receive any but lady visitors in my tent.
+The Khan is a very good-looking and well-dressed man
+of twenty-eight, very amusing, and ready to be amused.
+He was very anxious to be doctored, but looked the
+opposite of a sick man. He and Isfandyar Khan were
+in arms against the Ilkhani two years ago, and a few
+men were shot. He looked as if he were very sorry not
+to have killed him.</p>
+
+<p>The Bakhtiaris have an enormous conceit of themselves
+and their country. It comes out in all ways and
+on all occasions, and their war stories and songs abound
+in legends of singular prowess, one Bakhtiari killing
+twenty Persians, and the like. They represent the power
+of the Shah over them as merely nominal, a convenient
+fiction for the time being, although it is apparent that
+Persia, which for years has been aiming at the extinction
+of the authority of the principal chiefs, has had at least
+a partial success.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At such interviews a private conversation is impossible.
+The manners are those of a feudal <i>r&eacute;gime</i>. Heaps of
+retainers crowd round, and even join in the conversation.
+A servant brought the Khan a handsome <i>kalian</i> to
+smoke three times. He also took tea. A great quantity
+of opium for exportation is grown about Dehnau,
+and the Khan said that the cultivation of it is always
+increasing.</p>
+
+<p>From Dehnau the path I took leads over gravelly
+treeless hills, through many treeless gulches, to the top of
+a great gorge, through which the Sabzu passes as an
+impetuous torrent. The descent to a very primitive
+bridge is long and difficult, a succession of rocky zigzags.
+Picturesqueness is not a usual attribute of mud villages,
+but the view from every point of Chiraz, the village on
+the lofty cliffs on the other side of the stream, is strikingly
+so. They are irregularly covered with houses, partly built
+on them and partly excavated out of them, and behind
+is a cool mass of greenery, apricot orchards, magnificent
+walnut and mulberry trees, great standard hawthorns
+loaded with masses of blossom, wheat coming into ear,
+and clumps and banks of canary-yellow roses measuring
+three inches across their petals. Groups of women, in
+whose attire Turkey red predominated, were on the house
+roofs. Wild flowers abounded, and the sides of the
+craggy path by which I descended were crowded with
+leguminous and umbelliferous plants, with the white and
+pink dianthus, and with the thorny <i>tussocks</i> of the gum
+tragacanth, largely used for kindling, now in full bloom.</p>
+
+<p>As I dragged my unwilling horse down the steep
+descent, his bridle was taken out of my hands, and I was
+welcomed by the brother of Fattiallah Khan, who, with
+a number of village men escorted me over the twig bridge,
+and up to an exquisite halting-place under a large mulberry
+tree, where the next two hours were spent in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span>
+receiving visitors. It is evident that these fine orchards
+must have been the pleasure-ground of some powerful
+ruler, and the immense yellow roses are such as grow in
+one or two places in Kashmir, where they are attributed
+to Jehangir.</p>
+
+<p>The track from Chiraz for many miles follows up
+the right bank of the Sabzu at a great height, descends
+occasionally into deep gulches, crosses the spurs of
+mountains whose rifts give root-hold to contorted "pencil
+cedars," and winds among small ash trees and hawthorns,
+or among rich grass and young wheat, which is grown to
+a considerable extent on the irrigated slopes above the
+river. It is a great surprise to find so much land under
+cultivation, and so much labour spent on irrigation
+channels. Some of these canals are several miles
+in length, and the water always runs in them swiftly,
+and the right way, although the "savages" who make
+them have no levels or any tools but spades.</p>
+
+<p>Mountains, much scored and ca&ntilde;oned by streams,
+very grand in form, and with much snow still upon
+them, rise to a great height above the ranges which form
+the Sabzu valley. From Chaharta, an uninteresting
+camping-ground by the river, I proceeded by an elevated
+and rather illegible track in a easterly direction to the
+meeting of two streams, forded the Sabzu, and camped
+for two days on the green slope of Sabz Kuh, at a
+height of 8100 feet, close to a vigorous spring whose
+waters form many streamlets, fringed by an abundance
+of pink primulas, purple and white orchises, white tulips,
+and small fragrant blue irises.</p>
+
+<p>Lahdaraz is in the very heart of mountain ranges, and
+as the Ilyats have not yet come up so high, there were
+no crowds round my tent for medicine, but one sick
+woman was carried thither eleven miles on the back of
+her husband, who seemed tenderly solicitous about her.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On Monday I spent most of the day 1000 feet
+higher, in most magnificent scenery on an imposing
+scale of grandeur. The guide took us from the camp
+through herbage, snow, and alpine flowers, up a valley
+with fine mountains on either side, terminating on the
+brink of a gigantic precipice, a cloven ledge between
+the Kuh-i-Kaller and a stupendous cliff or headland,
+Sultan Ibrahim, over 12,000 feet, which descends
+in shelving masses to an abyss of tremendous
+depth, where water thunders in a narrow rift. The
+Sabz Kuh, or "green mountain" range, famous for the
+pasturage of its higher slopes, terminates in Sultan
+Ibrahim, and unites at its eastern end with the Kuh-i-Kaller,
+a range somewhat higher. On the east side
+of this huge chasm rises another range of peaks, with
+green shelves, dark rifts, and red precipices, behind
+which rise another, and yet another, whose blue, snow-patched
+summits blended with the pure cool blue of the
+sky. In the far distance, in a blue veil, lies the green-tinted
+plain of Khana Mirza, set as an emerald in this
+savage scenery, with two ranges beyond, and above them
+the great mountain mass of the Riji, whose snowy peaks
+were painted faintly on a faint blue heaven.</p>
+
+<p>That misty valley, irrigated and cultivated, with 100
+villages of the Janiki tribe upon it, is the only fair
+spot in the savage landscape. Elsewhere only a few
+wild flowers and a gnarled juniper here and there relieve
+the fierce, blazing verdurelessness of these stupendous
+precipices. Never, not even among the Himalayas, have
+I seen anything so superlatively grand, though I have
+always imagined that such scenes must exist somewhere
+on the earth. A pair of wild sheep on a ledge, a serpent
+or two, and an eagle soaring sunwards represented animate
+nature, otherwise the tremendous heights above, the
+awful depths below, the snowy mountains, and the valley
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span>
+with its smile, were given over to solitude and silence,
+except for the dull roar of the torrent hurrying down
+to vivify the Khana Mirza plain.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Lahdaraz the path followed the course of
+the Sabzu through grass and barley for a few miles. Then
+there is an abrupt and disagreeable change to yellow
+mud slopes and high mud mountains deeply fissured,
+the scanty herbage already eaten down by Ilyat flocks&mdash;a
+desolate land, without springs, streams, or even Ilyat
+tents. Then comes a precipice at an altitude of 7500
+feet, through a cleft in which, the Tang-i-Wastagun, the
+road passes, and descends to the plain of Gandaman as
+something little better than a sheep track on a steep hillside
+above a stream. The heat was fierce. A pair of
+stout gardening gloves does not preserve the hands from
+blistering. Spectacles with wire gauze sides have to be
+abandoned as they threaten to roast the eyes. In this
+latitude, 32&deg;, the heat of the sun at noon is tremendous.
+At the precipice top I crept into a hole at the base of a
+rock, for "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,"
+till the caravan staggered up. It was difficult to brave
+the sun's direct rays. He looked like a ball of magnesium
+light, white and scintillating, in the unclouded sky.</p>
+
+<p>On crossing the Tang-i-Wastagun we left behind
+the Bakhtiari country proper for a time, and re-entered
+the Chahar Mahals, with their mixed village population
+of Persians and Armenians. The descent from the
+Tang-i-Wastagun is upon a ruined Armenian village with a
+large graveyard. The tombstones are of great size, ten feet
+long by three feet broad and three feet high, sarcophagus-shaped,
+and on each stone are an Armenian epitaph and a
+finely-engraved cross. The plain of Gandaman or Wastagun
+is a very large one, over 7000 feet in altitude, and is surrounded
+mainly by high mountains still snow-patched,
+but to the north by low rocky hills. Much of it is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span>
+irrigated and under cultivation, and grows heavy crops of
+wheat and barley. The pasturage is fine and abundant,
+and the people breed cattle and horses. The uncultivated
+slopes are now covered with red tulips and a purple
+<i>allium</i>, and even the
+dry gravel added largely
+to the daily increasing
+botanical collection.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft"><a name="i362" id="i362"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-362.jpg" width="244" height="506" alt="ALI JAN" />
+<p class="caption">ALI JAN.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The camps were
+pitched on green turf
+near three springs, a
+quiet place, but there
+was little rest. We
+were hardly settled
+before there was a
+severe fight among the
+horses, my sour-tempered
+<i>Screw</i> being the
+aggressor. This was
+hardly quieted when
+there was a sharp
+"scrimmage" between
+the <i>charvadars</i> and the
+Agha's three young
+savages, in which one
+of them, Ali Jan, was
+badly beaten, and came
+to me to have a bleeding
+face and head
+dressed. After that the
+people began to come
+in from the villages
+for eye-washes and medicines. They have no bottles, nor
+have I, and the better-off bring great copper jugs and
+basins for an ounce or two of lotion! A very poor old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span>
+woman much afflicted with ophthalmia said she had
+three sisters all blind, that she had nothing for lotion,
+nothing in the world but a copper cooking pot, and she
+cried piteously. I had nothing to give her, and eventually
+she returned with an egg-shell, with the top neatly
+chipped off. It is the custom to raise the hands to
+heaven and invoke blessings on the <i>Hak&#299;m's</i> head, but I
+never received so many as from this poor creature.</p>
+
+<p>The ride to the village of Gandaman, where we halted
+for two days, was an agreeable one. After being shut up
+among mountains and precipices, space and level ground
+to gallop over are an agreeable change, and in the early
+morning the heat was not excessive. The great plain
+was a truly pastoral scene. Wild-looking shepherds with
+long guns led great brown flocks to the hills; innumerable
+yokes of black oxen, ploughing with the usual iron-shod,
+pointed wooden share, turned over the rich black soil,
+making straight furrows, and crossing them diagonally;
+mares in herds fed with their foals; and shepherds
+busily separated the sheep from the goats.</p>
+
+<p>Close to the filthy walled Armenian village of Kunak
+there is a conical hill with a large fort, in ruinous
+condition, upon it, and not far off are the remains of an
+Armenian village, enclosed by a square wall with a round
+tower at each corner. This must have been until
+recently a place of some local importance, as it is
+approached by a paved causeway, and had an aqueduct,
+now ruinous, carried over the river on three arches. Not
+only the plain but the hill-slopes up to a great height
+are cultivated, and though the latter have the precariousness
+of rain-lands, the crops already in ear promise
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing a spur which descends upon the north side
+of the plain, we reached Gandaman, a good-looking
+walled Moslem village of 196 houses, much planted,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span>
+chiefly with willows, and rejoicing in eight springs, close
+together, the overflow of which makes quite a piece of
+water. It has an <i>imamzada</i> on an eminence and is
+fairly prosperous, for besides pastoral wealth it weaves
+and exports carpets, and dyes cotton and woollen yarn
+with madder and other vegetable dyes. The mountain
+view to the south-west is very fine.</p>
+
+<p>I was in my tent early, but there was little rest, for
+crowds of people with bad eyes and woful maladies
+besieged it until the evening. At noon a gay procession
+crossed the green camping-ground, four mares
+caparisoned in red trappings, each carrying two women
+in bright dresses, but shrouded in pure white sheets bound
+round their heads with silver chains. The <i>ketchuda</i> of
+the Armenian village of Libasgun, two miles off, accompanied
+them, and said that they came to invite me to their
+village, for they are Christians. Then they all made the
+sign of the Cross, which is welcome in this land as a bond
+of brotherhood.</p>
+
+<p>Cleanly, comely, large-eyed, bright-cheeked, and
+wholesome they looked, in their pure white <i>chadars</i>, gay
+red dresses, and embroidered under-vests. They had
+massive silver girdles, weighing several pounds, worn
+there only by married women, red coronets, heavy tiaras of
+silver, huge necklaces of coins, and large filigree silver
+drops attached down the edges of their too open vests.
+Their heavy hair was plaited, but not fastened up. Each
+wore a stiff diamond-shaped piece of white cotton over
+her mouth and the tip of her nose. They said it was
+their custom to wear it, and they would not remove it
+even to eat English biscuits! They managed to drink tea
+by veiling their faces with their <i>chadars</i> and passing the
+cup underneath, but they turned their faces quite away
+as they did it. They had come for the day, and had
+brought large hanks of wool to wind, but the headman
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span>
+had the tact to take them away after arranging for me to
+return the visit in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed an intelligent man. Libasgun, with its 120
+houses, is, according to his account, a prosperous village,
+paying its tax of 300 <i>tumans</i> (&pound;100) a year to the Amin-ud-Daulat,
+and making a present only to the Ilkhani. It
+has 2000 sheep and goats, besides mares and cattle. It
+has an oil mill, and exports oil to Isfahan. The women
+weave carpets, and embroider beautifully on coarse cotton
+woven by themselves, and dyed indigo blue and madder
+red by their Gandaman neighbours. This man is proud
+of being a Christian. Among the Armenians Christianity
+is as much a national characteristic as pride of race and
+strict monogamy. He remarked that there are no sore
+eyes in Libasgun, and attributed it to the greater cleanliness
+of the people and to the cross signed in holy oil
+upon their brows in baptism!</p>
+
+<p>I rode to this village in the late afternoon, and was
+received with much distinction in the <i>balakhana</i> of the
+<i>ketchuda's</i> house, where I was handed to the seat of
+honour, a bolster at the head of the handsomely-carpeted
+room. It soon filled with buxom women in red, with
+jackets displaying their figures, or want of figures, down
+to their waists. From the red velvet coronets on their
+heads hung two graduated rows of silver coins, and their
+muslin <i>chadars</i> were attached to their hair with large
+silver pins and chains. Magnificent necklaces of gold coins
+were also worn.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i366" id="i366"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-366.jpg" width="332" height="422" alt="ARMENIAN WOMEN OF LIBASGUN" />
+<p class="caption">ARMENIAN WOMEN OF LIBASGUN.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Forty women sat on the floor in rows against the
+wall. Each had rosy cheeks, big black eyes, and a
+diamond-shaped white cloth over her mouth. The uniformity
+was shocking. They stared, not at me, but at
+nothing. They looked listless and soulless, only fit to
+be what they are&mdash;the servants of their husbands.
+When they had asked me my age, and why I do not dye
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span>
+my hair, the conversation flagged, for I could not get any
+information from them even on the simplest topics.
+Hotter and hotter grew the room, more stolid the vacancy
+of the eyes, more grotesque the rows of white diamonds
+over the mouths, when the happy thought occurred to
+me to ask to see the embroidered aprons, which every
+girl receives from her mother on her marriage. Two
+mountains of flesh obligingly rolled out of the room, and
+rolled in again bringing some beautiful specimens of
+needlework. This is really what is known as "Russian
+embroidery," cross stitch in artistic colours on coarse red
+or blue cotton. The stomachers are most beautifully
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span>
+worked. The aprons cover the whole of the front and
+the sides of the dress. The mothers begin to embroider
+them when their daughters are ten. The diamond-shaped
+cloth is put on by girls at eight or nine. The women
+would not remove it for a moment even to oblige a guest.
+The perpetual wearing of it is one of their religious
+customs, only prevailing, however, in some localities.
+They say that when our Lord was born His mother in
+token of reverence took a cloth and covered her mouth,
+hence their habit.</p>
+
+<p>When the <i>ketchuda</i> arrived he found the heat of the
+room unbearable and proposed an adjournment to the
+lower roof, which was speedily swept, watered, and
+carpeted.</p>
+
+<p>An elaborate banquet had been prepared in the hope
+that the Agha would pay them a visit, and they were
+much mortified at his non-appearance. The great copper
+basins containing the food were heaped together in the
+middle of the carpets, and the guests, fifty in number, sat
+down, the men on one side, and the women on the other,
+the wives of the <i>ketchuda</i> and his brothers serving.
+There were several <i>samovars</i> with tea, but only three
+cups. A long bolster was the place of honour, and I
+occupied it alone till the village priests arrived,&mdash;reverend
+men with long beards, high black head-dresses, and full
+black cassocks with flowing sleeves. All the guests rose,
+and remained standing till they had been ceremoniously
+conducted to seats. I found them very agreeable and
+cultured men, acquainted with the varying "streams of
+tendency" in the Church of England, and very anxious to
+claim our Church as a sister of their own. This banquet
+was rather a gay scene, and on a higher roof fully one
+hundred women and children dressed in bright red stood
+watching the proceedings below.</p>
+
+<p>I proposed to see the church, and with the priests,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span>
+most of the guests, and a considerable following of the
+onlookers, walked to it through filthy alleys. This
+ancient building, in a dirty and malodorous yard, differs
+externally from the mud houses which surround it only
+in having two bells on a beam. The interior consists
+of four domed vaults, and requires artificial light. A
+vault with a raised floor contains the altar and a badly-painted
+altar-piece representing the B. V.; a rail separates
+the men, who stand in front, from the women, who stand
+behind. A Liturgy and an illuminated medieval copy
+of the Gospels, of which they are very proud, are their
+only treasures. They have no needlework, and the altar
+cloth is only a piece of printed cotton. Nothing could
+well look poorer than this small, dark, vacant building,
+with a few tallow candles without candlesticks giving a
+smoky light.</p>
+
+<p>They have two daily services lasting from one to two
+hours each, and Mass on Sunday is protracted to seven
+hours! The priests said that all the men, except two
+who watch the flocks, and nearly all the women are at
+both services on Sunday, and that many of the men and
+most of the women are at both daily services, one of
+which, as is usual, begins before daylight. There is no
+school. The fathers teach their boys to read and write,
+and the mothers instruct their girls in needlework.</p>
+
+<p>After visits to the priests' houses, a number of
+villagers on horseback escorted me back to Gandaman.
+The heat of those two days was very great for May, the
+mercury marking 83&deg; in the shade at 10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> One
+hundred and thirteen people came for medicines, and in
+their eagerness they swarmed round both ends of the
+tent, blocking out all air. The ailments were much
+more varied and serious than among the Bakhtiaris.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i368" id="i368"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-368-f.jpg" width="635" height="479" alt="WALL AND GATE OF LIBASGUN" />
+<p class="caption">WALL AND GATE OF LIBASGUN.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The last march was a hot and tedious one of eighteen
+miles, along an uninteresting open valley, much ploughed,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span>
+bounded by sloping herbage-covered hills, surmounted by
+parapets of perpendicular rock. After passing the large
+Moslem village of Baldiji, we re-entered the Bakhtiari
+country, ascended to the Bakhtiari village of Dastgird,
+descended to the plain of Chigakhor, skirted its southern
+margin, and on its western side, on two spurs of the
+great Kuh-i-Kaller range, with a ravine between them,
+the camps were pitched. In two days most of the tents
+were blown down, and were moved into two ravines
+with a hill between them, on which the Sahib on his
+arrival pitched his camp.</p>
+
+<p>My ravine has a spring, with exactly space for my
+tent beside it, and a platform higher up with just room
+enough for the servants. A strong stream, rudely brawling,
+issuing from the spring, disturbs sleep. There is
+no possibility of changing one's position by even a six-feet
+stroll, so rough and steep is the ground. Mirza
+bringing my meals from the cooking tent has a stick to
+steady himself. At first there was nothing to see but
+scorched mountains opposite, and the green plain on
+which the ravine opens, but the <i>Hak&#299;m's</i> tent was soon
+discovered, and I have had 278 "patients"! Before I
+am up in the morning they are sitting in rows one
+behind another on the steep ground, their horses and
+asses grazing near them, and all day they come. One of
+the chiefs of the Janiki tribe came with several saddle
+and baggage horses and even a tent, to ask me to go
+with him to the great plain of Khana Mirza, three days'
+march from here, to cure his wife's eyes, and was
+grieved to the heart when I told him they were beyond
+my skill. He stayed while a great number of sick
+people got eye-lotions and medicines, and then asked me
+why I gave these medicines and took so much trouble.
+I replied that our Master and Lord not only commanded
+us to do good to all men as we have opportunity, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span>
+Himself healed the sick. "You call Him Master and
+Lord," he said; "He was a great Prophet. <i>Send a Hak&#299;m
+to us in His likeness.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>I have heard so much of Chigakhor that I am disappointed
+with the reality. There are no trees, most of
+the snow has melted, the mountains are not very bold in
+their features, the plain has a sort of lowland look about
+it, and though its altitude is 7500 feet, the days and
+even nights are very hot. The interest of it lies in
+it being the summer resort of the Ilkhani and Ilbegi,
+a fact which makes it the great centre of Bakhtiari
+life. As many as 400 tents are pitched here in the
+height of the season, and the coming and going of
+Khans and headmen with tribute and on other business
+is ceaseless.</p>
+
+<p>The plain, which is about seven miles long by three
+broad, is quite level. Near the south-east end is a
+shallow reedy mere, fringed by a fertile swampiness, which
+produces extraordinary crops of grass far out into the
+middle of the level.</p>
+
+<p>Near the same end is a rocky eminence or island, on
+which is the fortress castle of the Ilkhani. The "season"
+begins in early June, when the tribes come up from the
+warm pastures of Dizful and Shuster, to which they
+return with their pastoral wealth in the autumn, after
+which the plain is flooded and frozen for the winter. At
+the north end are the villages of Dastgird and Aurugun
+and a great deal of irrigated land producing wheat.
+Except at that end the plain is surrounded by mountains;
+on its southern side, where a part of the Sukhta range
+rises into the lofty peak of Challeh Kuh, with its snow-slashes
+and snow-fields, they attain an altitude of 12,000
+or 13,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy, perhaps not possible, to pass through
+the part of the Bakhtiari country for which we are bound,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span>
+without some sort of assistance from its feudal lords, a
+responsible man, for instance, who can obtain supplies
+from the people. Therefore we have been detained here
+for many days waiting for the expected arrival of the
+Ilkhani. A few days ago a rumour arrived, since unhappily
+continued, that things were in confusion below,
+owing to the discovery of a plot on the part of the
+Ilkhani to murder the Ilbegi. Stories are current of the
+number of persons "put out of the way" before he attained
+his present rank for the second time, and it is not
+"Bakhtiari custom" to be over-scrupulous about human
+life. No doubt his nephew, the Ilbegi, is a very dangerous
+rival, and that his retainers are bent on seeing him in a
+yet higher position than he now occupies.</p>
+
+<p>A truce has been patched up, however, and yesterday
+the Ilkhani and Isfandyar Khan arrived together, with
+their great trains of armed horsemen, their <i>harams</i>, their
+splendid studs, their crowds of unmounted retainers, their
+strings of baggage mules and asses laden with firewood,
+and all the "rag, tag, and bobtail" in attendance on
+Oriental rulers. Following them in endless nocturnal
+procession come up the tribes, and day breaks on an ever-increasing
+number of brown flocks and herds, of mares,
+asses, dogs, black tents, and household goods. When we
+arrived there were only three tents, now the green bases
+of the mountains and all the platforms and ravines where
+there are springs are spotted with them, in rows or semicircles,
+and at night the camp fires of the multitude look
+like the lights of a city. Each clan has a prescriptive
+right to its camping-ground and pasture (though both are
+a fruitful source of quarrels), and arrives with its <i>ketchuda</i>
+and complete social organisation, taking up its position
+like a division of an army.</p>
+
+<p>When in the early morning or afternoon the tribe
+reaches the camping-ground, everything is done in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span>
+most orderly way. The infants are put into their cradles,
+the men clear the ground if necessary, drive the pegs and
+put up the poles, and if there be wood&mdash;of which there is
+not a stick here&mdash;they make a fence of loose branches to
+contain the camp, but the women do the really hard work.
+Their lords, easily satisfied with their modicum of labour,
+soon retire to enjoy their pipes and the endless gossip of
+Bakhtiari life.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i372" id="i372"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-372.jpg" width="374" height="317" alt="A PERSO-BAKHTIARI CRADLE" />
+<p class="caption">A PERSO-BAKHTIARI CRADLE.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>After the ground has been arranged the tents occupy
+invariably the same relative position, whether the camp
+is in a row, a semicircle, a circle, or streets, so that the
+cattle and flocks may easily find their owners' abodes
+without being driven. The tents, which are of black goats'
+hair cloth, are laid out and beaten, and the women spread
+them over the poles and arrange the rest, after which the
+inside is brushed to remove the soot. In a good tent, reed
+screens are put up to divide the space into two or more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span>
+portions, and some of the tribes fence round the whole
+camp with these screens, leaving one opening, and use the
+interior for a sheepfold. The small bushes are grubbed
+up for fuel. The women also draw the water, and the
+boys attend to the flocks. Many of the camps, however,
+have neither fences nor environing screens, and their inmates
+dwell without any attempt at privacy, and rely for
+the safety of their flocks on big and trustworthy dogs,
+of which every camp has a number.</p>
+
+<p>When they move the bulk of the labour again falls
+on the women. They first make the baggage into neat
+small packages suited for the backs of oxen; then they
+take up the tent pegs, throw down the tents, and roll
+them up in the reed screens, all that the men undertake
+being to help in loading the oxen. It is only when a
+division halts for at least some days that this process is
+gone through. In fine weather, if a tribe is marching
+daily to its summer or winter camping-grounds, the
+families frequently sleep in the open.</p>
+
+<p>The chief's tent is always recognisable by its size, and
+is occasionally white. I have seen a tent of a wealthy
+Khan fully sixty feet long. A row of poles not more than
+ten feet high supported the roof, which was of brown
+haircloth, the widths united by a coarse open stitch.
+On the windward side the roof was pinned down nearly
+to the top of a loosely-laid wall of stones about three feet
+high. The leeward side was quite open, and the roof,
+which could be lowered if necessary, was elevated and extended
+by poles six feet high. If the tent was sixty feet
+long, it was made by this arrangement twenty feet broad.
+At the lower end was a great fire-hole in the earth, and
+the floor of the upper end was covered with rugs, quilts,
+and pillows, the household stuff being arranged chiefly on
+and against the rude stone wall.</p>
+
+<p>The process of encamping for a camp of seventy tents
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span>
+takes about two hours, and many interruptions occur,
+especially the clamorous demands of unweaned infants of
+mature years. De-camping the same number of tents
+takes about an hour. A free, wild life these nomads lead,
+full of frays and plots, but probably happier than the
+average lot.</p>
+
+<p>Below the castle is the great encampment of the
+chiefs, brown tents and white bell tents, among which
+the tall white pavilion of the Ilkhani towers conspicuously.
+The Ilkhani and Ilbegi called on me, and as they sat
+outside my tent it was odd to look back two years to
+the time when they were fighting each other, and barely
+two weeks to the discovery of the plot of the dark-browed
+Ilkhani to murder his nephew. The Ilkhani's
+face had a very uncomfortable expression. Intrigues
+against him at Tihran and nearer home, the rumoured
+enmity of the Prime Minister, the turbulence of some of
+the tribes, the growing power of the adherents of Isfandyar
+Khan, and his own baffled plot to destroy him must
+make things unpleasant. Several of the small Khans
+who have been to see me expect fighting here before the
+end of the summer. The Ilkhani had previously availed
+himself of the resources of my medicine chest, and with
+so much benefit that I was obliged to grant a request
+which deprived me of a whole bottle of "tabloids."</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I visited the ladies who are in the castle
+leading the usual dull life of the <i>haram</i>, high above the
+bustle which centres round the Ilkhani's pavilion, with its
+crowds of tribesmen, mares and foals feeding, tethered
+saddle horses neighing, cows being milked, horsemen
+galloping here and there, firing at a mark, asses bearing
+wood and flour from Ardal being unloaded&mdash;a bustle
+masculine solely.</p>
+
+<p>Isfandyar Khan, with whose look of capacity I am
+more and more impressed, and Lutf received us and led
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span>
+us to the great pavilion, which is decorated very handsomely
+throughout with red and blue <i>appliqu&eacute;</i> arabesques,
+and much resembles an Indian <i>durbar</i> tent. A brown
+felt carpet occupied the centre. The Ilkhani, who rose
+and shook hands, sat on one side and the Ilbegi on the
+other, and sons, Khans, and attendants to the number
+of 200, I daresay, stood around. We made some fine
+speeches, rendered finer, doubtless, by Mirza; repeated
+an offer to send a doctor to itinerate in the country
+for some months in 1891, took the inevitable tea, and
+while the escorts were being arranged for I went to the
+fort.</p>
+
+<p>It is the fortress of the Haft Lang, one great
+division of the Bakhtiari Lurs, which supplies the ruling
+dynasty. The building is a parallelogram, flanked by four
+round towers, with large casemates and a keep on its
+southern side. It has two courtyards, surrounded by
+stables and barracks, but there is no water within the
+gates, and earthquakes and neglect have reduced much
+of it to a semi-ruinous condition. Over the gateway and
+along the front is a handsome suite of well-arranged
+balconied rooms, richly decorated in Persian style,
+the front and doors of the large reception-room being
+of fretwork filled in with amber and pale blue glass,
+and the roof and walls are covered with small mirrors
+set so as to resemble facets, with medallion pictures of
+beauties and of the chase let in at intervals. The effect
+of the mirrors is striking, and even beautiful. There
+were very handsome rugs on the floor, and divans
+covered with Kashan velvet; but rugs, divans, and squabs
+were heaped to the depth of some inches with rose petals
+which were being prepared for rose-water, and the principal
+wife rose out of a perfect bed of them.</p>
+
+<p>These ladies have no conversation, and relapse into
+apathy after asking a few personal questions. Again
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span>
+they said they wished to see the Agha, of whose height
+and prowess many rumours had reached them, but when
+I suggested that they might see him from the roof or
+balcony they said they were afraid. Again they said
+they had such dull lives, and regretted my departure, as
+they thought they might come and see my tent. I felt
+sorry for them, sorrier than I can say, as I realised more
+fully the unspeakable degradation and dulness of their
+lives. A perfect rabble of dirty women and children
+filled the passages and staircase.</p>
+
+<p>On one of my last evenings I rode, attended only by
+Mirza, to the village of Dastgird to see two women whose
+husband desired medicines for them. This village is
+piled upon the hillside at the north end of the valley
+and a traveller can be seen afar off. I had never visited
+any of the camps so slenderly escorted, and when I saw
+the roofs covered with men and numbers more running
+to the stream with long guns slung behind their backs
+and big knives in their girdles, I was much afraid that
+they might be rude in the absence of a European man,
+and that I should get into trouble. At the stream the
+<i>ketchuda</i>, whose wives were ill, and several of the
+principal inhabitants met me. They salaamed, touched
+their hearts and brows, two held my stirrups, others
+walked alongside, and an ever-increasing escort took me
+up the steep rude alley of the village to the low arch by
+which the headman's courtyard&mdash;all rocks, holes, and
+heaps&mdash;is entered.</p>
+
+<p>Dismounting was a difficulty. Several men got hold
+of <i>Screw</i>, one made a step of his back, another of his
+knee, one grasped my foot, two got hold of my arms, all
+shouting and disputing as to how to proceed, but somehow
+I was hauled off, and lifted by strong arms up into
+the <i>atrium</i>, the floor of which was covered with their woven
+rugs, across which they led me to an improvised place of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span>
+honour, a <i>karsi</i> covered with a red blanket. A brass
+<i>samovar</i> was steaming hospitably on the floor, surrounded
+by tea-glasses, trays, and sugar. The chief paid me the
+usual Persian compliment, "Your presence purifies the
+house;" men crowded in, shrouded women peeped through
+doorways; they served me on bended knees with tea
+<i>&agrave; la Russe</i>, and though they shouted very loud, and often
+all together, they made me very cordially welcome.
+They send their flocks with some of their people to
+warmer regions for the winter, but the chief and many
+families remain, though the snow is from seven to nine
+feet deep, according to their marks on a post.</p>
+
+<p>I rode to the camp where the wives were, with the
+Khan and a number of men on foot and on horseback,
+a messenger having been sent in advance. In the village
+the great sheep-dogs, as usual, showed extreme hostility,
+and one, madder than the rest, a powerful savage, attacked
+me, fixing his teeth in my stirrup guard, and hanging on.
+The Khan drew a revolver and shot him through the
+back, killing him at once, and threatened to beat the
+owner. <i>Screw</i> was quite undisturbed by the incident.</p>
+
+<p>The power of the <i>ketchuda</i> or headman of a group of
+families is not absolute even in this small area. His
+duties are to arrange the annual migrations, punish small
+crimes summarily, to report larger crimes to the Khan, to
+collect the tribute, conjointly with the Khan, and to carry
+out his orders among the families of his group. Private
+oppression appears to be much practised among the
+<i>ketchudas</i>, and under the feeble rule of Imam Kuli
+Khan to be seldom exposed. The <i>ketchuda's</i> office,
+originally elective, has a great tendency to become hereditary,
+but at any moment the Ilkhani may declare it elective
+in a special case.</p>
+
+<p>Though the offices of Ilkhani and Ilbegi are held only
+annually at the pleasure of the Shah, and the <i>ketchudas</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">378</a></span>
+are properly elective, the office of Khan or chief is strictly
+hereditary, though it does not necessarily fall to the eldest
+son. This element of permanence gives the Khan almost
+supreme authority in his tribe, and when the Ilkhani is
+a weak man and a Khan is a strong one, he is practically
+independent, except in the matter of the tribute to the
+Shah.</p>
+
+<p>It was in curbing the power of these Khans by steering
+a shrewd and even course among their feuds and conflicts,
+by justice and consideration in the collection of
+the revenues, and by rendering it a matter of self-interest
+for them to seek his protection and acknowledge his
+headship, that Sir A. H. Layard's friend, Mohammed
+Taki Khan, succeeded in reducing these wild tribes to
+something like order, and Hussein Kuli Khan, "the last
+real ruler of the Bakhtiaris," pursued the same methods
+with nearly equal success.</p>
+
+<p>But things have changed, and a fresh era of broils
+and rivalries has set in, and in addition to tribal feuds
+and jealousies, the universally-erected line of partisanship
+between the adherents of the Ilkhani and Ilbegi produces
+anything but a pacific prospect. These broils, and the
+prospects of fighting, are the subjects discussed at my tent
+door in the evenings.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="i378" id="i378"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-378-f.jpg" width="711" height="371" alt="A DASTGIRD TENT" />
+<p class="caption">A DASTGIRD TENT.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Dastgird encampment that evening was the
+romance of camp life. On the velvety green grass there
+were four high black canopies, open at the front and sides,
+looking across the green flowery plain, on which the
+Ilkhani's castle stood out, a violet mass against the sunset
+gold, between the snow-streaked mountains. There
+were handsome carpets, mattresses, and bolsters; <i>samovars</i>
+steaming on big brass trays, an abundance of curds, milk,
+and whey, and at one end of the largest tent there were
+two very fine mares, untethered, with young foals, and
+children rolling about among their feet. I was placed,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">379</a></span>
+as usual, on a bolster, and the tent filled with people, all
+shouting, and clamouring together, bringing rheumatism
+("wind in the bones"), sore eyes, headaches ("wind in the
+head"), and old age to be cured. The Khan's wife, a
+handsome, pathetic-looking girl, had become an epileptic
+a fortnight ago. This malady is sadly common. Of the
+278 people who have come for medicines here thirteen
+per cent have had epileptic fits. They call them "faintings,"
+and have no horror of them. Eye diseases, including
+such severe forms as cataract and glaucoma, rheumatism,
+headaches, and dyspepsia are their most severe
+ailments. No people have been seen with chest complaints,
+bone diseases, or cancer.</p>
+
+<p>In the largest tent there was a young mother with an
+infant less than twenty-four hours old, and already its
+eyebrows, or at all events the place where eyebrows will
+be, were deeply stained and curved. At seven or eight
+years old girls are tattooed on hands, arms, neck, and
+chest, and the face is decorated with stars on the forehead
+and chin.</p>
+
+<p>Though children of both sexes are dearly loved
+among these people, it is only at the birth of a son that
+there is anything like festivity, and most of the people
+are too poor to do more even then than distribute sweetmeats
+among their friends and relations. The "wealthier"
+families celebrate the birth of a firstborn son with music,
+feasting, and dancing.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of five or six days the child is named, by
+whispering the Divine name in its ear, along with that
+chosen by the parents.</p>
+
+<p>After a long visit the people all kissed my hand,
+raising it to their foreheads afterwards, and the Khan
+made a mounting block of his back, and rode with me to
+the main path. It was all savage, but the intention was
+throughout courteous, according to their notions. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">380</a></span>
+became pitch dark, and I lost my way, and should have
+pulled <i>Screw</i> over a precipice but for his sagacious self-will.
+One of the finest sights I have seen was my own
+camp in a thunderstorm, with its white tents revealed
+by a flash of lightning, which lighted for a second the
+black darkness of the ravine.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning the Khan of Dastgird's servants
+brought fifteen bottles and pipkins for eye-lotions and
+medicines. In spite of the directions in Persian which
+Mirza put upon the bottles, I doubt not that some of
+the eye-lotions will be swallowed, and that some of the
+medicines will be put into the eyes!</p>
+
+<p><i>June 8.</i>&mdash;The last evening has come after a busy day.
+The difficulties in the way of getting ready for the start
+to-morrow have been great. The iron socket of my tent-pole
+broke, there was no smith in the valley, and when
+one arrived with the Ilkhani, the Ilkhani's direct order
+had to be obtained before he would finish the work he
+had undertaken. I supplied the iron, but then there
+was no charcoal. I have been tentless for the whole
+day. Provisions for forty days have to be taken from
+Chigakhor, and two cwts. of rice and flour have been
+promised over and over again, but have only partially
+arrived to-night. Hassan has bought a horse and a cow,
+and they have both strayed, and he has gone in search of
+them, and Mirza in search of him, and both have been
+away for hours.</p>
+
+<p>Of the escorts promised by the Ilkhani not one man
+has arrived, though it was considered that the letter to
+him given me by the Amin-es-Sultan would have obviated
+any difficulty on this score. An armed sentry was to
+have slept in front of my tent, and a <i>tufangchi</i> was to
+have been my constant attendant, and I have nobody.
+Of the escort promised to the Agha not one man has
+appeared. In this case we are left to do what General
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">381</a></span>
+Schindler and others in Tihran and Isfahan declared to
+be impossible, viz. to get through the country without an
+escort and without the moral support of a retainer high
+in the Ilkhani's service. Whether there have been
+crooked dealings; or whether the Ilkhani, in spite of his
+promises, regards the presence of travellers in his country
+with disfavour; or whether, apprehending a collision, both
+the Ilkhani and Ilbegi are unwilling to part with any of
+their horsemen, it is impossible to decide.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+I. L. B.</p>
+
+<p class="p6 center">END OF VOL. I</p>
+
+<p class="center p6 s07"><i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">R. &amp; R. Clark</span>, <i>Edinburgh.</i></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes p6">
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I left England with a definite object in view, to which others were
+subservient, but it is not necessary to obtrude it on the reader.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> According to the returns for 1889, the British tonnage entering the
+Bushire roadstead was 111,745 out of 118,570 tons, and the imports from
+British territory amounted to a value of &pound;744,018 out of &pound;790,832. The
+exports from Bushire in the same year amounted to &pound;535,076, that of
+opium being largely on the increase. Among other things exported are
+pistachio nuts, gum, almonds, madder, wool, and cotton. Regarding gum,
+the wars in the Soudan have affected the supply of it, and Persia is reaping
+the benefit, large quantities now being collected from certain shrubs, especially
+from the wild almond, which abounds at high altitudes. The drawback
+is that firewood and charcoal are becoming consequently dearer and
+scarcer. The gum exported in 1889 was 7472 cwts., as against 14,918 in
+1888, but the value was more than the same.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">The imports into Bushire, as comparing 1889 with 1888, have
+increased by &pound;244,186, and the exports by &pound;147,862. The value of the
+export of opium, chiefly to China, was &pound;231,521, as against &pound;148,523 in
+1888.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "The Karun River," Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., <i>Proceedings of R.G.S.</i>,
+September 1890.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Sir A. H. Layard describes the interior of the domed building as
+consisting of two chambers, the outer one empty, and the inner one
+containing the Prophet's tomb, built of bricks covered with white stucco,
+and enclosed in a wooden case or ark, over which is thrown a large blue
+cloth, fringed with yellow tassels, the name of the donor being inscribed
+in Hebrew characters upon it.&mdash;Layard's <i>Early Adventures</i>, vol. i.
+p. 214.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A year later in Kurdistan, the <i>zaptiehs</i>, all time-expired soldiers and well
+set up soldierly men, wore neat, serviceable, dark blue braided uniforms,
+and high riding-boots.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> I heard that the Shah had prohibited this "Dead March" to Kerbela,
+on account of the many risks to the public health involved in it, but
+nearly a year later, in Persian Kurdistan, I met, besides thousands of
+living pilgrims, a large caravan of the dead.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Six months later a Bakhtiari chief, a bigoted Moslem, said to me at
+the conclusion of an earnest plea for European medical advice, "Yes,
+Jesus was a great prophet; <i>send us a Hak&#299;m in His likeness</i>," and doubtless
+the nearer that likeness is the greater is the success.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The entire trade of Baghdad is estimated at about &pound;2,500,000, of
+which the Persian transit trade is nearly a quarter. The Persian imports
+and exports through Baghdad are classified thus: Manufactured goods,
+including Manchester piece goods, and continental woollens and cottons,
+7000 to 8000 loads. Indian manufactures, 1000 loads. Loaf sugar,
+chiefly from Marseilles, 6000 loads. Drugs, pepper, coffee, tea, other
+sugars, indigo, cochineal, copper, and spelter, 7000 loads. The Persian
+exports for despatch by sea include wool, opium, cotton, carpets, gum,
+and dried fruits, and for local consumption, among others, tobacco, <i>roghan</i>
+(clarified butter), and dried and fresh fruits, with a probable bulk of from
+12,000 to 15,000 loads.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> I had given up the idea of travelling in Persia, and was preparing to
+leave India for England, when an officer, with whom I was then unacquainted,
+and who was about to proceed to Tihran on business, kindly
+offered me his escort. The journey turned out one of extreme hardship
+and difficulty, and had it not been for his kindness and efficient help I do
+not think that I should have accomplished it.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> I present my diary letters much as they were written, believing
+that the details of travel, however wearisome to the experienced
+traveller, will be interesting to the "Untravelled Many," to whom these
+volumes are dedicated.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Another interest, however, is its connection with many of the romantic
+legends still told of Khosroe Parviz and his beautiful queen, complicated
+with love stories concerning the sculptor Farhad, to whom the Persians
+attribute some of their most famous rock sculptures. One of the most
+romantic of these legends is that Farhad loved Shirin, and that Khosroe
+was aware of it, and promised to give her to him if he could execute the
+impossible task of bringing to the city the abundant waters of the mountains.
+Farhad set himself to the Herculean labour, and to the horror of
+the king nearly accomplished it, when Khosroe, dreading the advancing
+necessity of losing Shirin or being dishonoured, sent to inform him of her
+death. Being at the time on the top of a precipice, urging on the work of
+the aqueduct, the news filled him with such ungovernable despair that
+he threw himself down and was killed.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The Pashalik of Zohab, now Persian territory, is fully described by
+Major Rawlinson in a most interesting paper in <i>The Journal of the Royal
+Geographical Society</i>, vol. ix. part 1, p. 26.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Gen. x. 11; 2 Kings xviii. 11; 1 Chron. v. 26.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See Sir A. H. Layard's <i>Early Adventures</i>, vol. i. p. 217.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> I had the pleasure of seeing Agha Hassan at the British Legation at
+Tihran. He is charming, both in appearance and manner, a specimen of
+the highest type of Arab good breeding, with a courteous kindliness and
+grace of manner, and is said to have made a very favourable impression
+when he went to England lately to be made a C.M.G. Both father and
+son wear the Arab dress, in plain colours but rich materials, with very
+large white turbans of Damascus embroidery in gold silk, and speak only
+Arabic and Persian.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> A journey of nine months in Persia, chiefly in the west and north-west,
+convinced me that this aspect of ruin and decay is universal.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The reader curious as to this and other customs of modern Persia
+should read Dr. Wills's book, <i>The Land of the Lion and the Sun</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> A rug only eight feet by five feet was given me by a Persian in Tihran,
+which was valued for duty at Erzerum at &pound;3 the square yard, with the
+option of selling it to the Custom-house at that price, which implies that
+its value is from 70s. to 80s. per yard. It has a very close pile, nearly as
+short and fine as velvet.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> For the Sasanian inscriptions, vide <i>Early Sasanian Inscriptions</i>, by E.
+Thomas. The great work published by the French Government, <i>Voyage
+en Perse</i>, Paris, 1851, by Messieurs Flandin et Coste, contains elaborate
+and finely-executed representations of these rock sculptures, which are
+mostly of the time of the later Sasanian monarchs.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> This custom, supposed to be an allusion to our Lord and His mother,
+is described by Morier in his <i>Second Journey in Persia</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Jairud exports fruit to K&ucirc;m and even to Tihran, and in the autumn
+I was interested to find that the best pears and peaches in the Hamadan
+market came from its luxuriant orchards.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> I spent two days at K&ucirc;m five weeks later, and saw the whole of it in
+disguise, and in order to attain some continuity of description I put my
+two letters together.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The altitude of Demavend is variously stated.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> I remained for three weeks as Sir H. Drummond Wolff's guest at the
+British Legation, receiving from him that courtesy and considerate kindness
+which all who have been under his roof delight to recall. I saw
+much of what is worth seeing in Tihran, including the Shah and several
+of the Persian statesmen, and left the Legation with every help that
+could be given for a long and difficult journey into the mountains of
+Luristan.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> A volume of travels in Persia would scarcely be complete without some
+slight notice of the northern capital; but for detailed modern accounts of
+it the reader should consult various other books, especially Dr. Wills' and
+Mr. Benjamin's, if he has not already done so.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> There are <i>only</i> two roads, properly so called, in Persia, though in the
+summer wheeled carriages with some assistance can get from place to place
+over several of the tracks. These two are the road from K&ucirc;m to the
+capital, formerly described, and one from Kasvin to the capital, both under
+100 miles in length. Goods are everywhere carried on the backs of animals.</p>
+
+<table class="footnote i10" summary="freight">
+<col width="75" />
+<col width="140" />
+<col width="60" />
+<col width="13" />
+<col width="18" />
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5">The distance between Bushire and Tihran is 698 miles.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The summer</td>
+<td> freight per ton is</td>
+<td class="tdr">&pound;14</td>
+<td>1</td>
+<td>8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The winter</td>
+<td class="tdc">do.</td>
+<td class="tdr">20</td>
+<td> 2</td>
+<td>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5">The distance between Tihran and Resht on the Caspian is 211 miles.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The summer</td>
+<td>freight per ton is</td>
+<td class="tdr">      &pound;4</td>
+<td> 0</td>
+<td> 5&#8536;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The winter</td>
+<td class="tdc">do.</td>
+<td class="tdr">      8</td>
+<td> 0</td>
+<td> 11&#8535;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5">From the Caspian to the Persian Gulf</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>the summer</td>
+<td>freight per ton is</td>
+<td class="tdr">      &pound;18</td>
+<td> 2</td>
+<td> 3</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>The winter</td>
+<td class="tdc">do.</td>
+<td class="tdr">28</td>
+<td>3</td>
+<td> 4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="5">inclusive of some insignificant charges.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="footnote">The time taken for the transit of goods between Bushire and Tihran is
+forty-two days, and between Resht and Tihran twelve days.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">The cost per ton by rail, if taken at Indian rates, between the Gulf and
+the Caspian, would be &pound;3:11:10.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">On these figures the promoters of railway enterprise in Persia build
+their hopes.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Some of the Bakhtiari khans or princes, with their families, are kept
+by the Shah as hostages in and round Tihran for the loyalty of their
+tribes, the conquest of these powerful nomads not being so complete as
+it might and possibly will be.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> On the eve of the day, the last of a festival of ten days, the common
+people kindle rows of bonfires and leap over them; and, though not on
+the same day, but on the night of the 25th of February, sacred in the
+Armenian Church as the day of the presentation of our Lord in the temple,
+large bonfires are lighted on the mud roofs of the Armenians of the
+Persian and Turkish cities, and the younger members of the households
+dance and sing and leap through the flames. Meanwhile the Moslems
+close their windows, so that the sins which the Christians are supposed to
+be burning may not enter. Whether these "Beltane fires" are a relic of
+the ancient fire worship or of still older rites may be a question. Among
+the Christians the custom is showing signs of passing away.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> An experiment I never regretted. Mirza Yusuf was with me for nine
+months, and I found him faithful, truthful, and trustworthy, very hard-working,
+minimising hardships and difficulties, always cheerful, and with
+an unruffled temper, his failings being those of a desk-bred man transplanted
+into a life of rough out-doorishness.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> It is new to me, however, and may be new to a large proportion of the
+"untravelled many" for whom I write.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Major-General Sir R. Murdoch Smith, K.C.M.G., late Director of the
+Persian section of the Indo-European telegraph, read a very interesting
+paper upon it before the Royal Scottish Geographical Society on December
+13, 1888,&mdash;a <i>Sketch of the History of Telegraphic Communication between
+the United Kingdom and India</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> I can imagine now what a hellish laugh that was with which "they
+laughed Him to scorn."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">I was a month in Julfa, but never saw anything more of Isfahan, which
+is such a fanatical city that I believe even so lately as last year none of
+the ladies of the European community had visited it, except one or two
+disguised as Persian women.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Since my visit Mr. Preece, then, and for many previous years, the
+superintending electrician of this section of the Indo-European telegraph,
+has been appointed Consul, the increasing dimensions of English interests
+and the increasing number of resident British subjects rendering the
+creation of a Consulate at Isfahan a very desirable step.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> A few weeks later she died, her life sacrificed, I think, to over-study
+of a difficult language, and the neglect of fresh air and exercise.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> These sentences were written nearly a year ago, but many subsequent
+visits to missions have only confirmed my strong view of the very trying
+nature of at least the early period of a lady missionary's life in the East,
+and of the constant failure of health which it produces; of the great
+necessity there is for mission boards to lay down some general rules of
+hygiene, which shall include the duty of riding on horseback, for more
+rigorous requirements of vigorous <i>physique</i> in those sent out, and above
+all, that the <i>natural characteristics</i> of those who are chosen to be "epistles
+of Christ" in the East shall be such as will not only naturally and specially
+commend the Gospel, but will stand the wear and strain of difficult
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Nearly all my non-registered letters to England failed to reach their
+destination.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> I have written nothing about this fast-increasing sect of the <i>B&#257;bis</i>,
+partly because being a secret sect, I doubt whether the doctrines which
+are suffered to leak out form really any part of its esoteric teaching, and
+partly because those Europeans who have studied the <i>B&#257;bis</i> most candidly
+are diametrically opposed in their views of their tenets and practice, some
+holding that their aspirations are after a purer life, while others, and I
+think a majority, believe that their teachings are subversive of morality
+and of the purity of domestic life.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Screw</i> never became a friend or companion, scarcely a comrade, but
+showed plenty of pluck and endurance, climbed and descended horrible
+rock ladders over which a horse with a rider had never passed before, was
+steady in fords, and at the end of three and a half months of severe
+travelling and occasional scarcity of food was in better condition than
+when he left Julfa.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> He has since been baptized, but for safety had to relinquish his
+business and go to India, where he is supporting himself, and his conduct
+is satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> I never returned, and only at the end of three and a half months
+emerged from the "Bakhtiari country" at Burujird after a journey of
+700 miles.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Hadji Hussein deserves a passing recommendation. I fear that he
+is still increasing his fortune and has not retired. The journey was a
+very severe one, full of peril to his mules from robbers and dangerous
+roads, and not without risk to himself. With the exception of a few
+Orientalisms, which are hardly worth recalling, he was faithful and upright,
+made no attempt to overreach, kept to his bargain, was punctual
+and careful, and at Burujird we parted good friends. He was always most
+respectful to me, and I owe him gratitude for many kindnesses which increased
+my comfort. It is right to acknowledge that a part of the success
+of the journey was owing to the efficiency of the transport.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> The writers who have dealt with some of the earlier portions of
+my route are as follows: Henry Blosse Lynch, Esq., <i>Across Luristan to
+Ispahan&mdash;Proceedings of the R.G.S.</i>, September 1890. Colonel M. S.
+Bell, V.C., <i>A Visit to the Karun River and K&ucirc;m&mdash;Blackwood's Magazine</i>,
+April 1889. Colonel J. A. Bateman Champain, R.E., <i>On the Various
+Means of Communication between Central Persia and the Sea&mdash;Proceedings
+of the R.G.S.</i>, March 1883. Colonel H. L. Wells, R.E., <i>Surveying
+Tours in South-Western Persia&mdash;Proceedings of R.G.S.</i>, March 1883.
+Mr. Stack, <i>Six Months in Persia</i>, London, 1884. Mr. Mackenzie, <i>Speech&mdash;Proceedings
+of R.G.S.</i>, March 1883. The following among other writers
+have dealt with the condition of the Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs, and with the
+geography of the region to the west and south-west of the continuation of
+the great Zagros chain, termed in these notes the "Outer" and "Inner"
+ranges of the Bakhtiari mountains, their routes touching those of the
+present writer at Khuramabad: Sir H. Rawlinson, <i>Notes of a March from
+Zohab to Khuzistan in 1836&mdash;Journal of the R.G.S.</i>, vol. ix., 1839. Sir
+A. H. Layard, <i>Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, including
+a residence among the Bakhtiari and other wild tribes</i>, 2 vols., London,
+1887. Baron C. A. de Bode, <i>Travels in Luristan and Arabistan</i>, 2 vols.,
+London, 1845. W. F. Ainsworth (Surgeon and Geologist to the Euphrates
+Expedition), <i>The River Karun</i>, London, 1890. General Schindler
+travelled over and described the Isfahan and Shuster route, and published
+a map of the country in 1884.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Among the trees and shrubs to be met with are an oak (<i>Quercus
+ballota</i>), which supplies the people with acorn flour, the <i>Platanus</i> and
+<i>Tamariscus orientalis</i>, the jujube tree, two species of elm, a dwarf tamarisk,
+poplar, four species of willow, the apple, pear, cherry, plum, walnut,
+gooseberry, almond, dogwood, hawthorn, ash, lilac, alder, <i>Paliurus aculeatus</i>,
+rose, bramble, honeysuckle, hop vine, grape vine, <i>Clematis orientalis</i>,
+<i>Juniperus excelsa</i>, and hornbeam.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> In Persian <i>haft</i> is seven, and <i>chakar</i> four.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> This computation is subject to correction. Various considerations
+dispose the Ilkhani and the other Khans to minimise or magnify the
+population. It has been stated at from 107,000 to 275,000 souls, and by
+a "high authority" to different persons as 107,000 and 211,000 souls!</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Sir. H. Rawlinson sums up Bakhtiari character in these very severe
+words: "I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel and
+savage character; they pursue their blood-feuds with the most inveterate
+and exterminating spirit, and they consider no oath or obligation in any
+way binding when it interferes with their thirst for revenge; indeed, the
+dreadful stories of domestic tragedy that are related, in which whole
+families have fallen by each other's hands (a son, for instance, having slain
+his father to obtain the chiefship&mdash;another brother having avenged the
+murder, and so on, till only one individual was left), are enough to freeze
+the blood with horror.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">"It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiaris have been obliged to
+forego altogether the reading of the <i>F&#257;htihah</i> or prayer for the dead, for
+otherwise they would have no other occupation. They are also most
+dexterous and notorious thieves. Altogether they may be considered the
+most wild and barbarous of all the inhabitants of Persia."&mdash;"Notes on
+a March from Zohab to Khuzistan," <i>Journal of the R.G.S.</i>, vol. ix.
+Probably there is an improvement since this verdict was pronounced. At
+all events I am inclined to take a much more favourable view of the
+Bakhtiaris than has been given in the very interesting paper from which
+this quotation is made.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> A report to the Foreign Office (No. 207) made by an officer who
+travelled from Khuramabad to Dizful in December 1890, contains the
+following remarks on this route.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">"As to the danger to caravans in passing through these hills, I am
+inclined to believe that the Lurs are now content to abandon robbery with
+violence in favour of payments and contributions from timid traders and
+travellers. They hang upon the rear of a caravan; an accident, a fallen or
+strayed pack animal, or stragglers in difficulty bring them to the spot, and,
+on the pretence of assistance given, a demand is made for money, in lieu
+of which, on fear or hesitation being shown, they obtain such articles as
+they take a fancy to.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">"The tribes through whose limits the road runs have annual allowances
+for protecting it, but it is a question whether these are regularly paid. It
+can hardly be expected that the same system of deferred and reduced payments,
+which unfortunately prevails in the Persian public service, should
+be accepted patiently by a starving people, who have long been given to
+predatory habits, and this may account for occasional disturbance. They
+probably find it difficult to understand why payment of taxes should be
+mercilessly exacted upon them, while their allowances remain unpaid. It
+is generally believed that they would take readily to work if fairly treated
+and honestly paid, and I was told that for the construction of the proposed
+cart-road there would be no difficulty in getting labourers from the
+neighbouring Lur tribes."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The readers interested in such matters will find much carefully-acquired
+information on water distribution, assessments, and tenure of
+land in the second volume of the late Mr. Stack's <i>Six Months in Persia</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Some of the legends connected with these objects are grossly superstitious.
+At Shurishghan there is a "Holy Testament," regarding which
+the story runs that it was once stolen by the Lurs, who buried it under a
+tree by the bank of a stream. Long afterwards a man began to cut down
+the tree, but when the axe was laid to its root blood gushed forth. On
+searching for the cause of this miracle the Gospels were found uninjured
+beneath. It is believed that if any one were to take the Testament away it
+would return of its own accord. It has the reputation of working miracles
+of healing, and many resort to it either for themselves or for their sick
+friends, from Northern Persia and even from Shiraz, as well as from the
+vicinity, and vows are made before it. The gifts presented to it become
+the property of its owners.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> And so it did, though it was then so ill that it seemed unlikely that
+it would live through the night, and I told them so before I gave the
+medicine, lest they should think that I had killed it.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Proceedings of R.G.S.</i>, vol. v. No. 3, New Series.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> I am indebted for the information given above to a valuable paper
+by Mr. H. Blosse Lynch, given in the <i>Proceedings of the R.G.S.</i> for
+September 1890.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan,
+Volume I (of 2), by Isabella L. Bird
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,12681 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I
+(of 2), by Isabella L. Bird
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, Volume I (of 2)
+       Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit
+       to the Nestorian Rayahs
+
+Author: Isabella L. Bird
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2012 [EBook #38827]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNEYS IN PERSIA, KURDISTAN, VOL I ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller, Melissa McDaniel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
+  been preserved.  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+  Two of the Letters are entitled "Letter XIV."
+
+  Macrons (straight lines above the characters) are represented as
+  [=a], [=e], [=i], and [=u].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+     JOURNEYS
+     IN
+     PERSIA AND KURDISTAN
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: MRS. BISHOP (ISABELLA L. BIRD).]
+
+
+
+
+
+     JOURNEYS
+     IN
+     PERSIA AND KURDISTAN
+
+     INCLUDING A SUMMER IN THE UPPER KARUN
+     REGION AND A VISIT TO THE
+     NESTORIAN RAYAHS
+
+     BY MRS. BISHOP
+     (ISABELLA L. BIRD)
+
+     HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
+     AUTHOR OF 'SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS'
+     'UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN,' ETC.
+
+     IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. I.
+
+     WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+     LONDON
+     JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+     1891
+
+
+
+
+
+     TO
+     The Untravelled Many,
+     THESE VOLUMES
+     ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+
+WORKS BY MRS. BISHOP.
+
+
+   "Miss Bird's fascinating and instructive work on Japan fully
+   maintains her well-earned reputation as a traveller of the first
+   order, and a graphic and picturesque writer. Miss Bird is a born
+   traveller, fearless, enthusiastic, patient, instructed, knowing
+   as well what as how to describe. No peril daunts her, no
+   prospect of fatigue or discomfort disheartens or repels
+   her."--_Quarterly Review._
+
+I. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN, Including Visits to the Aborigines of
+Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko and Ise.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+II. A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
+
+With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+III. THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO: Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral
+Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands.
+
+With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
+
+IV. THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE AND THE WAY THITHER.
+
+With Map and Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 14s.
+
+
+JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The letters of which these volumes are composed embrace the second
+half of journeys in the East extending over a period of two years.[1]
+They attempt to be a faithful record of facts and impressions, but
+were necessarily written in haste at the conclusion of fatiguing
+marches, and often in circumstances of great discomfort and
+difficulty, and I relied for their correction in the event of
+publication on notes made with much care. Unfortunately I was robbed
+of nearly the whole of these, partly on my last journey in Persia and
+partly on the Turkish frontier,--a serious loss, which must be my
+apology to the reader for errors which, without this misfortune, would
+not have occurred.
+
+The bibliography of Persia is a very extensive one, and it may well be
+that I have little that is new to communicate, except on a part of
+Luristan previously untraversed by Europeans; but each traveller
+receives a different impression from those made upon his predecessors,
+and I hope that my book may be accepted as an honest attempt to make a
+popular contribution to the sum of knowledge of a country and people
+with which we are likely to be brought into closer relations.
+
+As these volumes are simply travels in Persia and Eastern Asia Minor,
+and are _not a book on either country_, the references to such
+subjects as were not within the sphere of my observation are brief and
+incidental. The administration of government, the religious and legal
+systems, the tenure of land, and the mode of taxation are dismissed in
+a few lines, and social customs are only described when I came in
+contact with them. The Ilyats, or nomadic tribes, form a very
+remarkable element of the population of Persia, but I have only
+noticed two of their divisions--the Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs. The
+antiquities of Persia are also passed over with hardly a remark, as
+well as many other subjects, which have been "threshed out" by
+previous writers with more or less of accuracy.
+
+I make these omissions with all the more satisfaction, because most
+that is "knowable" concerning Persia will be accessible on the
+publication of a work now in the Press, _Persia and the Persian
+Question_, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P., who has not only
+travelled extensively in the country, but has bestowed such enormous
+labour and research upon it, and has had such exceptional
+opportunities of acquiring the latest and best official information,
+that his volumes may fairly be described as "exhaustive."
+
+It is always a pleasant duty to acknowledge kindness, and I am deeply
+grateful to several friends for the help which they have given me in
+many ways, and for the trouble which some of them have taken to
+recover facts which were lost with my notes, as well as for the
+careful revision of a portion of my letters in MS. I am indebted to
+the Indian authorities for the materials for a sketch map, for
+photographs from which many of the illustrations are taken, and for
+the use of a valuable geographical report, and to Mr. Thistleton Dyer,
+Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, for the identification
+of a few of my botanical specimens.
+
+In justice to the many kind friends who received me into their homes,
+I am anxious to disclaim having either echoed or divulged their views
+on Persian or Turkish subjects, and to claim and accept the fullest
+responsibility for the opinions expressed in these pages, which,
+whether right or wrong, are wholly my own. It is from those who know
+Persia and Kurdistan the best that I am sure of receiving the most
+kindly allowance wherever, in spite of an honest desire to be
+accurate, I have fallen into mistakes.
+
+The retention, not only of the form, but of the reality of diary
+letters, is not altogether satisfactory either to author or reader,
+for the author sacrifices the literary and artistic arrangement of his
+materials, and however ruthlessly omissions are made, the reader is
+apt to find himself involved in a multiplicity of minor details,
+treated in a fashion which he is inclined to term "slipshod," and to
+resent the egotism which persistently clings to familiar
+correspondence. Still, even with all the disadvantages of this form of
+narrative, I think that letters are the best mode of placing the
+reader in the position of the traveller, and of enabling him to share,
+not only first impressions in their original vividness, and the
+interests and enjoyments of travelling, but the hardships,
+difficulties, and tedium which are their frequent accompaniments!
+
+For the lack of vivacity which, to my thinking, pervades the following
+letters, I ask the reader's indulgence. They were originally written,
+and have since been edited, under the heavy and abiding shadow, not
+only of the loss of the beloved and only sister who was the
+inspiration of my former books of travel, and to whose completely
+sympathetic interest they owed whatever of brightness they possessed,
+but of my beloved husband, whose able and careful revision
+accompanied my last volume through the Press.
+
+Believing that these letters faithfully reflect what I saw of the
+regions of which they treat, I venture to ask for them the same kindly
+and lenient criticism with which my travels in the Far East and
+elsewhere were received in bygone years, and to express the hope that
+they may help to lead towards that goal to which all increase of
+knowledge of races and beliefs tends--a truer and kindlier recognition
+of the brotherhood of man, as seen in the light of the Fatherhood of
+God.
+
+     ISABELLA L. BISHOP.
+
+     _November 12, 1891._
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] I left England with a definite object in view, to which others
+were subservient, but it is not necessary to obtrude it on the reader.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+IN VOLUME I.
+
+
+     Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird)         _Frontispiece_
+
+     A Gopher                                    _Page_ 19
+
+     A Turkish Frontier Fort             _To face page_ 78
+
+     Lodgings for Travellers                            82
+
+     Persian Bread-making                              159
+
+     The Shrine of Fatima                              167
+
+     A Dervish                                         237
+
+     Castle of Ardal                                   318
+
+     Imam Kuli Khan                                    326
+
+     The Karun at Dupulan               _To face page_ 351
+
+     Ali Jan                                           362
+
+     Armenian Women of Libasgun                        366
+
+     Wall and Gate of Libasgun          _To face page_ 368
+
+     A Perso-Bakhtiari Cradle                          372
+
+     A Dastgird Tent                    _To face page_ 378
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+
+_Abambar_, a covered reservoir.
+
+_Agha_, a master.
+
+_Andarun_, women's quarters, a _haram_.
+
+_Arak_, a coarse spirit.
+
+_Badg[=i]r_, wind-tower.
+
+_Badragah_, a parting escort.
+
+_Balakhana_, an upper room.
+
+_Bringals_, egg plants.
+
+_Chapar_, post.
+
+_Chapar Khana_, post-house.
+
+_Chapi_, the Bakhtiari national dance.
+
+_Charvadar_, a muleteer.
+
+_Far[=a]sh_, _lit._ a carpet-spreader.
+
+_Farsakh_, from three and a half to four miles.
+
+_Gardan_, a pass.
+
+_Gaz_, a sweetmeat made from manna.
+
+_Gelims_, thin carpets, drugget.
+
+_Gheva_, a summer shoe.
+
+_Gholam_, an official messenger or attendant.
+
+_H[=a]kim_, a governor.
+
+_Hak[=i]m_, a physician.
+
+_Hammam_, a Turkish or hot bath.
+
+_Ilyats_, the nomadic tribes of Persia.
+
+_Imam_, a saint, a religious teacher.
+
+_Imamzada_, a saint's shrine.
+
+_Istikbal_, a procession of welcome.
+
+_Jul_, a horse's outer blanket.
+
+_Kabob_, pieces of skewered meat seasoned and toasted.
+
+_Kafir_, an infidel, a Christian.
+
+_Kah_, chopped straw.
+
+_Kajawehs_, horse-panniers.
+
+_Kalian_, a "hubble-bubble" or water-pipe for tobacco.
+
+_Kamarband_, a girdle.
+
+_Kanaat_, an underground water-channel.
+
+_Kanat_, the upright side of a tent.
+
+_Karsi_, a wooden frame for covering a fire-hole.
+
+_Katirgi_ (Turkish), a muleteer.
+
+_Ketchuda_, a headman of a village.
+
+_Khan_, lord or prince; a designation as common as esquire.
+
+_Khan_ (Turkish), an inn.
+
+_Khanjar_, a curved dagger.
+
+_Khanji_ (Turkish), the keeper of a _khan_.
+
+_Khanum_, a lady of rank.
+
+_Khurjins_, saddle bags.
+
+_Kizik_, a slab of animal fuel.
+
+_Kotal_, _lit._ a ladder, a pass.
+
+_Kourbana_ (Syriac), the Holy Communion.
+
+_Kran_, eightpence.
+
+_Kuh_, mountain.
+
+_Lira_ (Turkish), about L1.
+
+_Malek_ (Syriac, _lit._ king), a chief or headman.
+
+_Mamachi_, midwife.
+
+_Mangel_, a brazier.
+
+_Mast_, curdled milk.
+
+_Medresseh_, a college.
+
+_Mirza_, a scribe, secretary, or gentleman. An educated man.
+
+_Modakel_, illicit percentage.
+
+_Mollah_, a religious teacher.
+
+_Munshi_, a clerk, a teacher of languages.
+
+_Namad_, felt.
+
+_Nasr_, steward.
+
+_Odah_ (Turkish), a room occupied by human beings and animals.
+
+_Piastre_, a Turkish coin worth two-pence-halfpenny.
+
+_Pirahan_, a chemise or shirt.
+
+_Pish-kash_, a nominal present.
+
+_Qasha_ (Syriac), a priest.
+
+_Rayahs_, subject Syrians.
+
+_Roghan_, clarified butter.
+
+_Samovar_, a Russian tea-urn.
+
+_Sartip_, a general.
+
+_Seraidar_, the keeper of a caravanserai.
+
+_Sharbat_, a fruit syrup.
+
+_Shroff_, a money-changer.
+
+_Shuldari_ (_Shooldarry_), a small tent with two poles and a ridge
+pole, but without _kanats_.
+
+_Shulwars_, wide trousers.
+
+_Sowar_, a horseman, a horse soldier.
+
+_Takch[=a]h_, a recess in a wall.
+
+_Taktrawan_, a mule litter.
+
+_Tand[=u]r_, an oven in a floor.
+
+_Tang_, a rift or defile.
+
+_Tufangchi_, a foot soldier, an armed footman.
+
+_Tuman_, seven shillings and sixpence.
+
+_Vakil_, an authorised representative.
+
+_Vakil-u-Dowleh_, agent of Government.
+
+_Yabu_, a pony or inferior horse.
+
+_Yailaks_, summer quarters.
+
+_Yekdan_, a mule or camel trunk, made of leather.
+
+_Yohoort_ (Turkish), curdled milk.
+
+_Zaptieh_ (Turkish), a _gendarme_.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+
+     BASRAH, ASIATIC TURKEY, _Jan. 1, 1890_.
+
+A _shamal_ or N.W. wind following on the sirocco which had accompanied
+us up "the Gulf" was lashing the shallow waters of the roadstead into
+reddish yeast as we let go the anchor opposite the sea front of
+Bushire, the most important seaport in Persia. _The_ Persian
+man-of-war _Persepolis_, officered by Germans, H.M. ship _Sphinx_, two
+big steamers owned in London, a British-built three-masted clipper,
+owned and navigated by Arabs, and a few Arab native vessels tugged at
+their anchors between two and three miles from the shore. Native
+_buggalows_ clustered and bumped round the trading vessels, hanging on
+with difficulty, or thumped and smashed through the short waves, close
+on the wind, easily handled and sailing magnificently, while the
+Residency steam-launch, puffing and toiling, was scarcely holding her
+own against a heavy head sea.
+
+Bushire, though it has a number of two-storied houses and a population
+of 15,000, has a most insignificant appearance, and lies so low that
+from the _Assyria's_ deck it gave the impression of being below the
+sea-level. The _shamal_ was raising a sand storm in the desert beyond;
+the sand was drifting over it in yellow clouds, the mountains which at
+a greater or less distance give a wild sublimity to the eastern shores
+of the Gulf were blotted out, and a blurred and windy shore
+harmonised with a blurred and windy sea.
+
+The steam-launch, which after several baffled attempts succeeded in
+reaching the steamer's side, brought letters of welcome from Colonel
+Ross, who for eighteen years has filled the office of British Resident
+in the Persian Gulf with so much ability, judgment, and tact as to
+have earned the respect and cordial esteem of Persians, Arabs, the
+mixed races, and Europeans alike. Of his kindness and hospitality
+there is no occasion to write, for every stranger who visits the Gulf
+has large experience of both.
+
+The little launch, though going shorewards with the wind, was tossed
+about like a cork, shipping deluges of spray, and it was so cold and
+generally tumultuous, that it was a relief to exchange the shallow,
+wind-lashed waters of the roadstead for the shelter of a projecting
+sea-wall below the governor's house. A curricle, with two fiery little
+Arab horses, took us over the low windy stretch of road which lies
+behind Bushire, through a part of the town and round again to the
+sea-shore, on which long yellow surges were breaking thunderously in
+drifts of creamy foam. The Residency, a large Persian house, with that
+sort of semi-fortified look which the larger Eastern houses are apt to
+have, is built round courtyards, and has a fine entrance, which was
+lined with well-set-up men of a Bombay marine battalion. As is usual
+in Persia and Turkey, the reception rooms, living rooms, and guest
+rooms are upstairs, opening on balconies, the lower part being
+occupied by the servants and as domestic offices. Good fires were a
+welcome adjunct to the genial hospitality of Colonel Ross and his
+family, for the mercury, which for the previous week had ranged from
+84 deg. to 93 deg., since the sunrise of that day had dropped to 45 deg., and the
+cold, damp wind suggested an English February. Even the Residency,
+thick as its walls are, was invaded by sea sand, and penetrated by
+the howlings and shriekings of the _shamal_ and the low hiss at
+intervals of wind-blown spray.
+
+This miserable roadstead does a large trade,[2] though every bale and
+chest destined for the cities of the interior must be packed on mules'
+backs for carriage over the horrible and perilous _kotals_ or rock
+ladders of the intervening mountain ranges. The chief caravan route in
+Persia starts from Bushire _via_ Shiraz, Isfahan, Kashan, and Kum, to
+Tihran. A loaded mule takes from thirty to thirty-five days to
+Isfahan, and from Isfahan to Tihran from twelve to sixteen days,
+according to the state of the roads.
+
+Bushire does not differ in appearance from an ordinary eastern town.
+Irregular and uncleanly alleys, dead mud walls, with here and there a
+low doorway, bazars in which the requirements of caravans are largely
+considered, and in which most of the manufactured goods are English, a
+great variety in male attire, some small mosques, a marked
+predominance of the Arab physiognomy and costume, and ceaseless
+strings of asses bringing skins of water from wells a mile from the
+town, are my impressions of the first Persian city that I have ever
+seen. The Persian element, however, except in officialism and the
+style of building, is not strong, the population being chiefly
+composed of "Gulf Arabs." There are nearly fifty European residents,
+including the telegraph staff and the representatives of firms doing a
+very large business with England, the Persian Gulf Trading Company,
+Messrs. Hotz and Company, Messrs. Gray, Paul, and Company, and the
+British India Steam Navigation Company, which has enormously developed
+the trade of the Gulf.
+
+Bushire is the great starting-point of travellers from India who
+desire "to go home through Persia" by Shiraz and Persepolis.
+_Charvadars_ (muleteers) and the necessary outfit are obtainable, but
+even the kindness of the Resident fails to overcome the standing
+difficulty of obtaining a Persian servant who is both capable and
+trustworthy. Having been forewarned by him not to trust to Bushire for
+this indispensable article, I had brought from India a Persian of good
+antecedents and character, who, desiring to return to his own country,
+was willing to act as my interpreter, courier, and sole attendant.
+Grave doubts of his ability to act in the two latter capacities
+occurred to me before I left Karachi, grew graver on the voyage, and
+were quite confirmed as we tossed about in the Residency launch, where
+the "young Persian gentleman," as he styled himself, sat bolt upright
+with a despairing countenance, dressed in a tall hat, a beautifully
+made European suit, faultless tan boots, and snowy collar and cuffs, a
+man of truly refined feeling and manners, but hopelessly out of place.
+I pictured him helpless among the _deshabille_ and roughnesses of a
+camp, and anticipated my insurmountable reluctance to ask of him
+menial service, and was glad to find that the same doubts had occurred
+to himself.
+
+I lost no time in interviewing Hadji,--a Gulf Arab, who has served
+various travellers, has been ten times to Mecca, went to Windsor with
+the horses presented to the Queen by the Sultan of Muscat, speaks more
+or less of six languages, knows English fairly, has some
+recommendations, and professes that he is "up to" all the requirements
+of camp life. The next morning I engaged him as "man of all work," and
+though a big, wild-looking Arab in a rough _abba_ and a big turban,
+with a long knife and a revolver in his girdle, scarcely looks like a
+lady's servant, I hope he may suit me, though with these antecedents
+he is more likely to be a scamp than a treasure.
+
+The continuance of the _shamal_ prevented the steamer from unloading
+in the exposed roadstead, and knocked the launch about as we rejoined
+her. We called at the telegraph station at Fao, and brought off Dr.
+Bruce, the head of the Church Missionary Society's Mission at Julfa,
+whose long and intimate acquaintance with the country and people will
+make him a great acquisition on the Tigris.
+
+"About sixty miles above the bar outside the Shat-el-Arab" (the united
+Tigris and Euphrates), "forty miles above the entrance to that estuary
+at Fao, and twenty miles below the Turkish port of Basrah, the present
+main exit of the Karun river flows into the Shat-el-Arab from the
+north-east by an artificial channel, whose etymology testifies to its
+origin, the Haffar" (dug-out) "canal. When this canal was cut, no one
+knows.... Where it flows into the Shat-el-Arab it is about a quarter
+of a mile in width, with a depth of from twenty to thirty feet.
+
+"The town of Mohammerah is situated a little more than a mile up the
+canal on its right bank, and is a filthy place, with about 2000
+inhabitants, and consists mainly of mud huts and hovels, backed by a
+superb fringe of date palms."[3] In the rose flush of a winter morning
+we steamed slowly past this diplomatically famous confluence of the
+Haffar and Shat-el-Arab, at the angle of which the Persians have
+lately built a quay, a governor's house, and a large warehouse, in
+expectation of a trade which shows few signs of development.
+
+A winter morning it was indeed, splendid and invigorating after the
+ferocious heat of the Gulf. To-day there has been frost!
+
+The Shat-el-Arab is a noble river or estuary. From both its Persian
+and Turkish shores, however, mountains have disappeared, and dark
+forests of date palms intersected by canals fringe its margin heavily,
+and extend to some distance inland. The tide is strong, and such
+native boats as _belems_, _buggalows_, and dug-outs, loaded with
+natives and goods, add a cheerful element of busy life.
+
+We anchored near Basrah, below the foreign settlement, and had the
+ignominy of being placed for twenty-four hours in quarantine, flying
+the degrading yellow flag. Basrah has just been grievously ravaged by
+the cholera, which has not only carried off three hundred of the
+native population daily for some time, but the British Vice-Consul and
+his children. Cholera still exists in Turkey while it is extinct in
+Bombay, and the imposition of quarantine on a ship with a "clean bill
+of health" seems devised for no other purpose than to extract fees, to
+annoy, and to produce a harassing impression of Turkish officialism.
+
+After this detention we steamed up to the anchorage, which is in front
+of a few large bungalows which lie between the belt of palms and the
+river, and form the European settlement of Margil. A fever-haunted
+swamp, with no outlet but the river; canals exposing at low water
+deep, impassable, and malodorous slime separating the bungalows; a
+climate which is damp, hot, malarious, and prostrating except for a
+few weeks in winter, and a total absence of all the resources and
+amenities of civilisation, make Basrah one of the least desirable
+places to which Europeans are exiled by the exigencies of commerce. It
+is scarcely necessary to say that the few residents exercise unbounded
+hospitality, which is the most grateful memory which the stranger
+retains of the brief halt by the "River of Arabia."
+
+This is the dead season in the "city of dates." An unused river
+steamer, a large English trader, two Turkish ships-of-war painted
+white, the _Mejidieh_, one of two English-owned steamers which are
+allowed to ply on the Tigris, and the _Assyria_ of the B.I.S.N. Co.,
+constitute the fleet at anchor. As at Bushire, all cargo must be
+loaded and unloaded by boats, and crowds of native craft hanging on to
+the trading vessels give a little but not much vivacity.
+
+October, after the ingathering of the date harvest, is the busiest
+month here. The magnitude of the date industry may be gathered from
+the fact that in 1890, 60,000 tons of dates were exported from Basrah,
+20,000 in boxes, and the remainder in palm-leaf mats, one vessel
+taking 1800 tons. The quantity of wood imported for the boxes was 7000
+tons in cut lengths, with iron hooping, nails, and oiled paper for
+inside wrapping, brought chiefly from England.
+
+A hundred trees can be grown on an acre of ground. The mature tree
+gives a profit of 4s., making the profit on an acre L20 annually. The
+Governor of Mohammerah has lately planted 30,000 trees, and date palms
+to the number of 60,000 have been recently planted on Persian soil.
+
+It is said that there are 160 varieties of dates, but only a few are
+known to commerce. These great sombre date forests or "date gardens,"
+which no sunshine can enliven, are of course artificial, and depend
+upon irrigation. The palms are propagated by means of suckers taken
+from the female date. The young trees begin to bear when they are
+about five years old, reach maturity at nine, and may be prolific for
+two centuries. Mohammed said wisely, "Honour the palm, it is your
+paternal aunt." One soon learns here that it not only provides the
+people with nutritious food, but with building materials, as well as
+with fuel, carpets, ropes, and mats. But it is the least beautiful of
+the palms, and the dark monotonous masses along the river contrast
+with my memories of the graceful coco palm fringing the coral islands
+of the Pacific.
+
+I left the _Assyria_ with regret. The captain and officers had done
+all that intelligence and kindness could do to make the voyage an
+agreeable one, and were altogether successful. On shore a hospitable
+reception, a good fire, and New Year's Day come together
+appropriately. The sky is clear and cloudless, and the air keen. The
+bungalows belonging to the European firms are dwelling-houses above
+and offices below, and are surrounded by packing-yards and sheds for
+goods. In line with them are the Consulates.
+
+The ancient commercial glories of Basrah are too well known to need
+recapitulation. Circumstances are doing much to give it something of
+renewed importance. The modern Basrah, a town which has risen from a
+state of decay till it has an estimated population of 25,000, is on
+the right bank of the river, at some distance up a picturesque
+palm-fringed canal. Founded by Omar soon after the death of Mohammed,
+and tossed like a shuttlecock between Turk and Persian, it is now
+definitely Turkish, and the great southern outlet of Chaldaea and
+Mesopotamia, as well as the port at which the goods passing to and
+from Baghdad "break bulk." A population more thoroughly polyglot could
+scarcely be found, Turks, Arabs, Sabeans, Syrians, Greeks, Hindus,
+Armenians, Frenchmen, Wahabees, Britons, Jews, Persians, Italians, and
+Africans, and there are even more creeds than races.
+
+_S.S. Mejidieh, River Tigris, Jan. 4._--Leaving Basrah at 4 P.M. on
+Tuesday we have been stemming the strong flood of the Tigris for three
+bright winter days, in which to sit by a red-hot stove and sleep under
+a pile of blankets have been real luxuries after the torrid heat of
+the "Gulf." The party on board consists of Dr. Bruce, Mr. Hammond, who
+has been for some months pushing British trade at Shuster, the
+Assistant Quartermaster-General for India, a French-speaking Jewish
+merchant, the Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., and Mr. Swabadi, a Hungarian
+gentleman in the employment of the Tigris and Euphrates Steam
+Navigation Company, a very scholarly man, who in the course of a long
+residence in Southern Turkey has acquainted himself intimately with
+the country and its peoples, and is ever ready to place his own stores
+of information at our disposal. Mr. Curzon has been "prospecting" the
+Karun river, and came on board from the _Shushan_, a small stern-wheel
+steamer with a carrying capacity of 30 tons, a draught when empty of
+18 inches, and when laden of from 24 to 36. She belongs to the Messrs.
+Lynch Brothers, of the Tigris and Euphrates S.N. Co. They run her once
+a fortnight at a considerable loss between Mohammerah and Ahwaz. Her
+isolated position and diminutive size are a curious commentary on the
+flourish of trumpets and _blether_ of exultation with which the
+English newspapers announced the very poor concession of leave to run
+steamers on the Karun between the Shat-el-Arab and Ahwaz.
+
+[Since this letter was written, things have taken rather a singular
+turn, and the development of trade on the Karun has partly fallen into
+the hands of a trading corporation of Persians, the _Nasiri_ Company.
+By them, and under their representative partner, Haja Mahomad, a man
+of great energy, the formidable rapids at Ahwaz are being circumvented
+by the construction of a tramway 2400 yards long, which is proceeding
+steadily. A merchants' caravanserai has already been built on the
+river bank at the lower landing-place and commencement of the tramway,
+and a bakery, butchery, and carpentry, along with a _cafe_ and a
+grocery and general goods stores, have already been opened by men
+brought to Ahwaz by H. Mahomad.
+
+A river face wall, where native craft are to lie, is being constructed
+of hewn stone blocks and sections of circular pillars, remains of the
+ancient city.
+
+The _Nasiri_ Company has a small steamer, the _Nasiri_, plying on the
+lower Karun, chiefly as a tug, taking up two Arab boats of
+twenty-seven tons each, lashed alongside of her. On her transference
+at the spring floods of this year to the river above Ahwaz, the
+_Karun_, a steam launch of about sixty tons, belonging to the Governor
+of Mohammerah, takes her place below, and a second steamer belonging
+to the same company is now running on the lower stream. Poles from
+Zanzibar have been distributed for a telegraph line from Mohammerah to
+Ahwaz. The Messrs. Lynch have placed a fine river steamer of 300 tons
+on the route; but this enterprising firm, and English capitalists
+generally, are being partially "cut out" by the singular "go" of this
+Persian company, which not only appears to have strong support from
+Government quarters, but has gained the co-operation of the
+well-known and wealthy Sheikh Mizal, whose personal influence in
+Arabistan is very great, and who has hitherto been an obstacle to the
+opening of trade on the Karun.
+
+A great change for the better has taken place in the circumstances of
+the population, and villages, attracted by trade, are springing up,
+which the _Nasiri_ Company is doing its best to encourage. The
+land-tax is very light, and the cultivators are receiving every
+encouragement. Much wheat was exported last year, and there is a brisk
+demand for river lands on leases of sixty years for the cultivation of
+cotton, cereals, sugar-cane, and date palms.
+
+Persian soldiers all have their donkeys, and at Ahwaz a brisk and
+amusing competition is going on between the soldiers of a fine
+regiment stationed there and the Arabs for the transport of goods past
+the rapids, and for the conveyance of tramway and building materials.
+This competition is enabling goods to pass the rapids cheaply and
+expeditiously.
+
+One interesting feature connected with these works is the rapidly
+increased well-being of the Arabs. In less than a year labour at 1
+_kran_ (8d.) a day has put quite a number of them in possession of a
+pair of donkeys and a plough, and seed-corn wherewith to cultivate
+Government lands on their own account, besides leaving a small balance
+in hand on which to live without having to borrow on the coming crop
+at frightfully usurious rates.
+
+Until now the sheikhs have been able to command labour for little more
+than the poorest food; and now many of the very poor who depended on
+them have started as small farmers, and things are rapidly changing.
+
+The careful observer, from whose report on Persia to the Foreign
+Office, No. 207, I have transferred the foregoing facts, wrote in
+January 1891: "It was a sight to see the whole Arab population on the
+river banks hard at work taking advantage of the copious rain which
+had just fallen; every available animal fit for draught was yoked to
+the plough--horses, mules, bullocks, and donkeys, and even mares, with
+their foals following them up the furrows."
+
+This, which is practically a Persian opening of the trade of the
+Karun, is not what was expected, however much it was to be desired.
+After a journey of nine months through Persia, I am strongly of
+opinion that if the Empire is to have a solid and permanent
+resurrection, it must be through the enterprise of Persians, aided it
+may be by foreign skill and capital, though the less of the latter
+that is employed the more hopefully I should regard the Persian
+future. The _Nasiri_ Company and the Messrs. Lynch may possibly unite,
+and the New Road Company may join with them in making a regular
+transport service by river and road to Tihran, by which England may
+pour her manufactured goods even into Northern Persia, as this route
+would compete successfully both with the Baghdad and Trebizond routes.
+
+Already, owing to the improved circumstances of the people, the import
+of English and Indian cotton goods and of sugar has increased; the
+latter, which is French, from its low price, only 21/2d. a pound in the
+Gulf, pushing its way as far north as Sultanabad. Unfortunately the
+shadow of Russia hangs over the future of Persia.]
+
+At present two English and four Turkish boats run on the Tigris. They
+are necessarily of light draught, as the river is shallow at certain
+seasons and is full of shifting sand-banks. The _Mejidieh_ is a
+comfortable boat, with a superabundance of excellent food. Her saloon,
+state-rooms, and engines are on the main deck, which is open fore and
+aft, and has above it a fine hurricane deck, on the fore part of which
+the deck passengers, a motley crowd, encamp. She is fully loaded with
+British goods.
+
+The first object of passing interest was Kornah, reputed among the
+Arabs to be the site of the Garden of Eden, a tongue of land at the
+junction of the Tigris and Euphrates. The "Garden of Eden" contains a
+village, and bright fires burned in front of the mat-and-mud houses.
+Women in red and white, and turbaned men in brown, flitted across the
+firelight; there was a mass of vegetation, chiefly palms with a number
+of native vessels moored to their stems, and a leaning minaret. A
+frosty moonlight glorified the broad, turbid waters, Kornah and the
+Euphrates were left in shadow, and we turned up the glittering
+waterway of the Tigris. The night was too keenly frosty for any dreams
+of Paradise, even in this classic Chaldaea, and under a sky blazing
+down to the level horizon with the countless stars which were not to
+outnumber the children of "Faithful Abraham."
+
+Four hours after leaving Kornah we passed the reputed tomb of Ezra the
+prophet. At a distance and in the moonlight it looked handsome. There
+is a buttressed river wall, and above it some long flat-roofed
+buildings, the centre one surmounted by a tiled dome. The Tigris is so
+fierce and rapid, and swallows its alluvial banks so greedily, that it
+is probable that some of the buildings described by the Hebrew
+traveller Benjamin of Tudela as existing in the twelfth century were
+long since carried away. The tomb is held in great veneration not only
+by Jews and Moslems but also by Oriental Christians. It is a great
+place of Jewish pilgrimage, and is so venerated by the Arabs that it
+needs no guard.[4]
+
+Hadji brought my breakfast, or as he called it, "the grub," the next
+morning, and I contemplated the Son of Abraham with some astonishment.
+He had discarded his turban and _abba_, and looked a regular
+uncivilised desert Ishmaelite, with knives and rosaries in his belt,
+and his head muffled in a _kiffiyeh_, a yellow silk shawl striped with
+red, with one point and tassels half a yard long hanging down his
+back, and fastened round his head by three coils of camel's-hair rope.
+A loose coat with a gay girdle, "breeks" of some kind, loose boots
+turned up at the toes and reaching to the knees, and a striped
+under-garment showing here and there, completed his costume.
+
+The view from the hurricane deck, though there are no striking
+varieties, is too novel to be monotonous. The level plains of Chaldaea,
+only a few feet higher than the Tigris, stretch away to the distant
+horizon, unbroken until to-day, when low hills, white with the first
+snows of winter, are softly painted on a pure blue sky, very far away.
+The plains are buff and brown, with an occasional splash, near
+villages as buff and brown as the soil out of which they rise, of the
+dark-green of date gardens, or the vivid green of winter wheat. With
+the exception of these gardens, which are rarely seen, the vast
+expanse is unbroken by a tree. A few miserable shrubs there are, the
+_mimosa agrestis_ or St. John's bread, and a scrubby tamarisk, while
+liquorice, wormwood, capers, and some alkaline plants which camels
+love, are recognisable even in their withered condition.
+
+There are a few villages of low mud hovels enclosed by square mud
+walls, and hamlets of mat huts, the mats being made of woven sedges
+and flags, strengthened by palm fronds, but oftener by the tall, tough
+stems of growing reeds bent into arches, and woven together by the
+long leaves of aquatic plants, chiefly rushes. The hovels, so
+ingeniously constructed, are shared indiscriminately by the Arabs and
+their animals, and crowds of women and children emerged from them as
+we passed. Each village has its arrangement for raising water from the
+river.
+
+Boats under sail, usually a fleet at a time, hurry downstream, owing
+more to the strong current than to the breeze, or are hauled up
+laboriously against both by their Arab crews.
+
+The more distant plain is sparsely sprinkled with clusters of brown
+tents, long and low, and is dotted over with flocks of large brown
+sheep, shepherded by Arabs in _kiffiyehs_, each shepherd armed with a
+long gun slung over his shoulder. Herds of cattle and strings of
+camels move slowly over the brown plain, and companies of men on
+horseback, with long guns and lances, gallop up to the river bank,
+throw their fiery horses on their haunches, and after a moment of
+gratified curiosity wheel round and gallop back to the desert from
+which they came. Occasionally a stretch of arable land is being
+ploughed up by small buffaloes with most primitive ploughs, but the
+plains are pastoral chiefly, tents and flocks are their chief
+features--features which have changed little since the great Sheikh
+Abraham, whose descendants now people them, left his "kindred" in the
+not distant Ur of the Chaldees, and started on the long march to
+Canaan.
+
+Reedy marshes, alive with water-fowl, arable lands, bare buff plains,
+brown tents, brown flocks, mat huts, mud and brick villages, groups of
+women and children, flights of armed horsemen, alternate rapidly,--the
+unchanging features are the posts and wires of the telegraph.
+
+The Tigris in parts is wonderfully tortuous, and at one great bend,
+"The Devil's Elbow," a man on foot can walk the distance in less than
+an hour which takes the steamer four hours to accomplish. The current
+is very strong, and the slow progress is rendered slower at this
+season of low water by the frequent occurrence of sand-banks, of which
+one is usually made aware by a jolt, a grinding sound, a cessation of
+motion, some turns astern, and then full speed ahead, which often
+overcomes the obstacle. Some hours' delay and the floats of one
+paddle-wheel injured were the most serious disasters brought about;
+and in spite of the shallows at this season, the Tigris is a noble
+river, and the voyage is truly fascinating. Not that there are many
+remarkable objects, but the desert atmosphere and the desert freedom
+are in themselves delightful, the dust and _debris_ are the dust and
+_debris_ of mighty empires, and there are countless associations with
+the earliest past of which we have any records.
+
+Aimarah, a rising Turkish town of about 7000 people, built at a point
+where the river turns at a sharp angle to the left, is interesting as
+showing what commerce can create even here, in less than twenty years.
+A caravan route into Persia was opened and Aimarah does a somewhat
+busy trade. Flat-faced brick buildings, with projecting lattice
+windows, run a good way along the left bank of the river, which is so
+steep and irregular that the crowd which thronged it when the steamer
+made fast was shown to great advantage--Osmanlis, Greeks, Persians,
+Sabeans, Jews of great height and superb _physique_, known by
+much-tasselled turbans, and a predominating Arab element.
+
+We walked down the long, broad, covered bazar, with a broken water
+channel in the middle, where there were crowds, solely of men, meat,
+game, bread, fruit, grain, lentils, horse-shoes, pack saddles,
+Manchester cottons, money-changers, silversmiths, and scribes, and
+heard the roar of business, and the thin shouts of boys unaccustomed
+to the sight of European women. The crowds pressed and followed,
+picking at my clothes, and singing snatches of songs which were not
+complimentary. It had not occurred to me that I was violating rigid
+custom in appearing in a hat and gauze veil rather than in a _chadar_
+and face cloth, but the mistake was made unpleasantly apparent. In
+Moslem towns women go about in companies and never walk with men.
+
+We visited an enclosed square, where there are barracks for _zaptiehs_
+(gendarmes), the Kadi's court, and the prison, which consists of an
+open grating like that of a menagerie, a covered space behind, and
+dark cells or dens opening upon it, all better than the hovels of the
+peasantry. There were a number of prisoners well clothed, and
+apparently well fed, to whom we were an obvious diversion, but the
+guards gesticulated, shouted, and brandished their side-arms, making
+us at last understand that our presence in front of the grating was
+forbidden. After seeing a large barrack yard, and walking, still
+pursued by a crowd, round the forlorn outskirts of Aimarah, which
+include a Sabean village, we visited the gold and silversmiths' shops
+where the Sabeans were working at their craft, of which in this region
+they have nearly a monopoly, not only settling temporarily in the
+towns, but visiting the Arab encampments on the plains, where they are
+always welcome as the makers and repairers of the ornaments with which
+the women are loaded. These craftsmen and others of the race whom I
+have seen differ greatly from the Arabs in appearance, being white
+rather than brown, very white, _i.e._ very pale, with jet-black hair;
+large, gentle, intelligent eyes; small, straight noses, and small,
+well-formed mouths. The handsome faces of these "Christians of St.
+John" are very pleasing in their expression, and there was a dainty
+cleanliness about their persons and white clothing significant of
+those frequent ablutions of both which are so remarkable a part of
+their religion. The children at Aimarah, and generally in the riparian
+villages, wear very handsome chased, convex silver links, each as
+large as the top of a breakfast cup, to fasten their girdles.
+
+The reedy marshes, the haunts of pelicans and pigs, are left behind at
+Aimarah, and tamarisk scrub and liquorice appear on the banks. At
+Kut-al-Aimarah, a small military post and an Arab town of sun-dried
+bricks on the verge of a high bank above the Tigris, we landed again,
+and ragamuffin boys pressed very much upon us, and ragamuffin
+_zaptiehs_,[5] grotesquely dressed in clothes of different European
+nationalities, pelted them with stones. To take up stones and throw
+them at unwelcome visitors is a frequent way of getting rid of them in
+the less civilised parts of the East.
+
+A _zaptieh_ station, barracks, with a large and badly-kept parade
+ground, a covered bazar well supplied, houses with blank walls, large
+_cafes_ with broad matted benches, asafoetida, crowds of men of
+superb _physique_, picturesque Arabs on high-bred horses, and a total
+invisibility of women, were the salient features of Kut-al-Aimarah.
+Big-masted, high-stemmed boats, the broad, turbid Tigris with a great
+expanse of yellowish sand on its farther shore, reeds "shaken with the
+wind," and a windy sky, heavily overcast, made up the view from the
+bank. There were seen for the first time by the new-comers the most
+venerable boats in the world, for they were old even when Herodotus
+mentions them--_kufas_ or _gophers_, very deep round baskets covered
+with bitumen, with incurved tops, and worked by one man with a paddle.
+These remarkable tubs are used for the conveyance of passengers,
+goods, and even animals.
+
+  [Illustration: A GOPHER.]
+
+Before leaving we visited the Arab Khan or Sheikh in his house. He
+received us in an upper room of difficult access, carpeted with very
+handsome rugs, and with a divan similarly covered, but the walls of
+brown mud were not even plastered. His manner was dignified and
+courteous, and his expression remarkably shrewd. A number of men
+sitting on the floor represented by their haughty aspect and
+magnificent _physique_ the royalty of the Ishmaelite descent from
+Abraham. This Khan said that his tribe could put 3000 fighting men
+into the field, but it was obvious that its independence is broken,
+and that these tribal warriors are reckoned as Osmanli irregulars or
+Bashi Bazouks. The Khan remarked that "the English do not make good
+friends, for," he added, "they back out when difficulties arise."
+
+On board the steamer the condition of the Arabs is much discussed,
+and the old residents describe it as steadily growing worse under the
+oppression and corruption of the Osmanli officials, who appear to be
+doing their best to efface these fine riparian tribes by merciless
+exactions coming upon the top of taxation so heavy as to render
+agriculture unprofitable, the impositions actually driving thousands
+of them to seek a living in the cities and to the Persian shores of
+the Gulf, where they exchange a life of hereditary freedom for a
+precarious and often scanty subsistence among unpropitious
+surroundings. Still, the Arab of the desert is not conquered by the
+Turks.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] According to the returns for 1889, the British tonnage entering
+the Bushire roadstead was 111,745 out of 118,570 tons, and the imports
+from British territory amounted to a value of L744,018 out of
+L790,832. The exports from Bushire in the same year amounted to
+L535,076, that of opium being largely on the increase. Among other
+things exported are pistachio nuts, gum, almonds, madder, wool, and
+cotton. Regarding gum, the wars in the Soudan have affected the supply
+of it, and Persia is reaping the benefit, large quantities now being
+collected from certain shrubs, especially from the wild almond, which
+abounds at high altitudes. The drawback is that firewood and charcoal
+are becoming consequently dearer and scarcer. The gum exported in 1889
+was 7472 cwts., as against 14,918 in 1888, but the value was more than
+the same.
+
+The imports into Bushire, as comparing 1889 with 1888, have increased
+by L244,186, and the exports by L147,862. The value of the export of
+opium, chiefly to China, was L231,521, as against L148,523 in 1888.
+
+[3] "The Karun River," Hon. G. Curzon, M.P., _Proceedings of R.G.S._,
+September 1890.
+
+[4] Sir A. H. Layard describes the interior of the domed building as
+consisting of two chambers, the outer one empty, and the inner one
+containing the Prophet's tomb, built of bricks covered with white
+stucco, and enclosed in a wooden case or ark, over which is thrown a
+large blue cloth, fringed with yellow tassels, the name of the donor
+being inscribed in Hebrew characters upon it.--Layard's _Early
+Adventures_, vol. i. p. 214.
+
+[5] A year later in Kurdistan, the _zaptiehs_, all time-expired
+soldiers and well set up soldierly men, wore neat, serviceable, dark
+blue braided uniforms, and high riding-boots.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I (_Continued_)
+
+
+     BAGHDAD, _Jan. 5_.
+
+The last day on the Tigris passed as pleasantly as its predecessors.
+There was rain in the early morning, then frost which froze the rain
+on deck, and at 7 A.M. the mercury in my cabin stood at 28 deg.
+
+In the afternoon the country became more populous, that is, there were
+_kraals_ of mat huts at frequent intervals, and groups of tents to
+which an external wall of mats gave a certain aspect of permanence.
+Increased cultivation accompanied the increased population. In some
+places the ground was being scratched with a primitive plough of
+unshod wood, or a branch of a tree slightly trimmed, leaving a scar
+about two inches deep. These scars, which pass for furrows, are about
+ten inches apart, and camel thorn, tamarisk, and other shrubs inimical
+to crops stand between them. The seed is now being sown. After it
+comes up it grows apace, and in spite of shallow scratches, camel
+thorn, and tamarisk the tilth is so luxuriant that the husbandmen
+actually turn cattle and sheep into it for two or three weeks, and
+then leave it to throw up the ear! They say that there are from
+eighteen to thirty-five stalks from each seed in consequence of this
+process! The harvest is reaped in April, after which water covers the
+land.
+
+Another style of cultivation is adopted for land, of which we saw a
+good deal, very low lying, and annually overflowed, usually
+surrounding a nucleus of permanent marsh. This land, after the water
+dries up, is destitute of vegetation, and presents a smooth, moist
+surface full of cracks, which scales off later. No scratching is
+needed for this soil. The seed is sown broadcast over it, and such of
+it as is not devoured by birds falls into the cracks, and produces an
+abundant crop. All this rich alluvial soil is stoneless, but is strewn
+from Seleucia to Babylon with fragments of glass, bricks, and pottery.
+Artificial mounds also abound, and remains of canals, all denoting
+that these fertile plains in ancient days supported a large stationary
+population. Of all that once was, this swirling river alone remains,
+singing in every eddy and ripple--
+
+     "For men may come and men may go,
+           But I go on for ever."
+
+As we were writing in the evening we were nearly thrown off our chairs
+by running aground with a thump, which injured one paddle wheel and
+obliged us to lie up part of the night for repairs near the ruins of
+the ancient palace of Ctesiphon. Seleucia, on the right bank of the
+river, is little more now than a historic name, but the palace of
+Tak-i-Kasr, with its superb archway 100 feet in height, has been even
+in recent times magnificent enough in its ruin to recall the glories
+of the Parthian kings, and the days when, according to Gibbon,
+"Khosroes Nushirwan gave audience to the ambassadors of the world"
+within its stately walls. Its gaunt and shattered remains have even
+still a mournful grandeur about them, but they have suffered so
+severely from the barbarous removal of the stones and the fall of much
+of the front as to be altogether disappointing.
+
+Soon after leaving Ctesiphon there is increased cultivation, and
+within a few miles of Baghdad the banks of the river, which is its
+great high road, become populous. "Palatial residences," in which the
+women's apartments are indicated by the blankness of their walls, are
+mixed up with mud hovels and goat's-hair tents; there are large
+farmhouses with enclosures for cattle and horses; date gardens and
+orange groves fringe the stream, and arrangements for drawing water
+are let into its banks at frequent intervals. Strings of asses laden
+with country produce, companies of horsemen and innumerable foot
+passengers, all moved citywards.
+
+The frosty sun rose out of an orange sky as a disc of blood and flame,
+but the morning became misty and overcast, so that the City of the
+Arabian Nights did not burst upon the view in any halo of splendour. A
+few tiled minarets, the blue domes of certain mosques, handsome
+houses,--some of them European Consulates, half hidden by orange
+groves laden with their golden fruitage,--a picturesque bridge of
+boats, a dense growth of palms on the right bank, beyond which gleam
+the golden domes of Kazimain and the top of Zobeide's tomb, the
+superannuated British gun-boat _Comet_, two steamers, a crowd of
+native craft, including _kufas_ or _gophers_, a prominent
+Custom-house, and decayed alleys opening on the water, make up the
+Baghdad of the present as seen from the _Mejidieh's_ deck.
+
+As soon as we anchored swarms of _kufas_ clustered round us, and
+swarms of officials and _hamals_ (porters) invaded the deck. Some of
+the passengers had landed two hours before, others had proceeded to
+their destinations at once, and as my friends had not come off I was
+alone for some time in the middle of a tremendous Babel, in which
+every man shouted at the top of his voice and all together, Hadji
+assuming a deportment of childish helplessness. Certain officials
+under cover of bribes lavished on my behalf by a man who spoke
+English professed to let my baggage pass unopened, then a higher
+official with a sword knocked Hadji down, then a man said that
+everything would be all right if I would bestow another gold _lira_,
+about L1, on the officers, and I was truly glad when kind Captain
+Dougherty with Dr. Sutton came alongside in the _Comet's_ boat, and
+brought me ashore. The baggage was put into another of her boats, but
+as soon as we were out of sight it was removed, and was taken to the
+Custom-house, where they insisted that some small tent poles in a
+cover were guns, and smashed a box of dates in the idea that it was
+tobacco!
+
+The Church Mission House, in which I am receiving hospitality, is a
+"native" house, though built and decorated by Persians, as also are
+several of the Consulates. It is in a narrow roadway with blank walls,
+a part of the European quarter; a door of much strength admits into a
+small courtyard, round which are some of the servants' quarters and
+reception rooms for Moslem visitors, and within this again is a
+spacious and handsome courtyard, round which are kitchens, domestic
+offices, and the _serdabs_, which play an important part in Eastern
+life.
+
+These _serdabs_ are semi-subterranean rooms, usually with arched
+fronts, filled in above-ground with latticework. They are lofty, and
+their vaulted roofs are supported in rich men's houses on pillars. The
+well of the household is often found within. The general effect of
+this one is that of a crypt, and it was most appropriate for the
+Divine Service in English which greeted my arrival. The cold of it
+was, however, frightful. It was only when the Holy Communion was over
+that I found that I was wearing Hadji's revolver and cartridge belt
+under my cloak, which he had begged me to put on to save them from
+confiscation! In these vaulted chambers both Europeans and natives
+spend the hot season, sleeping at night on the roofs.
+
+Above this lower floor are the winter apartments, which open upon a
+fine stone balcony running round three sides of the court. On the
+river side of the house there is an orange garden, which just now
+might be the garden of the Hesperides, and a terrace, below which is
+the noble, swirling Tigris, and beyond, a dark belt of palms. These
+rooms on the river front have large projecting windows, six in a row,
+with screens which slide up and down, and those which look to the
+courtyard are secluded by very beautiful fretwork. The drawing-room,
+used as a dormitory, is a superb room, in which exquisitely beautiful
+ceiling and wall decorations in shades of fawn enriched with gold, and
+fretwork windows, suggest Oriental feeling at every turn. The
+plaster-work of this room is said to be distinctively Persian and is
+very charming. The house, though large, is inconveniently crowded,
+with the medical and clerical mission families, two lady missionaries,
+and two guests. Each apartment has two rows of vaulted recesses in its
+walls, and very fine cornices above. It is impossible to warm the
+rooms, but the winter is very short and brilliant, and after ulsters,
+greatcoats, and fur cloaks have been worn for breakfast, the sun
+mitigates the temperature.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+
+     BAGHDAD, _Jan. 9_.
+
+Baghdad is too well known from the careful descriptions given of it by
+Eastern travellers to justify me in lingering upon it in detail, and I
+will only record a few impressions, which are decidedly _couleur de
+rose_, for the weather is splendid, making locomotion a pleasure, and
+the rough, irregular roadways which at other seasons are deep in foul
+and choking dust, or in mud and pestilential slime, are now firm and
+not remarkably dirty.
+
+A little earlier than this the richer inhabitants, who have _warstled_
+through the summer in their dim and latticed _serdabs_, emerge and
+pitch their tents in the plains of Ctesiphon, where the men find a
+stimulating amusement in hunting the boar, but it is now the "season"
+in the city, the liveliest and busiest time of the year. The cholera,
+which is believed to have claimed 6000 victims, has departed, and the
+wailing of the women, which scarcely ceased day or night for a month,
+is silent. The Jewish troubles, which apparently rose out of the
+indignation of the Moslems at the burial within the gates, contrary to
+a strict edict on the subject, of a Rabbi who died of cholera, have
+subsided, and the motley populations and their yet more motley creeds
+are for the time at peace.
+
+In the daytime there is a roar or hum of business, mingled with
+braying of asses, squeals of belligerent horses, yells of
+camel-drivers and muleteers, beating of drums, shouts of beggars,
+hoarse-toned ejaculations of fakirs, ear-splitting snatches of
+discordant music, and in short a chorus of sounds unfamiliar to
+Western ears, but the nights are so still that the swirl of the Tigris
+as it hurries past is distinctly heard. Only the long melancholy call
+to prayer, or the wail of women over the dead, or the barking of dogs,
+breaks the silence which at sunset falls as a pall over Baghdad.
+
+Under the blue sunny sky the river view is very fine. The river itself
+is imposing from its breadth and volume, and in the gorgeous sunsets,
+with a sky of crimson flame, and the fronds of the dark date palms
+mirrored in its reddened waters, it looks really beautiful. The city
+is stately enough as far as the general _coup-d'oeil_ of the river
+front goes, and its river _facade_ agreeably surprises me. The Tigris,
+besides being what may be called the main street, divides Baghdad into
+two unequal parts, and though the city on the left bank has almost a
+monopoly of picturesque and somewhat stately irregularity in the
+houses of fair height, whose lattices and oriel windows overhang the
+stream from an environment of orange gardens, the dark date groves
+dignify the meaner buildings of the right bank. The rush of a great
+river is in itself attractive, and from the roof of this house the
+view is fascinating, with the ceaseless movements of hundreds of boats
+and _kufas_, the constant traffic of men, horses, asses, and caravans
+across the great bridge of boats, and the long lines of buildings
+which with more or less picturesqueness line the great waterway.
+
+Without the wearisomeness of sight-seeing there is much to be seen in
+Baghdad, and though much that would be novel to a new-comer from the
+West is familiar to me after two years of Eastern travel, there is a
+great deal that is really interesting. The _kufas_ accumulating at
+their landing, freighted with the products of the Upper Tigris, the
+transpontine city, in which country produce takes the foremost place;
+the tramway to Kazimain constructed during the brief valiship of
+Midhat Pasha, on which the last journey of the day is always performed
+at a gallop, _coute que coute_; the caravans of asses, each one with a
+huge fish, the "Fish of Tobias," hanging across its back; the strings
+of the same humble animal, carrying skins of water from the river
+throughout the city; the tombs, the mosques, the churches, the great
+caravans of mules and camels, almost monopolising the narrow roadways,
+Arabs and Osmanlis on showy horses, Persians, Turks, Arabs, Jews,
+Armenians, Chaldaeans, in all the variety of their picturesque national
+costumes, to which the niggardly clothing of a chance European acts as
+an ungraceful foil; Persian dead, usually swaddled, making their last
+journey on mule or horseback to the holy ground at Kerbela, and the
+occasional march of horse or foot through the thronged bazars, are
+among the hourly sights of a city on which European influence is
+scarcely if at all perceptible.
+
+Turkish statistics must be received with caution, and the population
+of Baghdad may not reach 120,000 souls, but it has obviously recovered
+wonderfully from the effects of war, plague, inundation, and famine,
+and looks busy and fairly prosperous, so much so indeed that the
+account given of its misery and decay in Mr. Baillie Fraser's charming
+_Travels in Kurdistan_ reads like a story of the last century. If
+nothing remains of the glories of the city of the Caliphs, it is
+certainly for Turkey a busy, growing, and passably wealthy
+nineteenth-century capital. It is said to have a hundred mosques,
+twenty-six minarets, and fifteen domes, but I have not counted them!
+
+Its bazars, which many people regard as the finest in the East outside
+of Stamboul, are of enormous extent and very great variety. Many are
+of brick, with well-built domed roofs, and sides arcaded both above
+and below, and are wide and airy. Some are of wood, all are covered,
+and admit light scantily, only from the roof. Those which supply the
+poorer classes are apt to be ruinous and squalid--"_ramshackle_," to
+say the truth, with an air of decay about them, and their roofs are
+merely rough timber, roughly thatched with reeds or date tree fronds.
+Of splendour there is none anywhere, and of cleanliness there are few
+traces. The old, narrow, and filthy bazars in which the gold and
+silversmiths ply their trade are of all the most interesting. The
+trades have their separate localities, and the buyer who is in search
+of cotton goods, silk stuffs, carpets, cotton yarn, gold and silver
+thread, ready-made clothing, weapons, saddlery, rope, fruit, meat,
+grain, fish, jewellery, muslins, copper pots, etc., has a whole alley
+of contiguous shops devoted to the sale of the same article to choose
+from.
+
+At any hour of daylight at this season progress through the bazars is
+slow. They are crowded, and almost entirely with men. It is only the
+poorer women who market for themselves, and in twos and threes, at
+certain hours of the day. In a whole afternoon, among thousands of
+men, I saw only five women, tall, shapeless, badly-made-up bundles,
+carried mysteriously along, rather by high, loose, canary-yellow
+leather boots than by feet. The face is covered with a thick black
+gauze mask, or cloth, and the head and remainder of the form with a
+dark blue or black sheet, which is clutched by the hand below the
+nose. The walk is one of tottering decrepitude. All the business
+transacted in the bazars is a matter of bargaining, and as Arabs shout
+at the top of their voices, and buyers and sellers are equally keen,
+the roar is tremendous.
+
+Great _cafes_, as in Cairo, occur frequently. In the larger ones from
+a hundred to two hundred men are seen lounging at one time on the
+broad matted seats, shouting, chaffering, drinking coffee or _sharbat_
+and smoking _chibouks_ or _kalians_. Negro attendants supply their
+wants. These _cafes_ are the clubs of Baghdad. Whatever of public
+opinion exists in a country where the recognised use of words is to
+"conceal thought," is formed in them. They are centres of business
+likewise, and much of the noise is due to bargaining, and they are
+also manufactories of rumours, scandals, and fanaticism. The great
+caravanserais, such as the magnificent Khan Othman, are also resorts
+of merchants for the display and sale of their goods.
+
+Europeans never make purchases in the bazars. They either have the
+goods from which they wish to make a choice brought to their houses,
+or their servants bargain for them, getting a commission both from
+buyer and seller.
+
+The splendour of the East, if it exists at all, is not to be seen in
+the bazars. The jewelled daggers, the cloth of silver and gold, the
+diaphanous silk tissues, the brocaded silks, the rich embroideries,
+the damascened sword blades, the finer carpets, the inlaid armour, the
+cunning work in brass and inlaid bronze, and all the articles of
+_vertu_ and _bric-a-brac_ of real or spurious value, are carefully
+concealed by their owners, and are carried for display, with much
+secrecy and mystery, to the houses of their ordinary customers, and to
+such European strangers as are reported to be willing to be
+victimised.
+
+Trade in Baghdad is regarded by Europeans and large capitalists as
+growing annually more depressed and unsatisfactory, but this is not
+the view of the small traders, chiefly Jews and Christians, who start
+with a capital of L5 or upwards, and by buying some cheap lot in
+Bombay,--gay handkerchiefs, perfumery, shoes, socks, buttons, tin
+boxes with mirror lids, scissors, pocket-knives, toys, and the
+like,--bid fair to make small fortunes. The amount of perfumery and
+rubbish piled in these ramshackle shops is wonderful. The trader who
+picks up a desert Arab for a customer and sells him a knife, or a
+mirror box, or a packet of candles is likely to attract to himself a
+large trade, for when once the unmastered pastoral hordes of Al
+Jaz[=i]ra, Trak, and Stram[=i]ya see such objects, the desire of
+possession is aroused, and the refuse of Manchester and Birmingham
+will find its way into every tent in the desert.
+
+The best bazars are the least crowded, though once in them it is
+difficult to move, and the strings of asses laden with skins of water
+are a great nuisance. The foot-passenger is also liable at any moment
+to be ridden down by horsemen, or squeezed into a jelly by the passage
+of caravans.
+
+It is in the meat, vegetable, cotton, oil, grain, fruit, and fish
+bazars that the throngs are busiest and noisiest, and though
+cucumbers, the great joy of the Turkish palate, are over, vegetables
+"of sorts" are abundant, and the slant, broken sunbeams fall on
+pyramids of fruit, and glorify the warm colouring of melons, apples,
+and pomegranates.
+
+A melon of 10 lbs. weight can be got for a penny, a sheep for five or
+six shillings, and fish for something like a farthing per pound, that
+is the "Fish of Tobias," the monster of the Tigris waters, which is
+largely eaten by the poor. Poultry and game are also very cheap, and
+the absolute necessaries of life, such as broken wheat for porridge,
+oil, flour, and cheese, cost little.
+
+Cook-shops abound, but their viands are not tempting, and the bazars
+are pervaded by a pungent odour of hot sesamum oil and rancid fat,
+frying being a usual mode of cooking in these restaurants. An
+impassive Turk, silently smoking, sits cross-legged on a platform at
+each Turkish shop door. He shows his goods as if he had no interest in
+them, and whether he sells or not seems a matter of indifference, so
+that he can return to his pipe. It is not to him that the overpowering
+din is owing, but to the agitated eagerness of the other
+nationalities.
+
+The charm of the bazars lies in the variety of race and costume and in
+the splendid _physique_ of the greater number of the men. The European
+looks "nowhere." The natural look of a Moslem is one of _hauteur_, but
+no words can describe the scorn and lofty Pharisaism which sit on the
+faces of the Seyyids, the descendants of Mohammed, whose hands and
+even garments are kissed reverently as they pass through the crowd; or
+the wrathful melancholy mixed with pride which gives a fierceness to
+the dignified bearing of the magnificent beings who glide through the
+streets, their white turbans or shawl head-gear, their gracefully
+flowing robes, their richly embroidered under-vests, their Kashmir
+girdles, their inlaid pistols, their silver-hilted dirks, and the
+predominance of red throughout their clothing aiding the general
+effect. Yet most of these grand creatures, with their lofty looks and
+regal stride, would be accessible to a bribe, and would not despise
+even a perquisite. These are the _mollahs_, the scribes, the traders,
+and the merchants of the city.
+
+The Bedouin and the city Arabs dress differently, and are among the
+marked features of the streets. The under-dress is a very coarse shirt
+of unbleached homespun cotton, rarely clean, over which the Sheikhs
+and richer men wear a robe of striped silk or cotton with a Kashmir
+girdle of a shawl pattern in red on a white ground. The poor wear
+shirts of coarse hair or cotton, without a robe. The invariable
+feature of Arab dress is the _abba_--a long cloak, sleeveless, but
+with holes through which to pass the arms, and capable of many
+adaptations. It conceals all superabundance and deficiency of attire,
+and while it has the dignity of the _toga_ by day it has the utility
+of a blanket by night. The better-class _abba_ is very hard, being
+made of closely-woven worsted, in broad brown and white or black and
+white perpendicular stripes. The poorest _abba_ is of coarse brown
+worsted, and even of goat's-hair. I saw many men who were destitute of
+any clothing but tattered _abbas_ tied round their waists by frayed
+hair ropes. The _abba_ is the distinctive national costume of the
+Arabs. The head-gear is not the turban but a shawl of very thick silk
+woven in irregular stripes of yellow and red, with long cords and
+tassels depending, made of the twisted woof. This handsome square is
+doubled triangularly, the double end hangs down the back, and the
+others over the shoulders. A loosely-twisted rope of camel's-hair is
+wound several times round the crown of the head. When the weather is
+cold, being like all Orientals very sensitive in their heads, they
+bring one side of the shawl over the whole of the face but the eyes,
+and tuck it in, in great cold only exposing one eye, and in great heat
+also. Most Moslems shave the head, but the Arabs let their hair grow
+very long, and wear it in a number of long plaits, and these elf-locks
+mixed up with the long coloured tassels of the _kiffiyeh_, and the
+dark glittering eyes looking out from under the yellow silk, give them
+an appearance of extreme wildness, aided by the long guns which they
+carry and their long desert stride.
+
+The Arab moves as if he were the ruler of the country, though the grip
+of the Osmanli may be closing on him. His eyes are deeply set under
+shaggy eyebrows, his nose is high and sharp, he is long and thin, his
+profile suggests a bird of prey, and his demeanour a fierce
+independence.
+
+The Arab women go about the streets unveiled, and with the _abba_
+covering their very poor clothing, but it is not clutched closely
+enough to conceal the extraordinary tattooing which the Bedouin women
+everywhere regard as ornamental. There are artists in Baghdad who make
+their living by this mode of decorating the person, and vie with each
+other in the elaboration of their patterns. I saw several women
+tattooed with two wreaths of blue flowers on their bosoms linked by a
+blue chain, palm fronds on the throat, stars on the brow and chin, and
+bands round the wrists and ankles. These disfigurements, and large
+gold or silver filigree buttons placed outside one nostril by means of
+a wire passed through it, worn by married women, are much admired.
+When these women sell country produce in the markets, they cover their
+heads with the ordinary _chadar_.
+
+The streets are narrow, and the walls, which are built of fire-burned
+bricks, are high. Windows to the streets are common, and the oriel
+windows, with their warm brown lattices projecting over the roadways
+at irregular heights, are strikingly picturesque. Not less so are
+latticework galleries, which are often thrown across the street to
+connect the two houses of wealthy residents, and the sitting-rooms
+with oriel windows, which likewise bridge the roadways. Solid doorways
+with iron-clasped and iron-studded doors give an impression of
+security, and suggest comfort and to some extent home life, and sprays
+of orange trees, hanging over walls, and fronds of date palms give an
+aspect of pleasantness to the courtyards.
+
+The best parts of the city, where the great bazars, large
+dwelling-houses, and most of the mosques are, is surrounded by a
+labyrinth of alleys, fringing off into streets growing meaner till
+they cease altogether among open spaces, given up to holes, heaps,
+rubbish, the slaughter of animals, and in some favoured spots to the
+production of vegetables. Then come the walls, which are of
+kiln-burned bricks, and have towers intended for guns at intervals.
+The wastes within the walls have every element of decay and meanness,
+the wastes without, where the desert sands sweep up to the very foot
+of the fortifications, have many elements of grandeur.
+
+Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried bricks. There
+are about twenty-five kilns, chiefly in the hands of Jews and
+Christians in the wastes outside the city, but the demand exceeds the
+supply, not for building only, but for the perpetual patchings which
+houses, paths, and walls are always requiring, owing to the absorption
+of moisture in the winter.
+
+Bricks at the kilns sell for 36s. per thousand twelve inches square,
+and 18s. per thousand seven inches square. They are carried from the
+kilns on donkeys, small beasts, each taking ten large or twenty-five
+small bricks.
+
+Unskilled labour is abundant. Men can be engaged at 9d. a day, and
+boys for 5d.
+
+This afternoon, in the glory of a sunset which reddened the yellow
+waste up to the distant horizon, a caravan of mules, mostly in single
+file, approached the city. Each carried two or four white bales slung
+on his sides, or two or more long boxes, consisting of planks roped
+rather than nailed together. This is the fashion in which thousands of
+Persian Moslems (Shiahs or "Sectaries") have been conveyed for ages
+for final burial at Kerbela, the holiest place of the Shiahs, an easy
+journey from Baghdad, where rest the ashes of Ali, regarded as
+scarcely second to Mohammed, and of Houssein and Hassan his sons,
+whose "martyrdom" is annually commemorated by a Passion Play which is
+acted in every town and village in Persia. To make a pilgrimage to
+Kerbela, or to rest finally in its holy dust, or both, constitutes
+the ambition of every Shiah. The Sunnis, or "Orthodox," who hate the
+Shiahs, are so far kept in check that these doleful caravans are not
+exposed to any worse molestation than the shouts and ridicule of
+street Arabs.
+
+The mode of carrying the dead is not reverent. The _katirgis_, who
+contract for the removal, hurry the bodies along as goods, and pile
+them in the yards of the caravanserais at night, and the mournful
+journey is performed, oftener than not, without the presence of
+relations, each body being ticketed with the name once borne by its
+owner. Some have been exhumed and are merely skeletons, others are in
+various stages of decomposition, and some are of the newly dead.[6]
+
+Outside the walls predatory Arabs render the roads unsafe for solitary
+travellers, and at times for feeble caravans; but things in this
+respect are better than they were.
+
+Visits to the Armenian and Chaldaean Churches, to the Mosque of Abdel
+Kader, with its courts thronged by Afghan pilgrims, and to the Jewish
+quarter, have been very interesting. There are said to be 30,000 Jews
+here, and while a large proportion of them are in poverty, on the
+whole they are an influential nationality, and some of them are very
+rich.
+
+Through the liberality of Sir Albert Sassoon a Jewish High School has
+been opened, where an admirable education is given. I was extremely
+pleased with it, and with the director, who speaks French fluently,
+and with the proficiency in French of the elder students. He describes
+their earnestness and energetic application as being most remarkable.
+
+The French Carmelite monks have a large, solid "Mission Church" or
+Cathedral with a fine peal of bells, and a very prosperous school
+attached, in which are boys belonging to all the many creeds professed
+in Baghdad. The sisters of St. Joseph have a school for girls, which
+Turkish children are not slow to avail themselves of. The sisters find
+a remarkable unhandiness among the women. Few, if any, among them have
+any idea of cutting out or repairing, and rich and poor are equally
+incapable of employing their fingers usefully.
+
+The people here are so used to the sight of Europeans that it is quite
+easy for foreign ladies to walk in this quarter only attended by a
+servant, and I have accompanied Mrs. Sutton on visits to several
+Armenian houses. The Armenians are in many cases wealthy, as their
+admirably-designed and well-built houses testify. The Christian
+population is estimated at 5000, and its wealth and energy give it
+greater importance than its numbers warrant. One of the houses which
+we visited was truly beautiful and in very good taste, the solidity of
+the stone and brickwork, the finish of the wood, and the beauty of the
+designs and their execution in hammered iron being quite remarkable.
+The lofty roofs and cornices are elaborately worked in plaster, and
+this is completely concealed by hundreds or thousands of mirrors set
+so as to resemble facets, so that roof and cornices flash like
+diamonds. This is a Persian style of decoration, and is extremely
+effective in large handsome rooms. Superb carpets and divans and tea
+tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl furnish the reception and smoking
+rooms, and the bedrooms and nurseries over which we were taken were
+simply arranged with French bedsteads and curtains of Nottingham
+mosquito net. As in other Eastern houses, there were no traces of
+occupation, no morning room or den sacred to litter; neither was there
+anything to look at--the opposite extreme from our overloaded
+drawing-rooms--or any library. Cigarettes and black coffee in minute
+porcelain cups, in gold filigree receptacles, were presented on each
+occasion, and the kind and courteous intention was very pleasing.
+
+The visits which I paid with Dr. Sutton were very different. He has
+worked as a medical missionary here for some years, and his unaffected
+benevolence and quiet attention to all suffering persons, without
+distinction of race or creed, and his recent extraordinary labours by
+night and day among the cholera-smitten people, have won for him
+general esteem and confidence, and he is even allowed to enter Moslem
+houses and prescribe for the women in some cases.
+
+The dispensary, in which there is not half enough accommodation, is
+very largely attended by people of all creeds, and even Moslem women,
+though exclusively of the poorer classes, avail themselves of it.
+Yesterday, when I was there, the comfortable seats of the cheerful
+matted waiting-room were all occupied by Armenian and Chaldaean women,
+unveiled and speaking quite freely to Dr. Sutton; while a few Moslem
+women, masked rather than veiled, and enveloped in black sheets,
+cowered on the floor and scarcely let their voices be heard even in a
+tremulous whisper.
+
+I am always sorry to see any encroachment made by Christian teachers
+on national customs where they are not contrary to morality, and
+willingly leave to Eastern women the _pardah_ and the veil, but still
+there is a wholesomeness about the unveiled, rosy, comely, frank faces
+of these Christian women. But--and it is a decided but--though the
+women were comely, and though some of the Armenian girls are
+beautiful, every one has one or more flattish depressions on her
+face--scars in fact--the size of a large date stone. Nearly the whole
+population is thus disfigured. So universal is it among the
+fair-skinned Armenian girls, that so far from being regarded as a
+blemish, it is viewed as a token of good health, and it is said that a
+young man would hesitate to ask for the hand of a girl in marriage if
+she had not a "date mark" on her face.
+
+These "date boils," or "Baghdad boils," as they are sometimes called,
+are not slow in attacking European strangers, and few, if any, escape
+during their residence here. As no cause can reasonably be assigned
+for them, so no cure has been found. Various remedies, including
+cauterisation, have been tried, but without success, and it is now
+thought wisest to do nothing more than keep them dry and clean, and
+let them run their natural course, which lasts about a year. Happily
+they are not so painful as ordinary boils. The malady appears at first
+as a white point, not larger than a pin's head, and remains thus for
+about three months. Then the flesh swells, becomes red and hard and
+suppurates, and underneath a rough crust which is formed is corroded
+and eaten away as by vitriol. On some strangers the fatal point
+appears within a few days of their arrival.
+
+In two years in the East I have not seen any European welcomed so
+cordially as Dr. Sutton into Moslem homes. The _Hak[=i]m_, exhibiting
+in "quiet continuance in well-doing" the legible and easily-recognised
+higher fruits of Christianity, while refraining from harsh and
+irreverent onslaughts on the creeds of those whose sufferings he
+mitigates, is everywhere blessed.[7]
+
+To my thinking, no one follows in the Master's footprints so closely
+as the medical missionary, and on no agency for alleviating human
+suffering can one look with more unqualified satisfaction. The
+medical mission is the outcome of the living teachings of our faith. I
+have now visited such missions in many parts of the world, and never
+saw one which was not healing, helping, blessing; softening prejudice,
+diminishing suffering, making an end of many of the cruelties which
+proceed from ignorance, restoring sight to the blind, limbs to the
+crippled, health to the sick, telling, in every work of love and of
+consecrated skill, of the infinite compassion of Him who came "not to
+destroy men's lives, but to save them."
+
+In one house Dr. Sutton was welcome because he had saved a woman's
+life, in another because a blind youth had received his sight, and so
+on. Among our visits was one to a poor Moslem family in a very poor
+quarter. No matter how poor the people are, their rooms stand back
+from the street, and open on yards more or less mean. It is a misnomer
+to call this dwelling a house, or to write that it _opens_, for it is
+merely an arched recess which can never be shut!
+
+In a hole in the middle of an uneven earthen floor there was a fire of
+tamarisk root and animal fuel, giving off a stinging smoke. On this
+the broken wheat porridge for supper was being cooked in a copper pot,
+supported on three rusty cannon-balls. An earthenware basin, a wooden
+spoon, a long knife, a goat-skin of water, a mallet, a long hen-coop,
+which had served as the bed for the wife when she was ill, some ugly
+hens, a clay jar full of grain, two heaps of brick rubbish, and some
+wadded quilts, which had taken on the prevailing gray-brown colour,
+were the plenishings of the arch.
+
+Poverty brings one blessing in Turkey--the poor man is of necessity a
+monogamist. Wretched though the place was, it had the air of home, and
+the smoky hole in the floor was a fireside. The wife was unveiled and
+joined in the conversation, the husband was helping her to cook the
+supper, and the children were sitting round or scrambling over their
+parents' knees. All looked as happy as people in their class anywhere.
+It is good to have ocular demonstration that such homes exist in
+Turkey. God be thanked for them! The man, a fine frank-looking Turk,
+welcomed Dr. Sutton jovially. He had saved the wife's life and was
+received as their best friend. Who indeed but the medical missionary
+would care for such as them and give them of his skill "without money
+and without price"? The hearty laugh of this Turk was good to hear,
+his wife smiled cordially, and the boys laughed like their father. The
+eldest, a nice, bright fellow of nine, taught in the mosque school,
+was proud to show how well he could read Arabic, and read part of a
+chapter from St. John's Gospel, his parents looking on with wonder and
+admiration.
+
+Among the Christian families we called on were those of the dispenser
+and catechist--people with very small salaries but comfortable homes.
+These families were living in a house furnished like those of the rich
+Armenians, but on a very simple scale, the floor and dais covered with
+Persian carpets, the divan with Turkish woollen stuff, and there were
+in addition a chair or two, and silk cushions on the floor. In one
+room there were an intelligent elderly woman, a beautiful girl of
+seventeen, married a few days ago, and wearing her bridal ornaments,
+with her husband; another man and his wife, and two bright,
+ruddy-cheeked boys who spoke six languages. All had "date marks" on
+their faces. After a year among Moslems and Hindus, it was startling
+to find men and women sitting together, the women unveiled, and taking
+their share in the conversation merrily and happily. Even the young
+bride took the initiative in talking to Dr. Sutton.
+
+Of course the Christian women cover their faces in the streets, but
+the covering is of different material and arrangement, and is really
+magnificent, being of very rich, stiff, corded silk--self-coloured
+usually--black, heliotrope, or dark blue, with a contrasting colour
+woven in deep vandykes upon a white ground as a border. The silk is
+superb, really capable of standing on end with richness. Such a sheet
+costs about L5. The ambition of every woman is to possess one, and to
+gratify it she even denies herself in the necessaries of life.
+
+The upper classes of both Moslem and Christian women are rarely seen
+on foot in the streets except on certain days, as when they visit the
+churches and the mosques and burial-grounds. Nevertheless they go
+about a great deal to visit each other, riding on white asses, which
+are also used by _mollahs_ and rich elderly merchants. All asses have
+their nostrils slit to improve their wind. A good white ass of long
+pedigree, over thirteen hands high, costs as much as L50. As they are
+groomed till they look as white as snow, and are caparisoned with red
+leather trappings embroidered with gold thread and silks, and as a
+rider on a white ass is usually preceded by runners who shout and
+brandish sticks to clear the way, this animal always suggests
+position, or at least wealth.
+
+Women of the upper classes mounted on these asses usually go to pay
+afternoon visits in companies, with mounted eunuchs and attendants,
+and men to clear the way. They ride astride with short stirrups, but
+the rider is represented only by a shapeless blue bundle, out of which
+protrude two yellow boots. Blacks of the purest negro type frequently
+attend on women, and indeed consequence is shown by the possession of
+a number of them.
+
+Of the Georgian and Circassian _belles_ of the harams, a single
+lustrous eye with its brilliancy enhanced by the use of _kohl_ is all
+that one sees. At the bottom of the scale are the Arab women and the
+unsecluded women of the lower orders generally, who are of necessity
+drudges, and are old hags before they are twenty, except in the few
+cases in which they do not become mothers, when the good looks which
+many of them possess in extreme youth last a little longer. If one's
+memories of Baghdad women were only of those to be seen in the
+streets, they would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old,
+figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained hands crinkled
+and deformed by toil.
+
+Baghdad is busy and noisy with traffic. Great quantities of British
+goods pass through it to Persia, avoiding by doing so the horrible
+rock ladders between Bushire and Isfahan. The water transit from
+England and India, only involving the inconvenience of transhipment at
+Basrah, makes Baghdad practically into a seaport, with something of
+the bustle and vivacity of a seaport, and caravans numbering from
+20,000 to 26,000 laden mules are employed in the carriage of goods to
+and from the Persian cities. A duty of one per cent is levied on goods
+in transit to Persia.[8]
+
+The trade of Baghdad is not to be despised. The principal articles
+which were imported from Europe amounted in 1889 to a value of
+L621,140, and from India to L239,940, while the exports from Baghdad
+to Europe and America were valued in the same year at L469,200, and
+to India by British India Company steamers only at L35,150. In looking
+through the Consular list of exports, it is interesting to notice that
+13,400 cwts. of gum of the value of L70,000 were exported in 1889.
+Neither the Indian postage stamps nor ours should suffer from the
+partial failure of the Soudan supply.
+
+Liquorice roots to the value of L7800 were exported in 1888, almost
+solely to America, to be used in the preparation of quid tobacco and
+"fancy drinks"!
+
+The gall nuts which grow in profusion on the dwarf oaks which cover
+many hillsides, were exported last year to the value of L35,000, to be
+used chiefly in the production of ink, so closely is commerce binding
+countries one to the other.
+
+Two English firms have concessions for pressing wool and making it
+into bales suitable for shipment. There are five principal English
+firms here, three French, and six Turkish, not including the small
+fry. There are five foreign Consulates.
+
+The carriage of goods is one of the most important of Persian and
+Turkish industries, and the breeding of mules and the manufacture of
+caravan equipments give extensive employment; but one shudders to
+think of the amount of suffering involved in sore backs and wounds,
+and of exhausted and over-weighted animals lying down forlornly to
+die, having their eyes picked out before death.
+
+The mercury was at 37 deg. at breakfast-time this morning. Fuel is scarce
+and dear, some of the rooms are without fireplaces, and these good
+people study, write, and work cheerfully in this temperature in open
+rooms, untouched by the early sun.
+
+The preparations for to-morrow's journey are nearly complete. Three
+mules have been engaged for the baggage--one for Hadji, and a saddle
+mule for myself; stores, a revolver, and a _mangel_ or brazier have
+been bought; a permit to travel has been obtained, and my hosts, with
+the most thoughtful kindness, have facilitated all the arrangements. I
+have bought two mule _yekdans_, which are tall, narrow leather trunks
+on strong iron frames, with stout straps to buckle over the top of the
+pack saddle. On the whole I find that it is best to adopt as far as
+possible the travelling equipments of the country in which one
+travels. The muleteers and servants understand them better, and if any
+thing goes wrong, or wears out, it can be repaired or replaced. I have
+given away _en route_ nearly all the things I brought from England,
+and have reduced my camp furniture to a folding bed and a chair. I
+shall start with three novelties--a fellow-traveller,[9] a saddle
+mule, and an untried saddle.
+
+It is expected that the journey will be a very severe one, owing to
+the exceptionally heavy snowfall reported from the Zagros mountains
+and the Persian plateau. The Persian post has arrived several days
+late. I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] I heard that the Shah had prohibited this "Dead March" to Kerbela,
+on account of the many risks to the public health involved in it, but
+nearly a year later, in Persian Kurdistan, I met, besides thousands of
+living pilgrims, a large caravan of the dead.
+
+[7] Six months later a Bakhtiari chief, a bigoted Moslem, said to me
+at the conclusion of an earnest plea for European medical advice,
+"Yes, Jesus was a great prophet; _send us a Hak[=i]m in His
+likeness_," and doubtless the nearer that likeness is the greater is
+the success.
+
+[8] The entire trade of Baghdad is estimated at about L2,500,000, of
+which the Persian transit trade is nearly a quarter. The Persian
+imports and exports through Baghdad are classified thus: Manufactured
+goods, including Manchester piece goods, and continental woollens and
+cottons, 7000 to 8000 loads. Indian manufactures, 1000 loads. Loaf
+sugar, chiefly from Marseilles, 6000 loads. Drugs, pepper, coffee,
+tea, other sugars, indigo, cochineal, copper, and spelter, 7000 loads.
+The Persian exports for despatch by sea include wool, opium, cotton,
+carpets, gum, and dried fruits, and for local consumption, among
+others, tobacco, _roghan_ (clarified butter), and dried and fresh
+fruits, with a probable bulk of from 12,000 to 15,000 loads.
+
+[9] I had given up the idea of travelling in Persia, and was preparing
+to leave India for England, when an officer, with whom I was then
+unacquainted, and who was about to proceed to Tihran on business,
+kindly offered me his escort. The journey turned out one of extreme
+hardship and difficulty, and had it not been for his kindness and
+efficient help I do not think that I should have accomplished it.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III[10]
+
+
+     YAKOBIYEH, ASIATIC TURKEY, _Jan. 11_.
+
+Whether for "well or ill" the journey to Tihran is begun. I am ashamed
+to say that I had grown so nervous about its untried elements, and
+about the possibilities of the next two months, that a very small
+thing would have made me give it up at the last moment; but now that I
+am fairly embarked upon it in splendid weather, the spirit of travel
+has returned.
+
+Much remained for the last morning,--debts to be paid in complicated
+money, for Indian, Turkish, and Persian coins are all current here;
+English circular notes to be turned into difficult coin, and the usual
+"row" with the muleteers to be endured. This disagreeable farce
+attends nearly all departures in the East, and I never feel the
+comfortable assurance that it means nothing.
+
+The men weighed my baggage, which was considerably under weight, the
+day before, but yesterday three or four of them came into the
+courtyard, shouting in Arabic at the top of their loud harsh voices
+that they would not carry the loads. Hadji roared at them, loading his
+revolver all the time, calling them "sons of burnt fathers," and other
+choice names. Dr. Bruce and Dr. Sutton reasoned with them from the
+balcony, when, in the very height of the row, they suddenly
+shouldered the loads and went off with them.
+
+Two hours later the delightful hospitalities of Dr. and Mrs. Sutton
+were left behind, and the farewell to the group in the courtyard of
+the mission house is a long farewell to civilisation. Rumours of
+difficulties have been rife, and among the various dismal prophecies
+the one oftenest repeated is that we shall be entangled in the snows
+of the Zagros mountains; but the journey began propitiously among
+oranges and palms, bright sunshine and warm good wishes. My mule turns
+out a fine, spirited, fast-walking animal, and the untried saddle
+suits me. My marching equipment consists of two large holsters, with a
+revolver and tea-making apparatus in one, and a bottle of milk, and
+dates in the other. An Afghan sheepskin coat is strapped to the front
+of the saddle, and a blanket and stout mackintosh behind. I wear a
+cork sun-helmet, a gray mask instead of a veil, an American mountain
+dress with a warm jacket over it, and tan boots, scarcely the worse
+for a year of Himalayan travel. Hadji is dressed like a wild
+Ishmaelite.
+
+Captain Dougherty of H.M.S. _Comet_ and his chief engineer piloted us
+through the narrow alleys and thronged bazars,--a _zaptieh_, or
+gendarme, with a rifle across his saddle-bow, and a sheathed sabre in
+his hand, shouting at the donkey boys, and clearing the crowd to right
+and left. Through the twilight of the bazars, where chance rays of
+sunshine fell on warm colouring, gay merchandise, and picturesque
+crowds; along narrow alleys, overhung by brown lattice windows; out
+under the glorious blue of heaven among ruins and graves, through the
+northern gateway, and then there was an abrupt exchange of the roar
+and limitations of the City of the Caliphs for the silence of the
+desert and the brown sweep of a limitless horizon. A walled Eastern
+city has no suburbs. It is a literal step from a crowded town to
+absolute solitude. The contrast is specially emphasised at Baghdad,
+where the transition is made from a great commercial city with a
+crowded waterway, to an uninhabited plain in the nudity of mid-winter.
+
+A last look at gleaming domes, coloured minarets, and massive
+mausoleums, rising out of an environment of palms and orange groves,
+at the brick walls and towers of the city, at the great gate to which
+lines of caravans were converging from every quarter, a farewell to
+the kindly pilots, and the journey began in earnest.
+
+The "Desert" sweeps up to the walls of Baghdad, but it is a misnomer
+to call the vast level of rich, stoneless, alluvial soil a desert. It
+is a dead flat of uninhabited earth; orange colocynth balls, a little
+wormwood, and some alkaline plants which camels eat, being its chief
+products. After the inundations reedy grass grows in the hollows. It
+is a waste rather than a desert, and was once a populous plain, and
+the rich soil only needs irrigation to make it "blossom as the rose."
+Traces of the splendid irrigation system under which it was once a
+garden abound along the route.
+
+The mid-day and afternoon were as glorious as an unclouded sky, a warm
+sun, and a fresh, keen air could make them. The desert freedom was all
+around, and the nameless charm of a nomadic life. The naked plain,
+which stretched to the horizon, was broken only by the brown tents of
+Arabs, mixed up with brown patches of migrating flocks, strings of
+brown camels, straggling caravans, and companies of Arab horsemen
+heavily armed. An expanse of dried mud, the mirage continually seen, a
+cloudless sky, and a brilliant sun--this was all. I felt better at
+once in the pure, exhilarating desert air, and nervousness about the
+journey was left behind. I even indulged in a gallop, and except for
+her impetuosity, which carried me into the middle of a caravan, and
+turning round a few times, the mule behaved so irreproachably that I
+forgot the potential possibilities of evil. Still, I do not think that
+there can ever be that perfect correspondence of will between a mule
+and his rider that there is between a horse and his rider.
+
+The mirage was almost continual and grossly deceptive. Fair blue lakes
+appeared with palms and towers mirrored on their glassy surfaces,
+giving place to snowy ranges with bright waters at their feet, fringed
+by tall trees, changing into stately processions, all so absolutely
+real that the real often seemed the delusion. These deceptions,
+continued for several hours, were humiliating and exasperating.
+
+Towards evening the shams disappeared, the waste purpled as the sun
+sank, and after riding fifteen miles we halted near the mud village of
+Orta Khan, a place with brackish water and no supplies but a little
+brackish sheep's milk. The caravanserai was abominable, and we rode on
+to a fine gravelly camping-ground, but the headman and some of the
+villagers came out, and would not hear of our pitching the tents where
+we should be the prey of predatory hordes, strong enough, they said,
+to overpower an officer, two _zaptiehs_, and three orderlies! Being
+unwilling to get them into trouble, we accepted a horrible
+camping-ground, a mud-walled "garden," trenched for dates, and lately
+irrigated, as damp and clayey as it could be. My _dhurrie_ will not be
+dry again this winter. The mules could not get in, the baggage was
+unloaded at some distance, and was all mixed up, and Hadji showed
+himself incapable; my tent fell twice, remained precarious, and the
+_kanats_ were never pegged down at all.
+
+The _dhurrie_ was trampled into the mud by clayey feet. Baggage had to
+be disentangled and unpacked after dark, and the confusion apt to
+prevail on the first night of a march was something terrible. It
+opened my eyes to the thorough inefficiency of Hadji, who was so dazed
+with opium this morning that he stood about in a dream, ejaculating
+"_Ya Allah!_" when it was suggested that he should bestir himself,
+leaving me to do all the packing, groaning as he took up the tent
+pegs, and putting on the mule's bridle with the bit hanging under her
+chin!
+
+The night was very damp, not quite frosty, and in the dim morning the
+tent and its contents were wet. Tea at seven, with Baghdad rusks, with
+a distinctly "native taste," two hours spent in standing about on the
+damp, clayey ground till my feet were numb, while the men, most of
+whom were complaining of rheumatism, stumbled through their new work;
+and then five hours of wastes, enlivened by caravans of camels, mules,
+horses, or asses, and sometimes of all mixed, with their wild, armed
+drivers. The leader of each caravan carries a cylinder-shaped bell
+under his throat, suspended from a red leather band stitched with
+cowries, another at his chest, and very large ones, often twenty-four
+inches long by ten in diameter, hanging from each pack. Every other
+animal of the caravan has smaller bells, and the tones, which are
+often most musical, reach from the deep note of a church bell up to
+the frivolous jingle of sleigh bells; jingle often becomes jangle when
+several caravans are together. The _katirgis_ (muleteers) spend large
+sums on the bells and other decorations. Among the loads we met or
+overtook were paraffin, oranges, pomegranates, carpets, cotton goods,
+melons, grain, and chopped straw. The waste is covered with tracks,
+and a guide is absolutely necessary.
+
+The day has been still and very gloomy, with flakes of snow falling at
+times. The passing over rich soil, once cultivated and populous, now
+abandoned to the antelope and partridge, is most melancholy. The
+remains of canals and water-courses, which in former days brought the
+waters of the Tigris and the Diyalah into the fields of the great
+grain-growing population of these vast levels of Chaldaea and
+Mesopotamia, are everywhere, and at times create difficulties on the
+road. By road is simply meant a track of greater or less width,
+trodden on the soil by the passage of caravans for ages. On these two
+marches not a stone has been seen which could strike a ploughshare.
+
+Great ancient canals, with their banks in ruins and their deep beds
+choked up and useless, have been a mournful feature of rather a dismal
+day's journey. We crossed the bed of the once magnificent Nahrwan
+canal, the finest of the ancient irrigation works to the east of the
+Tigris, still in many places from twenty-five to forty feet deep and
+from 150 to 200 feet in breadth.
+
+For many miles the only permanent village is a collection of miserable
+mud hovels round a forlorn caravanserai, in which travellers may find
+a wretched refuge from the vicissitudes of weather. There is a
+remarkable lack of shelter and provender, considering that this is not
+only one of the busiest of caravan routes, but is enormously
+frequented by Shiah pilgrims on their way from Persia to the shrines
+of Kerbela.
+
+After crossing the Nahrwan canal the road keeps near the right bank of
+the Diyalah, a fine stream, which for a considerable distance runs
+parallel with the Tigris at a distance of from ten to thirty miles
+from it, and falls into it below Baghdad; and _imamzadas_ and villages
+with groves of palms break the line of the horizon, while on the left
+bank for fully two miles are contiguous groves of dates and
+pomegranates. These groves are walled, and among them this
+semi-decayed and ruinous town is situated, miserably shrunk from its
+former proportions. We entered Yakobiyeh after crossing the Diyalah
+by a pontoon bridge of twelve boats, and found one good house with
+projecting lattice windows, and a large entrance over which the head
+and ears of a hare were nailed; narrow, filthy lanes, a covered bazar,
+very dark and ruinous, but fairly well supplied, an archway, and
+within it this caravanserai in which the baggage must be waited for
+for two hours.
+
+This first experience of a Turkish inn is striking. There is a large
+square yard, heaped with dirt and rubbish, round which are stables and
+some dark, ruinous rooms. A broken stair leads to a flat mud roof, on
+which are some narrow "stalls,"--_rooms_ they cannot be called,--with
+rude doors fastening only from the outside, for windows small round
+holes mostly stuffed with straw near the roof, for floors sodden
+earth, for fireplaces holes in the same, the walls slimy and
+unplastered, the corners full of ages of dusty cobwebs, both the walls
+and the rafters of the roof black with ages of smoke, and beetles and
+other abominations hurry into crannies, when the doors are opened, to
+emerge as soon as they are shut. A small hole in the wall outside each
+stall serves for cooking. The habits of the people are repulsive, foul
+odours are only hybernating, and so, mercifully, are the vermin.
+
+While waiting for the "furniture" which is to make my "unfurnished
+apartment" habitable, I write sitting on my camp stool with its back
+against the wall, wrapped up in a horse-blanket, a heap of saddles,
+swords, holsters, and gear keeping the wind from my feet. The Afghan
+orderly smokes at the top of the stair. Plumes of palms and
+faintly-seen ridges of snowy hills appear over the battlements of the
+roof. A snow wind blows keenly. My fingers are nearly numb, and I am
+generally stiff and aching, but so much better that discomforts are
+only an amusement. Snow is said to be impending. I have lunched
+frugally on sheep's milk and dates, and feel everything but my present
+surroundings to be very far off, and as if I had lived the desert
+life, and had heard the chimes of the great caravans, and had seen the
+wild desert riders, and the sun sinking below the level line of the
+desert horizon, for two months instead of two days.
+
+Yakobiyeh is said to have 800 houses. It has some small mosques and
+several caravanserais, of which this is the best! It was once a
+flourishing place, but repeated ravages of the plague and chronic
+official extortions have reduced it to decay. Nevertheless, it grows
+grain enough for its own needs on poorly irrigated soil, and in its
+immense gardens apples, pears, apricots, walnuts, and mulberries
+flourish alongside of the orange and palm.
+
+_Kizil Robat, Jan. 14._--It was not very cold at Yakobiyeh. At home
+few people would be able to sit in a fireless den, with the door open,
+on a January night, but fireless though it was, my slender camp
+equipage gave it a look of comfort, and though rats or mice ate a bag
+of rusks during the night, and ran over my bed, there were no other
+annoyances. Hadji grows more dazed and possibly more unwilling every
+day, as he sees his vista of perquisites growing more limited, and to
+get off, even at nine, I have to do the heavy as well as the light
+packing myself.
+
+There was a great "row," arising out of an alleged delinquency of the
+_katirgis_ concerning payment, when we left Yakobiyeh the following
+morning. The owners of the caravanserai wanted to detain us, and the
+archway was so packed with a shouting, gesticulating, scowling, and
+not kindly crowd, mostly armed, that it was not easy for me to mount.
+The hire of mules always includes their fodder and the keep of the
+men, but in the first day or two the latter usually attempt to break
+their bargain, and compel their employer to provide for them. So long
+as Arabic is spoken Hadji acts as sole interpreter, and though
+soldiers and _zaptiehs_ were left with him he was scared at being left
+behind with the baggage. The people stormed and threatened at the top
+of their voices, but doubtless it was not so bad as it sounded, for we
+got through the bazars without molestation, and then into a perplexing
+system of ancient water-courses whose high broken banks and deep
+waterless beds intersect each other and the road. In contrast to this
+magnificent irrigation system there are modern water-channels about a
+foot wide, taken from the river Diyalah, which, small as they are,
+turn the rich deep soil into a "fruitful field."
+
+After these glimpses of a prosperity which once was and might be again
+(for these vast alluvial plains, which extend from the Zagros
+mountains to the Euphrates and up to the Syrian desert, are capable
+with irrigation and cultivation of becoming the granary of Western
+Asia), the road emerges on a level and somewhat gravelly waste, on
+which after a long ride we were overtaken by a _zaptieh_ sent by the
+Persian agent in Yakobiyeh, to say that the baggage and servants were
+being forcibly detained, but shortly afterwards with a good glass the
+caravan was seen emerging from the town.
+
+The country was nearly as featureless as on the preceding day, and on
+the whole quite barren; among the few caravans on the road there were
+two of immense value, the loads being the best description of Persian
+carpets. There were a few families on asses, migrating with all their
+possessions, and a few parties of Arab horsemen picturesquely and very
+fully armed, but no dwellings, till in the bright afternoon sunshine,
+on the dreariest stretch of an apparently verdureless waste, we came
+on the caravanserai of Wiyjahea, a gateway with a room above it, a
+square court with high walls and arched recesses all round for goods
+and travellers, and large stables. A row of reed huts, another of Arab
+tents, and a hovel opposite the gateway, where a man with two guns
+within reach sells food, tobacco, and hair ropes, make up this place
+of horror. For, indeed, the only water is a brackish reedy pool, with
+its slime well stirred by the feet of animals, and every man's hand is
+against his brother.
+
+We proposed to pitch my tent in a ruined enclosure, but the headman
+was unwilling, and when it was suggested that it should be placed
+between the shop and the caravanserai, he said that before sunset all
+the predatory Arabs for ten miles round would hear that "rich
+foreigners were travelling," and would fall upon and plunder us, so we
+must pitch, if at all, in the filthy and crowded court of the
+caravanserai. The _balakhana_, or upper room, was too insecure for me,
+and had no privacy, as the fodder was kept in it, and there was no
+method of closing the doors, which let in the bitterly cold wind.
+
+We arrived at 3 P.M., and long before sunset a number of caravans came
+in, and the courtyard was full of horses, mules, and asses. When they
+halted the loads were taken off and stacked in the arched recesses;
+next, the great padded pack-saddles, which cover nearly the whole
+back, were removed, revealing in most cases deep sores and ulcers.
+Then the animals were groomed with box curry-combs, with "clatters"
+like the noise of a bird-scarer inside them. Fifty curry-combs going
+at once is like the din of the cicada. Then the beasts were driven in
+batches to the reedy pool, and came flying back helter-skelter through
+the archway, some fighting, others playing, many rolling. One of them
+nearly pulled my tent over by rolling among the tent ropes. It had
+been pitched on damp and filthy ground in a corner of the yard, among
+mules, horses, asses, dogs, and the roughest of rough men, but even
+there the damp inside looked like home.
+
+After this brief hilarity, the pack-saddles, which serve as blankets,
+were put on, the camels were made to lie down in rows, most of the
+mules and horses were tethered in the great stable, where they
+neighed, stamped, and jangled their bells all night, and others were
+picketed in the yard among the goats and donkeys and the big dogs,
+which wandered about yelping. Later, the small remaining space was
+filled up with sheep. It was just possible to move, but no more, and
+sheep and goats were even packed under the _flys_ of my tent. The
+muleteers and travellers spread their bedding in the recesses, lighted
+their fires of animal fuel, and cooked their food.
+
+At sunset the view from the roof was almost beautiful. Far away, in
+all directions, stretched the level desert purpling in the purple
+light. Very faintly, on the far horizon to the north-east, mountain
+ranges were painted in amethyst on an orange sky. Horsemen in
+companies galloped to tents which were not in sight, strings of camels
+cast their long shadows on the purple sand, and flocks of big brown
+sheep, led by armed shepherds, converged on the reedy pool in long
+brown lines. The evening air was keen, nearly frosty.
+
+The prospects for the night were not encouraging, and on descending
+the filthy stair on which goats had taken up their quarters, I found
+the malodorous, crowded courtyard so blocked, that shepherds, with
+much pushing, shouting, and barking of big dogs, with difficulty made
+a way for me to pass through the packed mass of sheep and goats into
+the cold, damp tent, which was pitched on damp manure, two or three
+feet deep, into which heavy feet had trampled the carpet. The uproar
+of _katirgis_ and travellers went on for another two hours, and was
+exchanged later for sounds of jangling bells, yelping and quarrelling
+dogs, braying asses, bleating sheep, and coarsely-snoring men.
+
+At 9 P.M. the heavy gates, clamped with iron, were closed and barred,
+and some belated travellers, eager to get in from the perils of the
+outside, thundered at them long and persistently, but "the door was
+shut," and they encountered a hoarse refusal. The _seraidar_ said that
+400 horses and mules, besides camels and asses, 2000 sheep, and over
+70 men were lodged in the caravanserai that night.
+
+The servants were in a recess near, and Hadji professed that he
+watched all night, and said that he fired at a man who tried to rob my
+tent after the light went out, but I slept too soundly to be
+disturbed, till the caravans and flocks left at daybreak, after a
+preliminary uproar of two hours. It was bitterly cold, and my tent and
+its contents were soaked with the heavy dew, nearly doubling their
+weight.
+
+I started at 9 A.M., before the hoar-frost had melted, and rode with
+the _zaptieh_ over flat, stoneless, alluvial soil, with some
+irrigation and the remains of some fine canals. There are villages to
+be seen in the distance, but though the soil is rich enough to support
+a very large population, there are no habitations near the road except
+a few temporary reed huts, beside two large caravanserais. There was
+little of an interesting kind except the perpetual contrast between
+things as they are and things as they were and might be. Some large
+graveyards, with brick graves, a crumbling _imamzada_, a pointed arch
+of brick over the Nahrud canal, a few ass caravans, with a live fowl
+tied by one leg on the back of each ass, and struggling painfully to
+keep its uneasy seat, some cultivation and much waste, and then we
+reached the walled village of Sheraban, once a town, but now only
+possessing 300 houses.
+
+Passing as usual among ruinous dwellings and between black walls with
+doors here and there, by alleys foul with heaps of refuse, and
+dangerous from slimy pitfalls, in the very foulest part we turned into
+the caravanserai, its great courtyard reeking with filth and puddles,
+among which are the contaminated wells from which we are supposed to
+drink. The experience of the night before was not repeated. There were
+fairly good rooms, mine looking into a palm garden, through a wooden
+grating, cold truly, but pleasant. I fear we may never have such
+"luxury" again. I remarked to my fellow-traveller that our early
+arrival had fortunately given us the "choice of rooms," and he
+replied, "choice of pig-styes,--choice of dens!" but my experience at
+Wiyjahea has deprived me of the last remnants of fastidiousness!
+
+I walked through the ruinous, wretched town, and its poor bazar, where
+the very fine _physique_ of the men was in marked contrast with their
+wretched surroundings, and gives one the impression that under honest
+officials they might be a fine people. They are not genial to
+strangers, however. There was some bad language used in the bazar, and
+on the roads they pass one in silence at the best, so unlike the
+Tibetans with their friendly _Tzu_. At Sheraban one of the muleteers
+forced his way into my room, and roughly turned over my saddle and
+baggage, accusing me of having taken his blanket! Hadji is useless
+under such circumstances. He blusters and fingers his revolver, but
+carries no weight. Indeed his defects are more apparent every day. I
+often have to speak to him two or three times before I can rouse him
+from his opium dream, and there is a growing inclination to shirk his
+very light work when he can shift it upon somebody else. I hope that
+he is well-meaning, as that would cover a multitude of faults, but he
+is very rough and ignorant, and is either unable or unwilling to learn
+anything, even how to put up my trestle bed!
+
+Open rooms have sundry disadvantages. In the night a cat fell from
+the roof upon my bed, and was soon joined by more, and they knocked
+over the lamp and milk bottle, and in the darkness had a noisy quarrel
+over the milk.
+
+The march of eighteen miles here was made in six hours, at a good
+caravan pace. The baggage animals were sent off in advance, and the
+_zaptieh_ led a mule loaded with chairs, blankets, and occupations. I
+ride with the _zaptieh_ in front of me till I get near the
+halting-place, when M---- and his orderly overtake me, as it might be
+disagreeable for a European woman to enter a town alone.
+
+The route lies over treeless levels of the same brown alluvial soil,
+till it is lifted on a gentle gravelly slope to a series of low
+crumbling mounds of red and gray sandstone, mixed up with soft
+conglomerate rocks of jasper and porphyry pebbles. These ranges of
+mounds, known as the Hamrin Hills, run parallel to the great Kurdistan
+ranges, from a point considerably below Baghdad, nearly to Mosul and
+the river Zab. They mark the termination in this direction of the vast
+alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and are the first step to
+the uplifted Iranian plateau.
+
+Arid and intricate ravines, dignified by the name of passes, furrow
+these hills, and bear an evil reputation, as Arab robbers lie in wait,
+"making it very unsafe for small caravans." A wild, desolate,
+ill-omened-looking region it is. When we were fairly within the pass,
+the _zaptieh_ stopped, and with much gesticulation and many
+repetitions of the word _effendi_, made me understand that it was
+unsafe to proceed without a larger party. We were unmolested, but it
+is a discredit to the administration of the province that an organised
+system of pillage should be allowed to exist year after year on one of
+the most frequented caravan routes in Turkey. There were several
+companies of armed horsemen among the ranges, and some camels
+browsing, but we met no caravans.
+
+From the top of the descent there was a striking view over a great
+brown alluvial plain, watered by the Beladruz and the Diyalah, with
+serrated hills of no great height, but snow-covered; on its east side
+a silent, strange, weird view, without interest or beauty as seen
+under a sullen sky. There are no villages on this march, but ancient
+canals run in all directions, and fragments of buildings, as well as
+of brick and pottery, scattered over the unploughed surface, are
+supposed by many to mark the situation of Dastagird, the residence of
+Khosroe Parviz in the seventh century. I have no books of reference
+with me, and can seldom write except of such things as I see and hear.
+
+Farther on a multitude of irrigation ditches have turned a plain of
+dry friable soil into a plain of mud, through which it was difficult
+to struggle. Then came a grove of palms, and then the town or village
+of Kizil Robat (Red Shrine), with its _imamzada_, whose reputation for
+sanctity is indicated by the immense number of graves which surround
+it. The walls of this decayed and wretched town are of thick layers of
+hardened but now crumbling earth, and on the east side there is an old
+gateway of burned brick. There are said to be 400 houses, which at the
+lowest computation would mean a population of 2000, but inhabited
+houses and ruins are so jumbled up together that one cannot form any
+estimate.
+
+So woe-begone and miserable a place I never saw, and the dirt is
+appalling even in this dry weather. In spring the alleys of the town
+are impassable, and people whose business calls them out cross from
+roof to roof on boards. Pools of filthy water, loathsome ditches with
+broad margins of trodden slime full of abominations, ruins of houses,
+yards foul with refuse, half-clothed and wholly unwashed children, men
+of low aspect standing in melancholy groups, a well-built brick bazar,
+in which Manchester cottons are prominent, more mud and dirt, some
+ruinous caravanserais, and near the extremity of the town or village
+is the horrible one in which I now am, said to be the best, with a
+yard a foot deep in manure and slush, in the midst of which is the
+well, and around which are stables and recesses for travellers.
+
+At first it seemed likely that I should fall so low as to occupy one
+of these, but careful investigation revealed a ruinous stair leading
+to the roof, up which were two rooms, or shall I say three?--an arched
+recess such as coals are kept in, a small room within it, and a low
+wood hole. The open arch, with a _mangel_ or iron pan of charcoal,
+serves as the "parlour" this January night, M---- occupies the wood
+hole, and I the one room, into which Hadji, with many groans and
+ejaculations of "_Ya Allah!_" has brought up the essential parts of my
+baggage. The evening is gray and threatening, and low, snow-covered
+hills look grimly over the bare brown plain which lies outside this
+mournful place.
+
+_Khannikin, Jan. 15._--This has been a hard, rough march, but there
+will be many worse ahead. Rain fell heavily all night, converting the
+yard into a lake of trampled mud, and seemed so likely to continue
+that it was difficult to decide whether to march or halt. Miserable it
+was to see mules standing to be loaded, up to their knees in mud,
+bales of tents and bedding lying in the quagmire, and the shivering
+Indian servants up to their knees in the swamp. In rain steadily
+falling the twelve animals were loaded, and after the usual scrimmage
+at starting, in which the _bakhsheesh_ is often thrown back at us, we
+rode out into a sea of deep mud, through which the mules, struggling
+and floundering, got on about a mile an hour.
+
+After a time we came to gravel, then relapsed into deep alluvial soil,
+which now means deep mire, then a low range of gravelly hills on
+which a few sheep and camels were browsing on artemisia and other
+aromatic herbs gave a temporary respite, then again we floundered
+through miles of mud, succeeded by miles of gravel and stones. The
+rain fell in torrents, and there was a cold strong wind to fight
+against. There was that amount of general unpropitiousness which is
+highly stimulating and inspiriting.
+
+When noon came, there was not a rock or bush for shelter, and turning
+our backs to the storm we ate our lunch in our saddles. There was
+nothing to look at but brown gravel, or brown mud, brooded over by a
+gray mist. So we tramped on, hour after hour, in single file, the
+_zaptieh_ leading, everything but his gun muffled in his brown _abba_,
+splashing through mud and water, the water pouring from my hat and
+cloak, the six woollen thicknesses of my mask dripping, seeing neither
+villages nor caravans, for caravans of goods do not travel in such
+rain as this. Then over a slope we went down into a lake of mud, where
+the _aide-de-camp_ of the Governor of Khannikin, in a fez and military
+frock-coat and trousers, with a number of Bashi Bazouks or irregulars,
+met M---- with courtesies and an invitation.
+
+From the top of the next slope there was a view of Khannikin, a
+considerable-looking town among groves of palms and other trees. Then
+came a worse sea of mud, and a rudely cobbled causeway, so horrible
+that it diverted us back into the mud, which was so bottomless that it
+drove us back to the causeway, and the causeway back to the mud, the
+rain all the time coming down in sheets. This causeway, without
+improvement, is carried through Khannikin, a town with narrow blind
+alleys, upon which foul courtyards open, often so foul as to render
+the recent ravages of cholera (if science speaks truly) a matter of
+necessity. The mud and water in these alleys was up to the knees of
+the mules. Not a creature was in the streets. No amount of curiosity,
+even regarding the rare sight of a Frank woman, could make people face
+the storm in flimsy cotton clothes.
+
+Where the road turns to the bridge a line of irregular infantry was
+drawn up, poorly dressed, soaked creatures, standing in chilly mud up
+to their ankles, in soaked boots reaching to their knees. These joined
+and headed the cavalcade, and I fell humbly in the rear. Poor fellows!
+To keep step was impossible when it was hard work to drag their feet
+out of the mire, and they carried their rifles anyhow. It was a
+grotesque procession. A trim officer, forlorn infantry, wild-looking
+Bashi Bazouks, Europeans in stout mackintoshes splashed with mud from
+head to foot, mules rolling under their bespattered loads, and a
+_posse_ of servants and orderlies crouching on the top of baggage,
+muffled up to the eyes, the asses which carry the _katirgis_ and their
+equipments far behind, staggering and nearly done up, for the march of
+seventeen miles had taken eight and a half hours.
+
+An abrupt turn in the causeway leads to the Holwan, a tributary of the
+Diyalah, a broad, rapid stream, over which the enterprise of a Persian
+has thrown a really fine brick bridge of thirteen heavily-buttressed
+arches, which connects the two parts of the town and gives some
+dignity and picturesqueness to what would otherwise be mean. On the
+left bank of the Holwan are the barracks, the governor's house, some
+large caravanserais, the Custom-house, and a quarantine station,
+quarantine having just been imposed on all arrivals from Persia,
+giving travel and commerce a decided check.
+
+After half a mile of slush on the river bank we entered by a handsome
+gateway a nearly flooded courtyard, and the Governor's house
+hospitably engorged the whole party.
+
+The fully-laden mules stuck in the mud a few miles off, and did not
+come in for two hours, and in spite of covers everything not done up
+in waterproof was very wet. The servants looked most miserable, and
+complained of chills and rheumatism, and one of the orderlies is
+really ill. We cannot move till the storm is over.
+
+The rain falls heavily still, the river is rising, the alleys are two
+feet deep in slush, travel is absolutely suspended, and it is not
+possible without necessity to go out. It was well indeed that we
+decided to leave the shelterless shelter of Kizil Robat. Nothing can
+exceed the wretchedness of Khannikin or any Turkish town in such rain
+as this. Would that one could think that it would be washed, but as
+there are no channels to carry off the water it simply lodges and
+stagnates in every depression, and all the accumulations of summer
+refuse slide into these abominable pools, and the foul dust, a foot
+deep, becomes mud far deeper; buried things are half uncovered;
+torrents, not to be avoided, pour from every roof, the courtyards are
+knee-deep in mud, the cows stand disconsolately in mud; not a woman is
+to be seen, the few men driven forth by the merciless exigences of
+business show nothing but one eye, and with "loins girded" and big
+staffs move wearily, stumbling and plunging in the mire.
+
+After some hours the flat mud roofs begin to leak, water finds out
+every weak place in the walls, the bazars, only half open for a short
+time in the day, are deserted by buyers, and the patient sellers
+crouch over _mangels_, muffled up in sheepskins, the caravanserais are
+crammed and quarrelsome; the price of fodder and fuel rises, and every
+one is drowned in rain and wretchedness. Even here, owing to the
+scarcity of fuel, nothing can be dried; the servants in their damp
+clothes come in steaming; Hadji in his misshapen "jack-boots," which
+he asserts he cannot take off, spreads fresh mud over the carpets
+whenever he enters; I shift from place to place to avoid the drip from
+the roof--and still the rain comes down with unabated vigour!
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[10] I present my diary letters much as they were written, believing
+that the details of travel, however wearisome to the experienced
+traveller, will be interesting to the "Untravelled Many," to whom
+these volumes are dedicated.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III (_Continued_)
+
+
+The house consists of two courtyards, with buildings round them. The
+larger and handsomer is the _haram_ or women's house, which is
+strictly enclosed, has no exterior windows, and its one door into the
+men's house is guarded by a very ancient eunuch. The courtyard of this
+house is surrounded partly by arched _serdabs_, with green lattice
+fronts, and partly by a kitchen, bakery, wood-house, _hammam_ or hot
+bath, and the servants' quarters. The _haram_ has a similar
+arrangement on the lower floor. A broad balcony, reached by a steep
+and narrow stair, runs round three sides of the upper part of this
+house. There are very few rooms, and some of them are used for storing
+fruit. The wet baggage is mostly up here, and under the deep roof the
+servants and orderlies camp, looking miserable. The _haram_ has a
+balcony all round it, on which a number of reception and living rooms
+open, and though not grand or elaborately decorated, is convenient and
+comfortable.
+
+The Turkish host evidently did not know what to do with such an
+embarrassing guest as a European woman, and solved the difficulty by
+giving me the guest-chamber in the men's house, a most fortunate
+decision, as I have had quiet and privacy for three days. Besides,
+this room has a projecting window, with panes of glass held in by
+nails, and there is not only a view of the alley with its slush, but
+into the house of some poor folk, and over that to the Holwan,
+sometimes in spate, sometimes falling, and through all the hours of
+daylight frequented by grooms for the purpose of washing their horses.
+Some shingle banks, now overflowed, sustain a few scraggy willows, and
+on the farther side is some low-lying land. There may be much besides,
+but the heavy rain-clouds blot out all else.
+
+My room is whitewashed, and is furnished with Persian rugs, Austrian
+bent-wood chairs, and a divan in the window, on which I sleep. Lamps,
+_samovars_, and glasses are kept in recesses, and a black slave is
+often in and out for them. Otherwise no one enters but Hadji. I get my
+food somewhat precariously. It is carved and sent from table at the
+beginning of meals, chiefly pillau, curry, _kabobs_, and roast
+chicken, but apparently it is not etiquette for me to get it till
+after the men have dined, and it is none the better for being cold.
+
+The male part of the household consists of the Governor and his
+brother-in-law, a Moslem judge, and the quarantine doctor, a Cretan,
+takes his meals in the house. The Governor and doctor speak French. My
+fellow-traveller lives with them.
+
+The night we arrived, the Governor in some agitation asked me to go
+and see his wife, who is very ill. The cholera has only just
+disappeared, and the lady had had a baby, which died of it in three
+days, and "being a boy her heart was broken," and "something had come
+under her arm." So I went with him into the _haram_, which seemed
+crowded with women of various races and colours, peeping from behind
+curtains and through chinks of doors, tittering and whispering. The
+wife's room is richly carpeted and thoroughly comfortable, with a huge
+charcoal brazier in the centre, and cushions all over the floor,
+except at one end, where there is a raised alcove with a bed in it.
+
+On this the lady sat--a rather handsome Kurdish woman, about
+thirty-five, dressed in a silk quilted jacket, and with a black gauze
+handkerchief round her head, and a wadded quilt over her crossed legs.
+She was supported by a pile of pillows. Since then I have been sent
+for to see her several times every day, and found her always in the
+same position. There is surely something weird about it. She says she
+sits there all night, and has not lain down for two months. A black
+slave was fanning her, and two women, shrouded in veils of tinselled
+gauze, sat on the bed combing her luxuriant hair. She is not really
+beautiful at all, but her husband assures me constantly that she is
+"_une femme savante_." She has property and the consideration which
+attaches to it. She was burning with fever and very weak.
+
+I had scarcely returned to my room when my host sent again, begging
+that I would go back and see the doctor. I found that it was expected
+that I should persuade the lady to consent to have the abscess, or
+whatever it is, reopened. The room was full of women and eunuchs, and
+the chief eunuch, an elderly Arab, sat on the bed and supported her
+while the doctor dressed the wound, and even helped him with it. Her
+screams were fearful, and five people held her with difficulty. Her
+husband left the room, unable to bear her cries.
+
+Quite late I was sent for again, and that time by the lady, to know if
+I thought she would die. It appears that her brother, the judge,
+remains here to see that she is not the victim of foul play, but I
+don't like to ask to whom the suspicion points, or whether our host,
+although the civil governor, keeps him here that he may not be
+suspected in case his rich wife dies.
+
+Except for the repeated summonses to the sick-room, a walk on the
+slime of the roof when the rain ceases for a time, and on the balcony
+of the _haram_ when it does not, and a study of the habits of my
+neighbours over the way, it is very dull. I have patched and mended
+everything that gave any excuse for either operation, have written
+letters which it is not safe to post, and have studied my one book on
+Persia till I know it throughout, and still the rain falls nearly
+without cessation and the quagmires outside deepen.
+
+So bad is it that, dearly as Orientals love bazars and _hammams_,
+Hadji refuses leave to go to either. I remarked to him that he must be
+glad of such a rest, and he replied in his usual sententious fashion:
+"They who have to work must work. God knows all." I fear he is very
+lazy, and he has no idea of making one comfortable or of keeping
+anything clean. He stamps the mud of the courtyard into the carpets,
+and wipes my plates without washing them, with his shirt. He considers
+that our host has attained the height of human felicity. "What is
+there left to wish for?" he says. "He has numbers of slaves, and he's
+always buying more, and he's got numbers of women and eunuchs, and
+everything, and when he wants money he just sends round the villages.
+God is great! _Ya Allah!_"
+
+Khannikin, being the nearest town to the Persian frontier, should be a
+place of some importance. It is well situated at an altitude of 1700
+feet among groves of palms, on both banks of the Holwan, and having
+plenty of water, the rich alluvium between it and Yakobiyeh is able to
+support its own population, though it has to import for caravans. Most
+of the Persian trade with Baghdad and thousands of Shiah pilgrims
+annually pass through it. It is a customs station, and has a regiment
+of soldiers. Nevertheless, it is very ruinous, and its population has
+diminished of late years from 5000 to about 1800 (exclusive of the
+troops), and of this number a fifth have been carried off by cholera
+within the last few weeks. It has no schools, and no special
+industries. The stamp of decay rests upon it. Exactions, crushing
+hope out of the people, the general insecurity of property, and the
+misrule which has blighted these fine Asiatic provinces everywhere,
+sufficiently explain its decadence.
+
+The imposition of quarantine on arrivals from Persia has all but
+stopped the supply of charcoal, and knowing the scarcity in the house,
+I am going without a fire, as most of the inhabitants are doing. A
+large caravanserai outside the walls is used as a quarantine station,
+and three others are taken as lazarettos. Out of these arrangements
+the officials make a great deal of money in fees, but anything more
+horrible than the sanitary state of these places cannot be conceived.
+The water appears to be the essence of typhoid fever and cholera, and
+the unfortunate _detenus_ are crowded into holes unfit for beasts,
+breathing pestiferous exhalations, and surrounded by such ancient and
+modern accumulations of horrors that typhus fever, cholera, and even
+the plague might well be expected to break out.
+
+Yesterday, for a brief interval, hills covered with snow appeared
+through rolling black clouds, and a change seemed probable, but rain
+fell in torrents all night; there is a spate in the river, and though
+we were ready to start at eight this morning, the _katirgis_ declined
+to move, saying that the road could not be travelled because of the
+depth of the fords and the mud.
+
+The roof, though a good one, is now so leaky that I am obliged to
+sleep under my waterproof cloak, and the un-puttied window-frames let
+in the rain. Early this morning a gale from the south-west came on,
+and the howling and roaring have been frightful, the rain falling in
+sheets most of the time. Sensations are not wanting. One of the
+orderlies is seriously ill, and has to be left behind under medical
+care till he can be sent to India,--the second man who has broken
+down. A runner came in with the news that all caravans are stopped in
+the Zagros mountains by snow, which has been falling for five days,
+and that the road is not expected to be open for a fortnight. Later,
+the Persian agent called to say that on the next march the road, which
+is carried on a precipice above the river, has slid down bodily, and
+that there are fifteen feet of water where there should be only two.
+Of course this prolonged storm is "exceptional." The temperature is
+falling, and it is so cold without a fire that though my bed is only a
+blanket-covered dais of brick and lime, dripped upon continually, in a
+window with forty draughts, I am glad to muffle myself up in its
+blankets and write among wraps.
+
+The Governor, recognising the craze of Europeans for exercise, sent
+word that M---- might walk in the balcony of the _haram_ if I went to
+chaperon him, and this great concession was gladly accepted, for it
+was the only possible way of getting warm. The apparition of a strange
+man, and a European, within the precincts of the _haram_ was a great
+event, and every window, curtain, and doorway was taken advantage of
+by bright dark eyes sparkling among folds of cotton and gauze. The
+enjoyment was surreptitious, but possibly all the more keen, and
+sounds of whispering and giggling surged out of every crevice. There
+are over thirty women, some of them negresses. Some are Kurds and very
+handsome, but the faces of the two handsomest, though quite young,
+have something fiendish in their expression. I have seldom seen a
+_haram_ without its tragedies of jealousy and hate, and every fresh
+experience makes me believe that the system is as humiliating to men
+as it is to women.
+
+The _haram_ reception-rooms here are large and bright, with roofs and
+cornices worked daintily in very white plaster, and there are superb
+carpets on the floors, and divans covered with Damascus embroidery in
+gold silk on cream muslin.
+
+Each day the demands for my presence in the sick-room are more
+frequent, and though I say that I can scarcely aspire to be a nurse,
+they persist in thinking that I am a _Haki[=i]m_, and possibly a
+useful spy on the doctor. I have become aware that unscrupulous
+jealousy of the principal wife exists, and, as is usual in the East,
+everybody distrusts everybody else, and prefers to trust strangers.
+The husband frequently asks me to remove what seems a cancerous
+tumour, and the doctor says that an operation is necessary to save the
+lady's life, but when I urge him to perform it, and offer a nurse's
+help, he replies that if she were to die he would be at once accused
+of murder, and would run a serious risk.
+
+The Governor to-day was so anxious that I should persuade the lady to
+undergo an operation that he even brought Hadji into the room to
+interpret what I said in Arabic. His ceaseless question is, "Will she
+die?" and she asks me the same many times every day. She insists that
+I shall be present each day when the wound is dressed, and give help,
+lest the doctor without her leave should plunge a knife into the
+swelling. These are most distressing occasions, for an hour of
+struggle and suffering usually ends in delirium.
+
+This afternoon, however, she was much freer from pain, and sent for me
+to amuse her. She wore some fine jewels, and some folds of tinselled
+gauze round her head, and looked really handsome and intelligent. Her
+husband wished that we could converse without his imperfect
+interpreting, and repeated many times, "She is a learned woman, and
+can write and read several languages." The room was as usual full of
+women, who had removed their veils at their lord's command. I showed
+the lady some Tibetan sketches, but when I came to one of a man the
+women replaced their veils!
+
+When I showed some embroidery, the Governor said he had heard that the
+Queen of England employed herself with her needle in leisure hours,
+but that it is not _comme il faut_ here for ladies to work. It seems
+that the making of sweetmeats is the only occupation which can be
+pursued without loss of dignity. Is it wonderful that intolerable
+_ennui_ should be productive of the miserable jealousies, rivalries,
+intrigues, and hatreds which accompany the system of polygamy?
+
+The host, although civil governor of a large district, also suffers
+from _ennui_. The necessary official duties are very light, and the
+accounts and reports are prepared by others. If money is wanted he
+makes "an exaction" on a village, and subordinates screw it out of the
+people. Justice, or the marketable commodity which passes for such, is
+administered by a _kadi_. He clatters about the balconies with
+slippered feet, is domestic, that is, he spends most of the day in the
+_haram_, smokes, eats two meals of six or seven courses each, and
+towards evening takes a good deal of wine, according to a habit which
+is becoming increasingly common among the higher classes of Moslems.
+He is hospitable, and is certainly anything but tyrannical in his
+household.
+
+The customs and ways of the first Turkish house I have visited in
+would be as interesting to you as they were to myself, but it would be
+a poor return for hospitality to dwell upon anything, unless, like the
+difficulties regarding the illness of the principal wife, it were a
+matter of common notoriety.
+
+It is a punishable act in Persia, and possibly here also, to look into
+a neighbour's house, but I cannot help it unless I were to avoid the
+window altogether. Wealth and poverty are within a few feet of each
+other, and as Moslems are charitable to a degree and in a manner
+which puts us to shame, the juxtaposition is advantageous.
+
+My neighbour's premises consist of a very small and mean yard, now a
+foot deep in black mire, a cow-shed, and a room without door or
+windows, with a black uneven floor, and black slimy rafters--neither
+worse nor better than many hovels in the Western Isles of Scotland. A
+man in middle life, a woman of dubious age, two girls from eight to
+ten years old, and a boy a little older are the occupants. The
+furniture consists of some wadded quilts, a copper pot, an iron
+girdle, a clay ewer or two, a long knife, a wooden spoon, a clay
+receptacle for grain, two or three earthenware basins, glazed green,
+and a wicker tray. The cow-shed contains--besides the cow, which is
+fed on dried thistles--a spade, an open basket, and a baggage pad. A
+few fowls live in the house, and are disconcerted to find that they
+cannot get out of it without swimming.
+
+The weather is cold and raw, fuel is enormously dear, work is at a
+standstill, and cold and _ennui_ keep my neighbours in bed till the
+day is well advanced. "Bed" consists of a wadded quilt laid on the
+floor, with another for a covering. The man and boy sleep at one end
+of the room, the woman and girls at the other, with covered heads.
+None make any change in their dress at night, except that the man
+takes off the _pagri_ of his turban, retaining only a skull cap.
+
+The woman gets up first, lights a fire of tamarisk twigs and thistles
+in a hole in the middle of the floor, makes porridge of some coarse
+brownish flour and water, and sets it on to warm--to _boil_ it, with
+the means at her disposal, is impossible. She wades across the yard,
+gives the cow a bunch of thistles, milks it into a basin, adds a
+little leaven to the milk, which she shakes in a goat skin till it is
+thick, carries the skin and basket to the house, feeds the fowls from
+the basket, and then rouses her lord. He rises, stretches himself,
+yawns, and places himself cross-legged by the fire, after putting on
+his _pagri_. The room is dense with pungent wood smoke, which escapes
+through the doorway, and only a few embers remain. The wife hands him
+an earthen bowl, pours some porridge into it, adds some "thick milk"
+from the goat skin, and stands before him with her arms crossed while
+he eats, then receives the bowl from his hands and kisses it, as is
+usual with the slaves in a household.
+
+Then she lights his pipe, and while he enjoys it she serves her boy
+with breakfast in the same fashion, omitting the concluding ceremony,
+after which she and the girls retire to a respectful distance with the
+big pot, and finish its contents simultaneously. The pipe over, she
+pours water on her lord's hands, letting it run on the already damp
+floor, and wipes them with her _chadar_. No other ablution is
+customary in the house.
+
+Poor as this man is, he is a Hadji, and having brought from Mecca a
+"prayer stone," with the Prophet's hand upon it, he takes it from his
+girdle, puts it on the floor, bows his forehead on it, turning
+Mecca-ward, and says his prayers, repeating his devotions towards
+evening. The first day or two he went out, but the roads now being
+almost impassable, he confines himself to the repairing of a small
+dyke, which keeps the water from running into the room, which is lower
+than the yard, and performs its duty very imperfectly, the soak from
+the yard and the drip from the roof increasing the sliminess hourly.
+These repairs, an occasional pipe, and much sleep are the record of
+this man's day till an hour before sunset, when the meal of the
+morning is repeated with the addition of some cheese.
+
+The children keep chiefly in bed. Meanwhile the woman, the busy bee of
+the family, contrives to patter about nearly all day in wet clothing,
+carrying out rubbish in single handfuls, breaking twigs, cleaning the
+pot, and feeding the cow. The roof, which in fine weather is the scene
+of most domestic occupations, is reached by a steep ladder, and she
+climbs this seven times in succession, each time carrying up a fowl,
+to pick for imaginary worms in the slimy mud. Dyed yarn is also
+carried up to steep in the rain, and in an interval of dryness some
+wool was taken up and carded. An hour before sunset she lights the
+fire, puts on the porridge, and again performs seven journeys with
+seven fowls, feeds them in the house, attends respectfully to her
+lord, feeds her family, including the cow, paddles through mire to
+draw water from the river, and unrolls and spreads the wadded quilts.
+By the time it is dark they are once more in bed, where I trust this
+harmless, industrious woman enjoys a well-earned sleep.
+
+The clouds are breaking, and in spite of adverse rumours it is decided
+_coute que coute_ to start to-morrow. For my own part I prefer the
+freedom even with the "swinishness" of a caravanserai to receiving
+hospitality for which no fitting return can be made.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+
+     SARIPUL-I-ZOHAB, _Jan. 21_.
+
+The rain at last ceased, and after the _katirgis_ had squabbled for an
+hour over the baggage, we got off at ten, two days ago, very grateful
+for shelter and hospitality under such untoward circumstances. Six
+Bashi Bazouks and two _zaptiehs_ on foot in ragged and incongruous
+uniforms escorted us to the Turkish frontier.
+
+The streets were in a terrible condition, and horse and footmen, after
+an attempt to march in pairs, fell perforce into a floundering and
+disorderly single file, the footmen occasionally pulling themselves
+out of mud holes by the tails of the horses. Outside the town there
+was an expanse of mud and flooded water-channels which broke up the
+last attempt at a procession, and led to a general _sauve qui peut_.
+The mire was tenacious and up to the horses' knees, half the mules
+were down with their loads, Hadji rolled into the mud, my capable
+animal snorted and struggled, some went on banks and some took to
+streams, the asses had to be relieved of their loads, and the air was
+full of shouts and objurgations, till after much delay the forlorn
+rabble all struggled to the _terra firma_ of a gravelly slope,
+splashed from head to foot.
+
+The road crosses low, rolling, gravelly hills, with an occasional
+outcrop of red sandstone, and ascends on the whole. The sun was
+bright, but the wind was strong and very cold. The Bashi Bazouk escort
+was altogether harum-scarum and inconsequent, careering in circles,
+and firing at birds (which they never hit) from the saddle, and when
+we reached some low hills bearing a bad reputation, the officer, in
+order to represent danger and his vigilant care, threw them out in all
+directions scouting for robbers, till we came to a steepish hill
+crowned by a round tower with a mushroom top, a few ruinous mud
+buildings, and a tattered tent. Here the escort formed into one line,
+and the ragged garrison into another, with an officer facing them, and
+were photographed as they shivered in the biting wind. This tower is a
+Turkish frontier fort.
+
+Soon afterwards the Persian frontier is crossed, the hills increase
+considerably in size, and mud was exchanged for firm, rough gravel. A
+feature of the otherwise featureless landscape is the frequent
+occurrence of towers like martello towers, on hill-tops, placed there
+for the shelter of the guards who formerly kept a look-out for
+robbers. In the uninteresting gravel lie pebbles of jasper and agate,
+emerald green, red, yellow, and purple. The first object of the
+slightest interest in this new country was a village of Ilyats, built
+of reed screens, with roofs of goat's-hair cloth, and with small yards
+with reed walls in front. The women, who wore full trousers and short
+jackets, were tall, somewhat striking-looking, and unveiled. Their
+hair hung down in long plaits, and they wore red handkerchiefs knotted
+at the back of the head.
+
+There an escort of four Persian _sowars_ joined us. The type of face
+was that with which we are familiar on Sasanian coins and sculptured
+stones, the brow and chin receding considerably, and the nose thin and
+projecting, the profile suggesting a beak rather than a human face,
+and the skin having the appearance of being drawn so tightly over the
+bones as to force the eyes into singular prominence.
+
+  [Illustration: A TURKISH FRONTIER FORT.]
+
+A six hours' march ended at the wildly-situated village of
+Kasr-i-Shirin, high on the right bank of the Holwan, with a plantation
+of dates on the left bank and considerable cultivation in the valley.
+It has only eighty houses of the most wretched construction, rivalled
+in height and size by middens, the drainage of which wastes itself on
+the wretched roadway. A caravanserai of the most miserable
+description, a square fort with a small garrison, and some large
+graveyards with domed tombs and curious obelisks, are the salient
+features of this village. Its wretched aspect is accounted for by its
+insecurity. It has been destroyed by robber tribes as often as there
+was anything worth destroying, and it has been so tossed to and fro
+between Turkey and Persia as not to have any of the special
+characteristics of either empire.
+
+We stopped short of the village, at a great pile of building on a
+height, in massiveness and irregularity resembling a German medieval
+castle, in which a letter had secured accommodation. It has been
+unoccupied since its owner, Jan Mir, a sheikh of a robber tribe, and
+the terror of the surrounding neighbourhood, was made away with by the
+Persian Government.
+
+The accommodation consisted of great, dark, arched, vaulted rooms,
+with stone-flagged floors, noble in size, but needing fifty candles
+and huge log fires to light up and warm their dark recesses, and
+gruesome and damp with one candle and a crackle of twigs. They were
+clean, however, and their massive walls kept out the cold. The village
+is at an elevation of 2300 feet, and the temperature has greatly
+changed.
+
+The interest of Kasr-i-Shirin is that it lies among masses of ancient
+rubble, and that the slopes which surround it are completely covered
+with hewn and unhewn stones of all sizes, the relics of a great city,
+at the western extremity of which the present wretched hamlet
+stands.[11] The walls, which are easily traced, enclose an irregular
+square, the shortest front of which is said to be three miles long.
+They are built of roughly-hewn blocks of gray and red sandstone, and
+very hard mortar or concrete. The blocks are so huge in many places as
+to deserve the often misused epithet Cyclopean.
+
+Within this enclosure are remains of houses built of water-worn round
+stones, which lie in monstrous heaps, and of a large fort on an
+eminence. In another direction are the ruins of an immense palace of
+quadrangular form, with only one entrance, and large underground rooms
+now nearly choked up. There are remains of what must have been very
+fine archways, but as the outer coating of hewn stone and all the
+decorations have fallen off, leaving only the inner case of rough
+rubble and concrete, the architectural forms are very badly defined,
+and the aspect of what must once have been magnificent is now
+forbidding and desolate. The remains of an aqueduct cut in the rock,
+and of troughs and stone pipes by which water was brought into the
+palace and city, from a distance of fifteen miles, are still traceable
+among the desolations, but of the beautiful gardens which they
+watered, and with which Khosroe surrounded the beautiful Shirin, not a
+trace remains. There was a pale sunset, flushing with pale pink
+distant leagues of sodden snow, and right across a lurid opening in a
+heavy mass of black clouds the great ruined pile of the palace of
+Khosroe the Magnificent stood out, a dismal commentary on splendour
+and fame.
+
+The promise of the evening was fulfilled the next day in windy rain,
+which began gently, but afterwards fell in persistent torrents, varied
+by pungent swirls of sleet and snow. Leaving the gash through cliffs
+with curious stratification in white and red, formed by the Holwan,
+the day was spent in skirting or crossing low hills. The mud was very
+deep and tenacious, and the rate of progress barely two miles an hour.
+There were no caravans, travellers, or population, and no birds or
+beasts. The rain clouds hung low and heavy, mists boiled up from among
+the folds of the hills, the temperature fell perceptibly. It was
+really inspiriting for people protected by good mackintoshes.
+
+After riding for six hours the rain changed into sleet and wet snow,
+blotting out the hills and creating an unnatural twilight, in which we
+floundered in mud up to the mules' knees into the filthiest village I
+have ever seen, a compound of foul, green ditches, piles of dissolving
+manure, mud hovels looking as if they were dissolving too, reed huts,
+and an Ilyat village, grouped round the vilest of caravanserais, the
+entrance to which was knee-deep in mire. To lodge in it was voted
+impossible, and the escort led us in the darkening mist and pelting
+sleet to an adjacent mud hamlet as hopeless-looking on the other side
+of the bridge, where, standing up to the knees of the mules in liquid
+manure, we sought but vainly for shelter, forded the Holwan, and
+returned to the caravanserai through almost impassable slush.
+
+It was simply loathsome, with its stench, its foulness, and its mire,
+and was already crowded and noisy with men and beasts. There was a
+great courtyard with arched recesses all round, too abominable to be
+occupied, too exposed and ruinous, even had they been cleaned, to give
+shelter from the driving sleet. The last resource was to pass through
+an archway into the great, lofty mule stable, on both sides of which
+are similar recesses or mangers, about ten feet by seven and about
+eight feet high. The stable was of great size and height with a domed
+roof. Probably it runs half-way round the quadrangle at the back of
+the uninhabitable recesses. There were at least four hundred mules in
+this place, jangling their great bells, and crowds of _katirgis_,
+travellers, and _zaptiehs_, all wet and splashed over their heads with
+mud, some unloading, others making fires and feeding their mules, all
+shouting when they had anything to say, the Babel aggravated by the
+clatter of the rattles of a hundred curry-combs and the squeals of
+fighting horses.
+
+  [Illustration: LODGINGS FOR TRAVELLERS.]
+
+The floor was deep with the manure of ages and piled with bales and
+boxes. In the side recesses, which are about the height of a mule's
+back, the muleteers camped with their fires and their goods, and laid
+the provender for their beasts in the front. These places are the
+mangers of the eastern caravanserai, or _khan_, or inn. Such must have
+been the inn at Bethlehem, and surely the first step to the
+humiliation of "the death of the cross" must have been the birth in
+the manger, amidst the crowd and horrors of such a stable.
+
+The odour was overpowering and the noise stunning, and when our wet,
+mud-covered baggage animals came in, adding to the din, there was
+hardly room to move, far less for the roll in which all mules indulge
+when the loads are taken off; and the crush resulted in a fight, and
+one mule got his fore-feet upon my "manger," and threatened to share
+it with me. It was an awful place to come to after a six hours' march
+in rain and snow, but I slid off my mule into the recess, had it
+carpeted, put down my chair, hung a blanket up in front, and prepared
+to brave it, when the inhabitants of this room, the one place which
+has any pretensions to being a room in the village, were bribed by an
+offer of six _krans_ (about four shillings) to vacate it for me. Its
+"pretensions" consist in being over a gateway, and in having a door,
+and a square hole looking on the street; a crumbling stair slippery
+with mud leads up to it. The roof leaks in every direction, and the
+slimy floor is full of pools, but it is luxury after the caravanserai
+stable, and with one waterproof sheet over my bed and another over
+myself I have fared well, though the door cannot be shut, and the rest
+of the party are in the stable at an impassable distance.
+
+Our language happily has no words in which the state of this village
+can be described. In front of this room is a broken ditch full of
+slimy greenish water, which Hadji took for my tea! There has been a
+slight snowfall during the night, and snow is impending. We have now
+reached a considerable altitude, and may expect anything. Hadji has
+just climbed the stair with groans of "_Ya Allah_," and has almost
+wailed out, "Colonel says we go--God help us."
+
+_Kirrind, Jan. 23._--From Saripul-i-Zohab we are taking the most
+southerly of the three routes to Kirmanshah traversed by Sir H.
+Rawlinson in 1836.[12] A sea of mud varied by patches of sodden snow,
+walls of rock with narrow passes, great snow-covered mountains, seen
+spectrally for a minute at a time through swirling snow-clouds, black
+tents of nomads, half-drowned villages, and a long, cold, steep
+ascent, among scrub oaks and dwarf ash, to snow which was not melting,
+and the hospitalities of a Kurdish village, comprise the interests of
+the march from Saripul to Myan Tak, so far as they lie on the surface,
+but in various ways this part of Kurdistan has many interests, not to
+be absolutely ignored even in a familiar letter.
+
+Here the Ilyats, who are supposed to constitute a fifth of the rural
+population of Persia, are met with in large numbers, and their brown
+flocks and herds are still picking up a scanty subsistence. The great
+chief of this, the Gur[=a]n tribe, holds the region on an annual
+payment to the Persian Government, gives grain to his tribesmen, and
+receives from them, of corn one-half, and of rice two-thirds of the
+crop. These people sow their grain in early spring, and then move up
+with their flocks to the mountain pastures, leaving behind only a few
+men to harvest the crops. They use no manure, this being required for
+fuel, and in the case of rice they allow a fallow of at least seven
+years. There are very few cultivators resident upon these lands, but
+Ilyat camps occur frequently.
+
+The region is steeped in history. The wretched village of Saripul is
+the Calah of Asshur and the Halah of the Israelitish captivity,[13]
+and gave to the surrounding country the name of Chalonitis, which we
+have on our old maps. A metropolitan See in the fifth century A.D.,
+soon after the institution of the Nestorian hierarchy, it was called
+Calah, Halah, and Holwan. If the Diyalah be the ancient Gyndes,
+noteworthy for the singular delay of Cyrus on his march to Babylon,
+and Saripul the ancient Holwan, and if in addition to the numerous
+Chaldaean and Sasanian remains there are relics of Semiramis and of the
+fire-temples of the Magi, the crowd of historic associations is almost
+too much for one day, and I will return to the insignificant details
+of the journey.
+
+We left at nine, crossed the Holwan by a four-arched brick bridge, and
+in falling snow and deep mud rode over fairly level ground till we
+came to an abrupt range of limestone rock, with a natural rift, across
+which the foundations of a wall still remain. The clouds were rolling
+low, and the snow was driving wildly, so as to make it impossible to
+see the sculptured tablet described by Rawlinson and Layard, on which
+a high-priest of the Magi is represented, with one hand raised in
+benediction, and the other grasping a scroll, the dress being the
+pontifical robe worn by the Zoroastrian priests, with a square cap,
+pointed in front, and lappets covering the mouth. Above this is a tomb
+with an ornamented entrance.
+
+We were now among a very strange and mysterious people, of whose
+ancestry and actual beliefs very little is known. They are Ali-Ilahis,
+but Europeans often speak of them as "Davidites," from their special
+veneration for King David. This tomb in the rift is called
+Dukkani-Daoud, or David's shop, and the people believe that he still
+dwells there, and come on pilgrimages and to offer animals in
+sacrifice from all parts of Kurdistan. He is believed to work as a
+smith, and the _katirgis_ say that he makes suits of fine armour. A
+part of the tomb which is divided from the rest by a low partition is
+believed to be a reservoir containing the water which he uses to
+temper his metal. A great mound with some building in the centre, on
+the right of the road near this gorge, though properly it bears
+another name, is called by the people "David's Fort." Jewish
+traditions abound, specially concerning David, who is regarded by the
+tribes as their great tutelar prophet.
+
+The Gur[=a]ns and Kalhurs, who are the nomadic inhabitants of this
+district, are of a very marked type of physiognomy, so Israelitish
+indeed that, taken along with certain traditions of their origin,
+their Jewish names, and their veneration for David, they have been put
+forward as claimants to the dignity of being the "lost tribes." The
+great Hebrew traveller of the twelfth century, to whom I have referred
+before, believed that the whole of the Ali-Ilahis were Jews, and
+writes of 100 synagogues in the Zagros mountains, and of 50,000 Jewish
+families in the neighbourhood.
+
+As we shall be for some days among these people, I will abbreviate Sir
+H. Rawlinson's sketch of their tenets. He considers that Ali-Ilahism
+bears evident marks of Judaism, mixed up with Moslem, Christian, and
+Sabaean legends. The Ali-Ilahis believe in 1001 incarnations of the
+Godhead in a series; among them Benjamin, Moses, Elias, David, Jesus
+Christ, Ali and Salman his tutor, the Imam Houssein and the Haft[=a]n
+(or seven bodies), the chief spiritual guides in the early ages of
+Islam, "and each, worshipped as a Deity, is an object of adoration in
+some locality of Kurdistan." The tomb of one of these, B[=a]b[=a]
+Yadg[=a]r, is their holy place, and this was regarded as the dwelling
+of Elijah at the time when the Arabs invaded Persia. All these
+incarnations are regarded as of one and the same person. All that
+changes is the bodily form of the Divine manifestation. There are
+degrees in the perfection of the development, and the most perfect
+forms are Benjamin, David, and Ali.
+
+Practically, however, the metaphysical speculations involved in this
+creed of successive incarnations are unknown, and the Imam Ali, the
+cousin of Mohammed, is the great object of worship. Though professing
+Mohammedanism the Ali-Ilahis are held in great horror by "believers,"
+and those of this region lie under the stigma of practising unholy
+rites as a part of their religion, and have received the name of
+"Chiragh Sonderan," the putters-out of lights.[14] This accusation,
+Sir A. H. Layard observes, may be only a calumny invented, like many
+another, to justify persecution.
+
+Passing through the rift in the Dukkani-Daoud range which has led to
+this digression, we entered an ascending valley between the range
+through which we had passed and some wild mountains covered with snow,
+which were then actively engaged in brewing a storm. Farther on there
+was irrigation and cultivation, and then the wretched village of Pai
+Tak, and the ruins of a bridge. There, the people told us, we must
+halt, as the caravanserai at the next place was already full, and we
+plunged about in the snow and mud looking for a hovel in which to take
+shelter, but decided to risk going on, and shortly began the ascent of
+the remarkable pass known as "The Gates of Zagros," on the ancient
+highway between Babylonia and Media, by which, in a few hours, the
+mountain barrier of Zagros is crossed, and the plain of Kirrind, a
+part of the great Iranian plateau, is reached.
+
+This great road, which zigzags steeply up the pass, is partly composed
+of smoothed boulders and partly of natural rock, somewhat dressed, and
+much worn by the continual passage of shod animals. It is said to be
+much like a torrent bed, but the snow was lying heavily upon it,
+filling up its inequalities. Dwarf oaks, hawthorn, ash, and other
+scrub find root-hold in every crevice. All that may be ugly was draped
+in pure white, and looking back from the surrounding glitter, the view
+of low ranges lying in indigo gloom was very striking. On the ascent
+there is a remarkable arch of great blocks of white marble, with a
+vaulted recess, called the "Tak-i-Girreh," "the arch holding the
+road," which gives the popular name of Gardan-i-Tak-i-Girreh (the pass
+of Tak-i-Girreh) to the ascent, though the geographers call it
+Akabah-i-Holwan (the defile of Holwan).
+
+After the deep mud of the earlier part of the march it was a pleasure
+to ride through pure, deep, powdery snow, and to find the dirt of the
+village of Myan Tak, a Kurdish hamlet situated on a mountain torrent
+among steep hills and small trees, covered with this radiant mantle.
+The elevation of the pass is 4630 feet, but Myan Tak is at a lower
+altitude an hour farther on.
+
+The small and ruinous caravanserai was really full of caravans
+detained by the snowstorm, and we lodged in a Kurdish house, typical
+of the style of architecture common among the settled tribes. Within a
+wide doorway without a door, high enough for a loaded mule to enter,
+is a very large room, with a low, flat mud roof, supported on three
+rows of misshapen trunks of trees, with their branches cut off about a
+foot from the stem, all black and shiny with smoke. Mud and rubble
+platforms, two feet high, run along one side and one end, and on the
+end one there is a clay, beehive-shaped fireplace, but no chimney.
+Under this platform the many fowls are shut in at night by a stone at
+the hole by which they enter. Within this room is a perfectly dark
+stable of great size. Certainly forty mules, besides asses and oxen,
+were lodged in it, and the overflow shared the living-room with a
+number of Kurds, _katirgis_, servants, dogs, soldiers, and Europeans.
+The furniture consisted of guns and swords hanging on the walls.
+
+The owner is an old Kurd with some handsome sons with ruddy
+complexions and auburn hair. The big house is the patriarchal roof,
+where the patriarch, his sons, their wives and children, and their
+animals, dwell together. The women, however, had all been got rid of
+somehow. The old Kurd made a great fire on the dais, wood being
+plentiful, and crouched over it. My bed was pitched near it, and
+enclosed by some reed screens. With chairs and a table, with routes,
+maps, writing materials, and a good lantern upon it, an excellent
+dinner of soup and a leg of mutton, cooked at a bonfire in the middle
+of the floor, and the sight of all the servants and _katirgis_ lying
+round it, warm and comfortable, and the knowledge that we were above
+the mud, the clouds of blinding smoke which were the only drawback
+scarcely affected the cheerfulness and comfort of the blazing,
+unstinted fire. The doorway gave not only ample ventilation but a
+brilliant view of snow, and of myriads of frosty stars.
+
+It was infinitely picturesque, with the fitful firelight falling on
+the uncouth avenues of blackened tree-stumps, on big dogs, on
+mild-eyed ox faces and long ass ears, on turbaned Indian heads, and on
+a confused crowd of Turks, Kurds, and Persians, some cooking, some
+sleeping, some smoking, while from the black depth beyond a startling
+bray of an ass or the abortive shriek of a mule occasionally
+proceeded, or a stray mule created a commotion by rushing in from the
+snow outside.
+
+I slept comfortably, till I was awakened early by various country
+sounds--the braying of an ass into my ear (for I was within a few
+inches of the stable), the crowing of cocks, and some hens picking up
+crumbs upon my bed. The mules were loaded in the living-room. The
+mercury was only 26 deg. at 9 A.M., and under cloudless sunshine the
+powdery snow glittered and crackled. There were difficulties ahead, we
+heard. The road heavily blocked with snow was only just open, and the
+Persian post, which should have passed forty-eight hours before, had
+not been heard of, showing that the snow is very deep farther on.
+
+It was beautiful, that uplifted, silent world of snow and mountains,
+on whose skirts for some miles grew small apple and pear trees, oak,
+ash, and hawthorn, each twig a coral spray. In the deepest depression,
+among great rocks, now masses of snow, tumbles a now partially
+arrested stream, gleaming with icicles, one of the head-waters of the
+Holwan. After getting through this picturesque forest of scrub, the
+road emerges on the plateau of the Kirrind valley, the greatest
+altitude of which is about 5800 feet. It is said to be irrigated and
+fertile. It is now, as I describe it, a wide valley, without a tree or
+bush, a rolling plain of snow from two to three feet deep, marked only
+by lines made by birds' feet and the beating of the tips of birds'
+wings, the track across it a corrugated trench, wide enough for one
+mule, the sun brilliant, the sky blue, the surface of the snow
+flashing light from millions of crystals with a glitter not to be
+borne, all dazzling, "glistering," silent,--a white world and a blue
+heaven, with a sun "shining in his strength,"--light without heat.
+
+It has been a tremendous day's march, only fourteen miles in seven and
+a half hours of severe toil! The _katirgis_ asked us to keep together
+in case of difficulties with caravans. Difficulties indeed! A mild
+term! I was nearly smashed. I little knew what meeting a caravan in
+these circumstances meant till we met the first sixty animals, each
+laden with two heavy packing-cases. The question arises who is to
+give way, and who is to drive his heavily-laden beasts off the track,
+to struggle, flounder, and fall in three feet of snow, not to get up
+again without being unloaded, and even then with difficulty.
+
+The rub came on a bank near a stream where there was a deep drift. I
+decided to give way, but nothing would induce my mule to face the
+snow. An orderly was in front and Hadji behind. Down the track came
+sixty animals, loaded with their great packing-cases. They could not
+and would not give way, and the two caravans came into collision.
+There were mules struggling and falling, loads overturned, muleteers
+yelling and roaring, Hadji groaning "God help us!" my mule, a new one,
+a big strong animal, unused to a bit, plunging and kicking, in the
+middle of a "free fight." I was struck hard on my ankle by a
+packing-case and nearly knocked off. Still, down they came, in
+apparently endless hordes; my mule plunged her bridle off, and kicked
+most violently; there were yells all round. My snow spectacles were
+knocked off and lost, then came another smash, in which I thought a
+bone was broken. Fearing that I should be laid up with a broken limb
+for weeks in some horrible caravanserai, and really desperate with the
+danger and confusion, I called over and over again to Hadji to get off
+and pull my mule into the snow or I should be killed! He did not stir,
+but sat dazed on his pack moaning "God help us!" till he, the mule,
+and the load were rolled over in the drift. The orderly contrived to
+get the bridle on my mule, and to back his own in front of me, and as
+each irrepressible animal rolled down the bank he gave its load a
+push, which, nicely balanced as these loads are, made it swerve, and
+saved me from further damage. Hadji had rolled off four times
+previously, and the last I saw of him at that time and of the caravan
+was a man, five mules, and their loads buried in the snow. The
+personal results to me of what is euphemistically called a
+"difficulty," are my blue glasses gone, a number of bruises, a
+badly-torn riding-skirt, and a bad cut, which bled profusely, and then
+the blood froze.
+
+A number of caravans snowed up for several days were _en route_, and
+there were many similar encounters, and donkeys and mules falling with
+their loads and rolling into the deep snow, and _katirgis_ coming to
+blows over the right-of-way. If a donkey is forced off the track it
+goes down at once. I unfortunately caught my foot in the pack of one
+and rolled it over, and as it disappeared in the snow its pack and
+saddle fell over its head and displayed the naked vertebrae of its poor
+back.
+
+This Kirrind valley must be fully twenty miles long by from two to
+five broad, but there was only one village inhabited and two in ruins.
+As we floundered along in the snow with our jaded animals, two
+well-armed men on fine horses met and joined us, sent by the _Agha_
+Abdul Rahim, son of the British agent at Kirmanshah, whose guests we
+are to be. Following them was a _taktrawan_ or litter for me, a wooden
+box with two side doors, four feet high, six feet long, and three feet
+wide. At each end are long shafts, and between each pair of shafts a
+superb mule, and each mule has a man to lead him. I could never use
+such a thing except in case of a broken limb, but I am very grateful
+to Abdul Rahim for sending it fifty-six miles.
+
+The temperature fell with the sun; the snowy hills took on every shade
+of rose and pink, and in a universal blush of tender colouring we
+reached Kirrind. All of a sudden the colour died out, the rose-flushed
+sky changed to blue-gray, and pallid wastes of unbroken snow
+stretching into the gray distance made a glorious winter landscape.
+We are now fairly in for the rigours of a Persian winter.
+
+Kirrind, the capital of the Kirrind Kurds, is either grotesquely or
+picturesquely situated in and around a narrow gap in a range of lofty
+hills, through which the Ab-i-Kirrind rushes, after rising in a spring
+immediately behind. The gap suggests the word jaws, and in these open
+jaws rise one above another flat-roofed houses straggling down upon
+the plain among vineyards, poplars, willows, fruit-trees, and immense
+walnuts and gardens. There are said to be 900 houses, but many of them
+are ruinous. The stream which bursts from the hills is divided into
+innumerable streamlets, which must clothe these gardens with beauty.
+
+A _far[=a]sh_ riding on ahead had engaged a house, so we avoided the
+horrors of the immense caravanserai, crammed to-night with storm-bound
+caravans. The house is rough, but has three adjoining rooms, and the
+servants are comfortable. A fire, with its usual accompaniment of
+stinging smoke, fails to raise the temperature of my room to the
+freezing-point, yet it is quite possible to be comfortable and employ
+oneself.
+
+_Mahidasht, Jan. 24._--My room at Kirrind was very cold. The ink
+froze. The mercury fell to 2 deg. below zero in it, and outside in the sun
+was only 14 deg. at 8.30. There was a great Babel at starting. Some men
+had sold four chickens for the high price of 2s. each, the current
+price being 6d., and had robbed the servants of two, and they took one
+of the mules, which was sent after us by an official. Slipping,
+floundering, and falling in the deep snow, and getting entangled among
+caravans, we rode all day over rolling levels. The distance seemed
+interminable over the glittering plains, and the pain and stiffness
+produced by the intense cold were hard to bear, and it was not
+possible to change the cramped position by walking. The mercury fell
+to 4 deg., as with tired animals we toiled up the slope on which Harunabad
+stands.
+
+A very large caravanserai and a village of sixty houses occupy the
+site of a town built by Harun-al-Raschid on the upper waters of the
+Kerkhah. It has the reputation of being one of the coldest places in
+Persia, so cold that its Ilyat inhabitants desert it in winter,
+leaving two or three men who make a business of supplying caravans.
+Usually people come out of the villages in numbers as we arrive, but
+we passed group after group of ruinous hovels without seeing a
+creature. We obtained awfully cold rooms at a great height above a
+bazar, now deserted. I write "awfully" advisedly, for the mercury in
+them at sunset was 2 deg. below zero, the floors were plaster, slippery
+with frozen moisture, the walls were partly wood, with great apertures
+between the planks; where they were mud the blistered plaster was
+fringed with icicles. Later the mercury sank to 12 deg., and before
+morning to 16 deg. below zero, and the hot water froze in my basin before
+I could use it!
+
+We were to have started at eight, as there was no possible way of
+dividing the nine hours' march, but when the time came the _katirgis_
+said it was too cold to rope the loads, a little later that we could
+only get half-way, and later that there was no accommodation for mules
+half-way and that we must go the whole way! At nine the mercury was at
+4 deg. below zero, and the slipperiness was fearful. The poor animals
+could scarcely keep on their feet. We have crossed two high passes,
+Nal Shikan (the Horse-Shoe breaking pass) and the Charzabar Pass, in
+tremendous snow, riding nine hours, only dismounting to walk down one
+hill. At the half-way hamlet I decided to go on, having still a
+lingering prejudice against sharing a den with a quantity of human
+beings, mules, asses, poultry, and dogs.
+
+On one long ascent we encountered a "blizzard," when the mercury was
+only 3 deg. above zero. It was awful. The men covered their heads with
+their _abbas_ and turned their backs to the wind. I got my heavy
+mackintosh over everything, but in taking off three pairs of gloves
+for one minute to button it the pain of my hand was literally
+excruciating. At the summit the snow was four feet deep, and a number
+of mules were down, but after getting over the crest of the Nal Shikan
+Pass and into the Zobeideh valley it became better. But after every
+descent there was another ascent to face till we reached the pass
+above the Cheshmeh-i-Charzabar torrent, in a picturesque glen, with a
+village and some primitive flour mills.
+
+Below this height lies the vast and fertile plain of Mahidasht, one
+expanse of snow, broken by mud villages looking like brown islands,
+and the truncated cone of Goree, a seat of the ancient fire-worship.
+In the centre of the plain is an immense caravanserai with some houses
+about it. When this came into sight it was only five miles off, but we
+were nearly three hours in reaching it! The view was wonderful. Every
+speck on the vast plain was seen distinctly; then came a heavy snow
+blink, above which hovered ghosts of snow mountains rising into a pale
+green sky, a dead and lonely wilderness, looking as if all things
+which lived and moved had long ago vanished from it. Those hours after
+first sighting the village were very severe. It seemed to grow no
+nearer. I was half-dead with the journey of twenty-two miles at a slow
+foot's pace, and was aching and cramped from the intense cold, for as
+twilight fell the mercury sank to 3 deg. below zero. The Indian servants,
+I believe, suffered more than I did, and some of the _katirgis_ even
+more than they.
+
+At last by a pointed brick bridge we crossed the little river of
+Mahidasht, and rode into the house of the headman, who is a sort of
+steward of Abdul Rahim, our future host, the owner of many villages on
+this plain. The house is of the better class of Kurdish houses, with a
+broad passage, and a room on each side, at the end a great, low, dark
+room, half living-room, half stable, which accommodates to-night some
+of the mules, the muleteers, the servants, and the men of the family.
+Beyond this again is a large stable, and below-ground, reached by a
+sloping tunnel, is the sheep-fold. One room has neither door nor
+window, mine has an outer and inner door, and a fire of live embers in
+a hole in the floor.
+
+The family in vacating the room have left their goods behind,--two
+plank beds at one end heaped with carpets and felts, a sacking cradle
+hanging from the roof, two clay jars five feet high for storing grain,
+and in the _takchahs_, or recesses of the walls, _samovars_ or
+tea-urns, pots, metal vases, cartridge belts, and odds and ends. Two
+old guns, an old sword, and a coarse coloured print of the Russian
+Imperial family are on the wall.
+
+I was lifted from the mule to my bed, covered with all available
+wraps, a pot of hot embers put by the bed, my hands and feet rubbed,
+hot syrup coloured with tea produced in Russian glasses, and in two
+hours I was able to move. The caravan, which we thought could not get
+through the snow, came in three hours later, men and mules thoroughly
+knocked up, and not till nine could we get a scanty dinner. It has
+been a hard day all round. The _far[=a]shes_ in the kitchen are
+cursing the English sahibs, who will travel in the winter, wishing our
+fathers may be burned, etc., two of the muleteers have been howling
+with pain for the last two hours, and I went into the kitchen to see
+the poor fellows.
+
+In a corner of the big room, among the rough trunks of trees which
+support the sooty roof, the muleteers were lying in a heap in their
+big-sleeved felt coats round a big fire, about another the servants
+were cooking their food, the _far[=a]shes_ were lying round another,
+and some of the house people about a fourth, and through smoke and
+flame a background of mules and wolf-like dogs was dimly seen, a gleam
+now and then falling into the dark stable beyond, where the jaded
+baggage animals were lying in heaps.
+
+Mahidasht is said to be one of the finest and most fertile plains in
+Persia, seventy-two miles long by fifteen broad, and is irrigated
+throughout by a small stream swarming with turtles. Its population,
+scattered over it in small villages, is estimated--over-estimated
+probably--at 4000. At a height of 5050 feet the winters are severe.
+The snow is nearly three feet deep already, and more is impending.
+
+The mercury in my room fell to 5 deg. below zero before midnight, but rose
+for a gray cloudy day. The men and animals were so done up that we
+could not start till nearly eleven. The march, though not more than
+sixteen miles, was severe, owing to the deep snow and cold wind. Five
+miles over the snowy billows of the Mahidasht plain, a long ascent, on
+which the strong north wind was scarcely bearable, a succession of
+steep and tiresome ridges, many "difficulties" in passing caravans,
+and then a gradual descent down a long wide valley, opened upon the
+high plateau, on which Kirmanshah, one of the most important cities in
+Persia, is situated.
+
+Trees, bare and gaunt, chiefly poplars, rising out of unsullied snow,
+for two hours before we reached it, denoted the whereabouts of the
+city, which after many disappointments bursts upon one suddenly. The
+view from the hill above the town was the most glorious snow view I
+ever saw. All around, rolled to a great height, smooth as the icing of
+a cake, hills, billowy like the swell of the Pacific after a storm--an
+ocean of snow; below them a plateau equally unsullied, on the east
+side of which rises the magnificently precipitous Besitun range,
+sublime in its wintry grandeur, while on the distant side of the
+plateau pink peaks raised by an atmospheric illusion to a colossal
+height hovered above the snow blink, and walled in the picture. Snow
+was in the air, snow clouds were darkening over the Besitun range;
+except for those pink peaks there were no atmospheric effects; the
+white was very pallid, and the gray was very black; no illusions were
+possible, the aspect was grim, desolate, and ominous, and even before
+we reached the foot of the descent the huge peaks and rock masses of
+Besitun were blotted out by swirls of snow.
+
+Kirmanshah, approached from the south-west, added no elements of
+picturesqueness to the effect. A ruinous wall much too large for the
+shrunken city it encloses, parts of it lying in the moat, some ruinous
+loopholed towers, lines of small domes denoting bazars below, a few
+good-looking houses rising above the insignificant mass, gardens,
+orchards, vineyards, and poplars stretching up the southerly hollow
+behind, and gardens, now under frozen water, to the north, made up a
+not very interesting contrast with the magnificence of nature.
+
+We circled much of the ruinous wall on thin ice, turned in between
+high walls and up an alley cumbered with snow, dismounted at a low
+door, were received by a number of servants, and were conducted
+through a frozen courtyard into a handsomely-carpeted room with divans
+beside a blazing fire, a table in the centre covered with apples,
+oranges, and sweetmeats, and the large Jubilee photograph of Queen
+Victoria hanging over the fireplace.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] Another interest, however, is its connection with many of the
+romantic legends still told of Khosroe Parviz and his beautiful queen,
+complicated with love stories concerning the sculptor Farhad, to whom
+the Persians attribute some of their most famous rock sculptures. One
+of the most romantic of these legends is that Farhad loved Shirin, and
+that Khosroe was aware of it, and promised to give her to him if he
+could execute the impossible task of bringing to the city the abundant
+waters of the mountains. Farhad set himself to the Herculean labour,
+and to the horror of the king nearly accomplished it, when Khosroe,
+dreading the advancing necessity of losing Shirin or being
+dishonoured, sent to inform him of her death. Being at the time on the
+top of a precipice, urging on the work of the aqueduct, the news
+filled him with such ungovernable despair that he threw himself down
+and was killed.
+
+[12] The Pashalik of Zohab, now Persian territory, is fully described
+by Major Rawlinson in a most interesting paper in _The Journal of the
+Royal Geographical Society_, vol. ix. part 1, p. 26.
+
+[13] Gen. x. 11; 2 Kings xviii. 11; 1 Chron. v. 26.
+
+[14] See Sir A. H. Layard's _Early Adventures_, vol. i. p. 217.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+
+     KIRMANSHAH, _Jan. 31_.
+
+This hospitable house is the residence of the British Agent or _Vakil_
+for Kirmanshah, in whose absence at Tihran, his son, Abdul Rahim,
+performs the duties of hospitality in a most charming manner, as if
+though a very busy man he had nothing else to do but carry out the
+wishes of his guests. His hospitality is most unobtrusive also, and
+considerate. If such a wish is expressed as to visit the sculptures of
+the Takt-i-Bostan, or anything else, everything is quietly and
+beautifully arranged; a landau-and-four with outriders, superb led
+saddle-horses, and arrangements for coffee are ready outside the
+walls, with the host as _cicerone_, ready to drive or ride at the
+pleasure of his guests. The rooms in which he receives Europeans are
+on the opposite side of the courtyard from the house, and have been
+arranged according to European ideas.
+
+The family history, as usually told, is an interesting one. They are
+Arabs, and the grandfather of our host, Hadji Khalil, was a trusted
+_katirgi_ in the employment of Sir Henry Rawlinson, and saved his life
+when he fell from a scaffolding while copying the Besitun
+inscriptions. His good qualities, and an honesty of character and
+purpose rare among Orientals, eventually placed him in the important
+position of British _Vakil_ here, and he became a British subject, and
+was succeeded in his position by his son, Agha Hassan, who is now by
+virtue of singular business capacities the wealthiest man in this
+province and possibly in Persia, and bears the very highest character
+for trustworthiness and honour.[15]
+
+Abdul Rahim is a very fine-looking man, with noticeable eyes, very
+large and prominent. He has a strong sense of humour, which flits over
+his face in an amused smile. He and his father are very large
+landowners, and are always adding land to land, and are now the owners
+of the magnificent sculptures and pleasure-grounds of the
+Takt-i-Bostan. They are bankers likewise, and money-lenders, merchants
+on a large scale, and have built a very fine caravanserai, with great
+brick warehouses for the use of traders. Agha Hassan travels _en
+prince_, driving to Tihran and back in an English landau with four
+horses and a number of outriders and attendants, and his son
+entertains visitors in the same way, mounting even the outriders and
+pipe-bearers on well-bred Arabs. When he walks in the city it is like
+a royal progress. Everybody bows low, nearly to the ground, and his
+purse-bearer follows, distributing alms among the poor.
+
+I mention all this because it is a marvel in Persia, where a
+reputation for wealth is the last thing a rich man desires. To elevate
+a gateway or to give any external sign of affluence is to make himself
+a mark for the official rapacity which spares none. The policy is to
+let a man grow quietly rich, to "let the sheep's wool grow," but as
+soon as he shows any enjoyment of wealth to deprive him of his gains,
+according to a common Persian expression, "He is ripe, he must be
+squeezed." The _Vakil_ and his son are the only men here who are not
+afraid to show their wealth, and for the simple reason that it cannot
+be touched, because they are British subjects. They can neither be
+robbed, squeezed, nor mulcted beyond the legitimate taxation by
+Persian officials, and are able to protect the property of others when
+it is entrusted to their keeping. British protection has been in fact
+the making of these men.
+
+The _menage_ is simple. The dining-room is across the frozen
+courtyard. The meals are served in European fashion, the _major-domo_
+being an ancient man, "born in the house," who occasionally inserts a
+remark into the conversation or helps his master's memory. The
+interpreter sits on the floor during meals. I breakfast in my room,
+but lunch and dine with our host, who spends the evening in the
+_salon_; sherbet is provided instead of wine. Abdul Rahim places me at
+the head of the table, and I am served first! The interpreting is from
+Persian into Hindustani, and _vice versa_. Our host expresses almost
+daily regret that he cannot talk with me on politics!
+
+Kirmanshah, which is said to be a favourable specimen of a Persian
+town, is absolutely hideous and uninteresting. It is really half in
+ruins. It has suffered terribly from "plague, pestilence, and famine,"
+and from the awful rapacity of governors. It once had 12,000 houses,
+but the highest estimate of its present population is 25,000. So
+severely have the town and province been oppressed that some years ago
+three-quarters of the inhabitants migrated, the peasants into Turkey,
+and the townspeople into the northern province of Azerbijan. If a
+governor pays 30,000 _tumans_ (L10,000) to the Shah for an
+appointment, of which he may be deprived any day, it can scarcely be
+expected of Oriental, or indeed of any human nature, that he will not
+make a good thing of it while he has it, and squeeze all he can out of
+the people.
+
+The streets are very narrow, and look narrower just now, because the
+snow is heaped almost to the top of the mud walls, which are not
+broken up as in Turkish towns by projecting lattice windows, but are
+absolutely blank, with the exception of low-arched entrances to the
+courtyards within, closed by heavy, unpainted wooden doors, studded
+with wooden nails. The causeways, on which, but for the heaps of
+slippery snow two men might walk abreast, have a ditch two or three
+feet wide between them, which is the roadway for animals. There are
+some open spaces, abounding in ruinous heaps, others where goods are
+unloaded, surrounded with warehouses, immense brick bazars with domed
+roofs, a citadel or _ark_, where the Governor lives, a large parade
+ground and barracks for 2000 men, mosques of no pretensions, public
+baths, caravanserais, brick warehouses behind the bazars, public
+gardens, with fountains and avenues of poplars, a prison, and some
+good houses like this one, hidden behind high mud walls. Although the
+snow kindly veils a good deal of deformity, the city impresses one as
+ruinous and decayed; yet it has a large trade, and is regarded as one
+of the most prosperous places in the Empire.[16]
+
+The bazars are spacious and well stocked with European goods,
+especially with Manchester cottons of colours and patterns suited to
+Oriental taste, which loves carnation red. There are many Jews,
+otherwise the people are Shiah Moslems, with an increasing admixture
+of the secret sect of the _B[=a]bis_. In some respects the Shiahs are
+more fanatical than the Sunnis, as, for instance, it is quite possible
+to visit a mosque in Turkey, but here a Christian is not allowed to
+cross the threshold of the outer gate. Certain customs are also more
+rigidly observed. A Persian woman would be in danger of death from the
+mob if she appeared unveiled in the streets. When I walked through the
+town, though attended by a number of men, the _major-domo_ begged me
+to exchange my gauze veil for a mask, and even when I showed this
+deference to custom the passing through the bazars was very
+unpleasant, the men being decidedly rude, and inclined to hoot and use
+bad language. Even the touch of a Christian is regarded as polluting,
+and I nearly got into trouble by handling a "flap-jack," mistaking it
+for a piece of felt. The bazars are not magnificent. No rich carpets
+or other goods are exposed to view for fear of exactions. A buyer
+wanting such things must send word privately, and have them brought to
+his house.
+
+Justice seems to be here, much as in Turkey, a marketable commodity,
+which the working classes are too poor to buy. A man may be kept in
+prison because he is too poor to get out, but justice is usually
+summary, and men are not imprisoned for long terms. If prisoners have
+friends, the friends feed them, if not they depend on charity, and
+charity is a Moslem virtue. There is no prison here for women. They
+are punished by having their heads shaved, and by being taken through
+the town on asses. Various forms of torture are practised, such as
+burning with hot irons, the bastinado, and squeezing the fingers in a
+vice. The bastinado is also most extensively used as a punishment.
+
+Yesterday by appointment we were received by the Governor of the
+Province. Riding through the slippery snow-heaped alleys is not what
+Europeans would think of, and our host with his usual courtesy
+humoured the caprice by walking with us himself, preceded by six
+_far[=a]shes_ (lit. carpet-spreaders) and followed by his purse-bearer
+casting money to the poor, and a train of servants. The Citadel, or
+Governor's residence, like all else, is forlorn, dirty, and ruinous in
+its approaches, which are long vaulted corridors capable of much
+adornment. Crowds of soldiers, _mollahs_, dervishes, and others were
+there to see the visit, which was one of ceremony. The Palace and
+Government offices are many-windowed, well-built brick-and-tile
+buildings, arranged round a large _place_ with trees and fountains.
+
+Two little fellows in scarlet uniform were at the entrance, and the
+lobby upstairs was crowded with Persian and Negro servants, all in
+high, black lambskin caps, tight black trousers, and tight coats with
+full skirts. The Governor received us in a very large, lofty,
+vacant-looking room, and shook hands. I never saw a human being more
+nearly like an ape in appearance, and a loud giggle added to the
+resemblance. This giggle and a fatuous manner are possibly assumed,
+for he has the widespread reputation of being a very able man, shrewd
+in business and officially rapacious, as was his father before him.
+The grotesque figure, not more than five feet high, was dressed in a
+black Astrakan cap, a coat of fine buff Russian kerseymere with full
+skirts, and tight trousers of the same, and an under-coat of rich,
+Kerman silk brocade, edged with costly fur. He made a few curt remarks
+to his foreign guests, and then turned to Abdul Rahim, and discussed
+local affairs for the remainder of a very long visit.
+
+A table covered with exquisite-looking sweetmeats was produced, and we
+were regaled with tea _a la Russe_ in Russian glasses, ice-cream, and
+_gaz_. Then young, diminutive, raw-looking soldiers in scarlet coats
+and scarlet trousers with blue stripes marched into the courtyard, and
+stood disconsolately in the snow, and two bands brayed and shrieked
+for an hour. Then _kalians_ were smoked, and coffee was handed round,
+the cups being in gold filigree holders incrusted with turquoises.
+This was the welcome signal for the termination of a very tedious
+visit. The reception-room is a dismal combination of Persian and
+European taste, invariably a failure. The carpets are magnificent, but
+the curtains are common serge bordered with white cotton lace, and the
+tea-table with its costly equipments was covered with a tawdry
+cretonne cover, edged with some inferior black cotton lace. The lofty
+walls of plain plaster of Paris have their simplicity destroyed by
+some French girandoles with wax grapes hanging from them.
+
+The Governor returned the visit to-day, arriving on horseback with
+fully forty mounted attendants, and was received in a glass room on
+the roof, furnished with divans, tables covered with beautiful
+confectionery, and tea and coffee equipages. The conversation was as
+local as yesterday, in spite of our host's courteous efforts to
+include the strangers in it. The Governor asked if I were going to
+Tihran to be _Hak[=i]m_ to the Shah's _haram_, which our host says is
+the rumour in Kirmanshah! During such visits there are crowds of
+attendants in the room all the time pouring out tea, filling
+_kalians_, and washing cups on the floor, and as any guest may be a
+spy and an enemy, the conversation is restricted to exaggerated
+compliments and superficial remarks.
+
+Everything is regulated by an elaborate code of etiquette, even the
+compliments are meted out by rule, and to give a man more than he is
+entitled to is understood to be intended as sarcasm. The number of
+bows made by the entertainer, the distance he advances to meet his
+guest, and the position in which he seats him are matters of careful
+calculation, and the slightest mistake in any particular is liable to
+be greatly resented by a superior.
+
+The Persian is a most ceremonious being. Like the Japanese he is
+trained from infancy to the etiquette of his class, and besides the
+etiquette of class there is here the etiquette of religion, which is
+far more strict than in Turkey, and yields only when there is daily
+contact, as in the capital, between Moslems and Christians. Thus, a
+Moslem will not accept refreshments from a Christian, and he will not
+smoke a pipe after a Christian even if he is his guest, and of equal
+or higher rank.
+
+The custom is for a visitor, as in the case of the Governor, to
+announce his visit previously, and he and his train are met, when he
+is the superior, by a mounted servant of the recipient of the honour,
+who precedes him to the door, where the servants are arranged
+according to their rank, and the host waits to take his hand and lead
+him to a seat. On entering the room a well-bred Persian knows at once
+what place he ought to take, and it is rare for such a _fiasco_ as
+that referred to in Luke xiv. 9 to occur. Refreshments and pipes are
+served at regulated intervals, and the introduction of a third cup of
+tea or coffee and a third _kalian_ is the signal for the guest to
+retire. But it is necessary to ask and receive permission to do so,
+and elaborate forms of speech regulated by the rank of the visitor are
+used on the occasion. If he is of equal or superior rank, the host,
+bowing profoundly, replies that he can have no other wish than that of
+his guest, that the house has been purified by his presence, that the
+announcement of the visit brought good luck to the house, that his
+headache or toothache has been cured by his arrival, and these flowery
+compliments escort the ordinary guest to the door, but if he be of
+superior rank the host walks in advance to the foot of the stairs,
+and repeats the compliments there.
+
+The etiquette concerning pipes is most elaborate.[17] _Kalians_ are
+invariably used among the rich. The great man brings his own, and his
+own pipe-bearer. The _kalian_ is a water pipe, and whatever its form
+the principle is the same, the smoke being conducted to the bottom of
+a liberal supply of water, to be sucked up in bubbles through it with
+a gurgling noise, as in the Indian "hubble-bubble." This water-holder
+is decanter-shaped, of plain or cut glass, with a wide mouth; the
+fire-holder, as in the case of the Governor's pipe, is often a work of
+high art, in thin gold, chased, engraved, decorated with _repousse_
+work, or incrusted with turquoises, or ornamented with rich enamel,
+very costly, L40 or even L50 being paid by rich men for the decoration
+of a single pipe-head. Between this and the water-holder is a wooden
+tube about fourteen inches long, from one end of which an inner tube
+passes to the bottom of the water. A hole in the side of the tube
+admits the flexible smoking tube, more used in Turkey than in Persia,
+or the wooden stem, about eighteen inches long. The fire-holder is
+lined with clay and plaster of Paris. Besides these there is the
+wind-guard, to prevent the fire from falling or becoming too hot,
+usually of silver, with dependent silver chains, and four or six
+silver or gold chains terminating in flat balls hang from the
+fire-holder.
+
+The _kalian_ is one of the greatest institutions of Persia. No man
+stirs without it, and as its decoration gives an idea of a man's
+social position, immense sums are lavished upon it, and the
+pipe-bearer is a most important person. The lighting is troublesome,
+and after all there seems "much ado about nothing," for a few whiffs
+exhaust its capacities.
+
+The tobacco, called _tumbaku_, which is smoked in _kalians_ is
+exceptionally poisonous. It cannot be used the first year, and
+improves with age, being preserved in bags sewn up in raw hide. Unless
+it is moistened it produces alarming vertigo. When the _kalian_ is
+required, about three-quarters of an ounce is moistened, squeezed like
+a sponge, and packed in the fire-holder, and morsels of live charcoal,
+if possible made from the root of the vine, are laid upon it and blown
+into a strong flame. The pipe-bearer takes two or three draws, and
+with an obeisance hands it with much solemnity to his master. Abdul
+Rahim smokes three or four pipes every evening, and coffee served with
+the last is the signal for his departure.
+
+A guest, if he does not bring his own pipe and pipe-bearer has a
+_kalian_ offered to him, but if the host be of higher rank any one but
+an ignoramus refuses it till he has smoked first. If under such
+circumstances a guest incautiously accepts it, he is invariably
+mortified by seeing it sent into the ante-room to be cleaned and
+refilled before his superior will smoke. If it be proper for him to
+take it, he offers it in order of rank to all present, but takes good
+care that none accept it till he has enjoyed it, after which the
+attendant passes it round according to rank. In cases of only one
+_kalian_ and several guests, they smoke in order of position, but each
+one must pay the compliment of suggesting that some one else should
+smoke before himself. The etiquette of smoking is most rigid. I heard
+of a case here in which a _mollah_, who objected to smoke after a
+European, offered it to one after he had smoked it himself--so gross a
+piece of impertinence that the other called the pipe-bearer, saying,
+"You can break that pipe to pieces, and burn the stick, I do not care
+to smoke it," upon which the _mollah_, knowing that his violation of
+etiquette merited this sharp rebuke, turned pale and replied, "You say
+truly, I have eaten dirt."
+
+The lower classes smoke a coarse Turkish tobacco, or a Persian mild
+sort looking like whitish sawdust, which is merely the pounded leaf,
+stalk, and stem. The pipe they use and carry in their girdles has a
+small iron, brass, or clay head, and a straight cherry-wood stick,
+with a very wide bore and no mouthpiece, and it is not placed in the
+teeth but is merely held between the lips. Smoking seems a necessity
+rather than a luxury in Persia, and is one of the great features of
+social life.
+
+Kirmanshah is famous for its "rugs," as carpets are called in this
+country. There are from twenty-five to thirty kinds with their
+specific names. Aniline dyes have gone far to ruin this manufacture,
+but their import is now prohibited. A Persian would not look at the
+carpets loosely woven and with long pile, which are made for the
+European market, and are bought just now from the weavers at 13s. the
+square yard. A carpet, according to Persian notions, must be of fast
+colours, fine pile, scarcely longer than Utrecht velvet, and ready to
+last at least a century. A rug can scarcely be said to have reached
+its prime or artistic mellowness of tint till it has been "down" for
+ten years. The permanence of the dyes is tested by rubbing the rug
+with a wet cloth, when the worthless colours at once come off.
+
+Among the real, good old Persian carpets there are very few patterns,
+though colouring and borders vary considerably. A good carpet, if new,
+is always stiff; the ends when doubled should meet evenly. There must
+be no creases, or any signs on the wrong side of darning or
+"fine-drawing" having been resorted to for taking out creases, and
+there must be no blue in the white cotton finish at the ends. Carpets
+with much white are prized, as the white becomes primrose, a colour
+which wears well. Our host has given me a rug of the oldest Persian
+pattern, on a white ground, very thin and fine. Large patterns and
+thick wool are comparatively cheap. It is nearly impossible to say
+what carpets sell at, for if one has been made by a family and poverty
+presses, it may be sold much under value, or if it is a good one and
+they can hold on they may force a carpet fancier to give a very high
+price. From what Abdul Rahim says, the price varies from 13s. to 50s.
+a square yard, the larger carpets, about fourteen feet by eight feet,
+selling for L40.[18]
+
+Abdul Rahim took me to see carpet-weaving, a process carried on in
+houses, hovels, and tents by women and children. The "machinery" is
+portable and marvellously simple, merely two upright beams fixed in
+the floor, with a cross-beam near the top and bottom, round which the
+stout cotton or woollen threads which are the basis of the carpet are
+stretched. The wools are cut in short lengths and are knotted round
+two threads, according to the pattern, which, however elaborate, the
+weaver usually carries in her head. After a few inches have been woven
+in this simple way the right side is combed and the superfluous length
+cut off with rough scissors. Nothing can be more simple than the
+process or more beautiful than the result. The vegetable dyes used are
+soft and artistic, specially a madder red and the various shades of
+indigo. A soft turquoise blue is much used, and an "olive green,"
+supposed to be saffron and indigo. The dull, rich tints, even when
+new, are quite beautiful. The women pursue this work chiefly in odds
+and ends of time, and in some cases make it much of a pastime. Men
+being present they were very closely veiled, and found great
+difficulty in holding on the _chadars_ and knotting the wool at the
+same time.
+
+After taking tea in the pleasant upper room of the carpet-weaver's
+house, we visited the large barracks and parade ground. The appearance
+of the soldiers could not possibly impress a stranger favourably. They
+looked nothing better than "dirty, slouching ragamuffins," slipshod,
+in tattered and cast-off clothes of all sorts, on the verge of actual
+mendicancy, bits of rusty uniform appearing here and there amongst
+their cotton rags. The quarters are not bad. The rank and file get one
+and a half pounds of bread daily and five rupees a month nominally,
+but their pay is in arrears, and they eke it out by working at
+different trades. These men had not been drilled for two months, and
+were slovenly and unsoldierly to a degree, as men must be who have no
+proper pay, rations, instruction, clothing, or equipments.
+
+The courtesy of the host leaves nothing unthought of. In returning
+from a long stroll round the city a wet place had to be crossed, and
+when we reached it there were saddle-horses ready. On arriving at dusk
+in the bazar several servants met us with lanterns. The lantern is an
+important matter, as its size is supposed to indicate the position of
+the wearer. The Persian lantern has a tin or iron top and bottom,
+between which is a collapsible wired cylinder of waxed muslin. The
+light from the candle burning inside is diffused and soft. Three feet
+long and two feet wide is not an uncommon size. They are carried close
+to the ground, illustrating "Thy Word is a lamp unto my path," and
+none but the poor stir out after dark without a lantern-bearer in
+front. Our lanterns, as befits the _Vakil's_ position, are very large.
+
+There is something Biblical in the progress of Abdul Rahim through
+the streets, always reminding me of "greetings in the market-place,"
+and "doing alms to be seen of men,"--not that I think our kind host
+sins in either direction. "Peace be with you," say the people, bending
+low. "To you be peace," replies the Agha.
+
+A wish having been expressed to visit the rock-sculptures of the
+Takt-i-Bostan, a winter picnic was quietly arranged for the purpose.
+There was a great snowstorm on the night we arrived, succeeded by
+intense frost and clear blue skies,--glorious Canadian winter weather.
+Outside the wall an English landau, brought in pieces from Baghdad,
+awaited us, with four Arab horses, two of them ridden. There were
+eleven outriders and some led horses, and a Turki pipe-bearer rode
+alongside the carriage with two cylinders of leather containing
+_kalians_ in place of holsters, on one side, behind a leather
+water-bottle, and on the other a brazier of lighted charcoal hanging
+by chains much below the horse's body. Another pipe-bearer lighted the
+_kalian_ at intervals and handed it into the carriage to his master.
+Some of the horsemen carried rifles and wore cartridge-belts.
+
+Reaching the Karasu river we got out into deep mud, were ferried over
+in a muddy box hauling on a rope, and drove to the Takt-i-Bostan,
+where several tanks of clear water, a house built into the rock, a
+number of Kurds on fine horses, the arched recesses in the rock which
+contain the sculptures, and the magnificent range of the
+Jabali-Besitun formed a very striking scene.
+
+Sir H. Rawlinson considers these sculptures the finest in Persia, and
+regards them as the work of Greek artists. The lower of the two
+bas-reliefs at the back of the main recess is a colossal figure of a
+king on horseback, "the staff of whose spear is as a weaver's beam."
+On the sides of the recess, and, like the equestrian figure, in very
+high relief and very much undercut, are scenes from the chase of a
+most spirited description, representing a king and court mounted on
+elephants, horses, and camels, hunting boars, stags, and other
+animals, their enthusiasm in the pursuit being successfully conveyed
+by the art of the sculptor. In the spandrels of the archway of the
+main recess are carved, winged female figures. In the smaller arch,
+also containing a bas-relief, is a Pehlevi inscription.[19]
+
+There is a broad stone platform in front of the arch, below which
+flows direct from the mountain a great volume of water, which
+replenishes the tanks. The house, which also contains a tank fed by
+the same living water, the mountain and its treasures, the tanks, and
+some miles of avenues of willows, have been bought by the _Vakil_, and
+his son laughingly says that he hopes to live to see a time when Cook
+will give "tourist excursion tickets" by rail to the Takt-i-Bostan!
+
+Coffee and _kalians_ were served to the Kurds in the arch, and
+mounting the horses we rode to a country house belonging to our host
+in the midst of large rose gardens, and with a wonderful view of the
+magnificent Besitun range, of the rolling snowy hills on which
+Kirmanshah and its plantations lay like a black splotch, and of this
+noble plain, six miles long from north to south, and thirty from east
+to west, its absolutely unbroken snow gleaming like satin, and shadows
+lying upon it in pure blue. Many servants and a large fire awaited us
+in that pleasant bungalow, as well as coffee and sweetmeats, and we
+stayed there till the sinking sun flushed all the surrounding hills
+with pink, and the gray twilight came on.
+
+I rode a splendid Arab, with a neck "clothed with thunder," a horse
+to make one feel young again, with his elastic stride and pride of
+bearing, but indeed I "snatched a fearful joy," for the snow was
+extremely slippery, and thirteen Arab horses in high condition
+restrained to a foot's pace had belligerent views of their own,
+tending to disconcert an unwary rider. We crossed the Karasu by a deep
+and devious ford up to the girths, and had an exhilarating six miles'
+ride by moonlight in keen frost, the powdery snow crackling under the
+horses' feet. It was too slippery to enter the town on horseback, but
+servants with lanterns awaited us at the gates and roaring fires and
+dinner were ready here, after a delightful expedition.
+
+I dined alone with our host, Hadji, who understands and speaks English
+fairly well, acting as interpreter. Abdul Rahim at once plunged into
+politics, and asked very many intelligent questions about English
+politics and parties, the condition and housing of our working
+classes, and then about my own family and occupations. He is a zealous
+Moslem, and the pious phrases which sit so oddly on Hadji come very
+naturally from his lips. In reply to a sketch of character which I
+gave him he said: "What God does is good. He knows, we submit. He of
+whom you speak laid up great treasure for another life. Whoso loves
+and befriends the poor is acceptable to God. One day we shall know
+all. God is good." He said he had been too busy to learn English, but
+that he understands a great deal, and added, with a roguish gleam
+lighting up his whole face, and a very funny laugh, "And I hear what
+M---- says." He has seen but very few English ladies, and it shows
+great quickness of apprehension that he should never fail in the
+respectfulness and quiet courteous attentions which would be shown to
+a lady by an English host.
+
+Even after India, the quantity of servants employed in such a
+household as this is very impressive. Besides a number who are with
+the _Vakil_ in Tihran, there are the _nazr_ or steward, who under the
+master is supreme, cooks and their assistants, table servants,
+_far[=a]shes_, who are sweepers and message-runners, in any number,
+pipe-bearers, coffee and ice-makers, plate-cleaners, washermen,
+lamp-cleaners, who are also lantern-bearers, a head groom, with a
+groom for each horse under him, and a number more, over forty in all,
+receiving, if paid at the usual rate of wages in Kirmanshah, which is
+a cheap place, from sixty _krans_ a month down to twenty, the _kran_
+being now about 8d. These wages do not represent the actual gains of a
+servant, for he is entitled to perquisites, which are chiefly in the
+form of commissions on things bought and sold by his master, and which
+are regarded as legitimate if they do not exceed 10 per cent. It is of
+no use to fight again this "_modakel_," or to vex one's soul in any
+way about it. Persians have to submit to it as well as Europeans.
+Hadji has endeavoured to extract from 50 to 80 per cent on purchases
+made by him for me, but this is thought an outrage.
+
+This _modakel_ applies to all bargains. If a _charvadar_ (no longer a
+_katirgi_) is hired, he has to pay one's servant 10 per cent on the
+contract price. If I sell a horse, my servant holds out for a good
+price, and takes his 10 per cent, and the same thing applies to a pair
+of shoes, or a pound of tea, or a chicken, or a bottle of milk. The
+system comes down from the highest quarters. The price paid by the
+governor of a province to the Shah is but the Shah's _modakel_, and
+when a governor farms the taxes for 60,000 _tumans_ and sells them for
+80,000, the difference is his _modakel_, and so it goes on through all
+official transactions and appointments, and is a fruitful source of
+grinding oppression, and of inefficiency in the army and other
+departments. The servant, poor fellow, may stop at 10 per cent, but
+the Shah's servant may think himself generous if he hesitates at 50
+per cent. I have heard it said that when the late Shah was dying he
+said to the present sovereign: "If you would sit long upon the throne,
+see that there is only one spoon among ten men," and that the system
+represented by this speech is faithfully carried out.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] I had the pleasure of seeing Agha Hassan at the British Legation
+at Tihran. He is charming, both in appearance and manner, a specimen
+of the highest type of Arab good breeding, with a courteous kindliness
+and grace of manner, and is said to have made a very favourable
+impression when he went to England lately to be made a C.M.G. Both
+father and son wear the Arab dress, in plain colours but rich
+materials, with very large white turbans of Damascus embroidery in
+gold silk, and speak only Arabic and Persian.
+
+[16] A journey of nine months in Persia, chiefly in the west and
+north-west, convinced me that this aspect of ruin and decay is
+universal.
+
+[17] The reader curious as to this and other customs of modern Persia
+should read Dr. Wills's book, _The Land of the Lion and the Sun_.
+
+[18] A rug only eight feet by five feet was given me by a Persian in
+Tihran, which was valued for duty at Erzerum at L3 the square yard,
+with the option of selling it to the Custom-house at that price, which
+implies that its value is from 70s. to 80s. per yard. It has a very
+close pile, nearly as short and fine as velvet.
+
+[19] For the Sasanian inscriptions, vide _Early Sasanian
+Inscriptions_, by E. Thomas. The great work published by the French
+Government, _Voyage en Perse_, Paris, 1851, by Messieurs Flandin et
+Coste, contains elaborate and finely-executed representations of these
+rock sculptures, which are mostly of the time of the later Sasanian
+monarchs.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+
+     KIRMANSHAH, _Feb. 2_.
+
+On January 28 there was a tremendous snowfall, and even before that
+the road to Hamadan, which was our possible route, had been blocked
+for some days. The temperature has now risen to 31 deg., with a bitter
+wind, and much snow in the sky. The journey does not promise well. Two
+of the servants have been ill. I am not at all well, and the reports
+of the difficulties farther on are rather serious. These things are
+certain,--that the marches are very long, and without any possibility
+of resting _en route_ owing to mud or snow, and that the food and
+accommodation will be horrible.
+
+Hadji is turning out very badly. He has fever now, poor fellow, and is
+even more useless than usual. Abdul Rahim does not like him to
+interpret, and calls him "the savage." He does no work, and is both
+dirty and dishonest. The constant use of pious phrases is not a good
+sign either of Moslem or Christian. I told him this morning that I
+could not eat from so dirty a plate. "God is great," he quietly
+answered. He broke my trestle bed by not attending to directions, and
+when I pointed out what he had done, he answered, "God knows all, God
+ordains all things." It is really exasperating.
+
+It is necessary to procure an additional outfit for the journey--a
+slow process--masks lined with flannel, sheepskin bags for the feet,
+the thick felt coats of the country for all the servants, additional
+blankets, _kajawehs_ for me, and saddle-horses. The marches will
+frequently be from twenty to thirty miles in length, and the fatigue
+of riding them at a foot's pace when one cannot exchange riding for
+walking will be so great that I have had a pair of _kajawehs_ made in
+which to travel when I am tired of the mule. These panniers are oblong
+wooden boxes, eighteen inches high, with hoops over them for curtains.
+One hangs on each side of the mule on a level with his back, and they
+are mounted, _i.e._ they are scrambled into from the front by a
+ladder, which is carried between them. Most women and some men travel
+in them. They are filled up with quilts and cushions. The mule which
+is to carry them is a big and powerful animal, and double price is
+charged for him.
+
+Horses are very good and cheap here. A pure Arab can be bought for
+L14, and a cross between an Arab and a Kurdish horse--a breed noted
+for endurance--for even less. But to our thinking they are small,
+never exceeding fifteen hands. The horses of the Kirmanshah province
+are esteemed everywhere, and there is a steady drain upon them for the
+Indian market. The stud of three horses requires a groom, and Abdul
+Rahim is sending a _sowar_, who looks a character, to attend us to
+Tihran. A muleteer, remarkable in appearance and beauty, and twelve
+fine mules have been engaged. The _sowar_ and several other men have
+applied to me for medicine, having fearful coughs, etc., but I have
+not been fortunate enough to cure them, as their maladies chiefly
+require good feeding, warm bedding, and poultices, which are
+unattainable. It is pitiable to see the poor shivering in their thin
+cotton clothes in such weather. The men make shift with the seamless
+felt coats--more cloaks than coats, with long bag-like sleeves
+tapering to the size of a glove but with a slit midway, through which
+the hands can be protruded when need arises. The women have no outer
+garment but the thin cotton _chadar_.
+
+I have tried to get a bed made, but there is no wood strong enough for
+the purpose, and the bazars cannot produce any canvas.
+
+_Sannah, Feb. 5._--Yesterday we were to have started at nine, but the
+usual quarrelling about loads detained us till 10.30, so that it was
+nearly dark when we reached the end of the first stage of a three
+weeks' journey. From the house roof the prospect was most dismal. It
+was partly thawing, and through the whiteness of the plain ran a brown
+trail with sodden edges, indicating mud. The great mass of the
+Jabali-Besitun, or Behistun, or Behishtan, though on the other side of
+the plain, seemed actually impending over the city, with its great
+black rock masses, too steep to hold the snow, and the Besitun
+mountain itself, said to be twenty-four miles away, looming darkly
+through gray snow clouds, looked hardly ten. Our host had sent men on
+to see if the landau could take me part of the way at least; but their
+verdict was that the road was impassable.
+
+After much noise the caravan got under way, but it was soon evident
+that the fine mules we had engaged had been changed for a poor,
+sore-backed set, and that the fine saddle-mule I was to have had was
+metamorphosed into a poor weak creature, which began to drop his leg
+from the shoulder almost as soon as we were outside the walls, and on
+a steep bridge came down on his nose with a violent fall, giving me a
+sharp strain, and fell several times afterwards; indeed, the poor
+animal could scarcely keep on his legs during the eight hours' march.
+
+Hadji rode in a _kajaweh_, balanced by some luggage, and was to keep
+close to me, but when I wanted to change my broken-down beast for a
+pannier he was not to be seen, then or afterwards, and came in late.
+The big mule had fallen, he was bruised, the _kajawehs_ were smashed
+to pieces, and were broken up for firewood, and I am now without any
+means of getting any rest from riding! "It's the pace that kills." In
+snow and mud gallops are impossible, and three miles an hour is good
+going.
+
+An hour from Kirmanshah the road crosses the Karasu by a good brick
+bridge, and proceeds over the plain for many miles, keeping the
+Besitun range about two miles on the left, and then passes over
+undulating ground to the Besitun village. Two or three large villages
+occur at a distance from the road, now shut in, and about eight miles
+from Besitun there are marble columns lying on the ground among some
+remains of marble walls, now only hummocks in the snow.
+
+The road was churned into deep mud by the passage of animals, and the
+snow was too deep to ride in. My mule lost no opportunity of tumbling
+down, and I felt myself a barbarian for urging him on. Hills and
+mountains glistened in all directions. The only exception to the
+general whiteness was Piru, the great rock mass of Besitun, which ever
+loomed blackly overhead through clouds and darkness, and never seemed
+any nearer. It was very solitary. I met only a caravan of carpets, and
+a few men struggling along with laden asses.
+
+It was the most artistic day of the whole journey, much cloud flying
+about, mountains in indigo gloom, or in gray, with storm clouds round
+their heads, or pure white, with shadows touched in with cobalt, while
+peaks and ridges, sun-kissed, gleamed here and there above indigo and
+gray. Not a tree or even bush, on them or on the plain, broke the
+monotony after a summer palace of the Shah, surrounded by poplars, was
+passed. There is plenty of water everywhere.
+
+As the sun was stormily tinging with pink the rolling snow-clouds here
+and there, I halted on the brow of a slope under the imposing rock
+front of Besitun to wait for orders. It was wildly magnificent: the
+huge precipice of Piru, rising 1700 feet from the level, the mountains
+on both sides of the valley approaching each other, and behind Piru a
+craggy ravine, glorified here and there by touches of amber and pink
+upon the clouds which boiled furiously out of its depths. In the
+foreground were a huge caravanserai with a noble portal, a solitary
+thing upon the snow, not a dwelling, but offering its frigid
+hospitality to all comers; a river with many windings, and the ruinous
+hovels of Besitun huddled in the mud behind. An appalling view in the
+wild twilight of a winter evening; and as the pink died out, a
+desolate ghastliness fell upon it. As I waited, all but worn out by
+the long march, the tumbling mule, and the icy wind, I thought I
+should like never to hear the deep chimes of a Persian caravan, or see
+the huge portal of a Persian caravanserai any more. These are cowardly
+emotions which are dispelled by warmth and food, but at that moment
+there was not much prospect of either.
+
+Through seas of mud and by mounds of filth we entered Besitun, a most
+wretched village of eighteen hovels, chiefly ruinous, where we
+dismounted in the mixed snow and mud of a yard at a hovel of three
+rooms vacated by a family. It was a better shelter than could have
+been hoped for, though after a fire was made, which filled the room
+with smoke, I had to move from place to place to avoid the drip from
+the roof.
+
+Hadji said he was ill of fever, and seemed like an idiot; but the orderly
+said that the illness was shammed and the stupidity assumed in order not
+to work. I told him to put the mattress on the bed; "Pour water on the
+mattress," he replied. I repeated, "Put--the--mattress--on--the--bed,"
+to which he replied, "Put the mattress into water!" I said if he felt
+too ill for his work he might go to bed. "God knows," he answered.
+"Yes, knows that you are a lazy, good-for-nothing, humbugging
+brute"--a well-timed objurgation from M----, which elicited a
+prolonged "_Ya Allah!_" but produced no effect, as the tea and
+_chapatties_ were not relatively but absolutely cold the next morning.
+
+The next day dawned miserably, and the daylight when it came was only
+a few removes from darkness, yet it was enough to bring out the
+horrors of that wretched place, and the dirt and poverty of the
+people, who were a prey to skin diseases. Many readers will remember
+that Sir H. Rawlinson considers that there are good geographical and
+etymological reasons for identifying Besitun with the Baghistan, or
+Place of Gardens of the Greeks, and with the famous pleasure-grounds
+which tradition ascribes to Semiramis. But of these gardens not a
+trace remains. A precipitous rock, smoothed at its lower part, a
+vigorous spring gushing out at the foot of the precipice, two tablets,
+one of which, at a height of over 300 feet, visible from the road but
+inaccessible, is an Achaemenian sculpture portraying the majesty of
+Darius, with about a thousand lines of cuneiform writing, are all that
+survive of the ancient splendours of Besitun, with the exception of
+some buttresses opposite the rock, belonging to a vanished Sasanian
+bridge over the Gamasiab, and some fragments of other buildings of the
+Sasanian epoch. These deeply interesting antiquities have been
+described and illustrated by Sir H. Rawlinson, Flandin and Coste, and
+others.
+
+It has been a severe day. It was so unpromising that a start was only
+decided on after many pros and cons. Through dark air small flakes of
+snow fell sparsely at intervals from a sky from which all light had
+died out. Gusts of icy wind swept down every gorge. Huge ragged masses
+of cloud drifted wildly round the frowning mass of Piru. Now and then
+the gusts ceased, and there was an inauspicious calm.
+
+I rode a big mule not used to the bit, very troublesome and mulish at
+first, but broken in an hour. A clear blink revealed the tablets, but
+from their great altitude the tallest of the figures only looked two
+feet high. There is little to see on this march even under favourable
+circumstances. A few villages, the ruined fort of Hassan Khan, now
+used as a caravanserai, on a height, the windings of the Gamasiab, and
+a few canals crossed by brick bridges, represent its chief features.
+Impressions of a country received in a storm are likely to be
+incorrect, but they were pleasurable. Everything seemed on a grand
+scale: here desolate plateaus pure white, there high mountains and
+tremendous gorges, from which white mists were boiling up--everything
+was shrouded in mystery--plain prose ceased to be for some hours.
+
+The others had to make several halts, so I left the "light division"
+and rode on alone. It became dark and wild, and presently the surface
+of the snow began to move and to drift furiously for about a foot
+above the ground. The wind rose to a gale. I held my hat on with one
+half-frozen hand. My mackintosh cape blew inside out, and struck me
+such a heavy blow on the eyes that for some time I could not see and
+had to trust to the mule. The wind rose higher; it was furious, and
+the drift, not only from the valley but from the mountain sides, was
+higher than my head, stinging and hissing as it raced by. It was a
+"blizzard," a brutal snow-laden north-easter, carrying fine, sharp,
+hard-frozen snow crystals, which beat on my eyes and blinded them.
+
+After a short experience of it my mule "turned tail" and needed
+spurring to make him face it. I fought on for an hour, crossed what
+appeared to be a bridge, where there were a few mud hovels, and
+pressed on down a narrower valley. The blizzard became frightful;
+from every ravine gusts of storm came down, sweeping the powdery snow
+from the hillsides into the valley; the mountains were blotted out,
+the depression in the snow which erewhile had marked the path was
+gone, I could not even see the mule's neck, and he was floundering in
+deep snow up to the girths; the hiss of the drift had increased to a
+roar, the violence of the storm produced breathlessness and the
+intense cold numbness. It was dangerous for a solitary traveller, and
+thinking that M---- would be bothered by missing one of the party
+under such circumstances, I turned and waited under the lee of a
+ruinous mud hovel for a long, long time till the others came up--two
+of the men having been unhorsed in a drift.
+
+In those hovels there were neither accommodation nor supplies, and we
+decided to push on. It was never so bad again. The wind moderated, wet
+snow fell heavily, but cleared off, and there was a brilliant blue
+heaven with heavy sunlit cloud-wreaths, among which colossal mountain
+forms displayed themselves, two peaks in glorious sunlight, high, high
+above a whirling snow-cloud, which was itself far above a great
+mountain range below. There were rifts, valleys, gorges, naked, nearly
+perpendicular rocks, the faces of mountains, half of which had fallen
+down in the opposite direction, a snow-filled valley, a winding river
+with brief blue stretches, a ruined fort on an eminence, a sharp turn,
+a sudden twilight, and then another blizzard far colder than the last,
+raging down a lateral ravine, up which, even through the blinding
+drift, were to be seen, to all seeming higher than mountains of this
+earth, the twin peaks of Shamran lighted by the sun. I faced the
+blizzard for some time, and then knowing that Hadji and the cook, who
+were behind me, would turn off to a distant village, all trace of a
+track having disappeared, I rode fully a mile back and waited half an
+hour for them. They were half-frozen, and had hardly been able to urge
+their mules, which were lightly laden, through the snow, and Hadji was
+groaning "_Ya Allah!_"
+
+The blizzard was over and the sky almost cloudless, but the mercury
+had fallen to 18 deg., and a keen wind was still blowing the powdery snow
+to the height of a foot. I sent the two men on in front, and by dint
+of calling to them constantly, kept them from getting into drifts of
+unknown depth. We rode up a rising plateau for two hours--a plateau of
+deep, glittering, blinding, trackless snow, giving back the sunshine
+in millions of diamond flashings. Through all this region thistles
+grow to a height of four feet, and the only way of finding the track
+was to look out for a space on which no withered thistle-blooms
+appeared above the snow.
+
+This village of Sannah lies at an altitude of about 5500 feet, among
+poplar plantations and beautiful gardens, in which fine walnut trees
+are conspicuous. Though partly ruinous it is a flourishing little
+place, its lands being abundantly watered by streams which run into
+the Gamasiab. It is buried now in snow, and the only mode of reaching
+it is up the bed of a broad sparkling stream among the gardens. The
+_sowar_ met us here, the navigation being difficult, and the "light
+division" having come up, we were taken to the best house in the
+village, where the family have vacated two rooms, below the level of a
+yard full of snow. The plateau and its adjacent mountains were flushed
+with rose as we entered Sannah, and as soon as the change to the
+pallor of death came on the mercury raced down to zero outside, and it
+is only 6 deg. in the room in which I am writing.
+
+There is a large caravanserai at the entrance to Sannah, and I suspect
+that the _sowar_ in choosing private quarters bullies the _ketchuda_
+(headman) and throws the village into confusion, turning the women and
+children out of the rooms, the owners, though they get a handsome sum
+for the accommodation, having to give him an equally handsome
+_modakel_.
+
+After nearly nine hours of a crawling pace and exposure to violent
+weather, I suffered from intense pain in my joints, and was dragged
+and lifted in and put into a chair. I write "put," for I was nearly
+helpless, and had to take a teaspoonful of whisky in warm milk. While
+the fire was being made two women, with a gentle kindliness which won
+my heart, chafed my trembling, nearly frozen hands with their own,
+with kindly, womanly looks, which supplied the place of speech.
+
+I lay down under a heap of good blankets, sorry to see them in thin
+cotton clothes, and when I was less frozen observed my room and its
+grotesquely miserable aspect, "the Savage" never taking any trouble to
+arrange it. There are no windows, and the divided door does not shut
+by three inches. A low hole leads into the granary, which is also the
+fowl-house, but the fowls have no idea of keeping to their own
+apartment. Two sheep with injured legs lie in a corner with some
+fodder beside them. A heap of faggots, the bed placed diagonally to
+avoid the firehole in the floor, a splashed tarpaulin on which Hadji
+threw down the saddle and bridle plastered with mud, and all my
+travelling gear, a puddle of frozen water, a plough, and some ox
+yokes, an occasional gust of ashes covering everything, and clouds of
+smoke from wood which refuses to do anything but smoke, are the
+luxuries of the halt. The house is full of people, and the women come
+in and out without scruple, and I am really glad to see them, though
+it is difficult to rouse Hadji from his opium pipe and coffee, and his
+comfortable lounge by a good fire, to interpret for them.
+
+The day's experiences remind me of the lines--
+
+     "Bare all he could endure,
+     And bare not always well."
+
+But tired and benumbed as I am I much prefer a march with excitements
+and difficulties to the monotony of splashing through mud in warm
+rain.
+
+_Hamilabad, Feb. 7._--The next morning opened cloudless, with the
+mercury at 18 deg., which was hardly an excuse for tea and _chapatties_
+being quite cold. I was ready much too early, and the servants having
+given out that I am a _Hak[=i]m_, my room was crowded with women and
+children, all suffering from eye diseases and scrofula, five women not
+nearly in middle life with cataract advanced in both eyes, and many
+with incurved eyelids, the result of wood smoke. It was most painful
+to see their disappointment when I told them that it would need time
+to cure some of them, and that for others I could do nothing. Could I
+not stay? they pleaded. I could have that room and milk and eggs--the
+best they had. "And they lifted up their voices and wept." I felt like
+a brute for leaving them. The people there showed much interest in our
+movements, crowding on the roofs to see our gear, and the start.
+
+The order of march now is--light division, three mules with an
+orderly, Hadji, and the cook upon them, the two last carrying what is
+absolutely necessary for the night in case the heavy division cannot
+get on. M---- and an orderly, the _sowar_, Abbas Khan, another who is
+changed daily, the light division and I, sometimes start together; but
+as the others are detained by work on the road, I usually ride on
+ahead with the two servants.
+
+To write that we all survived the march of that day is strange, when
+the same pitiless blast or "demon wind," blowing from "the roof of the
+world"--the Pamir desert, made corpses of five men who started with a
+caravan ahead of us that morning. We had to climb a long ascending
+plateau for 1500 feet, to surmount a pass. The snow was at times three
+feet deep, and the tracks even of a heavy caravan which crossed before
+us were effaced by the drift in a few minutes.
+
+A sun without heat glared and scintillated like an electric light,
+white and unsympathetic, out of a pitiless sky without a cloud. As
+soon as we emerged from Sannah the "demon wind" seized on us--a
+steady, blighting, searching, merciless blast, no rise or fall, no
+lull, no hope. Steadily and strongly it swept, at a temperature of 9 deg.,
+across the glittering ascent--swept mountain-sides bare; enveloped us
+at times in glittering swirls of powdery snow, which after biting and
+stinging careered over the slopes in twisted columns; screeched down
+gorges and whistled like the demon it was, as it drifted the light
+frozen snow in layers, in ripples, in waves, a cruel, benumbing,
+blinding, withering invisibility!
+
+The six woollen layers of my mask, my three pairs of gloves, my
+sheepskin coat, fur cloak, and mackintosh piled on over a swaddling
+mass of woollen clothing, were as nothing before that awful blast. It
+was not a question of comfort or discomfort, or of suffering more or
+less severe, but of life or death, as the corpses a few miles ahead of
+us show. I am certain that if it had lasted another half-hour I too
+should have perished. The torture of my limbs down to my feet, of my
+temples and cheekbones, the anguish and uselessness of my hands, from
+which the reins had dropped, were of small consequence compared with a
+chill which crept round my heart, threatening a cessation of work.
+
+There were groans behind me; the cook and Hadji had rolled off into
+the snow, where Hadji was calling on Him "who is not far from every
+one of us." M---- was on foot. His mask was frozen hard. He was using
+a scientific instrument, and told his orderly, an Afghan, a smart
+little "_duffadar_" of a crack Indian _corps_, to fasten a strap. The
+man replied sadly, "I can't, Sahib." His arms and hands were useless.
+My mask was frozen to my lips. The tears extorted from my eyes were
+frozen. I was so helpless, and in such torture, that I would gladly
+have lain down to die in the snow. The mercury fell to 4 deg.
+
+After fighting the elements for three hours and a half, we crossed the
+crest of the pass at an altitude of 7000 feet, to look down upon a
+snow world stretched out everywhere, pure, glistering, awful;
+mountains rolling in snowy ranges, valleys without a trace of man, a
+world of horror, glittering under a mocking sun.
+
+Hadji, with many pious ejaculations, gasped out that he was dying (in
+fact, for some time all speech had been reduced to a gasp); but when
+we got over the crest there was no more wind, and all the benumbed
+limbs resumed sensation, through an experience of anguish.
+
+The road to Kangawar lies through a broad valley, which has many
+streams. Among the mountains which encompass it are the Kuh-i-Hassan,
+Boka, the Kuh-i-Paran, and the Kuh-i-Bozah. I rode on with the two
+servants, indulging in no higher thoughts than of the comfort I should
+have in lying down, when just in front of me Hadji turned a
+somersault, my alpenstock flying in one direction and the medicine
+chest in another, while he lay motionless, flat on his back with all
+his limbs stretched out, just as soldiers who have been shot lie in
+pictures. In getting to him my mule went down in a snow-drift, out of
+which I extricated him with difficulty. I induced Hadji, who said his
+back was broken, and was groaning and calling on Allah, to get up, and
+went on to secure his mule, which had the great pack-saddle under its
+body, and was kicking with all its might at my bed and "hold-all,"
+which were between its hind legs, and succeeded in catching and
+holding it till Hadji came up. I told him to unfasten the surcingle,
+for the animal was wild with the things among its legs, and he wrung
+his hands and beat his breast, exclaiming, "God is great! God knows I
+shall never see Bushire again!" and was quite helpless. Seeing a
+caravan of asses approaching, I rode on as fast as I could to the
+well-situated little town of Kangawar, expecting him to follow
+shortly. At present the entrance into Kangawar is up the bed of a
+stream.
+
+We had been promised good accommodation there, and the town could
+evidently afford it, but Abbas Khan had chosen something very
+wretched, though it was upstairs, and had an extensive snow view.
+Crumbling, difficult stairs at each end of a crumbling mud house led
+to rooms which barely afforded a shelter, with a ruinous barn between,
+where the servants, regardless of consequences, kept up a bonfire. A
+man shovelled most of the snow out of my room, and tried to make a
+fire but failed, as neither he nor I could stand the smoke produced by
+the attempt. This imperfect shelter had a window-frame, with three out
+of its four wooden panes gone, and a cracked door, which could only
+ensure partial privacy by being laid against the posts from the outer
+landing, which was a flat roof. The wall was full of cracks big enough
+for a finger, through which the night wind rioted in a temperature 5 deg.
+below zero.
+
+There was nothing to sit upon, and I walked up and down for two hours,
+half-frozen, watching the straggling line of the caravan as it crawled
+along the valley, till the sunset flush changed into the chill
+blue-gray of twilight. Hadji arrived with it, having broken his girth
+after I left him. There was not much comfort after the severe march,
+owing to the draughts and the smoke, but one is always hungry and
+sleepy, and the hybernation of the insects makes up for any minor
+discomforts. It was so cold that some water in a cup froze before I
+could drink it, and the blanket over my face was hard frozen.
+
+Kangawar was full of mourning. The bodies of two men and a boy, who
+had perished on the plain while we were struggling up the pass, had
+been brought in. This boy of twelve was "the only son of his mother
+and she was a widow." He had started from Kangawar in the morning with
+five asses laden with chopped straw to sell for her, and had miserably
+perished. The two men were married, and had left families.
+
+Kangawar is a town of a thousand people built below a high hill, on
+some natural and artificial mounds. Some traditions regarding
+Semiramis are localised there, and it is supposed to be on the site of
+Pancobar, where she erected a temple to Anaitis or Artemis. Ruins of a
+fortress, now snow-buried, occupy the crest of a hill above the town,
+and there are other ruins, regarded by antiquaries as Grecian,
+representing a temple or palace, "a vast building constructed of
+enormous blocks of dressed stone." Of these remains I saw nothing but
+some columns and a pilaster, which are built into the miserable mud
+walls of a house near the bazar.
+
+At night the muleteers were beseeching on their knees. They said that
+they could not go on, that the caravan which had attempted to leave
+Kangawar in the morning had put back with three corpses, and that they
+and their mules would perish. In the morning it was for some time
+doubtful whether they could be induced or bribed to proceed. The day
+was fine and still, but they said that the snow was not broken. At
+last they agreed to start if we would promise to return at the first
+breath of wind!
+
+Every resource against cold was brought out and put on. One eye was
+all that was visible of the servants' faces. The _charvadars_ relied
+on their felt coats and raw sheepskins, with the fur inside, roped
+round their legs. There is danger of frost-bite even with all
+precautions. In addition to double woollen underclothing I put on a
+pair of thick Chitral socks over two pairs of woollen stockings, and
+over these a pair of long, loose Afghan boots, made of sheepskin with
+the fur inside. Over my riding dress, which is of flannel lined with
+heavy homespun, I had a long homespun jacket, an Afghan sheepskin
+coat, a heavy fur cloak over my knees, and a stout "regulation"
+waterproof to keep out the wind. Add to this a cork helmet, a
+fisherman's hood, a "six-ply" mask, two pairs of woollen gloves with
+mittens and double gauntlets, and the difficulty of mounting and
+dismounting for a person thus _swaddled_ may be imagined! The Persians
+are all in cotton clothes.
+
+However, though they have no "firesides," and no cheerful crackle and
+blaze of wood, they have an arrangement by which they can keep
+themselves warm for hours by the expenditure of a few handfuls of
+animal fuel. The fire hole or _t[=a]nd[=u]r_ in the middle of the
+floor is an institution. It is circular, narrows somewhat at the top
+and bottom, has a flue leading to the bottom from the outside, and is
+about three feet deep and two in diameter. It is smoothly lined with
+clay inside.
+
+Over this is the _karsi_ or platform, a skeleton wooden frame like an
+inverted table, from two to five feet square, covered with blankets or
+a thickly-wadded cotton quilt, which extends four or five feet beyond
+it. Cushions are placed under this, and the women huddle under it all
+day, and the whole family at night, and in this weather all day--the
+firepot in the hole giving them comfortable warmth both for sleeping
+and waking. They very rarely wash, and the _karsi_ is so favourable
+for the development of vermin that I always hurry it out of the room
+when I enter. So excellent and economical is the contrivance, that a
+_t[=a]nd[=u]r_ in which the fire has not been replenished for eighteen
+hours has still a genial heat.
+
+It was a serious start, so terribly slippery in the heaped-up alleys
+and uncovered bazars of Kangawar that several of the mules and men
+fell. Outside the town was a level expanse of deep, wrinkled, drifted,
+wavy, scintillating snow, unbroken except for a rut about a foot wide,
+a deep long "mule ladder," produced by heavily-laden mules and asses
+each stepping in its predecessor's footsteps, forming short, deep
+corrugations, in which it is painful and tedious for horses or
+lightly-laden animals to walk. For nine hours we marched through this
+corrugated rut.
+
+Leaving on the left the summer route to Tihran _via_ Hamadan, which is
+said to have been blocked for twenty days, we embarked upon a
+glittering plain covered with pure snow, varying in depth from two
+feet on the level to ten and fifteen in the drifts, crossed by a
+narrow and only slightly beaten track.
+
+Ere long we came on solemn traces of the struggle and defeat of the
+day before: every now and then a load of chopped straw thrown away,
+then the deep snow much trampled, then the snow dug away and piled
+round a small space, in which the _charvadars_ had tried to shelter
+themselves from the wind as the shadows of death fell, then more
+straw, and a grave under a high mound of snow; farther on some men
+busy burying one of the bodies. The air was still, and the sun shone
+as it had shone the day before on baffled struggles, exhaustion, and
+death. The trampling of the snow near the track marked the place where
+the caravan had turned, taking three out of the five bodies back to
+Kangawar. The fury with which the wind had swept over the plain was
+shown by the absolute level to which it had reduced the snow, the deep
+watercourses being filled up with the drifts.
+
+After crossing a brick bridge, and passing the nearly buried village
+of Husseinabad, we rode hour after hour along a rolling track among
+featureless hills, till in the last twilight we reached the village of
+Pharipah, a low-lying place ("low-lying" must never be understood to
+mean anything lower than 5000 feet) among some frozen irrigated lands
+and watered gardens. I arrived nearly dead from cold, fatigue, and the
+severe pains in the joints which are produced by riding nine hours at
+a foot's pace in a temperature of 20 deg. My mule could only be urged on
+by spurring, and all the men and animals were in a state of great
+fatigue. My room was very cold, as much of one side was open to the
+air, and a fire was an impossibility.
+
+Except for the crossing of a pass with an altitude of 7500 feet, the
+next day's route was monotonous, across plains, among mountains, all
+pure white, the only incidents being that my chair was broken by the
+fall of a mule, and that my mule and I went over our heads in a
+snow-drift. The track was very little broken, and I was four hours in
+doing ten miles.
+
+Hamilabad is a village of about sixty mud hovels, and in common with
+all these mountain hamlets has sloping covered ways leading to pens
+under the house, where cattle, sheep, and goats spend much of the
+winter in darkness and warmth.
+
+I have a house, _i.e._ a mud room, to myself. These two days I have
+had rather a severe chill, after getting in, including a shivering
+lasting about two hours, perhaps owing to the severe fatigue; and I
+was lying down with the blankets over my face and was just getting
+warm when I heard much buzzing about me, and looking up saw the room
+thronged with men, women, and children, just such a crowd as
+constantly besieged our blessed Lord when the toilsome day full of
+"the contradiction of sinners against Himself" was done, most of them
+ill of "divers diseases and torments," smallpox, rheumatism, ulcers on
+the cornea, abortive and shortened limbs, decay of the bones of the
+nose, palate, and cheek, tumours, cancers, skin maladies, ophthalmia,
+opaque films over the eyes, wounds, and many ailments too obscure for
+my elementary knowledge. Nothing is more painful than to be obliged to
+say that one cannot do anything for them.
+
+I had to get up, and for nearly two hours was hearing their tales of
+suffering, interpreted by Hadji with brutal frankness; and they
+crowded my room again this morning. All I could do was to make various
+ointments, taking tallow as the basis, drop lotion into some eyes,
+give a few simple medicines, and send the majority sadly away. The
+_sowar_, Abbas Khan, is responsible for spreading my fame as a
+_Hak[=i]m_. He is being cured of a severe cough, and comes to my room
+for medicine (in which I have no faith) every evening, a lean man with
+a lean face, lighted with a rapacious astuteness, with a _kaftan_
+streaming from his brow, except where it is roped round his shaven
+skull, a zouave jacket, a skirt something like a kilt, but which
+stands out like a ballet dancer's dress, all sorts of wrappings round
+his legs, a coarse striped red shirt, a double cartridge-belt, and a
+perfect armoury in his girdle of pistols and knives. He is a wit and a
+rogue. Dogs, deprived of their usual shelter, shook my loose door at
+intervals all night. This morning is gray, and looks like change.
+
+_Nanej, Feb. 9._--It was thawing, and the march here was very soft
+and splashy. The people are barbarous in their looks, speech, manners,
+and ways of living, and have a total disregard of cleanliness of
+person, clothing, and dwellings. Whether they are actually too poor to
+have anything warmer than cotton clothing, or whether they have buried
+hoards I do not know; but even in this severe weather the women of
+this region have nothing on their feet, and their short blue cotton
+trousers, short, loose, open jackets, short open chemises, and the
+thin blue sheet or _chadar_ over their heads, are a mere apology for
+clothing.
+
+The journey yesterday was through rolling hills, enclosing level
+plains much cultivated, with villages upon them mostly at a
+considerable distance from the road. I passed through two, one larger
+and less decayed than usual, but fearfully filthy, and bisected by a
+foul stream, from which people were drinking and drawing water. Near
+this is a lofty mound, a truncated cone, with some "Cyclopean" masonry
+on its summit, the relics of a fire temple of the Magi. Another poorer
+and yet filthier village was passed through, where a man was being
+buried; and as I left Hamilabad in the morning, a long procession was
+escorting a corpse to its icy grave, laid on its bedding on a bier,
+both these deaths being from smallpox, which, though very prevalent,
+is not usually fatal, and seldom attacks adults. Indeed, it is
+regarded as a childish malady, and is cured by a diet of melons and by
+profuse perspirations.
+
+A higher temperature had turned the path to slush, and made the
+crossing of the last plain very tedious. This is an abominable
+village, and the thaw is revealing a state of matters which the snow
+would have concealed; but it has been a severe week's journey, and I
+am glad of Sunday's rest even here. It is a disheartening place. I
+dismounted in one yard, in slush up to my knees, and from this
+splashed into another, round which are stables, cowsheds, and rooms
+which were vacated by the _ketchuda_ and his family, but only
+partially, as the women not only left all their "things" in my room,
+but had a _godown_ or storehouse through it, to which they resorted
+continually. I felt ill yesterday, and put on a blister, which
+rendered complete rest desirable; but it is not to be got. The room
+filled with women as soon as I settled myself in it.
+
+They told me at once that I could not have a fire unless I had it
+under the _karsi_, that the smoke would be unbearable. When I asked
+them to leave me to rest, they said, "There's no shame in having women
+in the house." M---- came an hour later and cleared the room, but as
+soon as he went away it filled again, and with men as well as women,
+and others unscrupulously tore out the paper panes from the windows.
+This afternoon I stayed in bed feeling rather ill, and about three
+o'clock a number of women in blue sheets, with a very definite leader,
+came in, arranged the _karsi_, filling the room with smoke, as a
+preliminary, gathered themselves under the quilt, and sat there
+talking loudly to each other. I felt myself the object of a focused
+stare, and covered my head with a blanket in despair. Then more women
+came in with tea-trays, and they all took tea and sat for another hour
+or two talking and tittering, Hadji assuring me that they were doing
+it out of kindness, because I was not well, and they thought it dull
+for me alone! The room was again cleared, and I got up at dark, and
+hearing a great deal of whispering and giggling, saw that they had
+opened the door windows, and that a crowd was outside. When I woke
+this morning a man was examining my clothes, which were hanging up.
+They feel and pull my hair, finger all my things, and have broken all
+the fine teeth out of my comb. They have the curiosity without the
+gracefulness of the Japanese.
+
+This is a house of the better sort, though the walls are not
+plastered. A carpet loom is fixed into the floor with a half-woven
+carpet upon it. Some handsome rugs are laid down. There are two
+much-decorated marriage chests, some guns and swords, a quantity of
+glass teacups and ornaments in the recesses, and coloured woodcuts of
+the Russian Imperial family, here, as in almost every house, are on
+the walls.
+
+There is great rejoicing to-night "for joy that a man is born into the
+world," the first-born of the _ketchuda's_ eldest son. In their
+extreme felicity they took me to see the mother and babe. The room was
+very hot, and crowded with relations and friends. The young mother was
+sitting up on her bed on the floor and the infant lay beside her
+dressed in swaddling clothes. She looked very happy and the young
+father very proud. I added a small offering to the many which were
+brought in for luck, and it was not rejected.
+
+A sword was brought from my room, and with it the _mamache_ traced a
+line upon the four walls, repeating a formula which I understood to
+be, "I am making this tower for Miriam and her child."[20] I was
+warned by Hadji not to look on the child or to admire him without
+saying "Mashallah," lest I should bring on him the woe of the evil
+eye. So greatly is it feared, that precautions are invariably taken
+against it from the hour of birth, by bestowing amulets and charms
+upon the child. A paragraph of the Koran, placed in a silk bag, had
+already been tied round the infant's neck. Later, he will wear another
+bag round his arm, and turquoise or blue beads will be sewn upon his
+cap.
+
+If a visitor admires a child without uttering the word _Mashallah_,
+and the child afterwards falls sick, the visitor at once is regarded
+as answerable for the calamity, and the relations take a shred of his
+garment, and burn it in a brazier with cress seed, walking round and
+round the child as it burns.
+
+Persian mothers are regarded as convalescent on the third day, when
+they go to the _hammam_ to perform the ceremonies required by Moslem
+law. A boy is weaned at the end of twenty-six months and a girl at the
+end of twenty-four. If possible, on the weaning day the child is
+carried to the mosque, and certain devotions are performed. The
+weaning feast is an important function, and the relations and friends
+assemble, bringing presents, and the child in spite of his reluctance
+is forced to partake of the food.
+
+At the earliest possible period the _mamache_ pronounces in the
+infant's ear the Shiah profession of faith: "God is God, there is but
+one God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God, and Ali is the Lieutenant
+of God." A child becomes a Moslem as soon as this _Kelemah Islam_ has
+been spoken into his ear; but a ceremony attends the bestowal of his
+name, which resembles that in use among the Buddhists of Tibet on
+similar occasions.
+
+Unless the father be very poor indeed, he makes a feast for his
+friends on an auspicious day, and invites the village _mollahs_.
+Sweetmeats are solemnly eaten after the guests have assembled. Then
+the infant, stiffened and mummied in its swaddling clothes, is brought
+in, and is laid on the floor by one of the _mollahs_. Five names are
+written on five slips of paper, which are placed between the leaves of
+the Koran, or under the edge of the carpet. The first chapter of the
+Koran is then read. One of the slips is then drawn at random, and a
+_mollah_ takes up the child, and pronounces in its ear the name found
+upon it, after which he places the paper on its clothes.
+
+The relations and friends give it presents according to their means,
+answering to our christening gifts, and thereafter it is called by the
+name it has received. Among men's names there is a preponderance of
+those taken from the Old Testament, among which Ibrahim, Ismail,
+Suleiman, Yusuf, and Moussa are prominent. Abdullah, Mahmoud, Hassan,
+Raouf, Baba Houssein, Imam are also common, and many names have the
+suffix of Ali among the Shiahs. Fatmeh is a woman's name, but
+girl-children usually receive the name of some flower or bird, or
+fascinating quality of disposition or person.
+
+The journey is beginning to tell on men and animals. One of the Arab
+horses has had a violent attack of pain from the cold, and several of
+the men are ailing and depressed.
+
+_Dizabad, Feb. 11._--Nanej is the last village laid down on any map on
+the route we are taking for over a hundred miles, _i.e._ until we
+reach Kum, though it is a caravan route, and it does not appear that
+any Europeans have published any account of it. Just now it is a
+buried country, for the snow is lying from one to four feet deep. It
+is not even possible to pronounce any verdict on the roads, for they
+are simply deep ruts in the snow, with "mule ladders." The people say
+that the plains are irrigated and productive, and that the hills
+pasture their sheep and cattle; and they all complain of the exactions
+of local officials. There is no variety in costume, and very little in
+dwellings, except as to size, for they are all built of mud or
+sun-dried bricks, within cattle yards, and have subterranean pens for
+cattle and goats. The people abound in diseases, specially of the eyes
+and bones.
+
+The salient features of the hills, if they have any, are rounded off
+by snow, and though many of them rise to a great height, none are
+really impressive but Mount Elwand, close to Hamadan. The route is
+altogether hilly, but the track pursues valleys and low passes as much
+as possible, and is never really steep.
+
+Yesterday we marched twenty-four miles in eight hours without any
+incident, and the "heavy division" took thirteen hours, and did not
+come in till ten at night! There are round hills, agglomerated into
+ranges, with easy passes, the highest 7026 feet in altitude, higher
+summits here and there in view, the hills encircling level plains,
+sprinkled sparsely with villages at a distance from the road, denoted
+by scrubby poplars and willows; sometimes there is a _kanaat_ or
+underground irrigation channel with a line of pits or shafts, but
+whatever there was, or was not, it was always lonely, grim, and
+desolate. The strong winds have blown some of the hillsides bare, and
+they appear in all their deformity of shapeless mounds of black
+gravel, or black mud, with relics of last year's thistles and
+euphorbias upon them. So great is the destitution of fuel that even
+now people are out cutting the stalks of thistles which appear above
+the snow.
+
+As the hours went by, I did rather wish for the smashed _kajawehs_,
+especially when we met the ladies of a governor's _haram_, to the
+number of thirty, reclining snugly in pairs, among blankets and
+cushions, in panniers with tilts, and curtains of a thick material,
+dyed Turkey red. The cold became very severe towards evening.
+
+The geographical interest of the day was that we crossed the watershed
+of the region, and have left behind the streams which eventually reach
+the sea, all future rivers, however great their volume, or impetuous
+their flow, disappearing at last in what the Americans call "sinks,"
+but which are known in Persia as _kavirs_, usually salt swamps. Near
+sunset we crossed a bridge of seven pointed arches with abutments
+against a rapid stream, and passing a great gaunt caravanserai on an
+eminence, and a valley to the east of the bridge with a few villages
+giving an impression of fertility, hemmed in by some shapely
+mountains, we embarked on a level plain, bounded on all sides by
+hills so snowy that not a brown patch or outbreak of rock spotted
+their whiteness, and with villages and caravanserais scattered thinly
+over it. On the left, there are the extensive ruins of old Dizabad,
+and a great tract of forlorn graves clustering round a crumbling
+_imamzada_.
+
+As the sun sank the distant hills became rose-flushed, and then one by
+one the flush died off into the paleness of death, and in the
+gathering blue-grayness, in desolation without sublimity, in
+ghastliness, impressive but only by force of ghastliness, and in
+benumbing cold, we rode into this village, and into a yard encumbered
+with mighty piles of snow, on one side of which I have a wretched
+room, though the best, with two doors, which do not shut, but when
+they are closed make it quite dark--a deep, damp, cobwebby, dusty,
+musty lair like a miserable eastern cowshed.
+
+I was really half-frozen and quite benumbed, and though I had plenty
+of blankets and furs, had a long and severe chill, and another to-day.
+M---- also has had bad chills, and the Afghan orderly is ill, and
+moaning with pain in the next room. Hadji has fallen into a state of
+chronic invalidism, and is shaking with chills, his teeth chattering,
+and he is calling on Allah whenever I am within hearing.
+
+The chilly dampness and the rise in temperature again may have
+something to do with the ailments, but I think that we Europeans are
+suffering from the want of nourishing food. Meat has not been
+attainable for some days, the fowls are dry and skinny, and milk is
+very scarce and poor. I cannot eat the sour wafers which pass for
+bread, and as Hadji cannot boil rice or make flour porridge, I often
+start in the morning having only had a cup of tea. I lunch in the
+saddle on dates, the milk in the holsters having been frozen lately;
+then is the time for finding the value of a double peppermint
+lozenge!
+
+Snow fell heavily last night, and as the track has not been broken,
+and the _charvadars_ dared not face it, we are detained in this
+miserable place, four other caravans sharing our fate. The pros and
+cons about starting were many, and Abbas Khan was sent on horseback to
+reconnoitre, but he came back like Noah's dove, reporting that it was
+a trackless waste of snow outside. It is a day of rest, but as the
+door has to be open on the snow to let in light, my hands are benumbed
+with the damp cold. Still, a bowl of Edwards' desiccated soup--the
+best of all travelling soups--has been very reviving, and though I
+have had a severe chill again, I do not mean to succumb. I do not
+dwell on the hardships, but they are awful. The soldiers and servants
+all have bad coughs, and dwindle daily. The little orderly is so ill
+to-day that we could not have gone on even had the track been broken.
+
+_Saruk, Feb. 12._--Unladen asses, followed by unladen mules, were
+driven along to break the track this morning, and as two caravans
+started before us, it was tolerable, though very deep. The solitude
+and desolation were awful. At first the snow was somewhat thawed, but
+soon it became immensely deep, and we had to plunge through hollows
+from which the beasts extricated themselves with great difficulty and
+occasionally had to be unloaded and reloaded.
+
+As I mentioned in writing of an earlier march, it is difficult and
+even dangerous to pass caravans when the only road is a deep rut a
+foot wide, and we had most tedious experience of it to-day, when some
+of our men, weakened by illness, were not so patient as usual. Abbas
+Khan and the orderly could hardly sit on their horses, and Hadji
+rolled off his mule at intervals. As the _charvadars_ who give way
+have their beasts floundering in the deep snow and losing their loads,
+both attempt to keep the road, the result of which is a violent
+collision. The two animals which "collide" usually go down, and some
+of the others come on the top of them, and to-day at one time there
+were eight, struggling heels uppermost in the deep snow, all to be
+reloaded.
+
+This led to a serious _melee_. The rival _charvadar_, aggravated by
+Hadji, struck him on the head, and down he went into the snow, with
+his mule apparently on the top of him, and his load at some distance.
+The same _charvadar_ seized the halters of several of our mules, and
+drove them into the snow, where they all came to grief. Our
+_charvadar_, whose blue eyes, auburn hair and beard, and exceeding
+beauty, always bring to mind a sacred picture, became furious at this,
+and there was a fierce fight among the men (M---- being ahead) and
+much bad language, such epithets as "son of a dog" and "sons of burnt
+fathers" being freely bandied about. The fray at last died out,
+leaving as its result only the loss of an hour, some broken
+surcingles, and some bleeding faces. Even Hadji rose from his "gory
+bed" not much worse, though he had been hit hard.
+
+There was no more quarrelling though we passed several caravans, but
+even when the men were reasonable and good nature prevailed some of
+the mules on both sides fell in the snow and had to be reloaded. When
+the matter is not settled as this was by violence, a good deal of
+shouting and roaring culminates in an understanding that one caravan
+shall draw off into a place where the snow is shallowest, and stand
+still till the other has gone past; but to-day scarcely a shallow
+place could be found. I always give place to asses, rather to avoid a
+painful spectacle than from humanity. One step off the track and down
+they go, and they never get up without being unloaded.
+
+When we left Dizabad the mist was thick, and as it cleared it froze
+in crystallised buttons, which covered the surface of the snow, but
+lifting only partially it revealed snowy summits, sun-lit above heavy
+white clouds; then when we reached a broad plateau, the highest plain
+of the journey, 7800 feet in altitude, gray mists drifted very near
+us, and opening in rifts divulged blackness, darkness, and tempest,
+and ragged peaks exposed to the fury of a snowstorm. Snow fell in
+showers on the plain, and it was an anxious time, for had the storm
+which seemed impending burst on that wild, awful, shelterless expanse,
+with tired animals, and every landmark obliterated, some of us must
+have perished. I have done a great deal of snow travelling, and know
+how soon every trace of even the widest and deepest path is effaced by
+drift, much more the narrow rut by which we were crossing this most
+exposed plateau. There was not a village in sight the whole march, no
+birds, no animals. There was not a sound but the venomous hiss of
+snow-laden squalls. It was "the dead of winter."
+
+My admirable mule was ill of cold from having my small saddle on him
+instead of his great stuffed pack-saddle, the _charvadar_ said, and he
+gave me instead a horse that I could not ride. Such a gait I never
+felt; less than half a mile was unbearable. I felt as if my eyes would
+be shaken out of their sockets! The bit was changed, but in vain. I
+was obliged to get off, and M---- kindly put my saddle on a powerful
+Kirmanshah Arab. I soon found that my intense fatigue on this journey
+had been caused by riding mules, which have no elasticity of movement.
+I rode twenty miles to-day with ease, and could have ridden twenty
+more, and had several canters on the few places where the snow was
+well trodden.
+
+I was off the track trying to get past a caravan and overtake the
+others, when down came the horse and I in a drift fully ten feet deep.
+Somehow I was not quite detached from the saddle, and in the scrimmage
+got into it again, and a few desperate plunges brought us out, with
+the horse's breastplate broken.
+
+When we reached the great plateau above this village, a great blank
+sheet of snow, surrounded by mountains, now buried in white mists, now
+revealed, with snow flurries drifting wildly round their ghastly
+heads, I found that the Arab, the same horse which was so ill at
+Nanej, was "dead beat," and as it only looked a mile to the village I
+got off, and walked in the deep snow along the rungs of the "mule
+ladders," which are so fatiguing for horses. But the distance was
+fully three miles, with a stream to wade through, half a mile of deep
+wet soil to plunge through, and the thawed mud of a large village to
+splash through; and as I dared not mount again for fear of catching
+cold, I trailed forlornly into Saruk, following the men who were
+riding.
+
+Can it be said that they rode? They sat feebly on animals, swaddled in
+felts and furs, the _pagri_ concealing each face with the exception of
+one eye in a blue goggle; rolling from side to side, clutching at
+ropes and halters, moaning "_Ya Allah!_"--a deplorable cavalcade.
+
+Saruk has some poplars, and is surrounded by a ruinous mud wall. It is
+a village of 150 houses, and is famous for very fine velvety carpets,
+of small patterns, in vivid vegetable dyes. At an altitude of 7500
+feet, it has a severe climate, and only grows wheat and barley, sown
+in April and reaped in September. All this mountainous region that we
+are toiling through is blank on the maps, and may be a dead level so
+far as anything there is represented, though even its passes are in
+several cases over 7000 feet high.
+
+_Saruk, Feb. 13._--The circumstances generally are unfavourable, and
+we are again detained. The Afghan orderly, who is also interpreter, is
+very ill, and though he is very plucky it is impossible for him to
+move; the cook seems "all to pieces," and is overcome by cough and
+lassitude; Abbas Khan is ill, and his face has lost its comicality;
+and in the same room Hadji lies, groaning and moaning that he will not
+live through the night. Even M----'s herculean strength is not what it
+was. I have chills, but in spite of them and the fatigue am really
+much better than when I left Baghdad, so that though I exercise the
+privilege of grumbling at the hardships, I ought not to complain of
+them, though they are enough to break down the strongest men. I really
+like the journey, except when I am completely knocked up, or the smoke
+is exceptionally blinding.
+
+The snow in this yard is lying in masses twelve feet high, rising out
+of slush I do not know how many feet deep. It looks as if we had seen
+the last of the winter. The mercury is at 32 deg. now. It is very damp and
+cold sitting in a room with one side open to the snow, and the mud
+floor all slush from the drip from the roof. The fuel is wet, and
+though a man has attempted four times to light a fire, he has only
+succeeded in making an overpowering smoke, which prefers hanging
+heavily over the floor and me to making its exit through the hole in
+the roof provided for it. The door must be kept open to let in light,
+and it also lets in fowls and many cats. My _dhurrie_ has been
+trampled into the slush, and a deadly cold strikes up through it. Last
+night a man (for Hadji was _hors de combat_) brought in some live
+embers, and heaped some gum tragacanth thorns and animal fuel upon
+them; there was no chimney, and the hole in the roof was stopped by a
+clod. The result was unbearable. I covered my head with blankets, but
+it was still blinding and stifling, and I had to extinguish the fire
+with water and bear the cold, which then was about 20 deg. Later, there
+was a tempest of snow and rain, with a sudden thaw, and water dripped
+with an irksome sound on my well-protected bed, no light would burn,
+and I had the mortification of knowing that the same drip was spoiling
+writing paper and stores which had been left open to dry! But a
+traveller rarely lies awake, and to-day by keeping my feet on a box,
+and living in a mackintosh, I am out of both drip and mud. Such a room
+as I am now in is the ordinary room of a Persian homestead. It is a
+cell of mud, not brick, either sun or kiln dried. Its sides are
+cracked and let in air. Its roof is mud, under which is some brushwood
+lying over the rafters. It has no light holes, but as the door has
+shrunk considerably from the door posts, it is not absolutely dark. It
+may be about twelve feet square. Every part of it is blackened by
+years of smoke. The best of it is that it is raised two feet from the
+ground to admit of a fowl-house below, and opens on a rough platform
+which runs in front of all the dwelling-rooms. With the misfitting
+door and cracked sides it is much like a sieve.
+
+I have waited to describe a Persian peasant's house till I had seen
+more of them. The yard is an almost unvarying feature, whether a small
+enclosure with a low wall and a gateway closed at night by a screen of
+reeds, or a great farmyard like this, with an arched entrance and
+dwelling-rooms for two or three generations along one or more of the
+sides.
+
+The house walls are built of mud, not sun-dried brick, and are only
+one story high. The soil near villages is mostly mud, and by leading
+water to a given spot, a pit of mortar for building material is at
+once made. This being dug up, and worked to a proper consistency by
+the feet of men, is then made into a wall, piece after piece being
+laid on by hand, till it reaches a height of four feet and a thickness
+of three--the imperative tradition of the Persian builder. This is
+allowed a few days for hardening, when another layer of similar height
+but somewhat narrower is laid upon it, _takchahs_ or recesses a foot
+deep or more being worked into the thickness of the wall, and the
+process is repeated till the desired height is attained. When the wall
+is thoroughly dry it is plastered inside and outside with a mixture of
+mud and chopped straw, and if this plastering is repeated at
+intervals, the style of construction is very durable.
+
+The oven or _t[=a]nd[=u]r_ is placed in the floor of one room, at
+least, and answers for cooking and heating. A peasant's house has no
+windows, and the roof does not project beyond the wall.
+
+All roofs are flat. Rude rafters of poplar are laid across the walls
+about two feet apart. In a _ketchuda's_ or a wealthier peasant's
+house, above these are laid in rows peeled poplar rods, two inches
+apart, then a rush mat, and then the resinous thorns of the tragacanth
+bush, which are not liable to decay; but in the poorer houses the
+owner contents himself with a coarse reed mat or a layer of brushwood
+above the rafters. On this is spread a well-trodden-down layer of mud,
+then eight or ten inches of dry earth, and the whole is thickly
+plastered with mixed straw and mud. A slight slope at the back with a
+long wooden spout carries off the water. Such a roof is impervious to
+rain except in very severe storms if kept in order, that is, if it be
+plastered once a year, and well rolled after rain. Few people are so
+poor as not to have a neatly-made stone roller on their roofs. If this
+is lacking, the roof must be well tramped after rain by bare feet, and
+in all cases the snow must be shovelled off.
+
+These roofs, among the peasantry, have no parapets. They are the
+paradise of dogs, and in hot weather the people take up their beds
+and sleep there, partly for coolness and partly because the night
+breeze gives freedom from mosquitos. In simple country life, though
+the premises of the peasants for the sake of security are contiguous,
+there are seldom even balustrades to the roofs, though in summer most
+domestic operations are carried on there. Fifty years ago Persian law
+sanctioned the stoning without trial or mercy of any one caught in the
+act of gazing into the premises of another, unless the gazer were the
+king.
+
+Upon the courtyard stables, barns, and store-rooms open, but so far I
+notice that the granary is in the house, and that the six-feet-high
+clay receptacles for grain are in the living-room.
+
+Looking from above upon a plain, the poplars which surround villages
+where there is a sufficiency of water attract the eye. At this season
+they are nothing but a brown patch on the snow. The villages
+themselves are of light brown mud, and are surrounded usually by
+square walls with towers at the corners, and all have a great gate.
+Within the houses or hovels the families are huddled irregularly, with
+all their appurtenances, and in winter the flocks and herds are in
+subterranean pens beneath. In summer the animals go forth at sunrise
+and return at sunset. The walls, which give most of the villages a
+fortified aspect, used to afford the villagers a degree of protection
+against the predatory Turkomans, and now give security to the flocks
+against Lur and other robbers.
+
+Every village has its _ketchuda_ or headman, who is answerable for the
+taxes, the safety of travellers, and other matters.
+
+_Siashan, Feb. 16._--The men being a little better, we left Saruk at
+nine on the 14th, I on a bright little Baghdadi horse, in such good
+case that he frequently threw up his heels in happy playfulness. The
+temperature had fallen considerably, there had been a fresh snowfall,
+and the day was very bright. The Arab horses are suffering badly in
+their eyes from the glare of the snow.
+
+If I had not had such a lively little horse I should have found the
+march a tedious one, for we were six hours in doing eleven and a half
+miles on a level! The head _charvadar_ had gone on early to make some
+arrangements, and the others loaded the animals so badly that Hadji
+and the cook rolled off their mules into the deep semi-frozen slush
+from the packs turning just outside the gates. We had three mules with
+us with worn-out tackle, and the loads rolled over many times, the
+riders, who were too weak to help themselves, getting bad falls. As
+each load, owing to the broken tackle, took fifteen minutes to put on
+again, and the men could do little, a great deal of hard, exasperating
+work fell on M----. After one bad fall in a snowdrift myself, I rode
+on alone with one mule with a valuable burden. This, turning for the
+fourth time, was soon under his body, and he began to kick violently,
+quite dismaying me by the bang of his hoofs against cases containing
+scientific instruments. It was a droll comedy in the snow. I wanted to
+get hold of his halter, but every time I went near him he whisked
+round and flung up his heels, till I managed to cut the ragged
+surcingle and set him free, when I caught him in deep snow, in which
+my horse was very unwilling to risk himself.
+
+Soon after leaving Saruk, which, as I mentioned before, is famous for
+very fine carpets, we descended gently upon the great plain of
+Feraghan, perhaps the largest carpet-producing district of Persia.
+These carpets are very fine and their patterns are unique, bringing a
+very high price. This plain has an altitude of about 7000 feet, is 45
+miles in length by from 8 to 15 in breadth, is officially stated to
+have 650 villages upon it, all agricultural and carpet producing, and
+is considerably irrigated by streams, which eventually lose themselves
+in a salt lake at its eastern extremity. It is surrounded by hills,
+with mountain ranges behind them, and must be, both as to
+productiveness and population, one of the most flourishing districts
+in Persia.
+
+We were to have marched to Kashgird, but on reaching the hamlet of
+Ahang Garang I found that Abbas Khan had taken quarters there, saying
+that Kashgird was in ruins.
+
+Hadji, who had allowed himself to roll off several times, was moaning
+and weeping on the floor of my room, groaning out, with many cries of
+_Ya Allah_, "Let me stay here till I'm better; I don't want any wages;
+I shall be killed, oh, killed! Oh, my family! I shall never see
+Bushire any more!" Though there was much reason to think he was
+shamming, I did the little that he calls his "work," and left him to
+smoke his opium pipe and sleep by the fire in peace.
+
+I was threatened with snow-blindness in one eye; in fact I saw nothing
+with it, and had to keep it covered up. One of the _charvadars_ lay
+moaning outside my room, poor fellow, taking chlorodyne every
+half-hour, and another had got a bad foot from frost-bite. They have
+been terribly exposed, and the soft snow at a higher temperature has
+been worse for them than the dry powdery snow at a low temperature, as
+it soaks their socks, shoes, and leggings, and then freezes. Making
+Liebig's beef tea warms one, and they like it even from a Christian
+hand. The Afghan orderly bore up bravely, but was very weak. Indeed
+the prospect of getting these men to Tihran is darkening daily.
+
+My room, though open to the snow at one end, was comfortable. The oven
+had been lighted twelve hours before, and it was delightful to hang
+one's feet into the warm hole. There were holes for light in the roof,
+and cold though it was, so long as daylight lasted these were never
+free from veiled faces looking down.
+
+In order to become thoroughly warm it was necessary to walk long and
+briskly on the roof, and this brought all the villagers below it to
+stare the stare of vacuity rather than of curiosity. A snow scene is
+always beautiful at sunset, and this was exceptionally so, as the long
+indigo shadows on the plain threw into greater definiteness the
+gleaming, glittering hills, at one time dazzling in the sunshine, at
+another flushed in the sunset. The plain of Feraghan as seen from the
+roof was one smooth expanse of pure deep snow, broken only by brown
+splashes, where mud villages were emphasised by brown poplars, the
+unbroken, unsullied snow, two feet deep on the level and any number in
+the drifts, looking like a picture of the Arctic Ocean, magnificent in
+its solitude, one difficult track, a foot wide, the solitary link with
+the larger world which then seemed so very far away.
+
+Things went better yesterday on the whole, though the mercury fell to
+zero in the night, and I was awakened several times by the cold of my
+open room, and when a number of people came at daylight for medicines
+my fingers were so benumbed that I could scarcely measure them. What a
+splendid field for a medical missionary loving his profession this
+plain with its 650 villages would be, where there are curable diseases
+by the hundred! Many of the suffering people have told me that they
+would give lodging and the best of their food to any English doctor
+who would travel among them.
+
+The loads were well balanced yesterday, and Hadji only pulled his over
+once and only rolled off once, when Abbas Khan exclaimed, "He's not a
+man; why did Allah make such a creature?" We got off at nine, the
+roofs being crowded to see us start. Fuel is very scarce at Ahang
+Garang. For the cooking and "parlour" fire, the charge was forty-five
+_krans_, or about twenty-eight shillings! Probably this included a
+large _modakel_. For a room from two to four _krans_ is expected.
+
+Through M----'s kindness I now have a good horse to ride, and the
+difference in fatigue is incredible. We embarked again on the vast
+plain of snow. It was a grim day, and most ghastly and desolate this
+end of the plain looked, where the waters having done their
+fertilising work are lost in a salt lake, the absolutely white hills
+round the plain being emphasised by the blue neutral tint of the sky.
+For the first ten miles there was little more than a breeze, for the
+last ten a pitiless, ruthless, riotous north-easterly gale, blowing up
+the snow in hissing drifts, as it swept across the plain with a
+desolate screech.
+
+The coverings with which we were swaddled were soon penetrated. The
+cold seemed to enter the bones, and to strike the head and face like a
+red-hot hammer, stunning as it struck, the tears wrung from the eyes
+were frozen, at times even the eyelids were frozen together. The
+frozen snow hit one hard. Hands and feet were by turns benumbed and in
+anguish, terrific blasts loaded with hard lumps of snow came down from
+the hills, snow was drifting from all the white ranges above us; on
+the more exposed part of the track the gusts burst with such violence
+as to force some of the mules off it to flounder in the deep snow; my
+Arab was struck so mercilessly on his sore swollen eyes that at times
+I could scarcely, with my own useless hands, induce him to face the
+swirls of frozen snow. Swifter and more resistless were the ice-laden
+squalls, more and more obliterated became the track, till after a
+fight of over three hours, and the ceaseless crossing of rolling
+hills and deep hollows, we reached the top of a wind-bared slope 7700
+feet in altitude and saw this village, looking from that distance
+quite imposing, on a hill on the other side of a stream crossed by a
+brick bridge, with a ruined fort on a height above it. It promised
+shelter--that was all. Below the village there was an expanse of snow,
+sloping up to pure white hills outlined against an indigo depth of
+ominous-looking clouds.
+
+While M---- went up a hill for some scientific work, I followed the
+orderly, who could scarcely sit on his horse from pain and weakness,
+into the most wretchedly ruinous, deserted-looking village I have yet
+seen, epitomising the disenchantment which a near view of an Eastern
+city brings, and up a steep alley to a ruinous yard heaped with
+snow-covered ruins, on one side of which were some ruinous rooms,
+their backs opening on a precipice above the river, and on the
+north-east wind. I tumbled off my horse, Abbas Khan, the least sick of
+the men, with benumbed hands breaking my fall. The severe cold had
+stiffened all my joints. We could scarcely speak; the bones of my face
+were in intense pain, and I felt as if the cold were congealing my
+heart.
+
+With Abbas Khan's help I chose the rooms, the worst we have ever had.
+The one I took for myself has an open-work door facing the wind, and
+it is impossible to have a fire, for the draught blows sticks, ashes,
+and embers over the room. The others are worse. It is an awful night,
+blowing and snowing; all the men but two are _hors de combat_. The
+poor orderly, using an Afghan phrase, said, "The wind has played the
+demon with me." He has a fearful cough, and haemorrhage from the lungs
+or throat. The cook is threatened with pleurisy. It may truly be
+called "Hospital Sunday." The day has been chiefly spent in making
+mustard poultices, which M---- is constantly crossing the yard in
+three feet of snow to put on, and protectors for the chests and backs,
+preparing beef tea, making up medicines, etc.
+
+Surely things must have reached their worst. Out of seven men only one
+servant, and he an Indian lad with a fearful squint and eyes so badly
+inflamed that he can hardly see where he puts things down, is able to
+do anything. Two of the _charvadars_ are lying ill in the stable.
+Mustard plasters, Dover's powders, salicylate of soda, emetics,
+poultices, clinical thermometers, chlorodyne, and beef tea have been
+in requisition all day. The cook, the Afghan orderly, and Hadji seem
+really ill. At eight this morning groans at my door took me out, and
+one of the muleteers was lying there in severe pain, with the hard
+fine snow beating on him. Later I heard fresh moaning on my threshold,
+and found Hadji fallen there with my breakfast. I got him in and he
+fell again, upsetting the tea, and while I attended to him the big
+dogs ate up the _chapatties_! He had a good deal of fever, and severe
+rheumatism, and on looking at his eyes I saw that he was nearly blind.
+He lost his blue glasses some days ago. I sent him to bed in the
+"kitchen" for the whole day, where he lay groaning in comfort by the
+fire with his opium pipe and his tea. He thinks he will not survive
+the night, and has just given me his dying directions!
+
+Afterwards M---- came for the thermometer and chlorodyne, and remarked
+that my room was "unfit for a beast." The truth is I share it with
+several very big dogs. It did look grotesquely miserable last
+night--black, fireless, wet, dirty, with all my things lying on the
+dirty floor, having been tumbled about by these dogs in their search
+for my last box of Brand's meat lozenges, which they got out of a
+strong, tightly-tied-up bag, which they tore into strips. On going for
+my fur cloak to-day, these three dogs, who, I believe, would take on
+civilisation more quickly than their masters, were all found rolled up
+under it, and lying on my bed.
+
+The mercury in the "parlour" with a large fire cannot be raised above
+36 deg. In my room to-night the wet floor is frozen hard and the mercury
+is 20 deg. This is nothing after 12 deg. and 16 deg. below zero, but the furious
+east wind and a singular dampness in the air make it very severe.
+Yesterday, before the sky clouded over, there was a most remarkable
+ring or halo of prismatic colours round the sun, ominous of the storm
+which has followed.
+
+This place standing high without shelter is fearfully exposed; there
+is no milk and no comfort of any kind for the sick men. We have
+decided to wrap them up and move them to Kum, where there is a Persian
+doctor with a European education; but it is a great risk, though the
+lesser of two. I have just finished four protectors for the back and
+chest, three-quarters of a yard long by sixteen inches wide, buttoning
+on the shoulders, of a very soft felt _namad_ nearly half an inch
+thick--a precaution much to be commended.
+
+I think that Hadji, though in great pain, poor fellow, is partly
+shamming. He professed this evening to have violent fever, and the
+thermometer shows that he has none. Even the few things which I
+thought he had done for me, such as making _chapatties_, I find have
+been done by others. It is a pity for himself as well as for me that
+he should be so incorrigibly lazy.
+
+_Taj Khatan, Feb. 18._--Yesterday we had a severe march, and owing
+first to the depth of the snow, and then to the depth of the mud, we
+were seven hours in doing twenty-one miles. The wind was still
+intensely cold--bitter indeed. There are few remarks to be made about
+a country buried in snow. The early miles were across the fag end of
+the dazzling plain of Feraghan, which instead of being covered with
+villages is an uninhabited desert with a salt lake. Then the road
+winds among mountains of an altitude of 8000 and 9000 feet and more,
+its highest point being 8350 feet, where we began a descent which will
+land us at Tihran at a level under 4000 feet. Snowy mountains and
+snowy plains were behind--bare brown earth was to come all too soon.
+
+Winding wearily round low hills, meeting caravans of camels to which
+we had to give way, and of asses floundering in the snow, we came in
+the evening to a broad slope with villages, poplars, walnuts, and
+irrigated lands, then to the large and picturesquely situated village
+of Givr on a steep bank above a rapid stream, and just at dusk to the
+important village of Jairud, also on high ground above the same river,
+and surrounded by gardens and an extraordinary number of fruit trees.
+The altitude is 6900 feet.[21] I had a _balakhana_, very cold, and was
+fairly benumbed for some time after the long cold march.
+
+A great many people applied for medicine, and some of the maladies,
+specially when they affect children, make one sick at heart. Hadji is
+affecting to be stone deaf, so he no longer interprets for sick
+people, which creates an additional difficulty. We left this morning
+at ten, descended 2000 feet, and suddenly left the snow behind. Vast,
+gray, and grim the snow-covered mountains looked as they receded into
+indigo gloom, with snow clouds drifting round their ghastly heads and
+across the dazzling snow plains in which we had been floundering for
+thirty days. It is strange to see mother earth once more--rocky, or
+rather stony hills, mud hills, mud plains, mud slopes, a brown world,
+with a snow world above. Two pink hills rise above the brown plain,
+and some toothed peaks, but the rest of the view is simply hills and
+slopes of mud and gravel, bearing thorns, and the relics of last
+year's thistles and wormwood. The atmospheric colouring is, however,
+very fine.
+
+  [Illustration: PERSIAN BREAD-MAKING.]
+
+This is a large village with beehive roofs in, and of, mud. A quagmire
+surrounds it and is in the centre of it, and the crumbling houses are
+thrown promiscuously down upon it. It is nearly the roughest place I
+have seen, and the worst accommodation, though Abbas Khan says it is
+the best house in the village. My room has an oven in the floor,
+neatly lined with clay, and as I write the women are making bread by a
+very simple process. The oven is well heated by the live embers of
+animal fuel. They work the flour and water dough, to which a piece of
+leaven from the last baking has been added, into a flat round cake,
+about eighteen inches in diameter and half an inch thick, place it
+quickly on a very dirty cushion, and clap it against the concave
+interior of the oven, withdrawing the cushion. In one minute it is
+baked and removed.
+
+A sloping hole in the floor leads to the fowl-house. The skin of a
+newly-killed sheep hangs up. A pack saddle and gear take up one
+corner, my bed another, and the owner's miscellaneous property fills
+up the rest of the blackened, cracked mud hovel, thick with the sooty
+cobwebs and dust of generations. The door, which can only be shut by
+means of a wooden bolt outside, is six inches from the ground, so that
+fowls and cats run in and out with impunity. Behind my bed there is a
+doorless entrance to a dark den, full of goat's hair, bones, and other
+stores. In front there is a round hole for letting in light, which I
+persistently fill up with a blanket which is as persistently
+withdrawn. There is no privacy, for though the people are glad to let
+their rooms, they only partially vacate them, and are in and out all
+the time. Outside there is mud a foot deep, then a steep slope, and a
+disgusting green pool, and the drinking water is nauseous and
+brackish. The village people here and everywhere seem of a very
+harmless sort.
+
+_Kum, Ash Wednesday, 1890._--It was really very difficult to get away
+from Taj Khatan. The _charvadar_ came on here, leaving only two men to
+load twelve mules. M---- practically had to load them himself, and to
+reload them when the tackle broke and the loads turned. Hadji and the
+cook were quite incapable, the Afghan orderly, who seemed like a dying
+man, was left behind; in fact there were no servants and no
+interpreters, and the groom was so ill he could hardly sit on a horse.
+
+The march of twenty-five miles took fully eight hours, but on the Arab
+horse, and with an occasional gallop, I got through quite comfortably,
+and have nothing to complain of. The road lies through a country of
+mud hills, brown usually, drab sometimes, streaked with deep madder
+red, and occasionally pale green clay--stones, thistles, and thorns
+their only crop. [I passed over much of this country in the spring,
+and though there were a few flowers, chiefly bulbs, and the thorns
+were clothed with a scanty leafage, and the thistles and artemisia
+were green-gray instead of buff, the general aspect of the region was
+the same.] There was not a village on the route, only two or three
+heaps of deserted ruins and two or three ruinous mud _imamzadas_, no
+cultivation, streams, or springs, the scanty pools brackish, here and
+there the glittering whiteness of saline efflorescence, not a tree or
+even bush, nothing living except a few goats, picking up, who knows
+how, a scanty living,--a blighted, blasted region, a land without a
+_raison d'etre_.
+
+Then came low mud ranges, somewhat glorified by atmosphere, higher
+hills on the left, ghastly with snow which was even then falling,
+glimpses far away to the northward of snowy mountains among heavy
+masses of sunlit clouds, an ascent, a gap in the mud hills, some low
+peaks of white, green, and red clay, a great plain partly green with
+springing wheat, and in the centre, in the glow of sunset, the golden
+dome and graceful minarets of the shrine of Fatima, the sister of
+Reza, groups of trees, and the mud houses, mud walls, and many domes
+and minarets of the sacred city of Kum.
+
+Descending, we trotted for some miles through irrigated wheat, passed
+a walled garden or two, rode along the bank of the Abi Khonsar or Abi
+Kum, which we had followed down from Givr, admired the gleaming domes
+and tiled minarets of the religious buildings on its bank, and the
+nine-arched brick bridge which spans it, and reached a sort of hotel
+outside the gates, a superior caravanserai with good, though terribly
+draughty guest-rooms upstairs, furnished with beds, chairs, and
+tables, suited for the upper class of pilgrims who resort to this
+famous shrine.
+
+To have arrived here in good health, and well able for the remaining
+journey of nearly a hundred miles, is nothing else than a triumph of
+race, of good feeding through successive generations, of fog-born
+_physique_, nurtured on damp east winds!
+
+There is an air of civilisation about this place. The rooms have
+windows with glass panes and doors which shut, a fountain in front,
+beyond that a garden, and then the river, and the golden shrine of
+Fatima and its exquisite minarets. My door opens on a stone-flagged
+roof with a fine view of the city and hills--an excellent place for
+taking exercise. So strong is Mohammedan fanaticism here that much as
+I should like to see the city, it would be a very great risk to walk
+through it except in disguise.
+
+M---- borrowed a _taktrawan_ from the telegraph clerk and sent it back
+with two horses to Taj Khatan for the orderly, who was left there very
+ill yesterday morning, under Abbas Khan's charge, the Khan feeling so
+ill that he lay down inside it instead of riding. Hadji gave up work
+altogether, so I unpacked and pitched my bed, glad to be warmed by
+exercise. Near 8 P.M. Abbas Khan burst into the "parlour" saying that
+the _taktrawan_ horses were stuck in the mud. He evidently desired to
+avoid the march back, but two mules have been sent to replace the
+horses, and two more are to go to-morrow. The orderly was so ill that
+I expect his corpse rather than himself.
+
+This morning Hadji, looking fearful, told me that he should die
+to-day, and he and the cook are now in bed in opposite corners of a
+room below, with a good fire, feverish and moaning. It is really a
+singular disaster, and shows what the severity of the journey has
+been. The Persian doctor, with a European medical education, on whom
+our hopes were built, when asked to come and see these poor men,
+readily promised to do so; but the Princess, the Shah's daughter,
+whose physician he is, absolutely refuses permission, on the ground
+that we have come through a region in which there is supposed to be
+cholera!
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] This custom, supposed to be an allusion to our Lord and His
+mother, is described by Morier in his _Second Journey in Persia_.
+
+[21] Jairud exports fruit to Kum and even to Tihran, and in the autumn
+I was interested to find that the best pears and peaches in the
+Hamadan market came from its luxuriant orchards.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VII
+
+
+     KUM, _Feb. 21_.
+
+At five yesterday afternoon Abbas Khan rode in saying that the
+_taktrawan_, with the orderly much better, was only three miles off.
+This was good news; a mattress was put down for him next the fire and
+all preparations for his comfort were made. Snow showers had been
+falling much of the day, there was a pitiless east wind, and as
+darkness came on snow fell persistently. Two hours passed, but no
+_taktrawan_ arrived. At 7.30 Abbas Khan was ordered to go in search of
+it with a good lantern; 8, 9, 10 o'clock came without any news. At
+10.30, the man whose corpse I had feared to see came in much
+exhausted, having crawled for two miles through the mire and snow. The
+_sowar_, who pretended to start with the lantern, never went farther
+than the coffee-room at the gate, where he had spent an
+unconscientious but cheery evening!
+
+In the pitch darkness the _taktrawan_ and mules had fallen off the
+road into a gap, the _taktrawan_ was smashed, and a good white mule,
+one of the "light division," was killed, her back being broken. This
+was not the only disaster. Hadji had lain down on the borrowed
+mattress and it had taken fire from the live ashes of his pipe and was
+burned, and he was a little scorched.
+
+The telegraphist was to have started for Isfahan the next morning with
+his wife and child in the litter, in order to vacate the house for
+the new official and his family, and their baggage had actually
+started, but now they are detained till this _taktrawan_ can be
+repaired. In the meantime another official has arrived with his goods
+and a large family, a most uncomfortable situation for both parties,
+but they bear it with the utmost cheerfulness and good nature.
+
+Last night I made Hadji drink a mug of hot milk with two
+tablespoonfuls of brandy in it, and it worked wonders. This morning,
+instead of a nearly blind man groping his way about with difficulty, I
+beheld a man with nothing the matter but a small speck on one eye. It
+must have been snow-blindness. He looks quite "spry." It is not only
+the alcohol which has cured him, but that we are parting by mutual
+consent; and feeling sorry for the man, I have given him more than his
+wages, and his full demand for his journey back to Bushire, with
+additional warm clothing. M---- has also given him a handsome present.
+
+I fear he has deceived me, and that the stone deafness, feebleness,
+idiocy, and the shaking, palsied gait of a man of ninety--all but the
+snow-blindness--have been assumed in order to get his return journey
+paid, when he found that the opportunities for making money were not
+what he expected. It is better to be deceived twenty times than to be
+hard on these poor fellows once, but he has been exasperating, and I
+feel somewhat aggrieved at having worked so hard to help a man who was
+"malingering." The last seen of him was an active, erect man walking
+at a good pace by the side of his mule, at least forty years thrown
+off. [He did not then leave Kum, but being seized with pleurisy was
+treated with great kindness by Mr. Lyne the electrician, and
+afterwards by the Amin-es-Sultan (the Prime Minister), who was
+visiting Kum, and who, thinking to oblige me, brought him up to
+Tihran in his train!] Those who had known him for years gave a very
+bad account of him, but said that if he liked he could be a good
+servant. It is the first time that I have been unfortunate in my
+travelling servant.
+
+The English telegraph line, and a post-office, open once a week, are
+the tokens of civilisation in Kum. A telegraphic invitation from the
+British Minister in Tihran, congratulatory telegrams on our safety
+from Tihran, Bushire, and India, and an opportunity for posting
+letters, make one feel once more in the world. The weather is grim,
+bitterly cold, with a strong north-east wind, raw and damp, but while
+snow is whitening the hills only rain and sleet fall here. The sun has
+not shone since we came, but the strong cold air is invigorating like
+our own climate.
+
+Taking advantage of it being Friday, the Mohammedan day of rest, when
+most of the shops are closed and the bazars are deserted, we rode
+through a portion of them preceded by the wild figure of Abbas Khan,
+and took tea at the telegraph office, where they were most kind and
+pleasant regarding the accident which had put them to so much
+inconvenience.
+
+Kum is on the beaten track, and has a made road to Tihran. Almost
+every book of travels in Persia has something to say upon it, but
+except that it is the second city in Persia in point of sanctity, and
+that it thrives as much by the bodies of the dead which are brought in
+thousands for burial as by the tens of thousands of pilgrims who
+annually visit the shrine of Fatima, and that it is renowned for
+fanaticism, there is not much to say about it.
+
+Situated in a great plain, the gleam of its golden dome and its
+slender minarets is seen from afar, and the deep green of its
+orchards, and the bright green of the irrigated and cultivated lands
+which surround it, are a splash of welcome fertility on the great
+brown waste. Singular toothy peaks of striated marl of brilliant
+colouring--red, blue, green, orange, and salt peaks very white--give a
+curious brilliancy to its environment, but this salt, which might be a
+source of wealth to the city, is not worked, only an ass-load or two
+at a time being brought in to supply the necessities of the market.
+
+  [Illustration: THE SHRINE OF FATIMA.]
+
+The shrine of Fatima, the sister of Reza the eighth Imam, who sleeps
+at Meshed, is better to Kum than salt mines or aught else. Moslems,
+though they regard women with unspeakable contempt, agree to reverence
+Fatima as a very holy and almost worshipful person, and her dust
+renders Kum a holy place, attracting tens of thousands of pilgrims
+every year, although, unlike pilgrimages to Meshed and Kerbela, Kum
+confers no lifelong designation on those by whom it exists. Its
+estimated population is 10,000 souls, and at times this number is
+nearly doubled. Pilgrimage consists in a visit to the tomb of Fatima,
+paying a fee, and in some cases adding a votive offering. Vows of
+abstinence from some special sin are frequently made at the shrine
+and are carefully registered.
+
+The dead, however, who are annually brought in thousands to be buried
+in the sacred soil which surrounds the shrine, are the great source of
+the wealth of Kum. These corpses travel, as to Kerbela, on mules, four
+being lashed on one animal occasionally, some fresh, some decomposing,
+others only bags of exhumed bones. The graves occupy an enormous area,
+of which the shrine is the centre. The kings of the Kajar dynasty,
+members of royal families, and 450 saints are actually buried within
+the precincts of the shrine. The price of interments varies with the
+proximity to the dust of Fatima from six _krans_ to one hundred
+_tumans_. The population may be said to be a population of
+undertakers. Death meets one everywhere. The Ab-i-Khonsar, which
+supplies the drinking water, percolates through "dead men's bones and
+all uncleanness." Vestments for the dead are found in the bazars.
+Biers full and empty traverse the streets in numbers. Stone-cutting
+for gravestones is a most lucrative business. The _charvadars_ of Kum
+prosper on caravans of the dead. There is a legion of gravediggers.
+Kum is a gruesome city, a vast charnel-house, yet its golden dome and
+minarets brighten the place of death.
+
+The dome of Fatima is covered with sheets of copper plated with gold
+an eighth of an inch in thickness, and the ornament at the top of the
+dome, which is of pure gold, is said to weigh 140 lbs. The slender
+minarets which front this _imamzada_ are covered with a mosaic of
+highly-glazed tiles of exquisite tints, in which an azure blue, a
+canary yellow, and an iridescent green predominate, and over all there
+is a sheen of a golden hue. The shrine is inaccessible to Christians.
+I asked a Persian doctor if I might look in for one moment at the
+threshold of the outer court, and he replied in French, "Are you then
+weary of life?"[22]
+
+My Indian servant, an educated man on whose faithful though meagre
+descriptions I can rely, visited the shrine and describes the dome as
+enriched with arabesques in mosaic and as hung with _ex votos_,
+consisting chiefly of strips of silk and cotton. The tomb itself, he
+says, is covered with a wooden ark, with certain sacred sentences cut
+upon it, and this is covered by a large brown shawl. Round this ark,
+which is under the dome, Kerman, Kashmir, and Indian shawls are laid
+down as carpets. This open space is surrounded with steel railings
+inlaid with gold after the fashion of the _niello_ work of Japan, and
+the whole is enclosed with a solid silver fence, the rails of which
+are "as thick as two thumbs, and as high as a tall man's head." This
+_imamzada_ itself is regarded as of great antiquity.
+
+Two Persian kings, who reigned in the latter part of the seventeenth
+century, are buried near the beautiful minarets, which are supposed to
+be of the same date. There are many mosques and minarets in Kum,
+besides a quantity of conical _imamzadas_, the cones of which have
+formerly been covered with glazed blue tiles of a turquoise tint, some
+of which still remain. It was taken by the Afghans in 1772, and though
+partially rebuilt is very ruinous. It has a mud wall, disintegrating
+from neglect, surrounded occasionally by a ditch, and at other times
+by foul and stagnant ponds. The ruinousness of Kum can scarcely be
+exaggerated.
+
+The bazars are large and very busy, and are considerably more
+picturesque than those of Kirmanshah. The town lives by pilgrims and
+corpses, and the wares displayed to attract the former are more
+attractive than usual. There are nearly 450 shops, of which
+forty-three sell Manchester goods almost exclusively. Coarse china,
+and pottery often of graceful shapes with a sky-blue glaze, and
+water-coolers are among the industries of this city, which also makes
+shoes, and tans leather with pomegranate bark.
+
+The Ab-i-Khonsar is now full and rapid, but is a mere thread in
+summer. The nine-arched bridge, with its infamously paved roadway
+eighteen feet wide, is an interesting object from all points of view,
+for while its central arch has a span of forty-five feet, the others
+have only spans of twenty. The gateway beyond the bridge is tawdrily
+ornamented with blue and green glazed tiles. After seeing several of
+the cities of Persia, I am quite inclined to give Kum the palm for
+interest and beauty of aspect, when seen from any distant point of
+view.
+
+That it is a "holy" city, and that a pilgrimage to its shrine is
+supposed to atone for sin, are its great interests. Its population is
+composed in large proportion of _mollahs_ and _Seyyids_, or
+descendants of Mohammed, and as a whole is devoted to the reigning
+Shiah creed. It has a theological college of much repute, established
+by Fath' Ali Shah, which now has 100 students. The women are said to
+be very devout, and crowd the mosques on Friday evenings, when their
+devotions are led by an _imam_. The men are fanatically religious,
+though the fanaticism is somewhat modified. No wine may be sold in
+Kum, and no Jew or Armenian is allowed to keep a shop.
+
+Kum, being a trading city, manufactures a certain amount of public
+opinion in its business circles, which differs not very considerably
+from that which prevails at Kirmanshah. The traders accept it as a
+foregone conclusion that Russia will occupy Persia as far as Isfahan
+on the death of the present Shah, and regard such a destiny as
+"fate." If only their religion is not interfered with, it matters
+little, they say, whether they pay their taxes to the Shah or the
+Czar. To judge from their speech, Islam is everything to them, and
+their country very little, and the strong bond of the faith which
+rules life and thought from the Pillars of Hercules to the Chinese
+frontier far outweighs the paltry considerations of patriotism. But my
+impression is that all Orientals prefer the tyrannies and exactions,
+and the swiftness of injustice or justice of men of their own creed
+and race to good government on the part of unintelligible aliens, and
+that though Persians seem pretty comfortable in the prospect of a
+double occupation of Persia, its actual accomplishment might strike
+out a flash of patriotism.
+
+Probably this ruinous, thinly-peopled country, with little water and
+less fuel, and only two roads which deserve the name, has
+possibilities of resurrection under greatly changed circumstances. Of
+the two occupations which are regarded as certain, I think that most
+men, at least in Central and Southern Persia, would prefer an English
+occupation, but every one says, "England talks and does not act," and
+that "Russia will pour 100,000 troops into Persia while England is
+talking in London."
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[22] I spent two days at Kum five weeks later, and saw the whole of it
+in disguise, and in order to attain some continuity of description I
+put my two letters together.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+
+     CARAVANSERAI OF ALIABAD, _Feb. 23_.
+
+Twelve hours and a half of hard riding have brought us here in two
+days. No doctor could be obtained in Kum, and it was necessary to
+bring the sick men on as quickly as possible for medical treatment. It
+was bitterly cold on the last day, though the altitude is only 3400
+feet, and it was a tiresome day, for I had not only to look over and
+repack, but to clean the cooking utensils and other things, which had
+not been touched apparently since we left Baghdad!
+
+This is a tedious part of the journey, a "beaten track" with few
+features of interest, the great highway from Isfahan to Tihran, a road
+of dreary width; where it is a made road running usually perfectly
+straight, with a bank and a ditch on each side. The thaw is now
+complete, and travelling consists of an attempt to get on by the road
+till it becomes an abyss which threatens to prove bottomless, then
+there is a plunge and a struggle to the top of the bank, or over the
+bank to the trodden waste, but any move can be only temporary, the
+all-powerful mire regulates the march. The snow is nothing to the mud.
+Frequently carcasses of camels, mules, and asses, which have lain down
+to die under their loads, were passed, then caravans with most of the
+beasts entangled in the miry clay, unable to rise till they were
+unloaded by men up to their knees in the quagmire, and, worst of all,
+mules loaded with the dead, so loosely tied up in planks that in some
+cases when the mule flounders and falls, the miserable relics of
+humanity tumble out upon the swamp; and these scenes of falling,
+struggling, and even perishing animals are repeated continually along
+the level parts of this scarcely passable highroad.
+
+Our loads, owing to bad tackle, were always coming off, the groom's
+mule fell badly, the packs came off another, and half an hour was
+spent in catching the animal, then I was thrown from my horse into
+soft mud.
+
+Cultivation ceases a short distance from Kum, giving place to a brown
+waste, with patches of saline efflorescence upon it, on which high
+hills covered partially with snow send down low spurs of brown mud.
+The water nearly everywhere is brackish, and only just drinkable.
+After crossing a rapid muddy river, nearly dry in summer, by a much
+decayed bridge of seven or eight low arches, we reached _terra firma_,
+and a long gradual ascent and a series of gallops brought us to the
+large caravanserai of Shashgird, an immense place with imposing
+pretensions which are fully realised within. In the outer court camels
+were lying in rows. A fine tiled archway leads to an immense
+quadrangle, with a fine stone _abambar_ or covered receptacle for
+water in the middle. All round the quadrangle are arched recesses or
+mangers, each with a room at the back, to the number of eighty. At two
+of the corners there are enclosed courtyards with fountains, several
+superior rooms with beds (much to be avoided), chairs, mirrors, and
+tables fairly clean--somewhat dreary luxury, but fortunately at this
+season free from vermin. That caravanserai can accommodate 1000 men in
+rooms, and 1500 mules.
+
+To-day's long march, which, however, has had more road suitable for
+galloping, has been over wild, weird, desolate, God-forsaken country,
+interesting from its desolation and its great wastes, forming part of
+the Kavir or Great Salt Desert of Persia, absolutely solitary, with
+scarcely a hamlet--miles of the great highway of Persia without a
+living creature, no house, no bush, nothing. Later, there were some
+vultures feasting on a dead camel, and a mule-load of two bodies down
+in the mud.
+
+Some miles from Shashgird, far from the road, there is a large salt
+lake over which some stationary mists were brooding. Beyond this an
+ascent among snow clouds along some trenched land where a few vines
+and saplings have been planted leads to a caravanserai built for the
+accommodation of state officials on their journeys, where in falling
+snow we vindicated our origin in the triumphant West by taking lunch
+on a windy verandah outside rather than in the forlorn dampness of the
+inside, and brought a look of surprise even over the impassive face of
+the _seraidar_.
+
+When we left the snow was falling in large wet flakes, and the snow
+clouds were drifting wildly among the peaks of a range which we
+skirted for a few miles and then crossed at a considerable height
+among wonderful volcanic formations, mounds of scoriae, and outcrops of
+volcanic rock, hills of all shapes fantastically tumbled about,
+chiefly black, looking as if their fires had only just died out,
+streaked and splotched with brilliant ash--orange, carmine, and
+green--a remarkable volcanic scene, backed by higher hills looking
+ghastly in the snow.
+
+After passing over an absolutely solitary region of camel-brown plains
+and slopes at a gallop, M---- a little in front always, and Abbas
+Khan, the wildest figure imaginable, always half a length behind, the
+_thud_ of the thundering hoofs mingling with the screech of the
+cutting north wind which, coming over the snowy Elburz range, benumbed
+every joint, on the slope of a black volcanic hill we came upon the
+lofty towers and gaudy tiled front of this great caravanserai,
+imposing at a distance in the solitude and snow clouds, but shabby on
+a nearer view, and tending to disintegrate from the presence of
+saltpetre in the bricks and mortar.
+
+There are successions of terraces and tanks of water with ducks and
+geese upon them, and buildings round the topmost terrace intended to
+be imposing. The _seraidar_ is expecting the Amin-es-Sultan (the Prime
+Minister) and his train, who will occupy rather a fine though tawdry
+"suite of apartments"; but though they were at our service, I prefer
+the comparative cosiness of a small, dark, damp room, though with a
+very smoky chimney, as I find to my cost.
+
+_British Legation, Tihran, Feb. 26._--The night was very cold, and the
+reveille specially unwelcome in the morning. The people were more than
+usually vague about the length of the march, some giving the distance
+at twenty-five miles, and others making it as high as thirty-eight. As
+we did a good deal of galloping and yet took more than seven hours, I
+suppose it may be about twenty-eight. Fortunately we could desert the
+caravan, as the caravanserais are furnished and supply tea and bread.
+The baggage mules took ten hours for the march.
+
+The day was dry and sunny, and the scenery, if such a tract of
+hideousness can be called scenery, was at its best. Its one charm lies
+in the solitude and freedom of a vast unpeopled waste.
+
+The "made road" degenerates for the most part into a track "made"
+truly, but rather by the passage of thousands of animals during a long
+course of ages than by men's hands. This track winds among low ranges
+of sand and mud hills, through the "Pass of the Angel of Death,"
+crosses salt and muddy streams, gravelly stretches, and quagmires of
+mud and tenacious clay, passing through a country on the whole
+inconceivably hideous, unfinished, frothy, and saturated with
+salt--the great brown desert which extends from Tihran to Quetta in
+Beloochistan, a distance of 2000 miles.
+
+On a sunny slope we met the Prime Minister with a considerable train
+of horsemen. He stopped and spoke with extreme courtesy, through an
+interpreter, for, unlike most Persians of the higher class, he does
+not speak French. He said we had been for some time expected at
+Tihran, and that great fears were entertained for our safety, which we
+had heard at Kum. He is a pleasant-looking man with a rather European
+expression, not more than thirty-two or thirty-three, and in spite of
+intrigues and detractors has managed to keep his hazardous position
+for some years. His mother was lately buried at Kum, and he was going
+thither on pilgrimage. After the usual compliments he bowed his
+farewells, and the gay procession with its brilliant trappings and
+prancing horses flashed by. The social standing of a Persian is
+evidenced by the size of his retinue, and the first of the Shah's
+subjects must have been attended by fully forty well-mounted men,
+besides a number of servants who were riding with his baggage animals.
+
+Shortly after passing him a turn among the hills brought the
+revelation through snow clouds of the magnificent snow-covered chain
+of the Elburz mountains, with the huge cone of Demavend, their
+monarch, 18,600 feet[23] in height, towering high above them, gleaming
+sunlit above the lower cloud-masses. Swampy water-courses, a fordable
+river crossed by a broad bridge of five arches, more low hills, more
+rolling desert, then a plain of mud irrigated for cultivation,
+difficult ground for the horses, the ruins of a deserted village
+important enough to have possessed two _imamzadas_, and then we
+reached the Husseinabad, which has very good guest-rooms, with mirrors
+on the walls.
+
+This caravanserai is only one march from Tihran, and it seemed as if
+all difficulties were over. Abbas Khan and the sick orderly were sent
+on early, with a baggage mule loaded with evening dress and other
+necessities of civilisation; the caravan was to follow at leisure, and
+M---- and I started at ten, without attendants, expecting to reach
+Tihran early in the afternoon.
+
+It is six days since that terrible ride of ten hours and a half, and
+my bones ache as I recall it. I never wish to mount a horse again. It
+had been a very cold night, and for some time after we started it was
+doubtful whether snow or rain would gain the day, but after an hour of
+wet snow it decided on rain, and there was a steady downpour all day.
+The Elburz range, which the day before had looked so magnificent when
+fifty miles off, was blotted out. This was a great disappointment.
+
+An ascent of low, blackish volcanic hills is made by a broad road of
+gray gravel, which a torrent has at some time frequented. Thorns and
+thistles grow there, and skeletons of animals abound. Everything is
+grim and gray. From these hills we descended into the Kavir, a rolling
+expanse of friable soil, stoneless, strongly impregnated with salt,
+but only needing sufficient water to wash the salt out of it and to
+irrigate it to become as prolific as it is now barren.
+
+It is now a sea of mud crossed by a broad road indicated by dykes,
+that never-to-be-forgotten mud growing deeper as the day wore on. Hour
+after hour we plunged through it, sometimes trying the road, and on
+finding it impassable scrambling through the ditches and over the
+dykes to the plain, which after offering firmer foothold for a time
+became such a "slough of despond" that we had to scramble back to the
+road, and so on, hour after hour, meeting nothing but one ghastly
+caravan of corpses, and wretched asses falling in the mud.
+
+At mid-day, scrambling up a gravel hill with a little wormwood upon
+it, and turning my back to the heavy rain, I ate a lunch of dates and
+ginger, insufficient sustenance for such fatigue. On again!--the rain
+pouring, the mud deepening, my spine in severe pain. We turned off to
+a caravanserai, mostly a heap of ruins, the roofs having given way
+under the weight of the snow, and there I sought some relief from pain
+by lying down for the short thirty minutes which could be spared in
+the _seraidar's_ damp room. It was then growing late in the afternoon,
+all landmarks had disappeared in a brooding mist, there were no
+habitations, and no human beings of whom to ask the way.
+
+The pain returned severely as soon as I mounted, and increased till it
+became hardly bearable. Ceaseless mud, ceaseless heavy rain, a plain
+of mud, no refuge from mud and water, attempts to gallop were made
+with the risk of the horses falling into holes and even _kanaats_.
+M---- rode in front. Not a word was spoken. A gleaming dome, with
+minarets and wood, appeared below the Shimran hills. Unluckily, where
+two roads met one looked impassable and we took the other, which,
+though it eventually took us to Tihran, was a _detour_ of some miles.
+
+In the evening, when I was hoping that Tihran was at hand, we reached
+the town of Shah Abdul Azim, built among the ruins of an ancient city,
+either Rhages or Rhei. The gilded dome is the shrine of Abdul Azim,
+and is a great place of pilgrimage of the picnic order from Tihran.
+The one railroad of Persia runs from the capital to this town. As we
+floundered in darkness along wide roads planted with trees, there was
+the incongruity of a railway whistle, and with deep breathing and much
+glare an engine with some carriages passed near the road, taking away
+with its harsh Western noises that glorious freedom of the desert
+which outweighs all the hardship even of a winter journey.
+
+It was several miles from thence to the gate of Tihran. It was nearly
+pitch dark when we got out of Abdul Azim and the rain still fell
+heavily. In that thick rainy darkness no houses were visible, even if
+they exist, there were no passengers on foot or on horseback, it was a
+"darkness which might be felt."
+
+There was a causeway which gave foothold below the mud, but it was
+full of holes and broken culverts, deep in slime, and seemed to have
+water on each side not particular in keeping within bounds. It was
+necessary to get on, lest the city gates should be shut, and by
+lifting and spurring the jaded horses they were induced to trot and
+canter along that road of pitfalls. I have had many a severe ride in
+travelling, but never anything equal to that last two hours. The
+severe pain and want of food made me so faint that I was obliged to
+hold on to the saddle. I kept my tired horse up, but each flounder I
+thought would be his last. There was no guidance but an occasional
+flash from the hoofs of the horse in front, and the word "spur"
+ringing through the darkness.
+
+After an hour of riding in this desperate fashion we got into water,
+and among such dangerous holes that from that point we were obliged to
+walk our horses, who though they were half dead still feebly responded
+to bit and spur. We reached the dimly-lighted city gate just as half
+of it was shut, and found Abbas Khan waiting there. The caravan with
+the other sick men never reached Tihran till late the next morning.
+
+At the gate we learned that it was two miles farther to the British
+Legation, and that there was no way for me to get there but on
+horseback. One lives through a good deal, but I all but succumbed to
+the pain and faintness. Inside the gate there was an open sea of
+liquid mud, across which, for a time, certain lights shed their
+broken reflections. There was a railway shriek, and then the
+appearance of a station with shunting operations vaguely seen in a
+vague glare.
+
+Then a tramway track buried under several inches of slush came down a
+slope, and crowded tramway cars with great single lamps came down the
+narrow road on horses too tired to be frightened, and almost too tired
+to get out of the way. Then came a street of mean houses and meaner
+shops lighted with kerosene lamps, a region like the slums of a new
+American city, with _cafes_ and saloons, barbers' shops, and European
+enormities such as gazogenes and effervescing waters in several
+windows. Later, there were frequent foot passengers preceded by
+servants carrying huge waxed cambric lanterns of a Chinese shape, then
+a square with barracks and artillery, a causewayed road dimly lit,
+then darkness and heavier rain and worse mud, through which the
+strange spectacle of a carriage and pair incongruously flashed.
+
+By that time even the courage and stamina of an Arab horse could
+hardly keep mine on his legs, and with a swimming head and dazed brain
+I could hardly guide him, as I had done from the gate chiefly by the
+wan gleam of Abbas Khan's pale horse; and expecting to fall off every
+minute, I responded more and more feebly and dubiously to the question
+frequently repeated out of the darkness, "Are you surviving?"
+
+Just as endurance was on the point of giving way, we turned from the
+road through a large gateway into the extensive grounds which surround
+the British Legation, a large building forming three sides of a
+quadrangle, with a fine stone staircase leading up to the central
+door. Every window was lighted, light streamed from the open door,
+splashed carriages were dashing up and setting down people in evening
+dress, there were crowds of servants about, and it flashed on my
+dazed senses that it must be after eight, and that there was a dinner
+party!
+
+Arriving from the mud of the Kavir and the slush of the streets, after
+riding ten hours in ceaseless rain on a worn-out horse; caked with mud
+from head to foot, dripping, exhausted, nearly blind from fatigue,
+fresh from mud hovels and the congenial barbarism of the desert, and
+with the rags and travel-stains of a winter journey of forty-six days
+upon me, light and festivity were overwhelming.
+
+Alighting at a side door, scarcely able to stand, I sat down in a long
+corridor, and heard from an English steward that "dinner is waiting."
+His voice sounded very far off, and the once familiar announcement
+came like a memory out of the remote past. Presently a gentleman
+appeared in evening dress, wearing a star, which conveyed to my
+fast-failing senses that it was Sir H. Drummond Wolff. It was true
+that there was a large dinner party, and among the guests the Minister
+with thoughtful kindness had invited all to whom I had letters of
+introduction. But it was no longer possible to make any effort, and I
+was taken up to a room in which the comforts of English civilisation
+at first made no impression upon me, and removing only the mackintosh
+cloak, weighted with mud, which had served me so well, I lay down on the
+hearthrug before a great coal fire till four o'clock the next morning.
+And "so the tale ended," and the winter journey with its tremendous
+hardships and unbounded mercies was safely accomplished.[24]
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[23] The altitude of Demavend is variously stated.
+
+[24] I remained for three weeks as Sir H. Drummond Wolff's guest at
+the British Legation, receiving from him that courtesy and considerate
+kindness which all who have been under his roof delight to recall. I
+saw much of what is worth seeing in Tihran, including the Shah and
+several of the Persian statesmen, and left the Legation with every
+help that could be given for a long and difficult journey into the
+mountains of Luristan.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON TIHRAN[25]
+
+
+It is a matter of individual taste, but few cities in the East
+interest me in which national characteristics in architecture,
+costume, customs, and ways generally are either being obliterated or
+are undergoing a partial remodelling on Western lines. An Eastern city
+pure and simple, such as Canton, Niigata, or Baghdad, even with
+certain drawbacks, forms a harmonious whole gratifying to the eye and
+to a certain sense of fitness; while Cairo, Tokio, Lahore, and I will
+now add Tihran, produce the effect of a series of concussions.
+
+Tihran--set down on a plain, a scorched desert, the sublimity of which
+is interfered with by _kanaats_ or underground watercourses with their
+gravel mounds and ruinous shafts--has few elements of beauty or
+grandeur in its situation, even though "the triumphant barbarism of
+the desert" sweeps up to its gates, and the scored and channelled
+Shimran range, backed by the magnificent peak, or rather cone, of
+Demavend, runs to the north-east of the city within only ten miles of
+its walls.
+
+The winter with its snow and slush disappeared abruptly two days after
+I reached Tihran, and as abruptly came the spring--a too transient
+enjoyment--and in a few days to brownness and barrenness succeeded a
+tender mist of green over the trees in the watered gardens, rapidly
+thickening into dark leafage in which the _bulbul_ sang, and nature
+helped by art spread a carpet of violets and irises over the brown
+earth. But all of verdure and greenery that there is lies within the
+city walls. Outside is the unconquerable desert, rolling in endless
+shades of buff and brown up to the Elburz range, and elsewhere to the
+far horizon.
+
+Situated in the most depressed part of an uninteresting waste in Lat.
+35 deg. 40' N. and Long. 51 deg. 25' E., and at an altitude of 3800 feet, the
+climate is one of extremes, the summer extreme being the most severe.
+For some weeks the heat is nearly insupportable, and the Legations,
+and all of the four hundred Europeans who are not bound to the city by
+a fate which they execrate, betake themselves to "yailaks," or summer
+quarters on the slopes of the adjacent mountains.
+
+Entering Tihran in the darkness, it was not till I saw it coming back
+from Gulahek, the "yailak" of the British Legation, when the mud was
+drying up and the willows were in their first young green, that I
+formed any definite idea of its aspect, which is undeniably mean, and
+presents no evidences of antiquity; indeed, it has no right to present
+any, for as a capital it only came into existence a century ago, with
+the first king of the present Kajar dynasty. The walls are said to be
+eleven miles in circuit, and give the impression of being much too
+large, so many are the vacant spaces within them. They consist chiefly
+of a broad ditch, and a high sloping rampart without guns. Twelve
+well-built domed gateways give access to the city. These are decorated
+with glazed tiles of bright colours and somewhat gaudy patterns and
+designs, representing genii, lions, and combats of mythical heroes.
+
+Above the wall are seen tree-tops, some tile-covered minarets, the
+domes of two mosques, and the iron ribs of a roofless theatre in the
+Shah's garden, in which under a temporary awning the _Tazieh_ or
+Passion Play (elsewhere referred to) is acted once a year in presence
+of the Shah and several thousand spectators.
+
+Entering by a gateway over which is depicted a scene in the life of
+Rustem, the Achilles of Persia, or by the Sheikh Abdul Azim gate,
+where the custom-house is established and through which all caravans
+of goods must reach Tihran, the magnitude of the untidy vacant spaces,
+and the shabby mud hovels which fringe them, create an unfavourable
+impression. Then there are the inevitable ruinousness, the alleys with
+broken gutters in the centre, the pools of slime or the heaps of dust
+according to the weather, and the general shabbiness of blank walls of
+sun-dried bricks which give one the impression, I believe an unjust
+one, of decay and retrogression. I never went through those mean
+outskirts of Tihran which are within the city walls without being
+reminded of a man in shabby clothes preposterously too big for him.
+
+The population is variously estimated at from 60,000 to 160,000 souls.
+It varies considerably with the presence or absence of the Court. The
+streets and bazars are usually well filled with people, and I did not
+see many beggars or evidences of extreme poverty, even in the Jewish
+quarter. On the whole it impressed me as a bustling place, but the
+bustle is not picturesque. It is framed in mean surroundings, and
+there is little variety in costume, and much sober if not sad
+colouring.
+
+In "old" Tihran the alleys are crooked, dirty, and narrow, and the
+bazars chiefly frequented by the poor are very mean and untidy; but
+the better bazars, whether built as some are, round small domed open
+spaces, or in alleys roofed with low brick domes, are decidedly
+handsome, and are light, wide, clean, and in every way adapted for the
+purposes of buying and selling. European women, even though
+unattended, can walk through them quite freely without being mobbed or
+stared at.
+
+The best bazars are piled with foreign merchandise, to the _apparent_
+exclusion of native goods, which, if they are of the better quality,
+must be searched for in out-of-the-way corners. Indeed, if people want
+fine carpets, _curios_, rich embroideries, inlaid arms, and Kerman
+stuffs, they must resort to the itinerant dealers, who gauge the
+tastes and purchasing powers of every European resident and visitor,
+and who may be seen at all hours gliding in a sort of surreptitious
+fashion round the Legation compounds, conveying their beautiful
+temptations on donkeys' backs.
+
+It is chiefly in the fine lofty saddlery bazar and some small bazars
+that native manufactures are _en evidence_. All travelling is on
+horseback, and the Persian, though sober in the colours of his costly
+clothing, loves crimson and gold in leather and cloth, embroidered
+housings and headstalls, and gorgeous saddle-covers for his horse. The
+usual saddle is of plain wood, very high before and behind, and
+without stuffing. A thick soft _namad_ or piece of felt covers the
+horse's back, and over this are placed two or more saddle-cloths
+covered with a very showy and often highly ornamental cover, with
+tasselled ends, embroidered in gold and silks and occasionally with
+real gems. The saddle itself is smoothly covered with a soft
+ornamental cover made to fit it, and the crupper, breastplate, and
+headstall are frequently of crimson leather embroidered in gold, or
+stitched ingeniously with turquoise beads.
+
+The mule, whether the pacing saddle-mule worth from L60 to L80, much
+affected by rich Persians in Tihran, or the humbler beast of burden,
+is not forgotten by the traders in the great saddlery bazar. Rich
+_charvadars_ take great pride in the "outfit" of their mules, and do
+not grudge twenty _tumans_ upon it. Hence are to be seen elaborate
+headstalls, breastplates, and straps for bells, of showy embroidery,
+and leather stitched completely over with turquoise beads and
+cowries--the latter a favourite adornment--while cowried headstalls
+are also ornamented with rows of woollen tassels dyed with beautiful
+vegetable dyes. In this bazar too are found _khurjins_--the great
+leather or carpet saddle-bags without which it is inconvenient to
+travel--small leather portmanteaus for strapping behind the saddles of
+those who travel _chapar_, _i.e._ post,--cylindrical cases over two
+feet long which are attached in front of the saddle--decorated
+holsters, the multifarious gear required for the travelling
+pipe-bearers, the deep leather belts which are worn by _chapar_
+riders, the leathern water-bottles which are slung on the saddles, the
+courier bags, and a number of other articles of necessity or luxury
+which are regarded as essential by the Persian traveller.
+
+In most of the bazars the shops are packed to the ceiling with foreign
+goods. It looks as if there were cottons and woollen cloth for the
+clothing of all Persia. I saw scarcely any rough woollen goods or
+shoddy. The Persian wears superfine, smooth, costly cloth, chiefly
+black and fawn, stiff in texture, and with a dull shine upon it. The
+best comes exclusively from Austria, a slightly inferior quality from
+Germany, and such cloth fabrics as are worn by Europeans from England
+and Russia.
+
+The European cottons, which are slowly but surely displacing the heavy
+durable native goods, either undyed, or dyed at Isfahan with madder,
+saffron, and indigo, are of colours and patterns suited to native
+taste, white and canary yellow designs on a red ground predominating,
+and are both of Russian and English make, and the rivalry which
+extends from the Indian frontier, through Central Asia, is at
+fever-heat in the cotton bazars of Tihran. It does not appear that at
+present either side can claim the advantage.
+
+In a search for writing paper, thread, tapes, and what are known as
+"small wares," I never saw anything that was not Russian. The cheap
+things, such as oil lamps, _samovars_, coarse coloured prints of the
+Russian Imperial family in tawdry frames, lacquered tin boxes, fitted
+work-boxes, glass teacups, china tea-pots, tawdry lacquered trays,
+glass brooches, bead necklaces, looking-glasses, and a number of other
+things which are coming into use at least in the south-west and the
+western portions of the Empire, are almost exclusively Russian, as is
+natural, for the low price at which they are sold would leave no
+margin of profit on such imports from a more distant country.
+
+A stroll through the Tihran bazars shows the observer something of the
+extent and rapidity with which Europe is ruining the artistic taste of
+Asia. Masses of rubbish, atrocious in colouring and hideous in form,
+the principle of shoddy carried into all articles along with the
+quintessence of vulgarity which is pretence, goods of nominal utility
+which will not stand a week's wear, the refuse of European markets--in
+art Philistinism, in most else "Brummagem," without a quality of
+beauty or solidity to recommend them--are training the tastes and
+changing the habits of the people.
+
+One squarish bazar, much resorted to for glass and hardware and what
+the Americans call "assorted notions," is crammed with Austrian glass,
+kerosene lamps of all sizes in hundreds, chandeliers, etc. The amount
+of glass exhibited there for sale is extraordinary, and not less
+remarkable is the glut of cheap hardware and worthless _bijouterie_.
+It is the Lowther Arcade put down in Tihran.
+
+Kerosene and candles may be called a Russian monopoly, and Russia has
+completely driven French sugar from the markets. In the foreign town,
+as it may be called, there are two or three French shops, an American
+shop for "notions," and a German chemist.
+
+The European quarter is in the northern part of Tihran, and is close
+to vacant and airy spaces. There are the Turkish Embassy, and the
+Legations of England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Belgium,
+Austria, and America, and a Dutch Consulate-General, each with its
+Persian _gholams_ who perform escort duty. Their large and shady
+compounds, brightened by their national flags, and the stir and
+circumstance which surround them, are among the features of the city.
+The finest of all the Legation enclosures is that of England, which is
+beautifully wooded and watered. The reception-rooms and hall of the
+Minister's residence are very handsome, and a Byzantine clock tower
+gives the building a striking air of distinction. The grounds contain
+several detached houses, occupied by the secretaries and others.
+
+A very distinct part of the foreign quarter is that occupied by the
+large and handsome buildings of the American Presbyterian Mission,
+which consist of a church occupied at stated hours by a congregation
+of the Reformed Armenian Church, and in which in the afternoons of
+Sundays Dr. Potter, the senior missionary, reads the English Liturgy
+and preaches an English sermon for the benefit of the English-speaking
+residents, very fine boarding-schools for Armenian girls and boys, and
+the houses of the missionaries--three clerical, one medical, and
+several ladies, one of whom is an M.D.
+
+Outside this fine enclosure is a Medical Missionary Dispensary, and
+last year, in a good situation at a considerable distance, a very fine
+medical missionary hospital was completed. The boys' and girls'
+schools are of a very high class. To my thinking the pupils are too
+much Europeanised in dress and habits; but I understand that this is
+at the desire of the Armenian parents. The missionaries are not
+allowed to receive Moslem pupils; but besides Armenians they educate
+Jewish youths, some of whom have become Christians, and a few Guebres
+or Zoroastrians.
+
+I do not think that the capital is a hopeful place for missionary
+work. The presence of Europeans of various creeds and nationalities
+complicates matters, and the fine, perhaps too fine, mission buildings
+in proximity to the houses of wealthy foreigners are at so great a
+distance from the Moslem and Jewish quarters, that persons who might
+desire to make inquiries concerning the Christian faith must be
+deterred both by the space to be traversed and the conspicuousness of
+visiting a mission compound in such a position. The members of the
+mission church last year were altogether Armenians. The education and
+training given in the schools are admirable.
+
+Indications of the changes which we consider improvements abound in
+Tihran. There are many roads accessible to wheeled vehicles. There are
+hackney carriages. A tramway carrying thousands of passengers weekly
+has been laid down from the _Maidan_ or central square to one of the
+southern gates. There are real streets paved with cobble stones, and
+bordered with definite sidewalks, young trees, and shops. There is a
+railroad about four miles long, from the city to the village of Sheikh
+Abdul Azim. There are lamp-posts and fittings, though the light is
+somewhat of a failure. There is an organised city police, in smart
+black uniforms with violet facings, under the command of Count
+Monteforte, an Italian. Soldiers in Europeanised uniforms abound, some
+of them, the "Persian Cossacks," in full Russian uniforms; and
+military bands instructed by a French bandmaster play European airs,
+not always easily recognisable, for the pleasure of the polyglot
+public.
+
+All ordinary business can be transacted at the Imperial Bank, which,
+having acquired the branches and business of the New Oriental Bank,
+bids fair to reign supreme in the commercial world of Persia, the
+Shah, who has hitherto kept his hoards under his own eye, having set
+an example of confidence by becoming a depositor.
+
+European tailors, dressmakers, and milliners render a resort to Europe
+unnecessary. There are at least two hotels where a European may exist.
+About five hundred European carriages, many of them Russian, with
+showy Russian horses harnessed _a la Russe_, dash about the streets
+with little regard to pedestrians, though an accident, if a European
+were the offender, might lead to a riot. The carriages of the many
+Legations are recognisable by their outriders, handsomely-dressed
+_gholams_.
+
+But even the European quarter and its newish road, on which are many
+of the Legations, some of the foreign shops, and the fine compound and
+handsome buildings of the Imperial Bank, has a Persian admixture. Some
+of the stately houses of official and rich Persians are there, easily
+recognisable by their low closed gateways and general air of
+seclusion. Many of these possess exquisite gardens, with fountains and
+tanks, and all the arrangements for the out-of-doors life which
+Persians love. In the early spring afternoons the great sight of the
+road outside the British Legation is the crowd of equestrians, or
+rather of the horses they ride. However much the style of street,
+furniture, tastes, art, and costume have been influenced by Europe,
+fortunately for picturesque effect the Persian, even in the capital,
+retains the Persian saddle and equipments.
+
+From later observation I am inclined to think very highly of the
+hardiness and stamina of the Persian horse, though at the time of my
+visit to Tihran I doubted both. Such showy, magnificent-looking
+animals, broken to a carriage which shows them to the best advantage,
+fine-legged, though not at the expense of strength, small-eared,
+small-mouthed, with flowing wavy manes, "necks clothed with thunder,"
+dilated nostrils showing the carmine interior, and a look of scorn and
+high breeding, I never saw elsewhere. The tail, which in obedience to
+fashion we mutilate and abridge, is allowed in Persia its full
+development, and except in the case of the Shah's white horses, when
+it is dyed magenta, is perfectly beautiful, held far from the body
+like a flag. The arched neck, haughty bearing, and easy handling which
+Easterns love are given by very sharp bits; and a crowd of these
+beautiful animals pawing the ground, prancing, caracoling, walking
+with a gait as though the earth were too vulgar for their touch, or
+flashing past at a gallop, all groomed to perfection and superbly
+caparisoned, ridden by men who know how to ride, and who are in
+sympathy with their animals, is one of the fascinations of Tihran.
+
+Creeping along by the side-walk is often seen a handsome pacing
+saddle-mule, or large white ass, nearly always led, carrying a Persian
+lady attended by servants--a shapeless black bundle, with what one
+supposes to be the outline of a hand clutching the enshrouding black
+silk sheet tightly over her latticed white mask: so completely
+enveloped that only a yellow shoe without a heel, and a glimpse of a
+violet trouser can be seen above the short stirrups.
+
+Another piece of Orientalism unaffected by Western influence is the
+music performed daily at sunset in the upper stories of some of the
+highly-decorated tiled gateways which lead into and out of the
+principal squares. This is evoked from drums, fifes, cymbals, and huge
+horns, and as the latter overpower all the former, the effect is much
+like that of the braying of the colossal silver horns from the roofs
+of the Tibetan _lamaserais_. Many people suppose that this daily
+homage to the setting sun is a relic of the ancient fire or sun
+worship.
+
+Two great squares, one of them with a tank in the middle with a big
+gun at each corner, artillery barracks on three sides, and a number of
+smooth-bore twenty-four-pounder guns on the fourth, are among the
+features of Tihran. In this great _Maidan_ there are always soldiers
+in multifarious uniforms lounging, people waiting for the tram-cars,
+and Royal footmen, whose grotesque costumes border on the ridiculous.
+They are indeed a fitting accompaniment to the Royal horses with their
+magenta tails and spots, for they wear red coats with ballet-dancer
+skirts and green facings, green knee-breeches, white stockings, and
+tall stiff erections resembling a fool's cap on the head, topped by
+crests suggestive of nothing but a cock's comb.
+
+A gateway much ornamented leads from the artillery square, or _Maidan
+Topkhaneh_, by a short road shaded with trees to the Citadel or Ark,
+which is an immense enclosure, rather mangy and unprepossessing in its
+exterior, which contains the palace of the Shah, the arsenal, certain
+public offices, the royal colleges, etc. Over the gateway floats
+rather grandly the Royal standard, bearing the Lion and the Sun in
+yellow on a green ground.
+
+The Shah's palace is very magnificent, and the shady gardens,
+beautifully kept, with their fountains and tanks of pale blue tiles,
+through which clear water constantly moves, are worthy of a Royal
+residence. From the outside above the high wall the chief feature is a
+very lofty pavilion, brilliantly and elaborately painted, with walls
+inclining inwards, and culminating in two high towers. This striking
+structure contains the _andarun_ or _haram_ of the sovereign and his
+private apartments.
+
+This hasty sketch exhausts those features of Tihran which naturally
+arrest the stranger's attention. There is no splendour about it
+externally, but there is splendour within it, and possibly few
+European residences can exceed in taste and magnificence the palaces
+of the Minister of Justice (the _Muschir-u-Dowleh_), the
+_Naib-es-Sultan_, the _Zil-es-Sultan_, and a few others, though I
+regret that much of the furniture has been imported from Europe, as it
+vexes the eye more or less with its incongruity of form and colouring.
+The current of European influence, which is affecting externals in
+Tihran, is not likely now to be stemmed. Eastern civilisation is
+doomed, and the transition period is not beautiful, whatever the
+outcome may be.
+
+So much for what is within the walls. That which is outside deserves a
+passing notice as the environment of the capital. The sole grandeur of
+the situation lies in the near neighbourhood of the Shimran
+mountains--a huge wall, white or brown according to the season, with
+some irrigated planting near its base, which is spotted with villages
+and the _yailaks_ not only of the numerous Legations but of rich
+Europeans and Persians. Otherwise the tameless barbarism of a desert,
+which man has slashed, tunnelled, delved, and heaped, lies outside the
+city walls, deformed by the long lines of _kanaats_--some choked,
+others still serviceable--by which the city is supplied with water
+from the mountains, their shafts illustrating the Scriptural
+expression "ruinous heaps." In the glare of the summer sun, with the
+mercury ranging from 95 deg. to 110 deg. in the shade, and with the heated
+atmosphere quivering over the burning earth, these wastes are
+abandoned to carcasses and the vultures which fatten on them, and
+travelling is done at night, when a breeze from the Shimran range
+sends the thermometer down from 10 deg. to 15 deg.
+
+Curving to the south-west of Tihran, the mountains end in a bare
+ridge, around the base of which, according to many archaeologists, lie
+vestiges of the ancient city of Rhages, known in later days as Rhei.
+A tomb of brick with angular surfaces, sacred to the memory of an
+ancient and romantic attachment, remains of fortifications, and the
+Parsee cemetery on a ledge overlooking these remains, break the
+monotony of the waste in that direction.
+
+This cemetery, or "Tower of Silence," a white splash on the brown
+hillside, is visible from afar. The truncated cones which in many
+places mark seats of the ancient Zoroastrian worship have been
+mentioned here and there, but it is only in Tihran and Yezd that the
+descendants of the ancient fire-worshippers are found in such numbers
+as to be able to give prominence to their ancient rites of sepulture.
+Probably throughout Persia their number does not exceed 8000. Their
+head resides in Tihran. They bear a good character for uprightness,
+and except in Yezd, where they weave rich stuffs, they are chiefly
+agriculturists. They worship firelight and the sun on the principles
+symbolised by both, they never use tobacco, and it is impolite to
+smoke in their presence because of the sacredness of fire.
+
+Their belief has been, and is, that to bury the dead in the earth is
+to pollute it; and one among the reasons of the persecution of the
+early Christians by the Zoroastrians was their abhorrence of the
+desecration of the ground produced by the modes of Christian burial.
+
+This "Tower of Silence" near Tihran is a large round edifice of
+whitewashed mud and stone. On the top of it, a few feet below the
+circular parapet, the dead are laid to be devoured by birds and
+consumed by exposure to the elements. The destiny of the spirit is
+supposed to be indicated by the eye which is first devoured by the
+fowls of the air, the right eye signifying bliss.
+
+In a northern direction, to which the eye always turns to be refreshed
+by the purity of the icy cone of Demavend, or to watch the rosy light
+deepening into purple on the heights of Shimran, are palaces and
+country seats in numbers, with a mass of irrigated plantations
+extending for twenty miles, from Van[=e]k on the east to Kamarani[=e]h
+on the west. These are reached by passing through the Shimran gate,
+the most beautiful of the outer gates, tiled all over with yellow,
+black, blue, and green tiles in conventional designs, and with an
+immense coloured mosaic over the gateway representing Rust[=e]m,
+Persia's great mythical hero, conquering some of his enemies.
+
+On the slopes of the hills are palaces and hunting seats of the Shah,
+beginning with the imposing mass of the Kasr-i-Kaj[=a]r, on a low
+height, surrounded by majestic groves, in which are enormous tanks.
+Palaces and hunting seats of ministers and wealthy men succeed each
+other rapidly, a perfect seclusion having been obtained for each by
+the rapid growth of poplars and planes, each dwelling carrying out in
+its very marked individuality a deference to Persian custom, and each
+if possible using running water as a means of decoration. Many of
+these palaces are princely, and realise some of the descriptions in
+the _Arabian Nights_, with the beauty of their decorated architecture,
+the deep shade of their large demesnes, the cool plash of falling
+water, the songs of nightingales, and the scent of roses--sensuous
+Paradises in which the Persian finds the summer all too short.
+
+Beyond this enchanting region, and much higher up on the mountain
+slopes, are the hunting grounds of the Shah and his sons, well stocked
+with game and rigidly preserved; for the Shah is a keen sportsman, and
+is said to prefer a free life under canvas and the pleasures of the
+chase to the splendid conventionalities of the Court of Tihran.
+
+The two roads and the many tracks which centre in the capital after
+scoring the desert for many miles around it, are a feature of the
+landscape not to be overlooked, the Meshed, Resht, Bushire, and Tabriz
+roads being the most important, except the route from Baghdad by
+Kirmanshah and Hamadan, which in summer can be travelled by caravans
+in twenty-eight days, and by which many bulky articles of value, such
+as pianos, carriages, and valuable furniture, find their way to
+Tihran.[26]
+
+These are some of the features of the environments of Tihran. A
+traveller writing ten years hence may probably have to tell that the
+city has extended to its walls, that Western influence is nearly
+dominant in externals, and possibly that the _concessionaires_ who for
+years have been hanging about the Palace in alternations of hope and
+despondency have made something of their concessions, and that goods
+reach the capital in another way than on the backs of animals.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] A volume of travels in Persia would scarcely be complete without
+some slight notice of the northern capital; but for detailed modern
+accounts of it the reader should consult various other books,
+especially Dr. Wills' and Mr. Benjamin's, if he has not already done
+so.
+
+[26] There are _only_ two roads, properly so called, in Persia, though
+in the summer wheeled carriages with some assistance can get from
+place to place over several of the tracks. These two are the road from
+Kum to the capital, formerly described, and one from Kasvin to the
+capital, both under 100 miles in length. Goods are everywhere carried
+on the backs of animals.
+
+The distance between Bushire and Tihran is 698 miles.
+
+  The summer freight per ton is          L14 1  8
+  The winter         do.                  20 2  0
+
+The distance between Tihran and Resht on the Caspian is 211 miles.
+
+  The summer freight per ton is           L4 0  5-4/5
+  The winter         do.                   8 0 11-3/5
+
+  From the Caspian to the Persian Gulf the summer
+     freight per ton is                  L18 2  3
+  The winter         do.                  28 3  4
+    inclusive of some insignificant charges.
+
+The time taken for the transit of goods between Bushire and Tihran is
+forty-two days, and between Resht and Tihran twelve days.
+
+The cost per ton by rail, if taken at Indian rates, between the Gulf
+and the Caspian, would be L3:11:10.
+
+On these figures the promoters of railway enterprise in Persia build
+their hopes.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+
+     BRITISH LEGATION, TIHRAN, _March 18_.
+
+Three weeks have passed quickly by since that terrible ride from
+Husseinabad. The snow is vanishing from the Shimran hills, the spring
+has come, and I am about to leave the unbounded kindness and
+hospitality of this house on a long and difficult journey. It is very
+pleasant to go away carrying no memories but those of kindness,
+received not only from Europeans and Americans, but from Persians,
+including the Amin-es-Sultan and the Muschir-u-Dowleh.
+
+It is impossible to bear away other than pleasant impressions of
+Tihran society. Kindness received personally always sways one's
+impressions of the people among whom one is thrown, and even if I had
+any unfavourable criticisms to make I should not make them.
+
+Society, or rather I should say the European population, is divided
+into classes and knots. There are the eleven American missionaries,
+whose duties and interests lie apart from those of the rest of the
+community, the diplomatic body, which has a monopoly of political
+interests, the large staff of the Indo-European telegraph, married and
+single, with Colonel Wells at its head, and the mercantile class, in
+which the manager and _employes_ of the Imperial Bank may be included.
+Outside of these recognised classes there is a shifting body of
+passing travellers, civil and military, and would-be _concessionaires_
+and adventurers, besides a few Europeans in Persian employment.
+
+From four to five hundred Europeans is a large foreign settlement, and
+it is a motley one, very various in its elements, "and in their
+idiosyncrasies, combinations, rivalries, and projects is to be found
+an inexhaustible fund of local gossip," writes Mr. Curzon in one of
+his recent brilliant letters to the _Times_, "as well as almost the
+sole source of non-political interest."
+
+Outside of the diplomatic circle the relations of England and Russia
+with each other and with the Shah afford a topic of ceaseless
+interest. England is just now considered to be in the ascendant, so
+far as her diplomacy is concerned, but few people doubt that Russian
+policy will eventually triumph, and that North Persia at least will be
+"absorbed."
+
+One or two specially pleasant things I must mention. Sir H. Drummond
+Wolff kindly wrote asking permission from the Shah for me to see his
+Museum, _i.e._ his treasure-house, and we, that is the Minister, the
+whole party from the Legation, and Dr. Odling of the telegraph staff
+and Mrs. Odling, went there yesterday. There was a great crowd outside
+the Palace gates, where we were received by many men in scarlet. The
+private gardens are immense, and beautifully laid out, in a more
+formal style than I have hitherto seen, with straight, hard gravel
+walks, and straight avenues of trees. The effect of the clear running
+water in the immense tanks lined with blue tiles is most agreeable and
+cool. Continuous rows of orange trees in tubs, and beds of narcissus,
+irises, and tulips, with a wealth of trellised roses just coming into
+leaf, are full of the promise of beauty. These great pleasure gardens
+are admirably kept, I doubt whether a fallen leaf would not be
+discovered and removed in five minutes.
+
+The great irregular mass of the Palace buildings on the garden front
+is very fine, the mangy and forlorn aspect being confined to the side
+seen by the public. The walls are much decorated, chiefly with glazed
+and coloured tiles geometrically arranged, and the general effect is
+striking.
+
+The "Museum," properly the audience chamber, and certainly one among
+the finest halls in the world, is approached by a broad staircase of
+cream-coloured alabaster. We were received by the Grand Vizier's two
+brothers, and were afterwards joined by himself and another high
+official.
+
+The decorations of this magnificent hall are in blue and white stucco
+of the hard fine kind, hardly distinguishable from marble, known as
+_gatch_, and much glass is introduced in the ceiling. The proportions
+of the room are perfect. The floor is of fine tiles of exquisite
+colouring arranged as mosaic. A table is overlaid with beaten gold,
+and chairs in rows are treated in the same fashion. Glass cases round
+the room and on costly tables contain the fabulous treasures of the
+Shah and many of the Crown jewels. Possibly the accumulated splendours
+of pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, basins and vessels
+of solid gold, ancient armour flashing with precious stones, shields
+studded with diamonds and rubies, scabbards and sword hilts incrusted
+with costly gems, helmets red with rubies, golden trays and vessels
+thick with diamonds, crowns of jewels, chains, ornaments (masculine
+solely) of every description, jewelled coats of mail dating back to
+the reign of Shah Ismael, exquisite enamels of great antiquity, all in
+a profusion not to be described, have no counterpart on earth. They
+are a dream of splendour not to be forgotten.
+
+One large case contains the different orders bestowed on the Shah, all
+blazing with diamonds, a splendid display, owing to the European
+cutting of the stones, which brings out their full beauty. There are
+many glass cases from two to three feet high and twelve inches or more
+broad, nearly full of pearls, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds,
+flashing forth their many-coloured light--treasures not arranged, but
+piled like tea or rice. Among the extraordinarily lavish uses of gold
+and gems is a golden globe twenty inches in diameter, turning on a
+frame of solid gold. The stand and meridian are of solid gold set with
+rubies. The equator and elliptic are of large diamonds. The countries
+are chiefly outlined in rubies, but Persia is in diamonds. The ocean
+is represented by emeralds. As if all this were not enough, huge gold
+coins, each worth thirty-three sovereigns, are heaped round its base.
+
+At the upper end of the hall is the Persian throne. Many pages would
+be needed for a mere catalogue of some of the innumerable treasures
+which give gorgeousness to this hall. Here indeed is "Oriental
+splendour," but only a part of the possessions of the Shah; for many
+gems, including the Dar-i-nur or Sea of Light, the second most famous
+diamond in the world, are kept elsewhere in double-locked iron chests,
+and hoards of bullion saved from the revenues are locked up in vaults
+below the Palace.
+
+If such a blaze of splendour exists in this shrunken, shrivelled,
+"depopulated" empire, what must have been the magnificence of the
+courts of Darius and Xerxes, into which were brought the treasures of
+almost "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them"? Since
+seeing this treasure-house I think that many of the early descriptions
+of wealth, which I have regarded as Oriental hyperbole, were literal,
+and that there was a time in Persia, as in Judea, when "silver was not
+accounted of." And to come down from the far off-glories of Darius,
+Xerxes, and Khosroe and the Parthian kings, there have been within
+almost modern times Persian sovereigns celebrated among other things
+for their successful "looting" of foreign kingdoms--Shah Abbas the
+great, and Nadir Shah, who scarcely two hundred years ago returned
+from the sack of Delhi with gems valued at twenty millions of our
+money.
+
+After we had seen most of what was to be seen the Vizier left us, and
+we went to the room in which stands the celebrated Peacock Throne,
+brought by Nadir Shah from Delhi, and which has been valued at
+L2,500,000. This throne is a large stage, with parapets and a high fan
+back, and is reached by several steps. It is entirely of gold enamel,
+and the back is incrusted with rubies and diamonds. Its priceless
+carpet has a broad border, the white arabesque pattern of which is
+formed of pearls closely stitched. You will think that I am lapsing
+into Oriental exaggeration!
+
+While we were admiring the beautiful view of the gardens from the
+windows of this room, Hassan Ali Khan, better known as "the Nawab,"
+suggested that we should retire, as the Shah is in the habit of
+visiting and enjoying his treasures at a later hour. However, at the
+foot of the stairs on the threshold of the vestibule stood the Shah,
+the "King of Kings," the "Asylum of the Universe," and that his
+presence there was not an accident was shown by the fact that the
+Grand Vizier was with him.
+
+Sir Henry advanced, attended by "the Nawab," and presented me, lifting
+his hat to the king, who neither then nor when he left us made the
+slightest inclination of his head. Hassan Ali Khan, in answer to a
+question, mentioned some of my travels, and said that with His
+Majesty's permission I wished to visit the Bakhtiari country.[27] The
+king pushed up his big horn spectacles and focused his eyes, about
+which there is something very peculiar, upon me, with a stare which
+would have been disconcerting to a younger person, asked if I were
+going to travel alone in his dominions, and if fitting arrangements
+had been made; if I had been in Pekin, and had visited Borneo and the
+Celebes; said a few other things, and then without a bow turned round
+abruptly and walked down the garden with the Amin-es-Sultan.
+
+This accidental and informal presentation was a very pleasant
+incident. The Shah is not what I expected from his various portraits.
+His manner (though he was said to be very affable on this occasion)
+has neither Eastern nor Western polish. He is a somewhat rough-looking
+man, well on in middle life, rather dark in complexion, and wearing a
+thick dark moustache, probably dyed, as is the custom. The long
+twisted moustache conceals the expression of his mouth, and the
+spectacles with thick horn rims that of his eyes. He was very simply
+dressed. The diamond aigrette and sword with jewelled hilt with which
+pictures and descriptions have familiarised us were absent, and this
+splendid monarch, the heir of splendour, and the possessor of fabulous
+treasures, wore the ordinary Persian high cap of Astrakan lambskin
+without any ornament, close-fitting dark trousers with a line of gold
+braid, a full-skirted coat of dull-coloured Kerman silk brocade, loose
+and open, under which were huddled one or more coats. A watch-chain
+composed of large diamonds completed his costume. He did not wear
+gloves, and I noticed that his hands, though carefully attended to,
+were those of a man used to muscular exercise, strong and wiry.
+
+As the sovereign and his prime minister walked away, it was
+impossible not to speculate upon coming events: what will happen, for
+instance, when Nasr-ed-Din, possibly the ablest man in the country
+which he rules, and probably the best and most patriotic ruler among
+Oriental despots, goes "the way of all the earth"? and again, whether
+Ali Askar Khan, who has held his post for five years, and who at
+thirty-two is the foremost man in Persia after the king, will weather
+the storm of intrigue which rages round his head, and resist the
+undermining influence of Russia?
+
+I have had two interesting conversations with him, and he was good
+enough to propose success to my journey at a dinner at the Legation;
+and though, as he does not speak French, the services of an
+interpreter were necessary, he impressed me very favourably as a man
+of thought, intelligence, and patriotism.
+
+He made one remark which had a certain degree of pathos in it. After
+speaking of the severe strictures and harsh criticisms of certain
+recent writers, which he said were very painful to Persians, he added,
+"I hope if you write you will write kindly, and not crush the
+aspirations of my struggling country as some have done."
+
+This Amin-es-Sultan, the faithful or trusted one of the sovereign, the
+Grand Vizier or Prime Minister, the second person in the empire, who
+unites in his person at this time the ministries of the Treasury, the
+Interior, the Court, and Customs, is of humble antecedents, being the
+son of a man who was originally an inferior attendant on the Shah in
+his hunting expeditions, and is the grandson of an Armenian captive.
+Certain persons of importance are bent upon his overthrow, and it can
+only be by the continued favour and confidence of the Shah that he can
+sustain himself against their intrigues, combined with those of
+Russia.
+
+My visit to the Palace terminated with the sight of another
+throne-room opening upon the garden in which a few days hence, with
+surroundings of great magnificence, the Shah will receive the
+congratulations of the diplomatic corps, and afterwards give a general
+audience to the people.
+
+This is an annual ceremony at the festival of No Ruz when the Persian
+New Year begins, at the time of the spring solstice, and is probably a
+relic of the Zoroastrian worship, though the modern Persians, as
+Mohammedans, allege that it is observed to celebrate the birthday of
+the Prophet's mother.[28]
+
+Some hours after the close of a splendid ceremony in the audience
+chamber, chiefly religious, at which the Shah burns incense on a small
+brazier, he descends to the garden, and walking alone along an avenue
+of Royal Guards, with the crown of the Kaj[=a]rs, blazing with jewels,
+carried in front of him, he seats himself on an alabaster throne, the
+foreign ministers having been received previously. This throne is a
+large platform, with a very high back and parapets of bold stone
+fretwork, supported on marble lions and other figures, and is ascended
+by three or four steps.
+
+The populace, which to the number of many thousands are admitted into
+the garden, see him seated on his throne, their absolute master, the
+lord of life and death. A voice asks if they are content, and they say
+they are. A hymn of congratulation is sung, a chief of the Kaj[=a]r
+tribe offers the congratulations of the people of Persia, the Hakim of
+the people hands the king a jewelled _kalian_, which he smokes, and
+showers of gold fall among the populace.
+
+The British Minister is understood to be at this time the most
+powerful foreigner in Persia; and as we drove through the crowd which
+had assembled at the Palace gates, he was received with all Oriental
+marks of respect.
+
+All my intercourse with Persians here has been pleasant, and if I
+mention one person particularly, it is owing to a certain interest
+which attaches to himself and his possible future, and because some
+hours spent at his splendid palace were among the pleasantest of the
+many pleasant and interesting ones which I shall hereafter recall.
+
+Yahia Khan, Minister of Justice and Commerce, whose official title is
+Muschir-u-Dowleh, was formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs, but
+forfeited the confidence of the British Government in supposed
+connection with the escape of Ayoub Khan, and being suspected of
+Russian proclivities, which he denies, lost his position. He speaks
+French perfectly, is credited with very great abilities, and not only
+has courteous and charming manners, but thoroughly understands the
+customs of Europe.
+
+As the possessor of one of the most magnificent palaces in Persia,
+married to the Shah's sister, his son, a youth of eighteen, married to
+a daughter of the Vali-'ahd, the heir-apparent, and as the brother of
+Mirza Hussein Khan--for long Grand Vizier and _Sipah Salar_, or
+Commander-in-Chief, whose gorgeous mosque, scarcely finished, the
+finest mosque built in late years by any but a royal personage,
+adjoins his house, Yahia Khan is in every way an important personage.
+
+He is the fourth husband of the Shah's sister, who has had a tragic
+life and is a very accomplished woman. Her first husband, Mirza
+Taghi, when Prime Minister, attempted reforms which would have tended
+to diminish the hideous corruption which is the bane of Persian
+officialism, and consequently made many enemies, who induced the Shah,
+then a young man, to depose him. Worse than deposition was
+apprehended, and as it was not etiquette to murder a husband of a
+royal princess in her presence, his wife, who loved him, watched him
+night and day with ceaseless vigilance for some weeks. But the fatal
+day at last came, and a good and powerful man, whose loss is said to
+have been an irreparable one to Persia, was strangled by the Shah's
+messengers, it is said, in the bath.
+
+Her son, who has married the Shah's grand-daughter, is courteous like
+his father, but is apparently without his force.
+
+The Muschir-u-Dowleh invited me to breakfast, along with General
+Gordon and Hassan Ali Khan. The _dejeuner_ was altogether in European
+style, except that in the centre of the table, among lilies and
+irises, a concealed fountain sent up jets of rose-water spray. Sevres
+and Dresden porcelain, the finest damask, and antique and exquisitely
+beautiful silver adorned the table. The cooking was French. The wines
+and liqueurs, an innovation on Moslem tables now common, but of recent
+date, were both French and Persian. The service was perfection. The
+host conversed both thoughtfully and agreeably, and expressed himself
+remarkably well in French.
+
+Afterwards we were invited to go over the palace and its grounds,
+which are remarkably beautiful, and then over the magnificent mosque.
+Shiah mosques are absolutely tabooed to Christians; but as this has
+not yet been used for worship, our entrance was not supposed to
+desecrate it. When quite finished it will be one of the most
+magnificent buildings dedicated to religious use in the world, and its
+four tile-covered minarets, its vast dome, and arches and facades in
+tiled arabesques and conventional patterns and exquisite colouring,
+show that the Persian artist when adequately encouraged has not lost
+his old feeling for beauty.
+
+Besides the mosque there is a fine building, the low roof of which is
+supported by innumerable columns, all of plain brick, resembling a
+crypt, which will be used for winter worship. In addition, a lavish
+endowment has provided on the grounds a theological college and a
+hospital, with most, if not all, of the funds needed for their
+maintenance; and on every part of the vast pile of buildings the
+architect has lavished all the resources of his art.
+
+No houses are to my thinking more beautiful and appropriate to the
+climate and mode of living than those of the upper classes of
+Persians, and the same suitability and good taste run down through the
+trading classes till one reaches the mud hovel, coarse and un-ideal,
+of the workman and peasant.
+
+My memory does not serve me for the details of the Muschir-u-Dowleh's
+palace, which, though some of the rooms are furnished with European
+lounges, tables, and chairs in _marqueterie_ and brocade, is
+throughout distinctively Persian; but the impression produced by the
+general _coup d'oeil_, and by the size, height, and perfect
+proportion of the rooms, galleries, staircases, and halls, is quite
+vivid. The rooms have dados of primrose-coloured Yezd alabaster in
+slabs four feet high by three broad, clouded and veined most
+delicately by nature. The banqueting hall is of immense size, and the
+floor is covered with a dark fawn _namad_ three-quarters of an inch
+thick, made, I understood, in one piece eighty feet long by fifty
+broad. The carpets are the most beautiful which can be turned out by
+Persian looms, and that is saying a great deal.
+
+The roofs, friezes, and even the walls of this house, like those of
+others of its class, have a peculiarity of beauty essentially Persian.
+This is the form of _gatch_ or fine stucco-work known as _ainah
+karee_. I saw it first at Baghdad, and now at Tihran wonder that such
+beautiful and costly decoration does not commend itself to some of our
+millionaires. Arches filled with honeycomb decoration, either pure
+white or tastefully coloured and gilded, are among the architectural
+adornments which the Alhambra borrowed from Persia. My impression is
+that this exquisite design was taken from snow on the hillsides, which
+is often fashioned by a strong wind into the honeycomb pattern.
+
+But the glory of this form of decoration reaches its height when,
+after the _gatch_ ceiling and cornice or deep frieze have been
+daringly moulded by the workman into distinct surfaces or facets, he
+lays on mirrors while the plaster is yet soft, which adhere, and even
+at their edges have scarcely the semblance of a joining. Sometimes,
+as in the new summer palace of the Shah's third son, the
+Naib-es-Sultaneh, the whole wall is decorated in this way; but I
+prefer the reception-rooms of Yahia Khan, in which it is only brought
+down a few feet. Immense skill and labour are required in this process
+of adornment, but it yields in splendour to none, flashing in
+bewildering light, and realising the fabled glories of the palaces of
+the _Arabian Nights_. One of the _salons_, about sixty feet by fifty,
+treated in this way is about the most beautiful room I ever saw.
+
+The Persian architect also shows great art in his windows. He masses
+them together, and by this means gives something of grandeur even to
+an insignificant room. The beauty of the designs, whether in fretwork
+of wood or stone, is remarkable, and the effect is enhanced by the
+filling in of the interstices with coloured glass, usually amber and
+pale blue. So far as I have seen, the Persian house is never
+over-decorated, and however gorgeous the mirror-work, or involved the
+arrangement of arches, or daring the dreams in _gatch_ ceilings and
+pillars, the fancy of the designer is always so far under control as
+to give the eye periods of rest.
+
+Under the palace of the Muschir-u-Dowleh, as under many others, is a
+sort of glorified _serdab_, used in hot weather, partly under ground,
+open at each end, and finished throughout with marble, the roof being
+supported on a cluster of slender pillars with capitals picked out in
+gold, and the air being cooled by a fountain in a large marble basin.
+But this _serdab_ is far eclipsed by a summer hall in the palace of
+the Shah's third son, which, as to walls and ceiling, is entirely
+composed of mirror-work, the floor of marble being arranged with
+marble settees round fountains whose cool plash even now is delicious.
+The large pleasure gardens which surround rich men's houses in the
+city are laid out somewhat in the old French style of formality, and
+are tended with scrupulous care.
+
+I did not see the _andarun_ of this or any house here, owing to the
+difficulty about an interpreter, but it is not likely that the ladies
+are less magnificently lodged than their lords. The _andarun_ has its
+own court, no one is allowed to open a window looking upon it, it is
+as secluded as a convent. No man but the master of the house may
+enter, and when he retires thither no man may disturb him. To all
+inquirers it is a sufficient answer to say that he is in the
+_andarun_. To the Shah, however, belongs the privilege of looking upon
+the unveiled face of every woman in Persia. The domestic life of a
+Moslem is always shrouded in mystery, and even in the case of the
+Shah "the fierce light that beats upon a throne" fails to reveal to
+the outer world the number of wives and women in his _andarun_, which
+is variously stated at from sixty to one hundred and ninety.
+
+It is not easy in any Eastern city to get exactly what one wants for a
+journey, especially as a European cannot buy in the bazars; and the
+servant difficulty has been a great hindrance, particularly as I have
+a strong objection to the regular interpreter-servant who has been
+accustomed to travel with Europeans.
+
+I have now got a Persian cook with sleepy eyes, a portion of a nose,
+and a grotesquely "hang-dog" look. For an interpreter and personal
+attendant I have an educated young Brahmin, for some years in British
+post-office service in the Gulf, and lately a teacher in the American
+school here. He speaks educated English, and is said to speak good
+Persian. He has never done any "menial" work, but is willing to do
+anything in order to get to England. He has a frank, independent
+manner and "no nonsense about him." Taking him is an experiment.[29]
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] Some of the Bakhtiari khans or princes, with their families, are
+kept by the Shah as hostages in and round Tihran for the loyalty of
+their tribes, the conquest of these powerful nomads not being so
+complete as it might and possibly will be.
+
+[28] On the eve of the day, the last of a festival of ten days, the
+common people kindle rows of bonfires and leap over them; and, though
+not on the same day, but on the night of the 25th of February, sacred
+in the Armenian Church as the day of the presentation of our Lord in
+the temple, large bonfires are lighted on the mud roofs of the
+Armenians of the Persian and Turkish cities, and the younger members
+of the households dance and sing and leap through the flames.
+Meanwhile the Moslems close their windows, so that the sins which the
+Christians are supposed to be burning may not enter. Whether these
+"Beltane fires" are a relic of the ancient fire worship or of still
+older rites may be a question. Among the Christians the custom is
+showing signs of passing away.
+
+[29] An experiment I never regretted. Mirza Yusuf was with me for nine
+months, and I found him faithful, truthful, and trustworthy, very
+hard-working, minimising hardships and difficulties, always cheerful,
+and with an unruffled temper, his failings being those of a desk-bred
+man transplanted into a life of rough out-doorishness.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER X
+
+
+     KUM, _March 23_.
+
+This so far is a delightful journey. All the circumstances are
+favourable. A friend who was sending his servants, horses, and baggage
+to Isfahan has lent me a thoroughbred, and with a trustworthy young
+soldier as my escort I do not trouble myself about the caravan at all,
+and get over much of the ground at a gallop. The roads have nearly
+dried up, the country looks cheerful, travellers are numerous, living
+and dead, the sun is bright but the air is cool and bracing, and the
+insects are still hybernating, Mirza Yusuf is getting into my "ways,"
+and is very pleasant. I did not think that I could have liked Persian
+travelling so well. A good horse and a good pace make an immense
+difference. It is not the custom for European ladies to travel
+unattended by European gentlemen in Persia, but no objection to my
+doing so was made in the highest quarters, either English or Persian,
+and so far there have been no difficulties or annoyances.
+
+I left the British Legation at noon four days ago. The handsome Arab,
+with a sheepskin coat rolled on the front of the saddle, holsters, and
+Persian housings, looked like a life-guardsman's horse. I nearly came
+to grief as soon as I got out of the Legation gate; for he would not
+stand my English snaffle, and reared and threw himself about, and my
+spur touching him as he did so made him quite wild, and I endured
+much apprehension all through Tihran, expecting to find myself on the
+rough pavement; but I took off the offending spur, and rode him on the
+sharp bit he is used to, and when we were outside the gate he
+quietened down, and I had a long gallop.
+
+How different it all looks! No more floundering through mud! The trees
+of Abdul Azim are green. Caravans are moving fast and cheerily. Even
+the dead on their last journey look almost cheerful under the sunny
+skies. We did not reach Husseinabad till long after dark. It was so
+unspeakably dark that my horse and I fell off the road into deep
+water, and we passed the caravanserai without knowing that we were
+near it.
+
+The usual disorder of a first night was somewhat worse than usual. The
+loads were mixed up, and the servants and _charvadars_ were
+quarrelling, and I did not get my dinner till ten; but things are all
+right now, and have been since the following morning, when I assumed
+the reins of government and saw the mules loaded myself, an efficient
+interpreter making my necessary self-assertion intelligible.
+
+Though the spring has set in, most of the country between this and
+Tihran looks a complete desert. In February it was a muddy waste--it
+is now a dusty waste, on which sheep, goats, and camels pick up a gray
+herbage, which without search is not obvious to the human eye, and
+consists mostly of wormwood and other bitter and aromatic plants. Off
+the road a few tulips and dwarf irises coming up out of the dry ground
+show the change of season.
+
+I came for some distance on one day by a road which caravans avoid
+because of robbers. It crosses a reddish desert with a few salt
+streams and much saline efflorescence, a blasted region without a
+dwelling or patch of cultivation. Yet a four-mile gallop across one
+part of it was most inspiriting. As the two Arabs, excited by the
+pace, covering great spaces of ground with each powerful stride,
+dashed over the level gravel I thought, "They'll have fleet steeds
+that follow"; but no steed or rider or bird or beast was visible
+through all that hungry land. We passed also close to a salt lake on
+the Kavir, seen in the distance on the former journey, near which are
+now pitched a quantity of Ilyat tents, all black. The wealth of these
+nomads is in camels, sheep, and goats. Though the camps, five in
+number, were small, they had over 200 camels among them.
+
+Where four weeks ago there was deep mud there is now the glittering
+semblance of unsullied snow, and the likeness of frost crystals fills
+the holes. _Miles_ of camels loaded with cotton march with stately
+stride in single file, the noble mountain camel, with heavy black fur
+on neck, shoulder, fore-arm, and haunch, and kindly gentle eyes,
+looking, as he is, the king of baggage animals, not degraded by
+servitude, though he may carry 800 lbs.
+
+Some of the sights of the road were painful. For instance, just as I
+passed a caravan of the dead bound for Kum a mule collided with
+another and fell, and the loosely-put-together boxes on its back gave
+way and corpses fell out in an advanced stage of decomposition. A
+camel just dead lay in a gully. On a ledge of rock above it seven
+gorged vultures (not the bald-headed) sat in a row. They had already
+feasted on him to repletion. I passed several dead camels, and one
+with a pleading pathetic face giving up the ghost on the road.
+
+Yesterday I rode in here from the magnificent caravanserai of
+Shashgird, sixteen miles in three hours before lunch, and straight
+through the crowded bazars to the telegraph office unmolested, an
+Afghan camel-driver's coat, with the wool outside, having proved so
+good a disguise that the _gholam_ who was sent to meet me returned to
+his master saying that he had not seen a lady, but that a foreign
+soldier and _sahib_ had come into Kum.
+
+When my visit was over and I had received from Mr. Lyne the route to
+Isfahan, and such full information about rooms, water, and supplies as
+will enable me to give my own orders, and escape from the tyranny of
+the _charvadars_, having sent the horses to the caravanserai I
+disguised myself as a Persian woman of the middle class in the dress
+which Mrs. Lyne wears in the city, a thick white _crepe_ veil with
+open stitch in front of the eyes, a black sheet covering me from head
+to foot, the ends hanging from the neck by long loops, and held with
+the left hand just below the eyes, and so, though I failed to imitate
+the totter and shuffle of a Persian lady's walk, I passed unnoticed
+through the long and crowded streets of this fanatical city, attended
+only by a _gholam_, and at the door of my own room was prevented from
+entering by the servants till my voice revealed my identity.
+
+Twice to-day I have passed safely through the city in the same
+disguise, and have even lingered in front of shops without being
+detected. Mr. and Mrs. Lyne have made the two days here very pleasant,
+by introducing me to Persians in whose houses I have seen various
+phases of Persian life. On reaching one house, where Mrs. Lyne arrived
+an hour later, I was a little surprised to be received by the host in
+uniform, speaking excellent French, but without a lady with him.
+
+He had been very kind to Hadji, who, he says, is rich and has three
+wives. The poor fellow's lungs have been affected for two years, and
+the affection was for the time aggravated by the terrible journey. He
+talked a good deal about Persian social customs, especially polygamy.
+
+He explained that he has only one wife, but that this is because he
+has been fortunate. He said that he regards polygamy as the most
+fruitful source of domestic unhappiness, but that so long as
+marriages are made for men by their mothers and sisters, a large sum
+being paid to the bride's father, a marriage is really buying "a pig
+in a poke," and constantly when the bride comes home she is ugly or
+bad-tempered or unpleasing and cannot manage the house. "This," he
+said, "makes men polygamists who would not otherwise be so.
+
+"Then a man takes another wife, and perhaps this is repeated, and then
+he tries again, and so on, and the house becomes full of turmoil.
+There are always quarrels in a polygamous household," he said, "and
+the children dispute about the property after the father's death." Had
+he not been fortunate, and had not his wife been capable of managing
+the house, he said that he must have taken another wife, "for," he
+added, "no man can bear a badly-managed house."
+
+I thought of the number of men in England who have to bear it without
+the Moslem resource.
+
+A lady of "position" must never go out except on Fridays to the
+mosque, or with her husband's permission and scrupulously veiled and
+guarded, to visit her female friends. Girl-children begin to wear the
+_chadar_ between two and three years old, and are as secluded as their
+mothers, nor must any man but father or brother see their faces. Some
+marry at twelve years old.
+
+"La vie des femmes dans la Perse est tres triste," he said. The
+absence of anything like education for girls, except in Tihran, and
+the want of any reading-book but the Koran for boys and girls, he
+regards as a calamity. He may be a pessimist by nature: he certainly
+has no hope for the future of Persia, and contemplates a Russian
+occupation as a certainty in the next twenty years.
+
+After a long conversation I asked for the pleasure, not of seeing his
+wife, but the "mother of his children," and was rewarded by the sight
+of a gentle and lovely woman of twenty-one or twenty-two, graceful in
+every movement but her walk, exquisitely refined-looking, with a most
+becoming timidity of expression, mingled with gentle courtesy to a
+stranger. She was followed by three very pretty little girls. The
+husband and wife are of very good family, and the lady has an
+unmistakably well-bred look.
+
+Though I knew what to expect in the costume of a woman of the upper
+classes, I was astonished, and should have been scandalised even had
+women only been present. The costume of ladies has undergone a great
+change in the last ninety years, and the extreme of the fashion is as
+lacking in delicacy as it is in comfort. However, much travelling
+compels one to realise that the modesty of the women of one country
+must not be judged of by the rules of another, and a lady costumed as
+I shall attempt to describe would avert her eyes in horror by no means
+feigned from an English lady in a Court or evening-dress of to-day.
+
+The under garment, very much _en evidence_, is a short chemise of
+tinselled silk gauze, or gold-embroidered muslin so transparent as to
+leave nothing to the imagination. This lady wore a skirt of flowered
+silver brocade, enormously full, ten or twelve yards wide, made to
+stand nearly straight out by some frills or skirts of very stiffly
+starched cotton underneath, the whole, not even on a waistband round
+the waist, but drawn by strings, and suspended over the hips, the
+skirts coming down to within a few inches of the knee, leaving the
+white rounded limbs uncovered. The effect of this exaggerated
+_bouffante_ skirt is most singular. White socks are worn. Over the
+transparent _pirah[=a]n_, or chemise, she wore a short velvet jacket
+beautifully embroidered in gold, with its fronts about ten inches
+apart, so as to show the flowered chemise. Her eyebrows were
+artificially curved and lengthened till they appeared to meet above
+her nose, her eyelashes were marked round with _kohl_, and a band of
+blue-black paint curving downwards above the nose crossed her
+forehead, but was all but concealed by a small white square of silk
+_crepe_, on the head and brow and fastened under the chin by a brooch.
+
+Had she been in another house she would have worn a large square of
+gold-embroidered silk, with the points in front and behind, and
+fastened under the chin. Under the _crepe_ square there was a small
+skull-cap of gold-embroidered velvet, matching her little zouave
+jacket, with an aigrette of gems at the side. Her arms were covered
+with bracelets, and a number of valuable necklaces set off the beauty
+of her dazzlingly white neck.
+
+Persian ladies paint, or rather smear, but her young pure complexion
+needed no such aids. Her front hair, cut to the level of her mouth,
+hung down rather straight, and the remainder, which was long, was
+plaited into many small glossy plaits. Contrary to custom, it was
+undyed, and retained its jet-black colour. Most Persian ladies turn it
+blue-black with indigo, or auburn with _henna_, and with the latter
+the finger-nails and palms of the hands are always stained.
+
+Her jewellery was all of solid gold; hollow gold and silver ornaments
+being only worn by the poor. She wore a chain with four scent caskets
+attached to it exhaling attar of roses and other choice perfumes.
+
+She was a graceful and attractive creature in spite of her costume.
+She waited on her husband and on me, that is, she poured out the tea
+and moved about the room for hot water and _bonbons_ with the feeble,
+tottering gait of a woman quite unaccustomed to exercise, and to whom
+the windy wastes outside the city walls and a breezy gallop are quite
+unknown. The little girls were dressed in the style of adults, and
+wore tinselled gauze _chad[=a]rs_ or _chargats_.
+
+After seeing a good deal of home life during some months in Persia, I
+have come to the conclusion that there is no child life. Swaddled till
+they can walk, and then dressed as little men and women, with the
+adult tyrannies of etiquette binding upon them, and in the case of
+girls condemned from infancy to the seclusion of the _andarun_, there
+is not a trace of the spontaneity and nonsense which we reckon as
+among the joys of childhood, or of such a complete and beautiful child
+life as children enjoy in Japan. There does not appear to be any child
+talk. The Persian child from infancy is altogether interested in the
+topics of adults; and as the conversation of both sexes is said by
+those who know them best to be without reticence or modesty, the
+purity which is one of the greatest charms of childhood is absolutely
+unknown. Parental love is very strong in Persia, and in later days the
+devotion of the mother to the boy is amply returned by the grown-up
+son, who regards her comfort as his charge, and her wishes as law,
+even into old age.
+
+When tea was over the host retired with the remark that the ladies
+would prefer to amuse themselves alone, and then a Princess and
+another lady arrived attended by several servants. This Princess came
+in the black silk sheet with a suggestion of gold about its border
+which is the street disguise of women of the richer classes, and she
+wore huge bag-like violet trousers, into which her voluminous skirts
+were tucked.
+
+She emerged from these wrappings a "harmony" in rose colour--a comely
+but over-painted young woman in rose and silver brocade skirts, a rose
+velvet jacket embroidered in silver, a transparent white muslin
+_pirah[=a]n_ with silver stars upon it, and a _chargat_ of white
+muslin embroidered in rose silk.
+
+She and the hostess sat on a rug in front of a fire, and servants now
+and then handed them _kalians_. The three little girls and the guest's
+little girl were in the background. The doors were then fastened and a
+number of servants came in and entertained their mistresses. Two sang
+and accompanied themselves on a sort of tambourine. Tea was handed
+round at intervals. There was dancing, and finally two or three women
+acted some little scenes from a popular Persian play. By these
+amusements, I am told, the women of the upper classes get rid of time
+when they visit each other; and they spend much of their lives in
+afternoon visiting, taking care to be back before sunset. After a long
+time the gentle hostess, reading in my face that I was not enjoying
+the performances, on which indeed unaccustomed English eyes could not
+look, brought them to a close, and showed me some of her beautiful
+dresses and embroidered fabrics.
+
+Putting on my disguise and attended by a servant I walked a third time
+unrecognised and unmolested through the crowded bazars, through the
+gate and across the bridge, when a boy looked quite into my shroud,
+which I was not perhaps clutching so tightly as in the crowd, and
+exclaiming several times _Kafir_, ran back into the city. I did not
+run, but got back to the "hotel" as fast as possible.
+
+It is very noisy, and my room being on the ground floor, and having
+three doors, there is little peace either by day or night. Thirteen
+days from the _No Ruz_ or New Year, which was March 21, are kept as a
+feast before the severe fast of the Ramazan, and this city of pilgrims
+is crowded, and all people put on new clothes, the boys being chiefly
+dressed in green.
+
+To-morrow I begin my journey over new ground.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI
+
+
+     KASHAN, _March 26_.
+
+I have seen the last of Kum and hotels and made roads for many months.
+So much the better! I had to ride the whole length of the bazars and
+the city, a mile and a half, but the camel-driver's coat served again
+as a disguise, and I heard no remarks except from two boys. Indeed I
+am delighted to find that the "foreign soldier" who rides in front of
+me attracts so much curiosity that I pass in his wake unnoticed.
+
+The ruinous condition of Kum is fearful. Once outside the houses and
+bazars which surround the shrine of Fatima, the town is mostly rubbish
+and litter, with forlorn, miserable houses created out of the rubbish,
+grouped near festering pools; broken causeways infamously paved, full
+of holes, heaps of potsherds, bones obtruding themselves, nothing to
+please and everything to disgust the eye and sadden the spirit,
+religious intolerance, a diminished population, and desolation.
+
+The pottery bazar, abounding in blue glazed ware of graceful shapes,
+and a number of shrines of saints, are the only objects of interest.
+The domes of the latter were once covered with blue tiles, but these
+have nearly all peeled off, leaving the universal mud--a mud so
+self-asserting everywhere that Persia may be called the "Great Mud
+Land." The cherry and apricot trees are in full bloom, but as yet
+there is little greenery round Kum, and the area of cultivation is
+very limited.
+
+I am now on the road which, with the exception of that from Tihran to
+Resht, is best known to travellers,[30] but I cannot help sketching it
+briefly, though the interests are few considering the distance
+travelled, 280 miles from Tihran to Isfahan. I now see Persia for the
+first time; for traversing a country buried in snow is not seeing it.
+It would be premature to express the opinion that the less one sees of
+it the more one is likely to admire it.
+
+I have been _en route_ for a week under the best possible
+circumstances--the nights always cool, the days never too warm, the
+accommodation tolerable, the caravan in excellent working order, no
+annoyances, and no grievances. The soldier who attends me arranges
+everything for my comfort, and is always bright and kind. I have no
+ambition to "beat the record," but long gallops on a fine Arab horse
+turn marches of from twenty-two to thirty miles into delightful
+morning rides of from three and a half to four and a half hours, with
+long pleasant afternoons following them, and sound sleep at night.
+These are my halcyon days of Persian travelling; and yet I cannot
+write that Persia is beautiful.
+
+It is early spring, and tulips and irises rise not out of a carpet of
+green but, to use the descriptive phrase of Isaiah, "as a root out of
+a dry ground," the wormwood is dressed in its gray-green, the buds of
+the wild dwarf-almond show their tender pink, the starry blossom of
+the narcissus gleams in moist places, the sky is exquisitely blue, and
+shining cloud-masses fleck the brown hillsides with violet shadows.
+Where there is irrigation carpets of young wheat cover the ground; but
+these, like the villages, occur only at long intervals, for the road
+passes mainly through a country destitute of water, or rather of
+arrangements for storing it.
+
+As to natural trees there are none, and even the bushes are few and
+unlovely, chiefly camel thorn and a rigid and thorny tamarisk. Beyond
+Kum there is no made road. A track worn by the caravans of ages
+exists,--sometimes parallel ruts for a width of half a mile, sometimes
+not two yards wide, and now and then lapsing into illegibility. There
+are large and small caravanserais of an inferior class along the
+route, and _chapar khanas_ at intervals. Water is often bad and
+sometimes brackish. It is usually supplied from small brick
+_abambars_, or covered reservoirs. Milk is hard to obtain, often
+impossible; at some places fowls can be bought for eightpence each,
+and "flap jacks" everywhere.
+
+Except the snowy cone of Demavend, with purple ranges curtaining his
+feet, no special object of admiration exists; the plains are reddish,
+yellowish, barren, gravelly, or splotched with salt; the ranges of
+hills, which are never far off (for Persia is a land of mountains),
+are either shapeless and gravelly, or rocky, rugged, and splintered,
+their hue reddish and purplish, their sides scored by the spring rush
+of wasted torrents, their aspect one of complete desolation, yet not
+without a certain beauty at this season--rose-flushed in the early
+morning, passing through shades of cobalt and indigo through the day,
+and dying away at sunset in translucent amethyst against a sky of
+ruddy gold.
+
+But, take away the atmospheric colouring--which the advancing heat
+will abolish--and the plain English of the route is this, that in
+every direction, far as the eye can reach, the country is a salt waste
+or a gravelly waste, with a few limited oases of cultivation on the
+plains and in the folds of the hills, always treeless, except round a
+few of the villages, where there are small groves of poplars and
+willows. The villages are clusters of mud hovels, scarcely
+distinguishable from the wastes, and many of them are ruined and
+deserted, oppressive exactions or a failure of water being common
+reasons for a migration. These dismal ruins are shapeless heaps of
+mud, the square towers of the square walls alone retaining any
+semblance of form.
+
+Long lines of choked _kanaats_, denoted by their crumbling shafts,
+attest the industrious irrigation of a former day. Tracks wind wearily
+among shrunken villages, or cross ridges of mud or gravel to take
+their unlovely way over arid stony plains. Unwatered tracts of land,
+once cultivated, as the _kanaats_ show, but now deserts of sand and
+stones, send up gyrating clouds of gritty dust.
+
+Such is Persia between its two capitals; and yet I repeat that in cool
+weather, and on a good horse, the journey is a very pleasant one. Most
+European men ride _chapar_, that is, post; but from what I see of the
+_chapar_ horses, I would not do it for the sake of doubling the
+distance travelled in the day, and therefore cannot describe either
+its pleasures or tortures from experience.
+
+On certain roads, as from Tihran to Shiraz, there are post stations
+(_chapar khana_) with horses and men at distances of from twenty to
+twenty-five miles, with a charge of one _kran_ (eightpence) per
+_farsakh_ (four miles) for each horse engaged, an order having been
+previously obtained from a government official. Besides your own horse
+you have to take one for the _shasgird chapar_, or post-boy, who has
+to take the horses back, and one for the servant. The two latter carry
+the very limited kit, which includes a long cotton bag, which, being
+filled with chopped straw at night, forms the traveller's bed. The
+custom is to ride through all the hours of daylight whenever horses
+are to be got, doing from sixty to ninety miles a day, always
+inspired by the hope of "cutting the record," even by half an hour,
+and winning undying fame.
+
+The horses, which are kept going at a canter so long as they can be
+thrashed into one, are small and active, and do wonders; but from the
+strain put upon them, bad feeding, sore backs, and general
+dilapidation and exhaustion, are constantly tumbling down. Several
+times I have seen wretched animals brought into the yards, apparently
+"dead beat," and after getting some chopped straw and a little barley
+thrashed into a canter again for twenty-five miles more, because the
+traveller could not get a remount. They often fall down dead under
+their riders, urged by the heavy _chapar_ whip to the last.
+
+Riding _chapar_, journeying in a _taktrawan_ or litter, or in a
+_kajaweh_, or riding caravan pace, by which only about thirty miles a
+day can be covered, are the only modes of travelling in Persia, though
+I think that with capable assistance a carriage might make the journey
+from Tihran as far as Kashan.
+
+I lodge in the _chapar khanas_ whenever I can. They consist of mud
+walls fourteen feet high, enclosing yards deep in manure, with
+stabling for the _chapar_ horses on two sides, and recesses in their
+inner walls for mangers. The entrance is an arched gateway. There are
+usually two dark rooms at the sides, which the servants occupy and
+cook in, and over the gateway is the _balakhana_, an abortive tower,
+attained by a steep and crumbling stair, in which I encamp. The one
+room has usually two doors, half-fitting and non-shutting, and perhaps
+a window space or two, and the ashes of the last traveller's fire.
+
+Such a breezy rest just suits me, and when my camp furniture has been
+arranged and I am enjoying my "afternoon tea," I feel "monarch of all
+I survey," even of the boundless desert, over which the cloud shadows
+chase each other till it purples in the light of the sinking sun. If
+there is the desert desolation there is also the desert freedom.
+
+The first halt was delicious after the crowds and fanaticism of Kum. A
+broad plain with irrigated patches and a ruinous village was passed;
+then came the desert, an expanse of camel-brown gravel thickly strewn
+with stones, with a range of low serrated brown hills, with curious
+stratification, on the east. A few caravans of camels, and the _haram_
+of the Governor of Yezd in closely-covered _kajawehs_, alone broke the
+monotony. Before I thought we were half-way we reached the _abambars_,
+the small brown caravanserai, and the _chapar khana_ of Passangh[=a]m,
+having ridden in three hours a distance on which I have often expended
+eight.
+
+Cool and breezy it was in my room, and cooler and breezier on the flat
+mud roof; and the lifting of some clouds in the far distance to the
+north, beyond the great sweep of the brown desert, revealed the mighty
+Elburz range, white with new-fallen snow. At Sinsin the next evening
+it was gloriously cold. There had been another heavy snowfall, and in
+the evening the Elburz range, over a hundred miles away, rose in
+unsullied whiteness like a glittering wall, and above it the colossal
+cone of Demavend, rose-flushed.
+
+The routine of the day is simple and easy. I get the caravan off at
+eight, lie on the floor for an hour, gallop and walk for about half
+the march, rest for an hour in some place, where Mahboud, the soldier,
+always contrives to bring me a glass of tea, and then gallop and walk
+to the halting-place, where I rest for another hour till the caravan
+comes in. I now know exactly what to pay, and by giving small presents
+get on very easily.
+
+There were many uncomfortable prophecies about the annoyances and
+rudenesses which a lady travelling alone would meet with, but so far
+not one has been fulfilled. How completely under such circumstances
+one has to trust one's fellow-creatures! There are no fastenings on
+the doors of these breezy rooms, and last night there was only the
+longitudinal half of a door, but I fell asleep, fearing nothing worse
+than a predatory cat.
+
+The last two days' marches have been chiefly over stony wastes, or
+among low hills of red earth, gray gravel, and brown mud, with low
+serrated ranges beyond, and farther yet high hills covered with snow,
+after which the road leaves the hills and descends upon a pink plain,
+much of the centre of which is snow-white from saline efflorescence.
+The villages Kasseinabad, Nasrabad, and Aliabad are passed on the
+plain, with small fruit trees and barley surrounding them, and great
+mud caravanserais at intervals, only remarkable for the number of
+camels lying outside of them in rows facing each other. In the fresh
+keen air of evening the cone of Demavend was painted in white on the
+faint blue sky, reddening into beauty as the purple-madder shadows
+deepened over the yellow desert.
+
+Tea made with saltish water, and salt sheep's milk, have been the only
+drawbacks of the six days' march.
+
+Not far from Kashan we entered on a great alluvial plain formed of
+fine brown earth without a single stone--a prolific soil if it had
+water, as the fruit trees and abundant crops of young wheat round the
+villages show. So level, and on the whole so smooth, is this plain
+that it possesses the prodigy of a public conveyance, an omnibus with
+four horses abreast, which makes its laborious way with the aid of
+several attendants, who lift the wheels out of holes, prevent it from
+capsizing, and temporarily fill up the small irrigation ditches which
+it has to cross. Its progress is less "by leaps and bounds" than by
+jolts and rolls, and as my Arab horse bounded past I wondered that six
+men could be found to exchange the freedom of the saddle for such a
+jerky, stuffy box.
+
+Five hundred yards from the gate of Kashan there is a telegraph
+station of the Indo-European line, where M. du Vignau and his wife
+expected me, and have received me with great kindness and hospitality.
+The electricians at these stations are allowed to receive guests in
+what is known as the "Inspectors' Room," and they exercise this
+liberty most kindly and generously. Many a weary traveller looks back
+upon the "Inspectors' Room" as upon an oasis in the desert of dirt;
+and though I cannot class myself just now with "weary travellers," I
+cordially appreciate the kindness which makes one "at home," and the
+opportunity of exchanging civilised ideas for a few hours.
+
+I must not go beyond Kashan without giving a few words to the Persian
+section of the Indo-European telegraph line, one of the greatest
+marvels of telegraph construction, considering the nature of the
+country which the line traverses. Tihran is the centre of telegraphic
+control, and the residence of Colonel Wells, R.E., the Director, with
+a staff of twenty telegraphists, who work in relays day and night, and
+a Medical Officer. Julfa is another place of importance on the line,
+and at Shiraz there is another Medical Officer.
+
+The prompt repair of the wires in cases of interruption is carefully
+arranged for. At suitable places, such as Kum, Soh, Kashan, and other
+towns or villages from fifty to eighty miles apart, there are control
+or testing stations, each being in charge of a European telegraphist,
+who has under him two Persian horsemen, who have been well trained as
+linesmen. At stated hours the clerks place their instruments in
+circuit, and ascertain if all is right.
+
+If this testing reveals any fault, it can be localised at once, and
+horsemen are despatched from the control stations on either side of
+it, with orders to ride rapidly along the line until they meet at the
+fault and repair it. As the telegraph crosses passes such as
+Kuhr[=u]d, at an altitude of over 8000 feet, the duties of both
+inspectors and linesmen are most severe, full not only of hardship but
+of danger in terrible winter storms and great depths of snow, yet on
+their ceaseless watchfulness and fidelity the safety of our Indian
+Empire may some day depend.
+
+The skill brought to bear upon the manipulation of this Government
+line from the Gulf, and throughout the whole system of which it is a
+part, is wonderful. Messages from any part of the United Kingdom now
+reach any part of India in less than an hour and a half, and in only
+about one word in two hundred does even the most trifling mistake
+occur in transmission, a result all the more surprising when it is
+remembered that the telegrams are almost entirely either in code or
+cypher, and that over 1000 are transmitted in the course of a day.
+
+Among these are the long despatches continually passing between the
+Viceroy of India and the India Office on vitally important subjects,
+and press telegrams of every noteworthy event. The "exhaustive
+summary" of Indian news which appears weekly in the _Times_,
+accompanied by a commentary on events, is an altogether un-padded
+telegram, and is transmitted with punctuation complete, and even with
+inverted commas for quotations.[31]
+
+The English staff, numbering from fifty to sixty men, is scattered
+along a line of 1900 miles. Some of them are married, and most occupy
+isolated positions, so far as other Europeans are concerned. It is the
+universal testimony of Englishmen and Persians that the relations
+between them have been for many years of the most friendly character,
+full of good-will and mutual friendly offices, and that the continual
+contact brought about by the nature of the duties of the electricians
+has been productive not of aversion and distrust, but of cordial
+appreciation on both sides.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] It is new to me, however, and may be new to a large proportion of
+the "untravelled many" for whom I write.
+
+[31] Major-General Sir R. Murdoch Smith, K.C.M.G., late Director of
+the Persian section of the Indo-European telegraph, read a very
+interesting paper upon it before the Royal Scottish Geographical
+Society on December 13, 1888,--a _Sketch of the History of Telegraphic
+Communication between the United Kingdom and India_.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI (_Continued_)
+
+
+Kashan is one of the hottest places on the great Persian plateau, but
+has the rare luxury of a good water supply brought from a reservoir
+some distance off in the Kuhr[=u]d mountains. It has a much-diminished
+population, said now to number 30,000 souls. Much of it is in ruins,
+and much more is ruinous. It has a thriving colony of Jews. It is
+noted for its silks and velvets; but the modern productions are
+regarded by judges as degenerate. It is still famous for its work in
+copper and for its great copper bazar.
+
+Silk produced at Resht is brought here to be spun and dyed. Then it is
+sent to Sultanabad to be woven into carpets, and is brought back again
+to have the pile cut by the sharp instruments used for cutting velvet
+pile, and the finished carpets are sent to Tihran for sale. They are
+only made in small sizes, and are more suitable for _portieres_ than
+for laying on the floor. The colouring is exquisite, and the metallic
+sheen and lustre are unique. Silk carpets are costly luxuries. The
+price of even a fairly good one of very small size is L50, the silk
+alone costing L20.
+
+Kashan is a great place for _curio_ buyers, who enlist the Jews in
+their service. There are some valuable antiques in this
+house--embroideries, carpet squares in silk, glass whose greenish
+colour and grace of form remind me of Venetian glass, enamels on
+porcelain, tiles, metal inlaying and damascening, pierced brasswork,
+and many other articles of _vertu_, the art of making which is either
+lost or has greatly degenerated.
+
+It is unaccountable, but it is certain that the secret of producing
+the higher types of beauty in various arts, especially the Keramic,
+died out more than one hundred and fifty years ago, and that there are
+no circumstances of that date to account for its decease, except that
+it is recorded that when the Afghan conqueror Mahmoud destroyed
+Isfahan he massacred the designers of _reflet_ tiles and other Keramic
+beauties, because they had created works which gave great umbrage to
+the Sunni sect to which he belonged.
+
+These _reflets_, for which collectors give fabulous sums, are
+intrinsically beautiful, both in the elegant conceptions of their
+designs and the fantastic richness of their colouring. There are
+designs in shades of brown on a lapis-lazuli ground, or in blue and
+green on a purple or umber ground, some of them star-shaped, with a
+pure white border composing the rest of the square, on which are
+inscribed phrases from the Koran. Looked at from above or frontwise,
+one exclaims, "What a beautiful tile!" but it is on turning it to the
+light that one's stereotyped phrases of admiration are exchanged for
+silence in presence of a singular iridescence which transfigures the
+tile, making it seem to gleam from within with golden purples and rosy
+gold.
+
+The mosaic tiles are also beautiful, especially where the mosaic is on
+a lapis-lazuli or canary-yellow ground, neither of them reproducible
+at this day; and this also refers to other shades of blue, and to
+various reds and browns of exceeding richness, the art of making which
+has been lost for a century. But enough of art!
+
+Possibly there may be a resurrection for Persian art; but in the
+meantime aniline dyes, tawdry European importations, and Western
+models without either grace or originality are doing their best to
+deprave it here, as elsewhere.
+
+Roads from Tihran, Gulpaigan, Yezd, and Isfahan meet here, and it is
+something of what the Americans call "a distributing point," but it is
+a most uninviting place, in situation and general aspect, and its
+unsightly mud ruins, as in other Persian cities, are eloquent of
+nothing but paralysis and retrogression.
+
+_Murcheh Khurt, Palm Sunday, March 30._--Three very pleasant marches,
+equal to seventy-six miles, have brought me here, and now Isfahan is
+only two days off, and it will end my palmy days of Persian
+travelling.
+
+The first day's march from Kashan was only seven _farsakhs_ (the
+_parasang_ of Xenophon), twenty-eight miles, but it is equivalent to
+thirty-five, owing to the roughness of the road and the long ascent.
+There was scarcely any ground for galloping, the way was lost once,
+and the march took over eight hours.
+
+The track, for only in places did it attain to the dignity of a
+bridle-road, lay for hours over a stony desert, and then entered the
+mountains, where I halted for an hour at the once magnificent
+caravanserai of Gaberabad, in a romantic situation, but falling fast
+into ruins, and deserted for no reason, so far as I could make out,
+but that people used to be robbed and have their throats cut there.
+
+Beyond it the scenery became very wild, and the rocks and mountains
+highly coloured and snow-patched, and after ascending along the side
+of a stream and up a causewayed sort of stair past the reservoir which
+supplies Kashan with water, we entered the rising valley of Kuhr[=u]d,
+where the snow came nearly down to the road, and every slope was
+terraced and every level cultivated, and young wheat was springing and
+fruit orchards flourished, with green sward under the branches, and
+great poplars in picturesque groups towered above the lower woods.
+
+We lost the way in the snow, and then took to the pebbly river as the
+safest track, and had an hour of fumbling in water and snow under
+apple and pear trees for the halting-place. The twilight of a frosty
+evening was coming on when we reached the village of Kuhr[=u]d--500
+houses in terraces on a mountain side, and clustering round a fort on
+a projecting spur.
+
+It is surrounded and interpenetrated by groves of walnut, apricot,
+cherry, peach, plum, apple, pear, poplar, and vine, with roses
+climbing over everything and planted in rows like vines, and through
+it passes a fair, bright stream of living water, a stream "whose
+waters fail not," turning the mountain valley into an oasis. But at
+that altitude of something like 7000 feet, the buds are only just
+swelling, and the crimson catkins of the hazels were the only reminder
+of spring. It is the one place that I should care to revisit.
+
+The snow was piled in great heaps in the village and against the wall
+of the very wretched, ruinous _chapar khana_ in which I sought rest
+and shelter. Mahboud went up to the loft over the gateway, and came
+down looking dejected, mustering English enough to say, "No, no, mem
+Sahib!" I actually had to occupy one of the two gateway rooms, an
+inferior stable, without the smallest window hole, and no door except
+two unconnected boards with which one could cover a part of the
+doorway. Even when these were not put up a candle was necessary. It
+was freezing hard, but one could not have a fire because there was no
+smoke-hole. The walls were slimily and inkily black from the smoke of
+the fires of people who were less particular than I am. The dust and
+rubbish of the floor were swept into one corner. If one wanted a
+place to store boxes in, and looked into that room, one would exclaim
+dubiously, "Well, it _might_ do for glass and china!"
+
+Mahboud put a rug on the floor and brought a bowl of delicious milk,
+and with an inverted saddle for a pillow I rested quite comfortably,
+being too tired to be impatient, till Mirza Yusuf arrived with my
+luxuries, and the news that the caravan could not get in for another
+hour, for that several of the mules had fallen and the loads were
+slipping round constantly. Indeed it was ten before I had dinner. It
+is very fortunate to have an attendant always cheerful, never fussy,
+caring nothing for personal comfort, and always ready to interpret.
+
+The _ketchuda_ called with the usual proffer of service, "I am your
+sacrifice," etc., and induced me to buy some of the specialties of
+Kuhr[=u]d, rose-water in bottles without corks, and a paste made of
+rose-water, pounded walnuts, and sugar. The rose-water is not very
+clear, but it has much of the overpowering, lingering odour of attar
+of roses.
+
+Kuhr[=u]d seems prosperous. Besides exporting large quantities of
+rose-water and walnut paste formed into blocks and done up in white
+skins, it sends wheat and fruit in abundance to Kashan.
+
+Freedom, good sleep, and satisfactory travelling make up for all
+annoyances but vermin, and these are still hybernating. In that
+precarious privacy I slept soundly, and got the caravan off at eight
+the next morning--a glorious winter morning, the icy roads and the
+snow-covered valley glittering with frost crystals. We lost the way
+again among the pretty orchards, then got into a valley between high
+mud mountains, whose shapelessness is now judiciously concealed by
+snow from one to three feet deep, through which a track has been
+broken a foot wide. It is six miles from Kuhr[=u]d to the summit of
+the Kuhr[=u]d Pass, which is over 8000 feet, and it grew very cold
+and gray, and ragged masses of cloud swept angrily round the
+mountain-tops.
+
+On the steepest part of the ascent it was extremely slippery, and the
+horses not being roughed slipped badly, and I was just fearing an
+accident to my borrowed horse and planning some method of dismounting
+when down he came on his nose and then on the side of his head, and
+fell several times again in his struggles to get up, his feet slipping
+from under him. When he did succeed in getting on his legs I was
+convinced that he had cut his knees, and slipped off him somehow to
+examine them; but my fears were groundless, and I had great difficulty
+in getting out of the drift into which I had descended, which was
+nearly up to my shoulders. His nose was bleeding a little, but that
+was all.
+
+There was no way of remounting on a path a foot wide between walls of
+snow, and besides I was afraid of another accident, so I slipped the
+snaffle rein over his head and led him. It was horribly slippery, and
+having nails in my boots I fell several times just under his feet, but
+the sweet creature always stopped when I fell.
+
+From the top there was a truly fearful view of "blackness, darkness,
+and tempest," inky mists, white mountain-tops showing momentarily
+through them to be lost again, and great sheets of very deep snow.
+Soon the gathering storm burst, a "blizzard" in which the snow was
+quite blinding, snow drifting and hissing as it went by, the wind
+tempestuous, mountains, valleys, path obliterated, even the soldier in
+front of me constantly lost to sight. An hour of this and I could walk
+no more, and somehow scrambled into the saddle.
+
+At the foot of the descent the sky cleared, the sun shone, and we
+picked up the caravan, which had had rather a hard time. The
+succeeding route was through an absolutely uninhabited and
+uninhabitable country, clay and mud hills, purple, red, gray, pink,
+brown, an utter desolation, till we came in sight of the good-sized
+and at a distance imposing-looking village of Soh in a keen wind with
+frequent snow showers. Soh is a telegraph testing station.
+
+The electrician was absent, but had kindly left directions that I was
+to be received, and I found a most comfortable guest-room quite ready.
+A little later an Englishman riding _chapar_ to Isfahan threw a packet
+of English letters in at my door--a delightful surprise, which made
+havoc of the rest of the evening.
+
+The desolation of this part of the route may be judged of from the
+fact that except the village of Kuhr[=u]d there is not an inhabited
+house for forty-six miles. The country traversed reminds me much of
+the least interesting part of the route from Lesser Tibet into Kulu.
+
+Yesterday morning there was ice, and the roads were very slippery on
+the gradual descent from the plain which opens out after passing
+Bideshk, the _chapar_ station, an hour from Soh. The twenty-four
+miles' ride over this gravelly waste, quite uninhabited, was very
+pleasant, as it was possible to gallop much of the way, and besides
+the beauty of the atmospheric colouring the mirage occurring in most
+remarkable forms rendered monotony impossible.
+
+There were no caravans on the road, but I met several dervishes, and
+there is one here to whom I have given what he demanded--a night's
+lodging. He carries a large carved almsholder; and the panther skin on
+his shoulders, the knotted club, and his lean, hungry, fanatical face
+give him a dangerous look. All I have seen on this march have worn
+long matted bushy hair, often covering their shoulders, an axe in the
+girdle, and peculiar turbans decorated with phrases from the Koran.
+They are the "mendicant friars" of Persia, and are under vows of
+poverty. Some are said to be learned; but they object to discussing
+religious matters with infidels, and almost nothing is known as to
+their beliefs. They hold universally the sanctity of idleness, and the
+duty of being supported by the community. The lower classes hold them
+in reverence, and the upper, though they are apt to loathe them, treat
+them with great respect, for fear of laying themselves open to the
+charge of laxity in religious matters.
+
+  [Illustration: A DERVISH.]
+
+Many of them deal in charms, and are consulted as astrologers. Some
+are professed tellers of stories, to which I am told no European could
+degrade himself by listening, but which are most palatable to a
+village audience; and at this moment this unwelcome guest of mine has
+a crowd listening to a narrative partly told and partly acted.
+
+They are credited with many vices, among the least of which are hazy
+ideas as to mine and thine, opium and bhang smoking to excess, and
+drunkenness.
+
+They have recognised heads or chiefs, to whom they show great
+deference. One of their vows is that of obedience; and besides paying
+to the chief a part of the alms they receive, he gives them orders as
+to the houses they are to infest, and though the nuisance is not so
+common as formerly, a dervish at the door is still a sign of being
+great or rich, or both. Their cries, and their rude blasts on the
+buffalo horn, which is a usual part of their equipment, are most
+obnoxious. In the larger towns, such as Kum and Kirmanshah, there are
+shops for the sale of their outfit--the tiger and panther skins, the
+axes, the knotted clubs, the almsbowls, etc.
+
+Some are respectable, and enjoy much consideration, and I hope that
+many even of those whom a careful writer has called "disgusting
+vagabonds" are not humbugs; but the presumption is so much the other
+way that I am always glad when the ground admits of galloping past
+them, otherwise the dervish comes forward, with his knotted club much
+_en evidence_, with many compliments and good wishes, or else silently
+extends his almsholder, ejaculating _Huk_ ("my right"). I usually have
+the means of appeasing, if not of satisfying him, but on the rare
+occasions when I have had no money the yells and maledictions have
+been awful.
+
+The light and profane use of the Divine name is universal. The
+dervishes curse, but every one uses the name _Allah_ wherever they can
+bring it in. The _Ya Allah_, as an expression of fatigue, or
+discontent, or interest, or nothing, is heard all day, and the boy who
+drives a cow, or a team, or a mule in a caravan, cries _Ya Allah_
+incessantly as an equivalent of "go along," and the gardener pushing
+his spade into the ground, the chopper with every blow of the axe, the
+labourer throwing up bricks, ejaculates the same. _Mashallah_,
+_Inshallah_, interlard all conversation. When men are building, the
+perpetual sing-song of phrases such as these is heard, "Brother, in
+God's name toss me a brick," the other replying, "Brother, in God's
+name here is a brick."
+
+The vocabulary of abuse is also very large, and often involves serious
+reflections on the female relatives of the person abused. I hear such
+harmless phrases as "son of a burnt father," "son of a dog,"
+"offspring of a pig," etc., on all occasions.
+
+Murcheh Khurt is a large village with a good deal of cultivation about
+it, a mosque or more, a _hammam_, a _chapar khana_, and a
+caravanserai. Here again I found that the smart foreign soldier
+attracted all the notice, and that before the people ceased to wonder
+at him I had passed them. The _chapar khana_ was full of men, so I
+have had to sink to the level of a recessed den with a manger in front
+in a ruinous caravanserai crowded with Persian travellers, muleteers,
+mules, horses, and asses, and the courtyard half-choked with ruins. I
+had not seen the inside of one of these dens before. Travellers have
+exhausted the vocabulary of abuse upon them; possibly they deserve it
+in the "vermin season"; but there is nothing worse than a square and
+perfectly dark room, with unplastered walls blackened by the smoke and
+cobwebs of ages, and a door which will not fasten.
+
+The air is cool and the sky blue, and sitting at the open door is very
+pleasant. Mahboud and two of the servants caught cold at Kuhr[=u]d and
+are ill, and my Arab has a chill too. He is a very stupid horse. His
+gentle eyes never change their expression, and his small ears rarely
+move. He has little sense or affection, but when he is patted his
+proud neck takes on a loftier arch. Gentle as he is to people he is a
+brute to other horses. He would like to fight every one of them, to
+stand on his hind-legs and grapple them round the shoulders with his
+fore-feet and bite their necks, roaring and squealing all the time. He
+and Mahboud's horse are inveterate enemies, and one of the few
+difficulties of the journey is the keeping them from a regular
+stand-up fight.
+
+This village is an oasis in the desert. I have been through its gates,
+barely wide enough to admit an ass loaded with brushwood, with the
+_seraidar_ and Mirza, walked through its narrow alleys, and
+inadvertently stumbled into a mosque where a great crowd of women were
+listening to a story of one of the twelve Imams told by a _mollah_,
+looked down upon it and over the adjacent country from a house roof,
+visited several houses, in which some of the inmates were ill and
+desired "Feringhi medicine," had a long conversation with the
+_ketchuda_, who came to see me to ask for eye lotion, and with the
+_seraidar_, and altogether have had quite a pleasant day.
+
+_Chapar Khana, Gez._--I am sitting in one of the three doorless
+doorways of my loft, grieving that the journey is just over, and that
+this is the last night of the exhilarating freedom of the desert. I
+rode twenty-four miles before one o'clock to-day, over a level
+uncultivated plain, bordered as usual by ranges of mountains. In fact,
+while I write of levels and plains it must be understood that Persia
+is chiefly a land of hills rising from a table-land from 3400 feet to
+6000 feet in altitude, and that the traveller is rarely, if ever, more
+than fourteen or fifteen miles from mountains from 2000 to 6000 feet
+above the plain from which they rise, crowned by Demavend, whose
+imposing summit is 18,600 feet above the sea. The hills beyond Isfahan
+have assumed lofty proportions, and some of the snowy mountains of
+Luristan are to be seen in the far distance.
+
+It is nearly an unmitigated waste between Murcheh Khurt and Gez,
+destitute even of tufts of wormwood; but the latter part of the march
+is through a stoneless alluvial desert of dry friable soil, soft
+springy galloping ground which water would turn into a paradise of
+fertility; and water there has once been, for not far from the road
+are the remains of some _kanaats_.
+
+The questions naturally arise in a traveller's mind, first, what
+becomes of the enormous amount of snow which falls on the mountains;
+and next, how in a country so arid as the plateaus of Central Asia
+water for irrigation, and for the basins and fountains which abound in
+rich men's houses, is obtained.
+
+Wells, unless the artesian borings shortly to be begun in the Tihran
+desert should be successful, are all but unknown, except for supplying
+drinking water, and there are scarcely any reservoirs, but ingenuity
+has devised a plan of subterranean water-channels, which besides their
+other advantages prevent loss by evaporation. Tihran has thirty-five
+of them, and the water which they distribute is naturally expensive,
+as the cost of making them is great.
+
+It is on the slope of a hill that the spring is found which is the
+original source of supply; this is tapped at some depth, and its
+waters are led along a tunnel about four feet high by two feet wide
+lined with baked pottery where the ground is soft, and having a slight
+fall to the next spring or well, which may be from twenty-five to even
+sixty yards off.
+
+As the labourers dig they draw up the earth and arrange it in a circle
+round the shaft, and as they come to water they draw up the mud and
+pour it on the top of the earth, where it dries and hardens, and
+below, the water is conducted as a running underground stream across
+great plains, its progress marked by mounds which have been compared
+to ant-hills and craters, but to my thinking are more like the shafts
+of disused mines.
+
+Hundreds of these _kanaats_ are seen, ruined and dry, and are the
+resort of porcupines and jackals. To construct a _kanaat_ may call a
+village or series of villages into being. The letting it fall to ruin
+is one cause of deserted villages. Those which are not lined require
+annual repairs, which are now going on, but frequently the complete
+fall of the roof destroys the fall of the water, and the tunnel
+becomes irreparable.
+
+The peasants are obliged to buy the water, for they cannot steal it,
+and the making of a _kanaat_ is often a lucrative speculation. Pigeons
+live in them, and many of them are full of fish, which foreigners
+amuse themselves by poisoning by throwing a mixture of _cocculus
+indicus_ with dough down the wells, when the poisoned but wholesome
+fish rise to the surface. They usually recover when they are left in
+the water. Dr. Wills describes them as having a muddy taste. The
+_kanaats_ are a feature of Persia.
+
+Ever since leaving Kum all the dry and hard parts of the road have
+been covered with the industrious "road beetle," which works, like the
+ant, in concert, and carries on its activities at all seasons,
+removing from the road to its nest all the excreta of animals, except
+in regions where even animal fuel is so exceptionally scarce that boys
+with asses and ponies follow caravans for the same purpose. These
+beetles hover over the road on the wing, and on alighting proceed to
+roll the ball towards the nest, four or five of them standing on their
+hind-legs and working it forwards, or else rolling it with their heads
+close to the ground. Their instinct is wonderful, and they attract the
+attention of all travellers. They are about the size of a small
+walnut. Otherwise there is little of animated life to be seen on this
+route.
+
+No day has had fewer noticeable objects. Two or three _abambars_,
+several caravanserais in absolute ruins, and a magnificent one in
+partial ruins are its record.
+
+Gez consists of this post-house and a decaying caravanserai. From the
+roof as I write I watch the grooming of a whole row of _chapar_
+horses. As each pad is removed there is a horrid revelation of wounds,
+deep ulcers, sores often a foot long, and in some cases the white
+vertebrae of the spine are exposed. These are the wretched animals
+which often carry men from fourteen to seventeen stone who ride fifty
+miles in a day. It is hard enough even with extreme carefulness to
+keep the back of a horse all right on a continuous journey, but I
+never before saw animals ridden in such a state. They wince pitifully
+when their pads are put on again.
+
+The desert is all around, purpling in the sunset, sweeping up to low
+broken ridges, and to some higher hills in the north-west covered with
+new-fallen snow. That the waste only requires water to make it
+prolific is apparent, for below these walls wheat is growing
+luxuriantly in some deep pits, irrigated from a dirty ditch out of
+which the drinking water comes. Nothing can be got, except by sending
+to a village a mile away.
+
+Four of the men are ill, one with inflammation of the eyes, another
+with an abscess, and a third, a very strong man, with something like
+bilious fever, and a _charvadar_ with malarial fever. The strong man's
+moans often become howls. He insists that he shall die to-night. These
+two afternoons have been much taken up with making poultices and
+medicines, and I shall be glad for the poor fellows to reach Isfahan
+and the care of a competent doctor.
+
+_Julfa, April 2._--I daresay this journey seems longer to you than it
+did to me. It was very pleasant, and its goal is pleasant, and a most
+kind welcome and the refinement of cultured English people go far to
+compensate for the loss of the desert freedom and the easy stride of
+the Arab horse.
+
+I started the caravan at nine yesterday, with two men with bandaged
+eyes, and other two hardly able to sit on their mules; Mahboud, who is
+really more seriously ill than any of them, keeping up his pluck and
+capableness to the last. The man who threatened to die at Gez was
+very much better the next morning.
+
+Soon after leaving Gez the country changes its aspect, the road
+becomes very bad, and passes through nine miles of rich
+cultivation--wheat, barley, opium, and vegetables growing abundantly;
+orchards are numerous, villages with trees and gardens succeed each
+other rapidly, water abounds, and before the gate of Isfahan is
+reached, domes and minarets rising among cypresses, planes, and
+poplars indicate the remains of the former capital of Persia.
+
+Inside the shabby gateway the road to Julfa lies among rows of mean
+mud houses, heaps of ruins, and shabby provision bazars; and that mile
+or more of Isfahan was the one disagreeable part of the journey.
+
+It was about the last day of the holidays, and the bazars, alleys, and
+open spaces were full of men in gay attire, and companies of shrouded
+women were moving along the quieter roads. It was too warm for the
+sheepskin coat which had served me so well at Kum, and I had dressed
+with some regard to European sensibilities. The boys began to shout "A
+Feringhi woman! a Nazarene woman!" and then to call bad names; then
+men began to make up fiendish laughs,[32] and the howls and outcries
+gathered strength as I went on at the inevitable foot's pace, spitting
+being quite common, poor Mahboud constantly turning to me a perturbed
+wretched face, full of annoyance at the insults of his co-religionists,
+which it would have been dangerous to resent. It was a bad half-hour.
+
+Before passing the residence of the Amir-i-Panj (the commander of
+5000) near the Julfa gate the uproar died away, and once through the
+gate and in the _Chahar Bagh_ (four gardens) there was peace. A bad
+road of cobble stones, with a double avenue of once magnificent
+planes, some once ornamental tanks, very high walls, pierced by
+storied gates, ornamented with wild designs on plaster in flaring
+colours, above which a blue dome is a conspicuous object, leads to a
+handsome bridge of thirty-three arches, with a broad level roadway,
+and corridors for foot passengers on either side, over the Zainderud,
+then came fields with springing wheat, a few houses, a narrow alley,
+and two or three miles from Isfahan the gate of its Armenian suburb,
+Julfa.
+
+At once on crossing the bridge there was a change. Ruddy,
+cheery-looking unveiled women in red gowns, and pure white _chadars_
+completely enveloping their persons, moved freely about, and the men
+wore neither the becoming turban nor the ominous scowl of Islam. In
+the quaint narrow streets were churches with open vestibules, through
+which pictures of the thorn-crowned Christ and of sweet-faced Madonnas
+were visible; priests in black robes and women in white glided along
+the narrow roads. There was the fresher, purer air of Christianity,
+however debased and corrupted. In the low-browed churches divine
+honours are paid to a crowned and risen Christ, and the white-robed
+women have been baptized into His name. Never again will the Julfa
+alleys be so peaceful and lovable as yesterday, when they offered a
+haven from the howling bigots of Isfahan.
+
+Dr. Bruce has not returned from Baghdad, but Mrs. and Miss Bruce
+welcomed me very kindly, and I am already forgetting my unpleasant
+reception. I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[32] I can imagine now what a hellish laugh that was with which "they
+laughed Him to scorn."
+
+I was a month in Julfa, but never saw anything more of Isfahan, which
+is such a fanatical city that I believe even so lately as last year
+none of the ladies of the European community had visited it, except
+one or two disguised as Persian women.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XII
+
+
+     JULFA, _April 17_.
+
+Mr. George Curzon wrote of Julfa: "The younger Julfa is a place wholly
+destitute of superficial attractions, consisting as it does of a
+labyrinth of narrow alleys closed by doors and plentifully perforated
+with open sewers. Life there is 'cabined, cribbed, confined' to an
+intolerable degree, and it is a relief to escape from its squalid
+precincts."
+
+I dare not write thus if I would! It is now the early spring. The
+"sewers" are clear rapid streams, margined by grass and dandelions,
+and shaded by ash trees and pollard willows in their first flush of
+green. The "narrow alleys" are scrupulously clean, and there is
+neither mud nor dust. If I go up on the roof I see a cultivated oasis,
+gardens prolonged indefinitely concealing the desert which lies
+between them and the bold mountain ranges which surround this lofty
+and breezy plain. Every breeze is laden with the delicious odour of
+the bean blossom. A rapid river spanned by noble bridges hurries
+through the oasis it has helped to create, and on its other side the
+domes and minarets of Isfahan rise out of masses of fine trees, and
+bridges and mosques, minarets and mountains, are all seen through a
+most exquisite pink mist, for hundreds of standard peach trees are in
+full bloom, and look where one may everything is _couleur de rose_.
+
+I quite admit that Julfa consists of a "labyrinth of alleys." I can
+never find my way about it. One alley with its shady central stream
+(or "sewer"), its roughly paved paths on either side, its mud walls
+pierced by low doors, is very much like another, and however lucky one
+may be in "happening on" the right road, it is always a weary time
+before one escapes from between mud walls into the gardens and
+wheatfields, to the blossoming beans, and the exquisite wild-flowers
+among the wheat.
+
+As to the "cabined, cribbed, confined" life, I can give no testimony
+from personal knowledge. All life in European settlements in the East
+appears to me "cabined, cribbed, confined," and greatly devoid of
+external interests. Perhaps Julfa is deficient in the latter in an
+eminent degree, and in a very small foreign community people are
+interested chiefly in each other's affairs, sayings, and doings. Lawn
+tennis, picnics, and dinner parties are prevalent, the ordinary
+etiquette of European society prevails, and in all cases of need the
+residents are kind to each other both in life and death.
+
+The European society is divided into three circles--the missionaries,
+the mercantile community, and the telegraph staff. The British agent,
+Mr. Aganoor, is an Armenian.[33] No Christians, Armenian or European,
+live in Isfahan, and it is practically _defendu_ to European women.
+This transpontine restriction undoubtedly narrows the life and
+interests of Julfa. It is aggravating and tantalising to be for ever
+looking at a city of 60,000 or 70,000 people, the fallen capital of
+the Sufari dynasty, and never be able to enter it.
+
+This Christian town of Julfa has a certain accessible historic
+interest. Shah Abbas, justly surnamed the Great, conceived the
+sagacious project of introducing among his Persian subjects at
+Isfahan--then, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, a
+magnificent capital--the Christian habits of trading, sagacity, and
+thrift, for then as now the Armenians had commercial dealings with
+China, India, and Europe, and had imported several arts into Persia.
+
+This project he carried out in truly despotic fashion by moving almost
+the whole population of Julfa on the Araxes, on the modern
+Russo-Persian frontier, to the banks of the Zainderud, making over to
+it the best lands in the neighbourhood of Isfahan. Many years later
+the new Julfa was a place with twenty-four churches, great prosperity,
+and an estimated population of 40,000. Its agriculturists were
+prosperous market-gardeners for the huge city of Isfahan, and it had
+likewise a great trading community, and was renowned for the making of
+jewellery and watches.
+
+It has now a dwindling population of about 3000, chiefly elderly men,
+women, and girls, the young men, after receiving a good education in
+the Church Mission and other schools, flying from its stagnation to
+India, Java, and even Europe. The twenty-four churches are reduced to
+twelve, and these with the vast cemetery in the desert at the base of
+Kuh Sufi are its chief objects of interest, apart from those which are
+human and living.
+
+_April 22._--The peach blossoms have long since fallen, but perhaps I
+still see Julfa _couleur de rose_, even after three weeks, so very
+great is the kindness under this roof, and so fully is my time
+occupied with various interests, and the preparations for a difficult
+journey.
+
+This, as you know, is the Church Mission House. Dr. Bruce has been
+here for twenty years, and until lately, when the Archbishop of
+Canterbury's mission to the Assyrian Christians began its work at
+Urmi, near the Turkish frontier in the north-west, this was the only
+English mission in the Empire. It was contemplated as a mission to the
+Mohammedans, but in this respect has been an apparent failure. It is
+true that much prejudice has been disarmed, and, as I have heard from
+some leading Mohammedans, Dr. Bruce's zeal and good works have won
+their respect. A large part of the Bible has been translated into
+Persian and very widely circulated through the adjacent country by
+means of colporteurs of the British and Foreign Bible Society. His
+preaching of Christianity is listened to respectfully, and even with
+interest, wherever he itinerates, and Moslems daily call on him, and
+show much friendliness, but the results, as results are usually
+estimated, are _nil_--that is, no Mohammedans openly profess
+Christianity.
+
+There is actual though not legal toleration, but Moslem children may
+not attend a mission school, and a Moslem who becomes a Christian
+loses his means of living, and probably his life is sacrificed to
+fanaticism.
+
+In consequence of these difficulties, and certain encouragements in
+another direction, the _ostensible_ work of the mission is among
+Armenians. Dr. Bruce has not been afraid of incurring the stigma of
+being a proselytiser, and has a large congregation of Armenians
+worshipping after the English form, ninety-four being communicants of
+the Church of England. On Easter Eve there was an evening Communion,
+and the great row of women kneeling at the rail in the pure white
+robes which cover them from head to foot, and then moving back to
+their places in the dim light, was very picturesque and beautiful.
+
+Good works have been added one after another, till the mission is now
+a very large establishment. The C.M.S. has been liberal to this, its
+only Persian agency, and Dr. Bruce, having private means, has
+generously expended them largely on missionary work in Julfa.
+
+The chief features of the compounds are the church, which is both
+simple and ecclesiastical in its exterior and interior, and the
+library adjoining it, where Dr. Bruce works at the translation of the
+Old Testament into Persian and the revision of the New, aided by a
+_munshi_, and where through much of the day he is receiving Moslems,
+some of whom come to inquire into Christianity, others for religious
+disputations, and a third and numerous class out of mere friendliness.
+The latter are generally invited into the Mission House, and are
+regaled with coffee and _kalians_, in orthodox Persian fashion. Among
+the latter visitors has been the Amir-i-Panj, who came to ask me to
+call on his wife, accompanied by a general of cavalry, whose name I
+cannot spell, and who speaks French remarkably well.
+
+Among the other buildings are those of the Medical Mission, which
+include a roomy courtyard, where the animals which carry the patients
+are tethered, rooms for the doctor, a well-arranged dispensary and
+consulting-room, with waiting-rooms for both sexes, and rooms above in
+which serious surgical cases are received for treatment, and where at
+present there are eleven patients, although just now there is no
+European doctor, and they are being treated by the native assistants,
+most kindly helped by Dr. Scully of the telegraph staff. This hospital
+and dispensary are largely taken advantage of by Moslems, who highly
+appreciate this form of Christian benevolence.
+
+The boys' school, with 205 pupils, has been a great benefit to Julfa.
+The head-master, Mr. Johannes, was educated in England and was
+formerly a master of the Nassik School in India. This school provides
+the education of one of our best middle-class schools, and the
+teaching is thorough. _Smattering_ would be infinitely despised by
+teachers and pupils. In this thorough fashion Latin, French, the first
+four books of Euclid, and algebra are taught to the young men of the
+upper form. The boys have a large playground, with a great tank for
+bathing, and some of the equipments of a gymnasium, a vaulting pole,
+parallel bars, etc.
+
+The girls' schools, containing 100 girls, have their own courtyard,
+and they need enlarging, though the process has been more than once
+repeated. Mrs. Aidin, an English teacher, is at their head, and
+exercises that strong influence which love and firmness give. The
+girls are a mass of red, a cool red, without yellow, and when they
+disperse they enliven the Julfa alleys with their carnation dresses
+and pure white _chadars_. The education is solid and suitable, and
+special attention is given to needlework.
+
+Besides these there is an orphanage, begun for the benefit of those
+whose parents died in the famine, in which are twenty boys. Outside
+are many other works, a Bible House, from which colporteurs at
+intervals proceed on journeys, a Young Men's Christian Association, or
+something like it, etc. etc.
+
+Now as to the Mission House itself, which has to accommodate Dr.,
+Mrs., and Miss Bruce, Mr. Carless, a clerical missionary, and two
+English lady missionaries. So much has been written lately about the
+"style of living" of missionaries, their large houses, and somewhat
+unnecessary comfort in general, that I am everywhere specially
+interested in investigating the subject, having formed no definite
+opinion on the question whether living as natives or living as
+Europeans is the more likely mode of producing a salutary impression.
+
+The Mission House here is a native building, its walls and ceilings
+simply decorated with pale brown arabesques on a white ground. There
+are a bedroom and parlour, with an ante-room between giving access to
+both from the courtyard, a storeroom, and a kitchen. Across the court
+are servants' quarters and a guest-room for natives. Above these,
+reached by an outside stair, are a good room, occupied by Mr. Carless
+as study and bedroom, and one small guest-room. Another stair leads to
+two rooms above some of the girls' school premises, having enclosed
+alcoves used as sleeping and dressing rooms. These are occupied by two
+ladies. One room serves as eating-room for the whole mission party, at
+present six in number, and as drawing-room and workroom. Books, a
+harmonium, Persian rugs on the floor, and just enough furniture for
+use constitute its "luxury."
+
+There are two servants, both of course men, and all the ladies do some
+housework. At present the only horse is the dispensary horse, a beast
+of such rough and uneven paces that it is a penance to ride him. The
+food is abundant, well cooked, and very simple.
+
+The life, all round, is a very busy one. Visitors are never refused at
+any hour. The long flat mud roofs from which one can see the gardens
+and the hills are used for exercise, otherwise some of the party would
+never have anything better than mud walls for their horizon, and life
+in courtyards is rather depressing for Europeans. I have told facts,
+and make no comments, and it must be remembered that both Dr. Bruce
+and Miss V----, a lady of rare devotion who has lately arrived,[34] are
+to a certain extent "honorary" missionaries, and have the means, if
+they had the desire, of surrounding themselves with comforts.
+
+This is about the twenty-third mission circle with which I have become
+acquainted during the last eight months, and I see in nearly all the
+same difficulties, many of them of a nature which we can hardly
+realise at home.
+
+Women coming to the East as missionaries are by far the greatest
+sufferers, especially if they are young, for Eastern custom, which in
+their position cannot be defied with advantage, limits free action and
+abridges all the comforts of independence. Thus a woman cannot take a
+walk or a ride or go to a house without a trusty man-servant in
+attendance on her, and this is often inconvenient, so she does not go
+out at all, contenting herself with a walk on the roof or in the
+courtyard.
+
+The wave of enthusiasm on which a lady leaves her own country soon
+spends its force. The interest which has centred round her for weeks
+or even months is left behind. The enthusiastic addresses and farewell
+meetings, the journey "up the country" with its excitement and
+novelties, and the cordial welcome from the mission circle to which
+she is introduced, soon become things of the past. The circle, however
+kind, has its own interests and work, and having provided her with a
+_munshi_, necessarily goes on its own way more or less, and she is
+left to face the fearful difficulties of languages with which ours has
+no affinity, in a loneliness which is all the more severely felt
+because she is usually, for a time at least, one nominally of a family
+circle.
+
+Unless she is a doctor or nurse she can do nothing till she has
+learned the language, and the difficulty of learning is increased by
+the loss of the flexible mind and retentive memory which are the
+heritage of extreme youth. The temptation is to "go at it" violently.
+Then come the aching head, the loss of sleep, the general lassitude
+and nervousness, and the self-questionings as to whether she was right
+in leaving her fruitful work in England.
+
+Then, instead of realising the truth of the phrases used at
+home--"multitudes flocking as the doves to their windows"--"fields
+white unto the harvest," etc.--she finds that the work instead of
+seeking her has to be made by her most laboriously, and oftentimes
+the glowing hope of telling of the Redeemer's love and death to
+throngs of eager and receptive listeners is fulfilled in the drudgery
+of teaching sewing and the rudiments of English during the first year.
+
+It is just this first year under which many women succumb. Then how
+many of the failings and weaknesses of the larger world must be
+epitomised in a mission group exposed, as Mr. Heyde of Kyelang
+feelingly said, "to the lowering influence of daily contact with a
+courteous and non-repulsive Heathenism and Mohammedanism"!
+Missionaries are not likely to possess, as they certainly are the last
+to claim, superior sanctity, and the new-comer, dreaming of a circle
+in all respects consecrated, finds herself among frictions, strong
+differences as to methods of working, not always gently expressed, and
+possible jealousies and criticisms, and an exaggeration of the
+importance of trifles, natural where large events are rare. A
+venerable American missionary in Turkey said, "Believe me, the
+greatest trial of missionaries is missionaries."
+
+The small group is frequently destitute of social resources outside
+itself, it is cut off from friendly visits, services, lectures, music,
+new books, news, and the many recreative influences which all men
+regard as innocent. The life-work seems at times thrown away, the
+heat, the flies, and the mosquitos are depressing and exhausting, and
+in the case of young women, especially till they can use the language
+colloquially, there is little if any outside movement. Is it wonderful
+that supposed slights, tiffs, criticisms which would be utterly
+brushed away if a good walk in the open or a good gallop were
+possible, should be brooded over till they attain a magnitude which
+embitters and depresses life?
+
+A man constantly finds the first year or two very trying till he has
+his tools--the language--at command, and even men at times rub each
+other the wrong way, but a man can take a good walk or a solitary
+gallop, or better still, a week of itinerating among the villages.
+People speak of the dangers and privations of missionary life. I think
+that these are singularly over-estimated. But the trials which I have
+alluded to, and which, with the hot climates and insufficient
+exercise, undermine the health of very many female missionaries,
+cannot be exaggerated, and demand our deep sympathy.
+
+I do not think that the ordinary pious woman, the successful and
+patient worker in district visiting, Bible classes, mothers' meetings,
+etc., is necessarily suited to be a foreign missionary, but that a
+heart which is a well-spring of human love, and a natural "enthusiasm
+of humanity" are required, as well as love to the Master, the last
+permeating and sanctifying the others, and giving them a perennial
+freshness. Fancy G. G---- grumbling and discontented and magnifying
+unpropitious trifles, when her heart goes out to every Chinawoman she
+sees in a perfect passion of love![35]
+
+With the _medical_ missionary, whether man or woman, the case is
+different. The work seeks the worker even before he is ready for it,
+claims him, pursues him, absorbs him, and he is powerful to heal even
+where he is impotent to convert.
+
+I have been to the hospital to see a woman from the Kuhr[=u]d
+mountains, who was brought here to undergo an operation. She had spent
+all her living on native physicians without result, and her husband
+has actually sold his house to get money to give his wife a last
+chance of recovery. Fifteen years ago this man nearly took Dr. Bruce's
+life. Now, he says, "The fruits of Christianity are good."
+
+Daily the "labyrinth of alleys" becomes denser with leafage, and the
+sun is hot enough to make the shade very pleasant, while occasional
+showers keep the greenery fresh. Indeed it is warm enough in my room
+to make the cool draught from the _b[=a]dg[=i]r_ very pleasant. These
+wind-towers are a feature of all Persian cities, breaking the monotony
+of the flat roofs.
+
+Letters can be sent once a week from Isfahan, and there is another
+opportunity very safe and much taken advantage of, the "Telegraph
+_chapar_," a British official messenger, who rides up and down between
+Bushire and Tihran at stated intervals. The Persian post is a wretched
+institution, partaking of the general corruption of Persian
+officialism, and nowhere, unless _registered_, are letters less safe
+than in Tihran.[36] I shall send this, scrappy as it is, as I may not
+be here for another week's mail.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[33] Since my visit Mr. Preece, then, and for many previous years, the
+superintending electrician of this section of the Indo-European
+telegraph, has been appointed Consul, the increasing dimensions of
+English interests and the increasing number of resident British
+subjects rendering the creation of a Consulate at Isfahan a very
+desirable step.
+
+[34] A few weeks later she died, her life sacrificed, I think, to
+over-study of a difficult language, and the neglect of fresh air and
+exercise.
+
+[35] These sentences were written nearly a year ago, but many
+subsequent visits to missions have only confirmed my strong view of
+the very trying nature of at least the early period of a lady
+missionary's life in the East, and of the constant failure of health
+which it produces; of the great necessity there is for mission boards
+to lay down some general rules of hygiene, which shall include the
+duty of riding on horseback, for more rigorous requirements of
+vigorous _physique_ in those sent out, and above all, that the
+_natural characteristics_ of those who are chosen to be "epistles of
+Christ" in the East shall be such as will not only naturally and
+specially commend the Gospel, but will stand the wear and strain of
+difficult circumstances.
+
+[36] Nearly all my non-registered letters to England failed to reach
+their destination.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+
+     JULFA, _April 29_.
+
+Each day has been completely filled up since I wrote, and this is
+probably the last here. My dear old Cabul tent, a _shuldari_, also
+Indian, and a servants' tent made here on a plan of my own, are
+pitched in one of the compounds to exercise the servants in the art,
+and it really looks like going after many delays.
+
+A few festivities have broken the pleasant monotony of life in this
+kindly and hospitable house--dinner parties, European and Armenian; a
+picnic on the Kuh Sufi, from which there is a very fine panoramic view
+of the vast plain and its surrounding mountains, and of the immense
+ruins of Isfahan and Julfa, with the shrunken remains of both; and a
+"church picnic."
+
+From Kuh Sufi is seen how completely, and with a sharp line of
+definition, the arid desert bounds the green oasis of cultivated and
+irrigated gardens which surround the city, and which are famous for
+the size and lusciousness of their fruit. From a confusion of ruinous
+or ragged walls of mud, of ruined and modern houses standing
+complacently among heaps of rubbish, and from amidst a greenery which
+redeems the scene, the blue tiled dome of the Masjid-i-Shah, a few
+minarets, and the great dome of the Medresseh, denuded of half its
+tiles, rise conspicuously. Long lines of mud streets and
+caravanserais, gaunt in their ruin, stretch into the desert, and the
+city once boasting of 650,000 inhabitants and a splendid court
+survives with a population of less than 80,000 at the highest
+estimate.
+
+The "church picnic" was held in a scene of decay, but 260 people, with
+all the women but three in red, enlivened it. It was in the grounds of
+the old palace of Haft Dast, in which Fatteh Ali Shah died, close to
+one of the three remarkable bridges of Isfahan, the Pul-i-Kaj[=u].
+These bridges are magnificent. Their construction is most peculiar,
+and their roadways being flat they are almost unique in Persia.
+
+The Pul-i-Kaj[=u], though of brick, has stone piers of immense size,
+which are arched over so as to form a level causeway. On this massive
+structure the upper bridge is built, comprising a double series of
+rooms at each pier with doorways overlooking the river, and there are
+staircases and rooms also in the upper piers.
+
+The Chahar Bagh bridge is also quaint and magnificent, with its
+thirty-three arches, some of them very large, its corridors for foot
+passengers, and chambers above each pier, each chamber having three
+openings to the river. These bridges have a many-storied look, from
+their innumerable windows at irregular altitudes, and form a grand
+approach to the city.
+
+As at first, so now at last the most impressive thing to me about the
+Zainderud next to its bridges is the extent to which rinsing, one of
+the processes of dyeing, is carried on upon its shingle flats. Isfahan
+dyed fabrics are famous and beautiful, heavy cottons of village make
+and unbleached cottons of Manchester make being brought here to be
+dyed and printed.
+
+There is quite a population of dyers, and now that the river is fairly
+low, many of them have camped for the season in little shelters of
+brushwood erected on the gravel banks. For fully half-a-mile these
+banks are covered with the rinsers of dyed and printed calicoes, and
+with mighty heaps of their cottons. Hundreds of pieces after the
+rinsing are laid closely together to dry, indigo and turquoise blue,
+brown and purple madder, Turkey red and saffron predominating, a vile
+aniline colour showing itself here and there. Some of the smaller
+dyers have their colour vats by the river, but most of the cotton is
+brought from Isfahan, ready dyed, on donkeys' backs, with the rinsers
+in attendance.
+
+Along the channels among the shingle banks are rows of old millstones,
+and during much of the day a rinser stands in front of each up to his
+knees in water. His methods are rough, and the cotton must be good
+which stands his treatment. Taking in his hands a piece of soaked
+half-wrung cotton, from fifteen to twenty yards long, he folds it into
+five feet and bangs it on the millstone with all his might, roaring a
+tuneless song all the time, till he fails from fatigue. The noise is
+tremendous, and there will be more yet, for the river is not nearly at
+its lowest point. When the piece has had the water beaten out of it a
+boy spreads it out on the gravel, and keeps it wet by dashing water
+over it, and then the process of beating is repeated. The coloured
+spray rising from each millstone in the bright sunshine is very
+pretty. Each rinser has his watchdog to guard the cottons on the bank,
+and between the banging, splashing, and singing, the barking of the
+dogs and the shouts of the boys, it is a noisy and cheery scene.
+
+I have heard that certain unscrupulous English makers were in the
+habit of sending "loaded" cottons here, but that the calico printers
+have been a match for them, for the calico printer weighs his cloth
+before he buys it, washes and dries it, and then weighs it again. A
+man must "get up very early" if he means to cheat a Persian.
+
+The patterns and colours are beautiful. Quilts, "table-cloths" (for
+use on the floor), and _chadars_ are often things of exquisite beauty.
+Indeed I have yielded to temptation, and to gratify my own tastes have
+bought some beautiful "table-cloths" for Bakhtiari women, printed
+chiefly in indigo and brown madder on a white ground.
+
+The temptations are great. I really need many things both for my own
+outfit and for presents to the Bakhtiaris, and pedlars come every day
+and unpack their tempting bundles in the small verandah. No Europeans
+and no women of the upper classes can enjoy the delights of shopping
+in Persia, consequently the pedlar is a necessary institution.
+
+Here they are of the humbler sort. They have learned that it is
+useless to display rich Turkestan and Feraghan carpets, gold and
+silver jewellery, inlaid arms, stuffs worked with gold thread, or any
+of the things which tempt the travelling Feringhi, so they bring all
+sorts of common fabrics, printed cambrics, worthless woollen stuffs,
+and the stout piece cottons and exquisitely-printed cotton squares of
+Isfahan.
+
+At almost any hour of the day a salaaming creature squatting at the
+door is seen, caressing a big bundle, which on seeing you he pats in a
+deprecating manner, looks up appealingly, declares that he is your
+"sacrifice," and that with great trouble and loss he has got just the
+thing the _khanum_ wants. If you hesitate for one moment the bundle is
+opened, and on his first visit he invariably shows flaring Manchester
+cottons first; but if you look and profess disgust, he produces
+cottons printed here, strokes them lovingly, and asks double their
+value for them. You offer something about half. He recedes and you
+advance till a compromise is arrived at representing the fair price.
+
+But occasionally, as about a table-cloth, if they see that you admire
+it very much but will not give the price asked, they swear by Allah
+that they will not abate a fraction, pack up their bundle, and move
+off in well-simulated indignation, probably to return the next day to
+offer the article on your own terms. Mrs. Bruce has done the
+bargaining, and I have been only an amused looker-on. I should prefer
+doing without things to the worry and tedium of the process of buying
+them.
+
+The higher class of pedlars, such as those who visit the _andaruns_ of
+the rich, go in couples, with a donkey or servant to carry their
+bundles.
+
+I mentioned that the Amir-i-Panj had called and had asked me to visit
+his wife. I sent a message to say that my entrance into Isfahan had
+been so disagreeable that I should be afraid to pass through its gates
+again, to which he replied that he would take care that I met with no
+incivility. So an afternoon visit was arranged, and he sent a splendid
+charger for me, one of the finest horses I have seen in Persia, a
+horse for Mirza Yusuf, and an escort of six cavalry soldiers, which
+was increased to twelve at the city gate. The horse I rode answered
+the description--"a neck clothed with thunder,"--he was perfectly
+gentle, but his gait was that of a creature too proud to touch the
+earth. It was exhilarating to be upon such an animal.
+
+The cavalry men rode dashing animals, and wore white Astrakan high
+caps, and the _cortege_ quite filled up the narrow alley where it
+waited, and as it passed through the Chahar Bagh and the city gate,
+with much prancing and clatter, no "tongue wagged" either of dervish
+or urchin.
+
+At the entrance to the Amir's house I was received by an
+_aide-de-camp_ and a number of soldier-servants, and was "conducted"
+into a long room opening by many windows upon a beautiful garden full
+of peach blossom, violets, and irises; the table was covered with
+very pretty confectionery, including piles of _gaz_, a favourite
+sweetmeat, made of manna which is chiefly collected within eighty
+miles of Isfahan. Coffee was served in little cups in filigree gold
+receptacles, and then the Amir-i-Panj appeared in a white uniform,
+with a white lambskin cap, and asked "permission to have the honour of
+accompanying me to the _andarun_."
+
+Persian politeness is great, and the Amir, though I think he is a Turk
+and not a Persian, is not deficient in it. Such phrases as "My house
+is purified by your presence, I live a thousand years in this visit,"
+etc., were freely used.
+
+This man, who receives from all a very high character, and whom
+Moslems speak of as a "saint," is the most interesting Moslem I have
+met. In one sense a thoroughly religious man, he practises all the
+virtues which he knows, almsgiving to the extent of self-denial,
+without distinction of creed, charity in word and deed, truth, purity,
+and justice.
+
+I had been much prepossessed in his favour not only from Dr. Bruce's
+high opinion of him but by the unbounded love and reverence which my
+interpreter has for him. Mirza Yusuf marched on foot from Bushire to
+Isfahan, without credentials, an alien, and penniless, and this good
+man hearing of him took him into his house, and treated him as a
+welcome guest till a friend of his, a Moslem, a general in the Persian
+army, also good and generous, took him to Tihran, where he remained as
+his guest for some months, and was introduced into the best Persian
+society. From him I learned how beautiful and pure a life may be even
+in a corrupt nation. When he bowed to kiss the Amir's hand, with
+grateful affection in his face, his "benefactor," as he always calls
+him, turned to me and said, "He is to me as a dear son, God will be
+with him."
+
+The garden is well laid out, and will soon be full of flowers. The
+Amir seemed to love them passionately. He said that they gave rest and
+joy, and are "the fringes of the garment of God." He could not cut
+them, he said, "Their beauty is in their completeness from root to
+petals, and cutting destroys it."
+
+A curtained doorway in the high garden wall, where the curtains were
+held aside by servants, leads into the court of the _andarun_, where
+flowers again were in the ascendant, and vines concealed the walls.
+The son, a small boy, met us and kissed my hand. Mirza had told me
+that he had never passed through this wall, and had never seen the
+ladies, but when I proposed to leave him outside, the Amir said he
+would be welcome, that he wished for much conversation, and for his
+wife to hear about the position and education of women in England.
+
+The beautiful reception-room looked something like home. The pure
+white walls and honeycombed ceiling are touched and decorated with a
+pale shade of blue, and the ground of the patterns of the rich carpets
+on the floor is in the same delicate colour, which is repeated in the
+brocaded stuffs with which the divans are covered. A half-length
+portrait of the Amir in a sky-blue uniform, with his breast covered
+with orders, harmonises with the general "scheme" of colour. The
+_takchahs_ in the walls are utilised for vases and other objects in
+alabaster, jade, and bronze. A tea-table covered with sweetmeats, a
+tea equipage on the floor, and some chairs completed the furnishing.
+
+The Amir stood till his wife came in, and then asked permission to sit
+down, placing Mirza, who discreetly lowered his eyes when the lady
+entered, and never raised them again, on the floor.
+
+She is young, tall, and somewhat stout. She was much rouged, and her
+eyes, to which the arts of the toilet could add no additional beauty,
+were treated with _kohl_, and the eyebrows artificially extended. She
+wore fine gray socks, white skin-fitting tights, a black satin skirt,
+or rather flounce, embroidered in gold, so _bouffante_ with flounces
+of starched crinoline under it that when she sat down it stood out
+straight, not even touching the chair. A chemise of spangled gauze,
+and a pale blue gold-embroidered zouave jacket completed a costume
+which is dress, not clothing. The somewhat startling effect was toned
+down by a beautiful Constantinople silk gauze veil, sprigged in pale
+pink and gold, absolutely transparent, which draped her from head to
+foot.
+
+I did not get away in less than two hours. The Amir and Mirza, used to
+each other's modes of expression, found no difficulties, and Mirza
+being a man of education as well as intelligence, thought was conveyed
+as easily as fact. The lady kept her fine eyes lowered except when her
+husband spoke to her.
+
+The chief topics were the education and position of women in England,
+religion, politics, and the future of Persia, and on all the Amir
+expressed himself with a breadth and boldness which were astonishing.
+How far the Amir has gone in the knowledge of the Christian faith I
+cannot say, nor do I feel at liberty to repeat his most interesting
+thoughts. A Sunni, a liberal, desiring complete religious liberty,
+absolutely tolerant to the _B[=a]bis_, grateful for the kindness shown
+to some of them by the British Legation, and for the protection still
+given to them at the C.M.S. house, admiring Dr. Bruce's persevering
+work, and above all the Medical Mission, which he regards as "the
+crown of beneficence" and "the true imitation of the life of the Great
+Prophet, Jesus," all he said showed a strongly religious nature, and a
+philosophical mind much given to religious thought. "All true
+religions aim at one thing," he said, "to make the heart and life
+pure."
+
+He asked a good deal about my travels, and special objects of interest
+in travelling, and was surprised when I told him that I nearly always
+travel alone; but after a moment's pause he said, "I do not understand
+that you were for a moment alone, for you had everywhere the love,
+companionship, and protection of God."
+
+He regards as the needs of Persia education, religious liberty (the
+law which punishes a Moslem with death for embracing Christianity is
+still on the statute-book), roads, and railroads, and asked me if I
+had formed any opinion on the subject. I said that it appeared to me
+that security for the earnings of labour, and equal laws for rich and
+poor, administered by incorruptible judges, should accompany
+education. I much fear that he thinks incorruptible judges a vision of
+a dim future!
+
+The subject of the position of women in England and the height to
+which female education is now carried interested him extremely. He
+wished his wife to understand everything I told him. The success of
+women in examinations in art, literature, music, and other things, and
+the political wisdom and absolutely constitutional rule of Queen
+Victoria, all interested him greatly. He asked if the women who took
+these positions were equally good as wives and mothers? I could only
+refer again to Queen Victoria. An Oriental cannot understand the
+position of unmarried women with us, or dissociate it from religious
+vows, and the Amir heard with surprise that a very large part of the
+philanthropic work which is done in England is done by women who
+either from accident or design have neither the happiness nor the
+duties of married life. He hopes to see women in Persia educated and
+emancipated from the trammels of certain customs, "but," he added,
+"all reform in this direction must come slowly, and grow naturally out
+of a wider education, if it is to be good and not hurtful."
+
+He asked me what I should like to see in Isfahan, but when I mentioned
+the prison he said he should be ashamed to show it, and that except
+for political offences imprisonment is not much resorted to, that
+Persian justice is swift and severe--the bastinado, etc., not
+incarceration.
+
+Afterwards I paid a similar visit to the house of Mirza Yusuf's other
+"benefactor," also a good and charitable man, who, as he speaks French
+well, acted as interpreter in the _andarun_.
+
+A few days later the Amir-i-Panj, accompanied by General Faisarallah
+Khan, called on Dr. Bruce and on me, and showed how very agreeable a
+morning visit might be made, and the following day the Amir sent the
+same charger and escort for me, and meeting him and Dr. Bruce in the
+Chahar Bagh, we visited the _Medresseh_, a combined mosque and
+college, and the armoury, where we were joined by two generals and
+were afterwards entertained at tea in the Standard Room, while a
+military band played outside. The Amir had ordered some artificers
+skilled in the brass-work for which Isfahan is famous to exhibit their
+wares in one of the rooms at the armoury, and in every way tried to
+make the visit more agreeable than an inspection of the jail! He
+advises me not to wear a veil in the Bakhtiari country, and to be "as
+European as possible."
+
+The armoury, of which he has had the organising, does not fall within
+my province. There are many large rooms with all the appliances of war
+in apparently perfect order for the equipment of 5000 men.
+
+With equal brevity I pass over the _Medresseh_, whose silver gates and
+exquisite tiles have been constantly described. Decay will leave
+little of this beautiful building in a few years. The tiles of the
+dome, which can be seen for miles, are falling off, and even in the
+halls of instruction and in the grand mosque under the dome, which are
+completely lined and roofed by tiles, the making of some of which is a
+lost art, one may augur the approach of ruin from the loss or breakage
+here and there. In the rooms or cells occupied by the students, who
+study either theology or law, there are some very fine windows
+executed in the beautiful tracery common to Persia and Kashmir, but
+the effect of beauty passing into preventible decay is very mournful.
+
+Isfahan too I barely notice, for the best of all reasons, that I have
+not seen it! Though a fourth part of it is in ruins, and its
+population is not an eighth of what it was in the days of Shah Abbas,
+it is a fairly thriving commercial emporium with an increasing British
+trade. Indeed here Russian commercial influence may be said to cease,
+and that of England to become paramount. It is the paradise of
+Manchester and Glasgow cottons: woollen goods come from Austria and
+Germany, glass from Austria, crockery from England, candles and
+kerosene represent Russia. Our commercial supremacy in Isfahan cannot
+be disputed. I am almost tired of hearing of it. Opium, tobacco,
+carpets from the different provinces, and cotton and rice for native
+consumption, are the chief exports. Opium is increasingly grown round
+the city, and up the course of the Zainderud. Of the 4500 cases
+exported, worth L90 a case, three-fourths go to China. Its cultivation
+is so profitable and has increased so rapidly to the neglect of food
+crops that the Prince Governor has issued an order that one part of
+cereals shall be sown for every four of the opium poppy.
+
+The cotton in the bazars, through which one can walk under cover for
+between two and three miles, is of the best quality, owing to the
+successful measures taken by the calico printers to defeat the roguery
+of the cheating manufacturers. All the European necessaries and many
+of the luxuries of life are obtainable, and the Isfahan bazars are the
+busiest in Persia except those of Tabriz.
+
+It is only fair to this southern capital to say that if one can walk
+over two miles under the roofs of its fine bazars, one can ride for
+many miles among its ruins, which have desolation without stateliness,
+and are chiefly known for the production of the excellent wild
+asparagus which is used lavishly on European tables at this season.
+
+The "Persian Versailles," the Palace of Forty Pillars, each pillar
+formed of shafts enriched with colour and intricate work, and resting
+on a marble lion, the shaking Minarets, the Masjid-i-Shah with its
+fine dome of peacock-blue tiles, all falling into premature decay,
+remain to attest its former greatness; the other noble palaces,
+mosques, caravanserais, and _Medressehs_ are ruinous, the superb
+pleasure gardens are overgrown with weeds or are used for vetches and
+barley, the tanks are foul or filled up, the splendid plane trees have
+been cut down for fuel, or are dragging out a hollow existence--every
+one, as elsewhere in Persia, destroys, no one restores. The armoury is
+the one exception to the general law of decay.
+
+Yet Isfahan covered an area of twenty-four miles in circumference, and
+with its population of 650,000 souls was until the seventeenth century
+one of the most magnificent cities of the East. Its destruction last
+century by an Afghan conqueror, who perpetrated a fifteen days'
+massacre, and the removal of the court to Tihran, have reduced it to a
+mere commercial centre, a "distributing point," and as such, its
+remains may take a new lease of life. It has a newspaper called the
+_Farhang_, which prints little bits of news, chiefly personal. Its
+editor moves on European lines so far as to have "interviewed" me!
+
+There are manufactures in Isfahan other than the successful printing
+and dyeing of cottons; viz., earthenware, china, brass-work, velvet,
+satin, tents, coarse cottons, glass, swords, guns, pistols, jewellery,
+writing paper and envelopes, silk brocades, satins, gunpowder,
+bookbinding, gold thread, etc.
+
+The plateau on which Isfahan stands, about seventy miles from east to
+west and twenty from north to south, and enclosed by high mountains
+with a striking outline, lies 5400 feet above the sea. The city has a
+most salubrious climate, and is free from great extremes both of heat
+and cold. The Zainderud, on whose left bank it is situated, endows
+much of the plain with fertility on its way to its undeserved doom in
+a partially-explored swamp.
+
+This Christian town, called a suburb, though it is really two and a
+half miles from Isfahan, is a well-built and well-peopled nucleus. It
+is not mixed up with ruins as Isfahan is. They have a region to
+themselves chiefly in the direction of the Kuh Sufi. My impression of
+it after a month is that it is clean and comfortable-looking, Mr.
+Curzon's is that it is "squalid." I prefer mine!
+
+It is a "city of waters." Streams taken from a higher level of the
+Zainderud glide down nearly all its lanes, shaded by pollard
+mulberries, ash, elm, and the "sparrow-tongue" willow, which makes the
+best firewood, and being "planted by the rivers of water," grows so
+fast that it bears lopping annually, and besides affording fuel
+supplies the twigs which are used for roofing such rooms as are not
+arched.
+
+The houses, some of which are more than three centuries old, are built
+of mud bricks, the roofs are usually arched, and the walls are from
+three to five feet thick. All possess planted courtyards and
+vineyards, and gardens into which channels are led from the streams in
+the streets. These streams serve other purposes: continually a group
+of Armenian women may be seen washing their clothes in them, while
+others are drinking or drawing water just below. The lanes are about
+twenty feet wide and have narrow rough causeways on both sides of the
+water-channel. It is difficult on horseback to pass a foot passenger
+without touching him in some of them.
+
+Great picturesqueness is given to these leafy lanes by the companies
+of Armenian women in bright red dresses and pure white robes, slowly
+walking through them at all hours of daylight, visions of bright eyes
+and rosy cheeks. I have never yet seen a soiled white robe! Long blank
+mud walls, low gateways, an occasional row of mean shops, open porches
+of churches, dim and cool, and an occasional European on foot or
+horseback, and groups of male Armenians, whose dress so closely
+approaches the European as to be without interest, and black-robed
+priests gliding to the churches are all that is usually to be seen. It
+sounds dull, perhaps.
+
+Many of the houses of the rich Armenians, some of which are now let to
+Europeans, are extremely beautiful inside, and even those occupied by
+the poorer classes, in which a single lofty room can be rented for
+twopence a week, are very pretty and appropriate. But no evidence of
+wealth is permitted to be seen from the outside. It is only a few
+years since the Armenians were subject to many disabilities, and they
+have even now need to walk warily lest they give offence. As, for
+instance, an Armenian was compelled to ride an ass instead of a horse,
+and when that restriction was relaxed, he had to show his inferiority
+by dismounting from his horse before entering the gates of Isfahan.
+
+They were not allowed to have bells on their churches, (at Easter I
+wished they had none still), but now the _Egglesiah Wang_ (the great
+church) has a fine campanile over 100 feet high in its inner court.
+The ancient mode of announcing the hours of worship is still
+affectionately adhered to, however. It consists of drumming with a
+mallet on a board hanging from two posts, and successfully breaks the
+sleep of the neighbourhood for the daily service which begins before
+daylight.
+
+The Armenians, like the rich Persians, prudently keep to the low
+gateways, which, with the absence of windows and all exterior
+ornament, give the lanes so mean an aspect, and tend to make one
+regard the beauty and even magnificence within with considerable
+surprise.
+
+In England a rich man, partly for his own delectation, and partly, if
+he be "the architect of his own fortune," to impose his position
+ocularly on his poorer neighbours, displays his wealth in all ways and
+on most occasions. In Persia his chief pleasure must be to hoard it
+and contemplate it, for any unusual display of it in equipages or
+furnishings is certain to bring down upon him a "squeeze," at Tihran
+in the shape of a visit from the Shah with its inevitable
+consequences, and in the Provinces in that of a requisition from the
+governor.
+
+For a man to "enlarge his gates" is to court destruction. Poor men
+have low gates, which involve stooping, to prevent rich men's servants
+from entering their houses on horseback on disagreeable errands.
+Christian churches have remarkably low doors elsewhere than in Julfa,
+to prevent the Moslems from stabling their cattle in them. Rich men
+affect mean entrances in order not to excite the rapacity of
+officialism, according to the ancient proverb, "He that exalteth his
+gate seeketh destruction" (Proverbs xvii. 19). Only Royal gates and
+the gates of officials who represent Royalty are high.
+
+The Armenian merchants have, like the Europeans, their offices in
+Isfahan. The rest of the people get their living by the making and
+selling of wine, keeping small shops, making watches and jewellery,
+carpentering, in which they are very skilful, and market-gardening;
+they are thrifty and industrious, and there is very little real
+poverty.
+
+The selling of wine does not conduce to the peace of Julfa. A mixture
+of sour wine and _arak_, a coarse spirit, is very intoxicating, and
+Persians, when they do drink, drink till they are drunk, and the
+abominable concealed traffic in liquor with the Moslems of the town is
+apt to produce disgraceful brawls.
+
+Wine can be bought for fourpence a quart, but the upper classes make
+their own, and it costs less than this. Wines are both red and white,
+and one red wine is said to be like good Chianti. The Armenians tipple
+and also get drunk, priests included. It is said that some of the jars
+used in fermenting are between 200 and 300 years old.
+
+The excellent education given in the C.M.S. schools has had the effect
+of stimulating the Armenian schools, and of producing among the young
+men a large emigration to India, Batavia, Constantinople, and even
+England. Only the dullards as a rule remain in Julfa. Some rise high
+in Persian and even in Turkish employment.
+
+The Armenian women are capital housewives and very industrious. In
+these warm evenings the poorer women sit outside their houses in
+groups knitting. The knitting of socks is a great industry, and a
+woman can earn 4s. a month by it, which is enough to live upon.
+
+In Julfa, and it may be partly owing to the presence of a European
+community, the Christians have nothing to complain of, and, so far as
+I can see, they are on terms of equality with the Persians.
+
+However, Isfahan is full of religious intolerance which can easily be
+excited to frenzy, and the arrogance of the _mollahs_ has increased
+since the fall from almost regal state of the Zil-i-Sultan, the Shah's
+eldest son, into the position of a provincial governor, for he curbed
+them somewhat, and now the restraint is removed. However, it is
+against the Jews and the _B[=a]bis_, rather than the Christians, that
+their hostility is directed.
+
+A few weeks ago some _B[=a]bis_ were peaceably returning to a
+neighbouring village, when they were attacked, and seven of their
+number were massacred under atrocious circumstances, the remainder
+taking refuge for a time in the British Telegraph office. Several of
+both sexes who escaped are in concealment here in a room in the
+Hospital compound, one of them with a broken jaw.
+
+The hiding of these _B[=a]bis_ has given great umbrage to the bigots
+of Isfahan, though the Amir-i-Panj justified it on all grounds, and
+about the time I arrived it was said that a thousand city fanatics
+purposed to attack the mission premises. But at one of the mosques
+there is a _mollah_, who with Gamaliel-like wisdom urged upon them
+"that if 300 Moslems were killed nothing would happen, but if a single
+European were killed, what then?"[37]
+
+I cannot close this letter without a few words on the Armenian
+churches, some of which I visited with Mr. and Dr. Aganoor, and others
+with Dr. Bruce. The ceremony representing the washing of the
+disciples' feet on the Armenian Holy Thursday was a most magnificent
+one as regards the antique splendour and extreme beauty of the
+vestments and jewels of the officiating bishop, but the feet, which
+are washed in rose-water and anointed, are not, as in Rome, those of
+beggars, but of neophytes costumed in pure white. Incense,
+embroideries, crowds of white-robed women, and other accessories made
+the function an imposing one.
+
+The Cathedral, a part of the Monastery, has a narrow winding approach
+and a thick door, for ecclesiastics were not always as safe as they
+are now. In the outer court is the campanile before mentioned. The
+floor is paved with monumental slabs, and among the graves are those
+of several Europeans. Piles of logs look as if the Julfa carpenters
+seasoned their wood in this court!
+
+The church is divided by a rail into two compartments. The dome is
+rich with beaten gold, and the dado is of very fine tiles, which
+produce a striking effect. The embroideries and the carpets, some of
+which are worth fabulous sums, are between two and three centuries
+old. The vestments and ornaments of the priests are very fine, and
+suggest the attire of the Aaronic priesthood.
+
+It is a striking building, and the amount of gold and colour, toned
+into a certain harmony by time, produces a gorgeous effect. The outer
+compartment has a singular interest, for 230 years ago its walls were
+decorated with religious paintings, on a large scale, of events in
+Bible history, from the creation downwards. Some are copies, others
+original, and they are attributed to Italian artists. They are well
+worth careful study as representing the conceptions which found favour
+among the Armenian Christians of that day. They are terribly
+realistic, but are certainly instructive, especially the illustrations
+of the miracles and parables.
+
+In one of the latter a man with a huge beam sticking out of one eye is
+represented as looking superciliously with the other at a man with an
+insignificant spike projecting. The death of Dives is a horrible
+representation. His soul, in the likeness of a very small nude
+figure, is represented as escaping from the top of his head, and is
+being escorted to the entrance of the lower regions by a flight of
+small black devils. The idea of the soul emerging from the top of the
+head is evidently borrowed from the Moslems.
+
+Our Lord is, I think, everywhere depicted as short, dark, and
+dark-haired, with eyebrows much curved, and a very long upper lip,
+without beauty or dignity, an ordinary Oriental workman.
+
+_The_ picture of the Cathedral is an enormous canvas, representing the
+day when "before Him shall be gathered all nations." The three persons
+of the Trinity are there, and saints and angels are portrayed as
+worshipping, or as enjoying somewhat earthly but perfectly innocent
+delights.
+
+In this the conception is analogous to those celebrated circular
+pictures in which the Buddhistic future is unrolled, and which I last
+saw in the monasteries of Lesser Tibet. The upper or heavenly part is
+insignificant and very small, while the torments of the lost in the
+lower part are on a very large scale, and both the devils and the nude
+human sufferers in every phase of anguish have the appearance of life
+size. The ingenuity of torment, however, is not nearly so great, nor
+are the scenes so revolting as those which Oriental imagination has
+depicted in the Buddhist hells. A huge mythical monster represents the
+mouth of hell, and into his flaming and smoking jaws the impenitent
+are falling. Does any modern Armenian believe that any of those whose
+bones lie under the huge blocks of stone in the cemetery in the red
+desert at the foot of Kuh Sufi have passed into "this place of
+torment"?
+
+The other church which claims one's interest, though not used for
+worship, is that of St. George, the hero of the fraudulent contract
+in bacon, as well as of the dragon fight, to whom the Armenians as
+well as ourselves render singular honour.
+
+This church is a great place for "miracles" of healing, and cells for
+the sick who come from a distance are freely provided. In a covered
+court are some large stones in a group, one of them evidently the
+capital of a column. Two of them have cavities at the top, and the
+sick kneel before them, and as the voluble women who were there told
+us, "they first pray to God and then to the stones," and finally pour
+water into these cavities and drink it. The cure is either
+instantaneous or occurs at any time within fifteen days, and in every
+case the patient hears the voice of St. George telling him to go home
+when it is complete.
+
+These stones, according to the legend told by the women and popularly
+believed by the uneducated, took it into their heads to come from
+Etchmiadzin in Armenia, the residence of the _Catholicos_, in one
+night, and deposited themselves where the church now stands. Seven
+times they were taken into Faraidan, eighty miles from Julfa, and as
+often returned, and their manifest predilection was at last rewarded
+by a rest of centuries. There were a number of sick people waiting for
+healing, for which of course fees are bestowed.
+
+The Armenians, especially the women, pay great attention to the
+externals of their religion. Some of its claims are very severe, such
+as the daily service before daylight, winter and summer, and the long
+fasts, which they keep with surprising loyalty, _i.e._ among the poor
+in towns and in the villages. For at least one-sixth of the year they
+are debarred from the use of meat or even eggs, and are permitted only
+vegetable oils, fruits, vegetables, and grain. Spirits and wine,
+however, are not prohibited.
+
+I really believe that their passionate attachment to their venerable
+church, the oldest of all national churches, is fostered by those
+among them who have ceased to believe its doctrines, as a necessity of
+national existence. I doubt very much whether the "Reformed"
+congregations, which have been gathered out here and elsewhere, would
+survive the withdrawal of foreign aid. Rather, I think, they would
+revert to the original type.
+
+Superstitions without number are mixed up with their beliefs, and are
+countenanced by the priests. The _meron_ or holy oil used in baptism
+and for other purposes has the stamp of charlatanism upon it. It is
+made in Etchmiadzin.
+
+Rose leaves are collected in an immense vat, which is filled with
+water, and at a set time the monks and nuns form a circle round it,
+and repeat prayers till "fermentation" begins. They claim that the
+so-called fermentation is a miracle due to the prayers offered. Oil,
+probably attar of roses, rises to the surface, and this precious
+_meron_ is sent to the Armenian churches throughout the world about
+once in four or five years. In Persia those who bear it are received
+with an _istikbal_ or procession of welcome.
+
+It is used not only in baptism and other rites but at the annual
+ceremony of washing the Cross at Christmas, when some of it is poured
+into the water and is drunk by the worshippers. In the villages they
+make a paste by mixing this water and oil with earth, which is made
+into balls and kept in the houses for "luck." If a dog licks a bowl or
+other vessel, and thus renders it unclean, rubbing it round with one
+of these balls restores it to purity.
+
+At a village in Faraidan there is an ancient New Testament, reputed to
+be of the sixth century. To this MS. people come on pilgrimage from
+all quarters, even from Fars, Tihran, and Armenia, to be healed of
+their diseases, and they make offerings to it, and practically render
+it worship.
+
+To go and pray on a newly-made grave is a remedy for childlessness
+much resorted to by childless wives. When two boys fight, and one of
+them is hurt, or when any one is injured by a dog or by a tree
+falling, they wash the damaged person in water, and then throw the
+water over the boy, dog, or tree which has been the cause of the
+injury, believing that in this way the mischief is transferred.
+
+When any one is ill of fright and the cause is not known, the nuns
+come to the house, and pour wax into a basin of boiling water, noting
+the form it takes, such as a snake, a dog, or a frog. In a case lately
+they went out and killed a snake, for the thing whose form the wax
+takes ought to be killed; but as this might often be difficult or
+unsuitable, they compromise the matter by throwing the water (not
+boiling, I hope) over the nearest dog or toad, or anything else which
+is supposed to be the culprit.
+
+On the first Monday in Lent the women wash their knitting needles for
+luck in a stream which runs through Julfa. The children educated in
+the Mission schools laugh at these and many other superstitions.
+
+The dress of the Armenian women is very showy, but too much of a
+_huddle_. Red is the dominant colour, a carnation red with white
+patterns sprawling over it, They wear coloured trousers concealed by a
+long skirt. The visible under-garment is a long, "shaped" dress of
+Turkey red. Over this is worn a somewhat scanty gown of red and white
+cotton, open in front, and very short-waisted, and over this a plain
+red pelisse or outer garment, often quilted, open in front, gashed up
+the sides, and falling below the knees. Of course this costume is
+liable to many modifications in the way of material, and embroidered
+jackets, heavily trimmed with jewellery and the like. As fashion is
+unchanging the acquisition and hoarding of garments are carried to a
+great extent.
+
+There are two marked features of Armenian dress, one, the massive
+silver girdle made of heavy chased-silver links four inches long by
+two deep, often antique and always of antique design, which falls much
+below the waist in front, and is used to confine the ends of the white
+sheet which envelops an Armenian woman out of doors, so that it may
+hang evenly all round. The other is a skull-cap of embroidered silk or
+cloth, placed well back on the head above the many hanging plaits in
+which the hair is worn, with a black velvet coronet in front, from
+which among the richer women rows of coins depend. This, which is very
+becoming to the brilliant complexion and comely face below it, is in
+its turn covered by a half handkerchief, and over this is gracefully
+worn, when not gracelessly clutched, a _chadar_ or drapery of printed
+cambric or muslin. A white band bound across the chin up to the lips
+suggests a broken jaw, and the _tout ensemble_ of the various
+wrappings of the head a perennial toothache.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[37] I have written nothing about this fast-increasing sect of the
+_B[=a]bis_, partly because being a secret sect, I doubt whether the
+doctrines which are suffered to leak out form really any part of its
+esoteric teaching, and partly because those Europeans who have studied
+the _B[=a]bis_ most candidly are diametrically opposed in their views
+of their tenets and practice, some holding that their aspirations are
+after a purer life, while others, and I think a majority, believe that
+their teachings are subversive of morality and of the purity of
+domestic life.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+
+     JULFA, _April 30_.
+
+You will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully expected to have
+left it a fortnight ago, but unavoidable delays have occurred. My
+caravan and servants started this morning, and I leave myself in a few
+hours.
+
+Upon my horse I have bestowed the suggestive name of _Screw_. He is
+fairly well-bred, big-headed, big-eared, small-bodied, bright bay,
+fine-coated, slightly flat-footed, and with his fore hoofs split in
+several places from the coronet nearly to the shoe. He is an undoubted
+_yabu_, and has carried loads for many a day. He has a long stride,
+shies badly, walks very fast, canters easily, and at present shows no
+tendency to tumble down.[38]
+
+I have had pleasant rides alone, crossing the definite dividing line
+between the desert and the oasis of cultivation and irrigation,
+watching the daily development of the various crops and the brief life
+of the wild flowers, creeping through the green fields on the narrow
+margins of irrigating ditches, down to the Pul-i-Kaj[=u], and
+returning to the green lanes of Julfa by the bright waters of the
+Zainderud crimsoning in the setting sun.
+
+For in the late cool and breezy weather, not altogether free from
+clouds and showers, there have been some gorgeous sunsets, and
+magnificent colouring of the depth and richness which people call
+tropical, has blazed extravagantly; and from the violet desert to the
+indigo storm-clouds on the still snow-patched Kuhr[=u]d mountains,
+from the vivid green of the oasis to the purple crags in dark relief
+against a sky of flame, all things have been new.
+
+Two Sundays witnessed two incidents, one the baptism of a young Moslem
+in a semi-private fashion, who shortly afterwards renounced
+Christianity, and the other that of a respectable Mohammedan merchant
+in Isfahan, who has long pleaded for baptism, presenting himself at
+the altar rails at the Holy Communion, resolved that if he were not
+permitted to confess Christ as Divine in one way he would in another.
+He was passed over, to my great regret, if he be sincere, but I
+suppose the Rubric leaves no choice.[39]
+
+I have written little about my prospective journey because there has
+been a prolonged uncertainty about it, and even now I cannot give any
+definite account of the project, except that the route lies through an
+altogether mountainous region, in that part of the province of
+Luristan known in Persia colloquially as the "Bakhtiari country," from
+being inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, chiefly nomads. The pros and
+cons as to my going have been innumerable, and the two people in
+Persia who know the earlier part of the route say that the character
+of the people makes it impossible for a lady to travel among them. On
+the other hand, I have the consent and help of the highest
+authorities, Persian and English, and shall not go too far, but shall
+return to Isfahan in case things should turn out as is feared. The
+exploration of a previously unexplored region will be in itself
+interesting, but whether there will be sufficient of the human
+interests, which I chiefly care for, I doubt; in that case the journey
+will be dull.
+
+At all events I shall probably have to return here in two months,[40]
+but such a journey for myself and two servants in such a region
+requires extensive preparations, and I have brought all my own
+travelling "dodges" into requisition, with a selection of those of
+other people.
+
+It is considered desirable to carry stores from Isfahan for forty
+days, except flour and rice, which can be obtained a week's march from
+here. At the British Legation I was kindly supplied with many tins of
+preserved meat, and milk, and jam, and besides these I am only taking
+a quantity of Edwards' Desiccated Soup, portable and excellent, twelve
+pounds of tea, and ten pounds of candles. The great thing in planning
+is to think of what one can do without. Two small bottles of saccharin
+supply the place of forty pounds of sugar.
+
+Two _yekdans_ contain my stores, cooking and table utensils and
+personal luggage, a waterproof bag my bedding, and a divided
+packing-case, now empty, goes for the flour and rice. Everything in
+the _yekdans_ is put up in bags made of the coarse cotton of the
+country. The tents and tent-poles, which have been socketed for easier
+transport on crooked mountain paths, and a camp-bed made from a
+Kashmiri pattern in Tihran, are all packed in covers made from the
+gunny bags in which sugar is imported, and so are double sets of
+large and small iron tent-pegs.
+
+Presents for the "savages" are also essential, and I have succeeded in
+getting 100 thimbles, many gross of small china buttons which, it is
+said, they like to sew on children's caps, 1000 needles, a quantity of
+Russian thread, a number of boxes with mirror tops, two dozen
+double-bladed knives, and the same number of strong scissors, Kashmir
+_kamarbands_, gay handkerchiefs for women's heads, Isfahan printed
+"table-cloths," dozens of bead bracelets and necklaces, leather purses
+and tobacco pouches, and many other things.
+
+I take three tents, including a _shuldari_, five feet square, and only
+weighing ten pounds. My kit is reduced to very simple elements, a
+kettle, two copper pots which fit into each other, a frying pan,
+cooking knife and spoon, a tray instead of a table, a chair, two
+plates, a teacup and saucer, a soup plate, mug, and teapot, all of
+course in enamelled iron, a knife, fork, and two spoons. This is ample
+for one person for any length of time in camp.
+
+For this amount of baggage and for the sacks of flour and rice,
+weighing 160 lbs., which will hereafter be carried, I have four mules,
+none heavily laden, and two with such light loads that they can be
+ridden by my servants. These mules, two _charvadars_, and a horse are
+engaged for the journey at two _krans_ (16d.) a day each, the owner
+stipulating for a _bakhsheesh_ of fifty _krans_, if at the end I am
+satisfied. This sum is to cover food and all risks.
+
+The animals are hired from a well-known _charvadar_, who has made a
+large fortune and is regarded as very trustworthy; Dr. Bruce calls him
+the "prince of _charvadars_." He and his son are going on the "trip."
+He has a quiet, superior manner, and when he came to judge of the
+weight of my loads, he said they were "very good--very right," a more
+agreeable verdict than muleteers are wont to pass upon baggage.[41]
+
+The making of the contract with Hadji involved two important
+processes, the writing of it by a scribe and the sealing of it. The
+scribe is one of the most important persons in Persia. Every great man
+has one or more, and every little man has occasion for a scribe's
+services in the course of a year. He is the trusted depositary of an
+infinity of secrets. He moves with dignity and deliberation, his
+"writer's inkhorn" pendent from his girdle, and his physiognomy has
+been trained to that reticent, semi-mysterious expression common to
+successful solicitors in England.
+
+Writing is a fine art in Persia. The characters are in themselves
+graceful, and lend themselves readily to decoration. The old
+illuminated MSS. are things of beauty; even my contract is ornamental.
+The scribe holds the paper in his left hand, and uses a reed pen with
+the nib cut obliquely, writing from right to left. The ink is thick,
+and is carried with the pens in a _papier-mache_ inkhorn.
+
+Hadji tells me with much pride that his son, Abbas Ali, can write "and
+will be very useful."
+
+Sealing is instead of signing. As in Japan, every adult male has his
+seal, of agate or cornelian among the rich, and of brass or silver
+among the poor. The name is carefully engraved on the seal at a cost
+of from a half-penny to 18s. a letter. Tihran is celebrated for its
+seal-cutters. No document is authentic without a seal as its
+signature.
+
+Hadji took the contract and applied it to his forehead in token of
+respect, touched the paper with his tongue to make it moist and
+receptive, waved it in the air to rid it of superfluous moisture,
+wetted his fingers on a spongy ball of silk full of Indian ink in the
+scribe's inkstand, rubbed the ink on the seal, breathed on it, and
+pressed it firmly down on the paper, which he held over the forefinger
+of his left hand. The smallest acts in Persia are regulated by rigid
+custom.
+
+The remaining portion of my outfit, but not the least important,
+consists of a beautiful medicine chest of the most compact and
+portable make, most kindly given to me by Messrs. Burroughes and
+Wellcome, containing fifty small bottles of their invaluable
+"tabloids," a hypodermic syringe, and surgical instruments for simple
+cases. To these I have added a quantity of quinine, and Dr. Odling at
+Tihran gave me some valuable remedies. A quantity of bandages, lint,
+absorbent cotton, etc., completes this essential equipment. Among the
+many uncertainties of the future this appears certain, that the
+Bakhtiaris will be clamorous for European medicine.
+
+I have written of my servants. Mirza Yusuf pleases me very much,
+Hassan the cook seems quiet, but not active, and I picture to myself
+the confusion of to-night in camp, with two men who know nothing about
+camp life and its makeshifts!
+
+Whatever the summer brings, this is probably my last letter written
+from under a roof till next winter. I am sorry to leave Julfa and
+these kind friends, but the prospect of the unknown has its charms.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] _Screw_ never became a friend or companion, scarcely a comrade,
+but showed plenty of pluck and endurance, climbed and descended
+horrible rock ladders over which a horse with a rider had never passed
+before, was steady in fords, and at the end of three and a half months
+of severe travelling and occasional scarcity of food was in better
+condition than when he left Julfa.
+
+[39] He has since been baptized, but for safety had to relinquish his
+business and go to India, where he is supporting himself, and his
+conduct is satisfactory.
+
+[40] I never returned, and only at the end of three and a half months
+emerged from the "Bakhtiari country" at Burujird after a journey of
+700 miles.
+
+[41] Hadji Hussein deserves a passing recommendation. I fear that he
+is still increasing his fortune and has not retired. The journey was a
+very severe one, full of peril to his mules from robbers and dangerous
+roads, and not without risk to himself. With the exception of a few
+Orientalisms, which are hardly worth recalling, he was faithful and
+upright, made no attempt to overreach, kept to his bargain, was
+punctual and careful, and at Burujird we parted good friends. He was
+always most respectful to me, and I owe him gratitude for many
+kindnesses which increased my comfort. It is right to acknowledge that
+a part of the success of the journey was owing to the efficiency of
+the transport.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON THE "BAKHTIARI COUNTRY" OR LURI-BUZURG
+
+
+In introducing the following journal of a summer spent in Luri-Buzurg
+or Greater Luristan by a few explanatory notes, I desire to
+acknowledge the labours of those travellers who have preceded me over
+some of the earlier portions of the route, and my obligations to those
+careful explorers of half a century ago, who turned the light of
+modern research upon the antiquities of Lower Elam and the condition
+of its modern inhabitants, and whose earnestness and accuracy the
+traveller in Upper Elam and the Bakhtiari country may well desire to
+emulate.[42]
+
+For the correction of those portions of my letters which attempt to
+describe a part of mountainous Luristan previously unexplored, I am
+deeply indebted to a recent unpublished Geographical Report, to which
+any geographical interest which they may possess is altogether due.
+For the customs and beliefs of the Bakhtiaris I have had to depend
+entirely on my own investigations, made through an intelligent and
+faithful interpreter, whose desire for accuracy was scarcely exceeded
+by my own.
+
+The accompanying sketch map represents an area of 15,000 square miles,
+lying, roughly speaking, between Lat. 31 deg. and 34 deg. N., and between
+Long. 48 deg. and 51 deg. E., and covering a distance of 300 miles from the
+Khana Mirza to Khuramabad.
+
+The itinerary covers a distance of about 700 miles, a journey of three
+and a half months, chiefly in the region of the Upper Karun and its
+affluents, among which must be included the head-waters of the
+Ab-i-Diz.
+
+During this time the Karun was traced, wherever the nature of its bed
+admitted of it, from the gorge of Dupulan, below which several
+travellers have investigated and reported its extraordinary windings,
+up to the Sar-Cheshmeh-i-Kurang, its reputed source, a vigorous
+fountain spring with an altitude of 8000 feet in the steep limestone
+face of the north-eastern side of the Zard Kuh range, and upwards to
+its real source in the Kuh-i-Rang or "variegated mountain."
+
+The Ab-i-Diz was found to carry off the water of a larger area than
+had been supposed; the north-west branches, the Ab-i-Burujird and the
+Kamandab, which drain the well-watered plain of Silakhor, almost
+yielding in importance to the Guwa and Gokun, which, uniting to form
+what, for convenience' sake, was termed the Ab-i-Basnoi, receive the
+drainage of the upper part of Faraidan, an important district of
+Persia proper.
+
+A lake of marvellously coloured water, two and a half miles long by
+one mile wide, very deep, and with a persistent level, was found to
+occupy a hollow at the inner foot of the grand mountain Shuturun, and
+this, having no native name, was marked on the map as Lake Irene.
+
+The Bakhtiari mountains are chains of precipitous parallel ranges,
+generally running north-west and south-east, the valleys which divide
+them and carry off their waters taking the same directions as far as
+the Kuh-i-Rang, where a remarkable change takes place, noticed in
+Letter XVII. This great mountain region, lying between the lofty
+plateau of Central Persia and the plains of Khuzistan, has continuous
+ranges of singular steepness, but rarely broken up into prominent
+peaks, the Kuh-i-Rang, the Kuh-i-Shahan, the Shuturun Kuh, and Dalonak
+being detached mountains.
+
+The great ranges of the Kuh-i-Sukhta, the Kuh-i-Gerra, the Sabz Kuh,
+the Kala Kuh, and the Zard Kuh were crossed and recrossed by passes
+from 8000 to 11,000 feet in altitude; many of the summits were
+ascended, and the deep valleys between them, with their full-watered,
+peacock-green streams, were followed up wherever it was possible to do
+so. The magnificent mountain Kuh-i-Rang was ascertained to be not only
+a notable water-parting, but to indicate in a very marked manner two
+distinct mountain systems with remarkable peculiarities of drainage,
+as well as to form a colossal barrier between two regions which, for
+the sake of intelligible description, were called "Upper Elam" and
+the "Bakhtiari country."
+
+The same authority, for the same purpose, designated the two main and
+highest chains of mountains by the terms "Outer" and "Inner" ranges,
+the former being the one nearest the great Persian plateau, the latter
+the chain nearest to the Khuzistan plains. The conjectural altitudes
+of the peaks in this hitherto unexplored region have been brought down
+by some thousands of feet, and the "eternal snow" with which rumour
+had crested them has turned out a myth, the altitude of the highest
+summit being estimated at only a trifle over 13,000 feet.
+
+The nearly continuous ranges south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang are pierced
+for the passage of water by a few remarkable rifts or _tangs_--the
+Outer range by the Tang-i-Ghezi, the outlet of the Zainderud towards
+Isfahan, and the Tang-i-Darkash Warkash, by which the drainage of the
+important districts of the Chahar Mahals passes to the Karun, the
+Inner range being pierced at the Tang-i-Dupulan by the Karun itself.
+North-west of the Kuh-i-Rang the rivers which carry the drainage of
+certain districts of south-west Persia to the sea pierce the main
+mountain ranges at right angles, passing through magnificent gorges
+and chasms from 3000 to 5000 feet in depth.
+
+Among the mountains, but especially in the formation south-east of the
+Kuh-i-Rang, there are many alpine valleys at altitudes of from 7000 to
+8500 feet, rich summer pastures, such as Gurab, Chigakhor, Shorab, and
+Cheshmeh Zarin.
+
+Some of the valleys are of considerable width, many only afford room
+for narrow tracks above the streams by which they are usually watered,
+while others are mere rifts for torrents and are inaccessible. Among
+the limestone ranges fountain springs are of frequent occurrence,
+gushing out of the mountain sides with great volume and
+impetuosity--the perennial sources of perennial streams.
+
+Much of the country is absolutely without wood, producing nothing fit
+even for fuel but the _Astragalus verus_ and the _Astragalus
+tragacantha_. This is especially the case on the outer slopes of the
+Outer range, which are formed of rocky ribs with a covering of gravel,
+and are "barren, treeless, waterless, and grassless." From the same
+crest to the outer slopes of the Inner range, which descend on
+Khuzistan, there are splendid pasturage, abundant water, and extensive
+forests in the deep valleys and on the hill slopes.[43]
+
+The trees, however, can rarely be defined as "forest trees." They are
+small in girth and are usually stunted and wizened in aspect, as if
+the conditions of their existence were not kindly.
+
+Flowers are innumerable in the months of May and June, beginning with
+the tulip, the iris, the narcissus, and a small purple gladiolus, and
+a little later many of the hillsides above an altitude of 7000 feet
+are aflame with a crimson and terra-cotta _Fritillaria imperialis_,
+and a carnation-red anemone, while the margins of the snow-fields are
+gay with pink patches of an exquisite alpine primula. Chicory, the
+dark blue centaurea, a large orange and yellow snapdragon, and the
+scarlet poppy attend upon grain crops there as elsewhere, and the
+slopes above the upper Karun are brilliant with pink, mauve, and
+white hollyhocks. But it must be admitted that the chief interest of
+many of the flowers is botanical only. They are leathery, woolly,
+thorny, and sticky, adapted rather for arid circumstances than to
+rejoice the eye.
+
+Among the economic plants observed were the _Centaurea alata_, which
+grows in singular abundance at a height of from 5500 to 7000 feet, and
+is cut and stacked for fodder; a species of celery of very strong
+flavour, which is an important article of food for man and beast, and
+the flower-stalks of which, six feet high, are woven into booths by
+some of the tribes; the blue linum, red madder, the _Eryngium
+caeruleum_, which is cut and stacked for fodder; a purple garlic, the
+bulbs of which are eaten; liquorice, and the _Ferula asafetida_ in
+small quantities.
+
+It is a surprise to the traveller to find that a large area is under
+cultivation, and that the crops of wheat and barley are clean, and up
+to the Persian average, and that the removal of stones and a laborious
+irrigation system are the work of nomads who only occupy their
+_yailaks_ for five months of the year. It may be said that nearly
+every valley and hill-slope where water is procurable is turned to
+account for grain crops.
+
+No part of the world in this latitude is fuller of streams and
+torrents, but three only attain to any geographical dignity--the
+Zainderud, or river of Isfahan, which after a course full of promise
+loses itself ignominiously in a partially-explored swamp; the Karun,
+with its Bakhtiari tributaries of the Ab-i-Bazuft, the Darkash
+Warkash, the Ab-i-Sabzu, and the Dinarud; and the Ab-i-Diz, which has
+an important course of its own before its junction with the Karun at
+Bandakir. None of these rivers are navigable during their course
+through the Bakhtiari mountains. They are occasionally spanned by
+bridges of stone or wickerwork, or of yet simpler construction.
+
+With the exception of the small area of the Outer range, which
+contains the head-waters of the Zainderud, the Bakhtiari country
+proper consists of the valleys of the upper Karun and its tributaries.
+
+The tracks naturally follow the valleys, and are fairly easy in their
+gradients to the south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang. To the north-west,
+however, being compelled to cross rivers which pierce the ranges at
+right angles to their directions, ascents and descents of several
+thousand feet are involved at short intervals, formed of rock ladders,
+which may be regarded as "impassable for laden animals."
+
+The so-called roads are nothing better than tracks worn in the course
+of centuries by the annual passage of the nomads and their flocks to
+and from their summer pastures. In addition to the tracks which follow
+the lie of the valleys, footpaths cross the main ranges where foothold
+can be obtained.
+
+There are but two bridle tracks which deserve mention as being
+possible for caravan traffic between Isfahan and Shuster, one crossing
+the God-i-Murda at a height of 7050 feet and the Karun at Dupulan, the
+other, which considerably diminishes the distance between the two
+commercial points, crossing the Zard Kuh by the Cherri Pass at an
+altitude of 9550 feet and dropping down a steep descent of over 4000
+feet to the Bazuft river. These, the Gurab, and the Gil-i-Shah, and
+Pambakal Passes, which cross the Zard Kuh range at elevations of over
+11,000 feet, are reported as closed by snow for several months in
+winter. In view of the cart-road from Ahwaz to Tihran, which will pass
+through the gap of Khuramabad, the possible importance of any one of
+these routes fades completely away.
+
+The climate, though one of extremes, is healthy. Maladies of locality
+are unknown, the water is usually pure, and malarious swamps do not
+exist. Salt springs produce a sufficiency of salt for wholesome use,
+and medicinal plants abound. The heat begins in early June and is
+steady till the end of August, the mercury rising to 102 deg. in the shade
+at altitudes of 7000 feet, but it is rarely oppressive; the nights are
+cool, and greenery and abounding waters are a delightful contrast to
+the arid hills and burning plains of Persia. The rainfall is scarcely
+measurable, the snowfall is reported as heavy, and the winter
+temperatures are presumably low.
+
+There are few traces of a past history, and the legends connected with
+the few are too hazy to be of any value, but there are remains of
+bridges of dressed stone, and of at least one ancient road, which must
+have been trodden by the soldiers of Alexander the Great and Valerian,
+and it is not impossible that the rude forts here and there which the
+tribesmen attribute to mythical heroes of their own race may have been
+built to guard Greek or Roman communications.
+
+The geology, entomology, and zoology of the Bakhtiari country have yet
+to be investigated. In a journey of three months and a half the only
+animals seen were a bear and cubs, a boar, some small ibex, a blue
+hare, and some jackals. Francolin are common, and storks were seen,
+but scarcely any other birds, and bees and butterflies are rare. It is
+the noxious forms of animated life which are abundant. There are
+snakes, some of them venomous, a venomous spider, and a stinging
+beetle, and legions of black flies, mosquitos, and sand-flies infest
+many localities.
+
+This area of lofty ranges, valleys, gorges, and alpine pasturages is
+inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, classed with the savage or
+semi-savage races, who, though they descend to the warmer plains in
+the winter, invariably speak of these mountains as "their country." On
+this journey nearly all the tribes were visited in their own
+encampments, and their arrangements, modes of living, customs, and
+beliefs were subjects of daily investigation, the results of which are
+given in the letters which follow.
+
+Their own very hazy traditions, which are swift to lose themselves in
+the fabulous, represent that they came from Syria, under one chief,
+and took possession of the country which they now inhabit. A later
+tradition states that a descendant of this chief had two wives equally
+beloved, one of whom had four sons, and the other seven; and that
+after their father's death the young men quarrelled, separated, and
+bequeathed their quarrel to posterity, the seven brothers forming the
+Haft Lang division of the Bakhtiaris, and the four the Chahar
+Lang.[44]
+
+The Haft Lang, though originally far superior in numbers, weakened
+their power by their unending internal conflicts, and in 1840, when
+Sir A. H. Layard visited a part of Luristan not embraced in this
+route, and sojourned at Kala-i-Tul, the power and headship of Mehemet
+Taki Khan, the great chief of their rivals the Chahar Lang, were
+recognised throughout the region.
+
+The misfortunes which came upon him overthrew the supremacy of his
+clan, and now (as for some years past) the Haft Lang supply the ruling
+dynasty, the Chahar Lang being, however, still strong enough to decide
+any battles for the chieftainship which may be fought among their
+rivals. Time, and a stronger assertion of the sovereignty of Persia,
+have toned the feud down into a general enmity and aversion, but the
+tribes of the two septs rarely intermarry, and seldom encamp near each
+other without bloodshed.
+
+The great divisions of the Bakhtiaris, the Haft Lang, the Chahar Lang,
+and the Dinarunis, with the dependencies of the Janiki Garmsir, the
+Janiki Sardsir, and the Afshar tribe of Gunduzlu, remain as they were
+half a century ago, when they were the subject of careful
+investigation by Sir A. H. Layard and Sir H. Rawlinson.
+
+The tribes (as enumerated by several of the Khans without any
+divergence in their statements) number 29,100 families, an increase in
+the last half-century. Taking eight to a household, which I believe to
+be a fair estimate, a population of 232,800 would be the result.[45]
+
+A few small villages of mud hovels at low altitudes are tenanted by a
+part of their inhabitants throughout the winter, the other part
+migrating with the bulk of the flocks; and 3000 families of the two
+great Janiki divisions are _deh-nishins_ or "dwellers in cities,"
+_i.e._ they do not migrate at all; but the rest are nomads, that is,
+they have winter camping-grounds in the warm plains of Khuzistan and
+elsewhere, and summer pastures in the region of the Upper Karun and
+its affluents, making two annual migrations between their _garmsirs_
+and _sardsirs_ (hot and cold quarters).
+
+Though a pastoral people, they have (as has been referred to
+previously) of late years irrigated, stoned, and cultivated a number
+of their valleys, sowing in the early autumn, leaving the crops for
+the winter and early spring, and on their return weeding them very
+carefully till harvest-time in July.
+
+They live on the produce of their flocks and herds, on leavened cakes
+made of wheat and barley flour, and on a paste made of acorn flour.
+
+In religion they are fanatical Moslems of the Shiah sect, but combine
+relics of nature worship with the tenets of Islam.
+
+The tribes, which were to a great extent united under the judicious
+and ambitious policy of Mehemet Taki Khan and Hussein Kuli Khan,
+nominally acknowledge one feudal head, the Ilkhani, who is associated
+in power with another chief called the Ilbegi. The Ilkhani, who is
+appointed by the Shah for a given period, capable of indefinite
+extension, is responsible for the tribute, which amounts to about two
+_tumans_ a household, and for the good order of Luri-Buzurg.
+
+The Bakhtiaris are good horsemen and marksmen. Possibly in
+inter-tribal war from 10,000 to 12,000 men might take the field, but
+it is doubtful whether more than from 6000 to 8000 could be relied on
+in an external quarrel.
+
+The Khan of each tribe is practically its despotic ruler, and every
+tribesman is bound to hold himself at his disposal.
+
+As concerns tribute, they are under the government of Isfahan, with
+the exception of three tribes and a half, which are under the
+government of Burujird.
+
+They are a warlike people, and though more peaceable than formerly,
+they cherish blood-feuds and are always fighting among themselves.
+Their habits are predatory by inclination and tradition, but they have
+certain notions of honour and of regard to pledges when voluntarily
+given.[46]
+
+They deny Persian origin, but speak a dialect of Persian. Conquered
+by Nadir Shah, who took many of them into his service, they became
+independent after his death, until the reign of Mohammed Shah. Though
+tributary, they still possess a sort of _quasi_ independence, though
+Persia of late years has tightened her grip upon them, and the Shah
+keeps many of their influential families in Tihran and its
+neighbourhood as hostages for the good behaviour of their clans.
+
+Of the Feili Lurs, the nomads of Luri-Kushak or the Lesser Luristan,
+the region lying between the Ab-i-Diz and the Assyrian plains, with
+the province of Kirmanshah to the north and Susiana to the south,
+little was seen. These tribes are numerically superior to the
+Bakhtiaris. Fifty years ago, according to Sir H. Rawlinson, they
+numbered 56,000 families.
+
+They have no single feudal chieftain like their neighbours, nor are
+their subdivisions ruled, as among them, by powerful Khans. They are
+governed by _Tushmals_ (lit. "master of a house") and four or five of
+these are associated in the rule of every tribal subdivision. On such
+occasions as involve tribal well-being or the reverse, these
+_Tushmals_ consult as equals.
+
+Sir H. Rawlinson considered that the Feili Lur form of government is
+very rare among the clan nations of Asia, and that it approaches
+tolerably near to the spirit of a confederated republic. Their
+language, according to the same authority, differs little from that of
+the Kurds of Kirmanshah.
+
+Unlike the Bakhtiaris, they neglect agriculture, but they breed and
+export mules, and trade in carpets, charcoal, horse-furniture, and
+sheep.
+
+In faith they are Ali Ilahis, but are grossly ignorant and religiously
+indifferent; they show scarcely any respect to Mohammed and the Koran,
+and combine a number of ancient superstitions and curious sacrificial
+rites with a deep reverence for Sultan Ibrahim, who under the name of
+_B[=a]b[=a] Buzurg_ (the great father) is worshipped throughout
+Luri-Kushak.
+
+For the tribute payable to Persia no single individual is responsible.
+The sum to be levied is distributed among the tribes by a general
+council, after which each subdivision apportions the amount to be paid
+by the different camps, and the _Rish-Sefid_ (lit. gray-beard) or head
+of each encampment collects from the different families according to
+their means.
+
+The task of the Persian tax-collector is a difficult one, for the
+tribes are in a state of chronic turbulence, and fail even in
+obedience to their own general council, and the collection frequently
+ends in an incursion of Persian soldiers and a Government raid on the
+flocks and herds. Many of these people are miserably poor, and they
+are annually growing poorer under Persian maladministration.
+
+The Feili Lurs are important to England commercially, because the
+cart-road from Ahwaz to Tihran, to be completed within two years,
+passes partly through their country,[47] and its success as the future
+trade route from the Gulf depends upon their good-will, or rather
+upon their successful coercion by the Persian Government.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] The writers who have dealt with some of the earlier portions of
+my route are as follows: Henry Blosse Lynch, Esq., _Across Luristan to
+Ispahan--Proceedings of the R.G.S._, September 1890. Colonel M. S.
+Bell, V.C., _A Visit to the Karun River and Kum--Blackwood's
+Magazine_, April 1889. Colonel J. A. Bateman Champain, R.E., _On the
+Various Means of Communication between Central Persia and the
+Sea--Proceedings of the R.G.S._, March 1883. Colonel H. L. Wells,
+R.E., _Surveying Tours in South-Western Persia--Proceedings of
+R.G.S._, March 1883. Mr. Stack, _Six Months in Persia_, London, 1884.
+Mr. Mackenzie, _Speech--Proceedings of R.G.S._, March 1883. The
+following among other writers have dealt with the condition of the
+Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs, and with the geography of the region to the
+west and south-west of the continuation of the great Zagros chain,
+termed in these notes the "Outer" and "Inner" ranges of the Bakhtiari
+mountains, their routes touching those of the present writer at
+Khuramabad: Sir H. Rawlinson, _Notes of a March from Zohab to
+Khuzistan in 1836--Journal of the R.G.S._, vol. ix., 1839. Sir A. H.
+Layard, _Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, including
+a residence among the Bakhtiari and other wild tribes_, 2 vols.,
+London, 1887. Baron C. A. de Bode, _Travels in Luristan and
+Arabistan_, 2 vols., London, 1845. W. F. Ainsworth (Surgeon and
+Geologist to the Euphrates Expedition), _The River Karun_, London,
+1890. General Schindler travelled over and described the Isfahan and
+Shuster route, and published a map of the country in 1884.
+
+[43] Among the trees and shrubs to be met with are an oak (_Quercus
+ballota_), which supplies the people with acorn flour, the _Platanus_
+and _Tamariscus orientalis_, the jujube tree, two species of elm, a
+dwarf tamarisk, poplar, four species of willow, the apple, pear,
+cherry, plum, walnut, gooseberry, almond, dogwood, hawthorn, ash,
+lilac, alder, _Paliurus aculeatus_, rose, bramble, honeysuckle, hop
+vine, grape vine, _Clematis orientalis_, _Juniperus excelsa_, and
+hornbeam.
+
+[44] In Persian _haft_ is seven, and _chakar_ four.
+
+[45] This computation is subject to correction. Various considerations
+dispose the Ilkhani and the other Khans to minimise or magnify the
+population. It has been stated at from 107,000 to 275,000 souls, and
+by a "high authority" to different persons as 107,000 and 211,000
+souls!
+
+[46] Sir. H. Rawlinson sums up Bakhtiari character in these very
+severe words: "I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel
+and savage character; they pursue their blood-feuds with the most
+inveterate and exterminating spirit, and they consider no oath or
+obligation in any way binding when it interferes with their thirst for
+revenge; indeed, the dreadful stories of domestic tragedy that are
+related, in which whole families have fallen by each other's hands (a
+son, for instance, having slain his father to obtain the
+chiefship--another brother having avenged the murder, and so on, till
+only one individual was left), are enough to freeze the blood with
+horror.
+
+"It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiaris have been obliged to
+forego altogether the reading of the _F[=a]htihah_ or prayer for the
+dead, for otherwise they would have no other occupation. They are also
+most dexterous and notorious thieves. Altogether they may be
+considered the most wild and barbarous of all the inhabitants of
+Persia."--"Notes on a March from Zohab to Khuzistan," _Journal of the
+R.G.S._, vol. ix. Probably there is an improvement since this verdict
+was pronounced. At all events I am inclined to take a much more
+favourable view of the Bakhtiaris than has been given in the very
+interesting paper from which this quotation is made.
+
+[47] A report to the Foreign Office (No. 207) made by an officer who
+travelled from Khuramabad to Dizful in December 1890, contains the
+following remarks on this route.
+
+"As to the danger to caravans in passing through these hills, I am
+inclined to believe that the Lurs are now content to abandon robbery
+with violence in favour of payments and contributions from timid
+traders and travellers. They hang upon the rear of a caravan; an
+accident, a fallen or strayed pack animal, or stragglers in difficulty
+bring them to the spot, and, on the pretence of assistance given, a
+demand is made for money, in lieu of which, on fear or hesitation
+being shown, they obtain such articles as they take a fancy to.
+
+"The tribes through whose limits the road runs have annual allowances
+for protecting it, but it is a question whether these are regularly
+paid. It can hardly be expected that the same system of deferred and
+reduced payments, which unfortunately prevails in the Persian public
+service, should be accepted patiently by a starving people, who have
+long been given to predatory habits, and this may account for
+occasional disturbance. They probably find it difficult to understand
+why payment of taxes should be mercilessly exacted upon them, while
+their allowances remain unpaid. It is generally believed that they
+would take readily to work if fairly treated and honestly paid, and I
+was told that for the construction of the proposed cart-road there
+would be no difficulty in getting labourers from the neighbouring Lur
+tribes."
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+
+     KAHVA RUKH, CHAHAR MAHALS, _May 4._
+
+I left Julfa on the afternoon of April 30, with Miss Bruce as my guest
+and Mr. Douglas as our escort for the first three or four days. The
+caravan was sent forward early, that my inexperienced servants might
+have time to pitch the tents before our arrival.
+
+Green and pleasant looked the narrow streets and walled gardens of
+Julfa under a blue sky, on which black clouds were heavily massed here
+and there; but greenery was soon exchanged for long lines of mud
+ruins, and the great gravelly slopes in which the mountains descend
+upon the vast expanse of plain which surrounds Isfahan, on which the
+villages of low mud houses are marked by dark belts of poplars,
+willows, fruit-trees, and great patches of irrigated and cultivated
+land, shortly to take on the yellow hue of the surrounding waste, but
+now beautifully green.
+
+Passing through Pul-i-Wargun, a large and much wooded village on the
+Zainderud, there a very powerful stream, affording abundant water
+power, scarcely used, we crossed a bridge 450 feet long by twelve feet
+broad, of eighteen brick arches resting on stone piers, and found the
+camps pitched on some ploughed land by a stream, and afternoon tea
+ready for the friends who had come to give us what Persians call "a
+throw on the road." I examined my equipments, found that nothing
+essential was lacking, initiated my servants into their evening
+duties, especially that of tightening tent ropes and driving tent pegs
+well in, and enjoyed a social evening in the adjacent camp.
+
+The next day's journey, made under an unclouded sky, was mainly along
+the Zainderud, from which all the channels and rills which nourish the
+vegetation far and near are taken. A fine, strong, full river it is
+there and at Isfahan in spring, so prolific in good works that one
+regrets that it should be lost sixty miles east of Isfahan in the
+Gas-Khana, an unwholesome marsh, the whole of its waters disappearing
+in the _Kavir_. Many large villages with imposing pigeon-towers lie
+along this part of its course, surrounded with apricot and walnut
+orchards, wheat and poppy fields, every village an oasis, and every
+oasis a paradise, as seen in the first flush of spring. On a slope of
+gravel is the Bagh-i-Washi, with the remains of an immense enclosure,
+where the renowned Shah Abbas is said to have had a menagerie. Were it
+not for the beautiful fringe of fertility on both margins of the
+Zainderud the country would be a complete waste. The opium poppy is in
+bloom now. The use of opium in Persia and its exportation are always
+increasing, and as it is a very profitable crop, both to the
+cultivators and to the Government, it is to some extent superseding
+wheat.
+
+Leaving the greenery we turned into a desert of gravel, crossed some
+low hills, and in the late afternoon came down upon the irrigated
+lands which surround the large and prosperous village of Riz, the
+handsome and lofty pigeon-towers of which give it quite a fine
+appearance from a distance.
+
+These pigeon-towers are numerous, both near Isfahan and in the
+villages along the Zainderud, and are everywhere far more imposing
+than the houses of the people. Since the great famine, which made a
+complete end of pigeon-keeping for the time, the industry has never
+assumed its former proportions, and near Julfa many of the towers are
+falling into ruin.
+
+The Riz towers, however, are in good repair. They are all built in the
+same way, varying only in size and height, from twenty to fifty feet
+in diameter, and from twenty-five to eighty feet from base to summit.
+They are "round towers," narrowing towards the top. They are built of
+sun-dried bricks of local origin, costing about two _krans_ or 16d. a
+thousand, and are decorated with rings of yellowish plaster, with
+coarse arabesques in red ochre upon them. For a door there is an
+opening half-way up, plastered over like the rest of the wall.
+
+Two walls, cutting each other across at right angles, divide the
+interior. I am describing from a ruined tower which was easy of
+ingress. The sides of these walls, and the whole of the inner surface
+of the tower, are occupied by pigeon cells, the open ends of which are
+about twelve inches square. According to its size a pigeon-tower may
+contain from 2000 to 7000, or even 8000, pairs of pigeons. These birds
+are gray-blue in colour.
+
+A pigeon-tower is a nuisance to the neighbourhood, for its occupants,
+being totally unprovided for by their proprietor, live upon their
+neighbours' fields. In former days it must have been a grand sight
+when they returned to their tower after the day's depredations. "Who
+are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"
+probably referred to a similar arrangement in Palestine.
+
+The object of the towers is the preservation and collection of "pigeon
+guano," which is highly prized for the raising of early melons. The
+door is opened once a year for the collection of this valuable manure.
+A large pigeon-tower used to bring its owner from L60 to L75 per
+annum, but a cessation of the great demand for early melons in the
+neighbourhood of Isfahan has prevented the re-stocking of the towers
+since the famine.
+
+Our experiences of Riz were not pleasant. One of the party during a
+short absence from his tent was robbed of a very valuable scientific
+instrument. After that there was the shuffling sound of a multitude
+outside the tent in which Miss Bruce and I were resting, and women
+concealed from head to foot in blue and white checked sheets,
+revealing but one eye, kept lifting the tent curtain, and when that
+was laced, applying the one eye to the spaces between the lace-holes,
+whispering and tittering all the time. Hot though it was, their
+persevering curiosity prevented any ventilation, and the steady gaze
+of single eyes here, there, and everywhere was most exasperating. It
+was impossible to use the dressing tent, for crowds of boys assembled,
+and rows of open mouths and staring eyes appeared between the _fly_
+and the ground. Vainly Miss Bruce, who speaks Persian well and
+courteously, told the women that this intrusion on our privacy when we
+were very tired was both rude and unkind. "We're only women," they
+said, "_we_ shouldn't mind it, we've never seen so many Europeans
+before." Sunset ended the nuisance, for then the whole crowd, having
+fasted since sunrise, hurried home for food.
+
+The great fast of the month of Ramazan began before we left Julfa.
+Moslems are not at their best while it lasts. They are apt to be
+crabbed and irritable; and everything that can be postponed is put off
+"till after Ramazan."
+
+Much ostentation comes out in the keeping of it; very pious people
+begin to fast before the month sets in. A really ascetic Moslem does
+not even swallow his saliva during the fast, and none but very old or
+sick people, children, and travellers, are exempt from the obligation
+to taste neither food nor water, and not even to smoke during
+daylight, for a whole month. The penance is a fearful one, and as the
+night is the only time for feasting, the Persians get through as much
+of the day as possible in sleep.
+
+Welcome indeed is the sunset. With joy men fill their pipes and drink
+tea as a prelude to the meal eaten an hour afterwards. Hateful is the
+dawn and the cry an hour before it, "Water! oh, water and opium!"--the
+warning to the faithful to drink largely and swallow an opium pill
+before sunrise. The thirst even in weather like this, and the
+abstention from smoking, are severer trials than the fasting from
+food. The Persian either lives to smoke, or smokes to live.
+
+Although travellers are nominally exempt from the fast from water at
+least, pious Moslems do not avail themselves of the liberty. Hadji
+Hussein, for instance, is keeping it as rigidly as any one, and, like
+some others, marches with the end of his _pagri_ tucked over his mouth
+and nose, a religious affectation, supposed to prevent the breaking of
+the fast by swallowing the animalculae which are believed to infest the
+air!
+
+Beyond Riz, everywhere there are arid yellow mountains and yellow
+gravelly plains, except along the Zainderud, where fruit-trees, wheat,
+and the opium poppy relieve the eyes from the glare. We took leave of
+the Zainderud at Pul-i-Kala, where it is crossed by a dilapidated but
+passable and very picturesque stone bridge of eight arches, and the
+view from the high right bank of wood, bridge, and the vigorous green
+river is very pretty.
+
+Little enough of trees or greenery have we seen since. This country,
+like much of the great Iranian plateau, consists of high mountains with
+broad valleys or large or small plateaux between them, absolutely
+treeless, and even now nearly verdureless, with scattered oases wherever
+a possibility of procuring water by means of laboriously-constructed
+irrigation canals renders cultivation possible.
+
+Water is scarce and precious; its value may be gathered from the
+allusions made by the Persian poets to fountains, cascades, shady
+pools, running streams, and bubbling springs. Such expressions as
+those in Scripture, "rivers of waters," "a spring of water whose
+waters fail not," convey a fulness of meaning to Persian ears of which
+we are quite ignorant. The first inquiry of a Persian about any part
+of his own country is, "Is there water?" the second, "Is the water
+good?" and if he wishes to extol any particular region he says "the
+water is abundant all the year, and is sweet, there is no such water
+anywhere."
+
+The position of a village is always determined by the water supply,
+for the people have not only to think of water for domestic purposes,
+but for irrigating their crops, and this accounts for the packing of
+hamlets on steep mountain sides where land for cultivation can only be
+obtained by laborious terracing, but where some perennial stream can
+be relied on for filling the small canals. The fight for water is one
+of the hardest necessities of the Persian peasant. A water famine of
+greater or less degree is a constant peril.
+
+Land in Persia is of three grades, the wholly irrigated, the partially
+irrigated, and the "rain-lands," usually uplands, chiefly suited for
+pasturage. The wholly irrigated land is the most productive. The
+assessments for taxes appear to leave altogether out of account the
+relative fertility of the land, and to be calculated solely on the
+supply of water. A winter like the last, of heavy snow, means a
+plenteous harvest, _i.e._ "twelve or fourteen grains for one," as the
+peasants put it; a scanty snowfall means famine, for the little rain
+which falls is practically of scarcely any use.
+
+The plan for the distribution of water seems to be far less
+provocative of quarrels than that of some other regions dependent on
+irrigation, such as Ladak and Nubra. Where it is at all abundant, as
+it is in this Zainderud valley, it is only in the great heats of
+summer that it is necessary to apportion it with any rigidity. It is
+then placed in the hands of a _mirab_ or water officer, who allows it
+to each village in turn for so many days, during which time the
+villages above get none, or the _ketchudas_ manage it among themselves
+without the aid of a _mirab_, for the sad truth, which is applicable
+to all Persian officialism, applies in the _mirab's_ case, that if a
+village be rich enough to bribe him it can get water out of its turn.
+
+The blessedness of the Zainderud valley is exceptional, and the
+general rule in the majority of districts is that the water must be
+carefully divided and be measured by "_tashts_," each _tasht_ being
+equivalent to the use of the water supply for eleven minutes.
+
+"This space of time is estimated in a very ancient fashion by floating
+a copper bowl with a needle hole in the bottom in a large vessel of
+water. The _tasht_ comes to an end as the bowl sinks. The distribution
+is regulated by the number of _tashts_ that each man has a right to.
+If he has a right to twenty he will receive water for three and
+three-quarter hours of the day or night every tenth day." Land without
+water in Persia is about as valuable as the "south lands" were which
+were given to Caleb's daughter.
+
+So far as I can learn, the Persian peasant enjoys a tolerable security
+of tenure so long as he pays his rent. A common rate of rent is
+two-thirds of the produce, but on lands where the snow lies for many
+months, even when they are "wet lands," it is only one-third; but this
+system is subject to many modifications specially arising out of the
+finding or non-finding of the seed by the owner, and there is no
+uniformity in the manner of holding land or in assessing the taxes or
+in anything else, though the system established 1400 years ago is
+still the basis of the whole.[48]
+
+The line between the oasis and the desert is always strongly marked
+and definite. There is no shading away between the deep green of the
+growing wheat and the yellow or red gravel beyond. The general
+impression is one of complete nakedness. The flowers which in this
+month bloom on the slopes are mostly stiff, leathery, and thorny. The
+mountains themselves viewed from below are without any indication of
+green. The usual colouring is grayish-yellow or a feeble red,
+intensifying at sunset, but rarely glorified owing to the absence of
+"atmosphere."
+
+It is a very solitary route from Pul-i-Kala, without villages, and we
+met neither caravans nor foot passengers. The others rode on, and I
+followed with two of the Bakhtiari escort, who with Rustem Khan, a
+minor chief, had accompanied us from Julfa. These men were most
+inconsequent in their proceedings, wheeling round me at a gallop,
+singing, or rather howling, firing their long guns, throwing
+themselves into one stirrup and nearly off their horses, and one who
+rides without a bridle came up behind me with his horse bolting and
+nearly knocked me out of the saddle with the long barrel of his gun.
+When the village of Charmi came in sight I signed to them to go on,
+and we all rode at a gallop, the horsemen uttering wild cries and
+going through the pantomime of firing over the left shoulders and
+right flanks of their horses.
+
+The camps were pitched on what might be called the village green.
+Charmi, like many Persian villages, is walled, the wall, which is
+much jagged by rain and frost, having round towers at intervals, and a
+large gateway. Such walls are no real protection, but serve to keep
+the flocks and herds from nocturnal depredators. Within the gate is a
+house called the Fort, with a very fine room fully thirty feet long by
+fifteen high, decorated with a mingled splendour and simplicity
+surprising in a rural district. The wall next the courtyard is
+entirely of very beautiful fretwork, filled in with amber and pale
+blue glass. The six doors are the same, and the walls and the
+elaborate roof and cornices are pure white, the projections being
+"picked out" in a pale shade of brown, hardly darker than amber.
+
+The following morning Miss Bruce left on her return home, and Mr.
+Douglas and I rode fourteen miles to the large village of Kahva Rukh,
+where we parted company. It is an uninteresting march over formless
+gravelly hills and small plains thinly grassed, until the
+Gardan-i-Rukh, one of the high passes on the Isfahan and Shuster
+route, is reached, with its extensive view of brown mountains and
+yellow wastes. This pass, 7960 feet in altitude, crossing the
+unshapely Kuh-i-Rukh, is the watershed of the country, all the streams
+on its southern side falling into the Karun. It is also the entrance
+to the Chahar Mahals or four districts, Lar, Khya, Mizak, and
+Gandaman, which consist chiefly of great plains surrounded by
+mountains, and somewhat broken up by their gravelly spurs.
+
+Beyond, and usually in sight, is the snow-slashed Kuh-i-Sukhta range,
+which runs south-east, and throws out a spur to Chigakhor, the summer
+resort of the Bakhtiari chiefs. The Chahar Mahals, for Persia, are
+populous, and in some parts large villages, many of which are Armenian
+and Georgian, occur at frequent intervals, most of them treeless, but
+all surrounded by cultivated lands. The Armenian villages possess
+so-called relics and ancient copies of the Gospels, which are
+credited with the power of working miracles.[49]
+
+The Chahar Mahals have been farmed to the Ilkhani of the Bakhtiaris
+for about 20,000 _tumans_ (L6000) a year, and his brother, Reza Kuli
+Khan, has been appointed their governor. Thus on crossing the Kahva
+Rukh pass we entered upon the sway of the feudal head of the great
+Bakhtiari tribes.
+
+We camped outside the village, my tents being pitched in a ruinous
+enclosure. The servants are in the habit of calling me the _Hak[=i]m_,
+and the report of a Frank _Hak[=i]m_ having arrived soon brought a
+crowd of sick people, who were introduced and their ailments described
+by a blue horseman, one of the escort.
+
+His own child was so dangerously ill of pneumonia that I went with him
+to his house, put on a mustard poultice, and administered some Dover's
+powder. The house was crammed and the little suffering creature had
+hardly air to breathe. The courtyard was also crowded, so that one
+could scarcely move, all the people being quite pleasant and friendly.
+I saw several sick people, and was surprised to find the village
+houses so roomy and comfortable, and so full of "plenishings." It was
+in vain that I explained to them that I am not a doctor, scarcely even
+a nurse. The fame of Burroughes and Wellcome's medicine chest has
+spread far and wide, and they think its possessor _must_ be a
+_Hak[=i]m_. The horseman said that medicine out of that chest would
+certainly cure his child.[50] I was unable to go back to the tea which
+had been prepared in the horseman's house, on which he expressed great
+dismay, and said I must be "enraged with him."
+
+Persians always use round numbers, and the _ketchuda_ says that the
+village has 300 Persian houses, and 100 more, inhabited during the
+winter by Ilyats. It has mud walls with towers at intervals, two
+mosques, a clear stream of water in the principal street, some very
+good houses with _balakhanas_, and narrow alleys between high mud
+walls, in which are entrances into courtyards occupied by animals, and
+surrounded by living-rooms. The only trees are a few spindly willows,
+but wheat comes up to the walls, and at sunset great herds of cattle
+and myriads of brown sheep converge to what seems quite a prosperous
+village.
+
+_May 5._--Yesterday, Sunday, was intended to be a day of rest, but
+turned out very far from it. After the last relay of "patients" left
+on Saturday evening, and the last medicines had been "dispensed," my
+tent was neatly arranged with one _yekdan_ for a table, and the other
+for a washstand and medicine stand. The latter trunk contained some
+English gold in a case along with some valuable letters, and some
+bags, in which were 1000 _krans_, for four months' travelling. This
+_yekdan_ was padlocked. It was a full moon, the other camps were quite
+near, all looked very safe, and I slept until awakened by the
+sharpness of the morning air.
+
+Then I saw but one _yekdan_ where there had been two! Opening the
+tent curtain I found my washing apparatus and medicine bottles neatly
+arranged on the ground outside, and the trunk without its padlock
+among some ruins a short distance off. The money bags were all gone,
+leaving me literally penniless. Most of my store of tea was taken, but
+nothing else. Two men must have entered my tent and have carried the
+trunk out. Of what use are any precautions when one sleeps so
+disgracefully soundly? When the robbery was made known horsemen were
+sent off to the Ilkhani, whose guest I have been since I entered his
+territory, and at night a Khan arrived with a message that "the money
+would be repaid, and that the village would be levelled with the
+ground!" Kahva Rukh will, I hope, stand for many years to come, but
+the stolen sum will be levied upon it, according to custom.
+
+The people are extremely vexed at this occurrence, and I would rather
+have lost half the sum than that it should have happened to a guest.
+In addition to an escort of a Khan and four men, the Ilkhani has given
+orders that we are not to be allowed to pay for anything while in the
+country. This order, after several battles, I successfully disobey.
+This morning, before any steps were taken to find the thief, and after
+all the loads were ready, officials came to the camps, and, by our
+wish, every man's baggage was unrolled and searched. Our servants and
+_charvadars_ are all Moslems, and each of them took an oath on the
+Koran, administered by a _mollah_, that he was innocent of the theft.
+
+_Ardal, May 9._--I left rather late, and with the blue horseman, to
+whom suspicion generally pointed, rode to Shamsabad, partly over
+gravelly wastes, passing two mixed Moslem and Armenian villages on a
+plain, on which ninety ploughs were at work on a stiff whitish soil.
+
+Shamsabad is a most wretched mud village without supplies, standing
+bare on a gravelly slope, above a clear quiet stream, an affluent of
+the Karun. This country has not reached that stage of civilisation in
+which a river bears the same name from mouth to source, and as these
+streams usually take as many names as there are villages on their
+course, I do not burden my memory with them. There is a charming
+camping-ground of level velvety green sward on the right bank of the
+river, with the towering mass of Jehanbin (sight of the world), 12,000
+feet high, not far off. This lawn is 6735 feet above the sea, and the
+air keen and pleasant. The near mountain views are grand, and that
+evening the rare glory of a fine sunset lingered till it was merged in
+the beauty of a perfect moonlight.
+
+After leaving Shamsabad the road passes through a rather fine defile,
+crosses the Shamsabad stream by a ten-arched bridge between the
+Kuh-i-Zangun and the Kuh-i-Jehanbin, and proceeds down a narrow valley
+now full of wild flowers and young wheat to Khariji, a village of
+fifty houses, famous for the excellent quality of its opium. From
+Khariji we proceeded through low grassy hills, much like the South
+Downs, and over the low but very rough Pasbandi Pass into an irrigated
+valley in which is the village of Shalamzar. I rode through it alone
+quite unmolested, but two days later the Sahib, passing through it
+with his servants, was insulted and pelted, and the people said,
+"Here's another of the dog party." These villagers are afflicted with
+"divers diseases and torments," and the crowd round my tent was
+unusually large and importunate. In this village of less than fifty
+houses nearly all the people had one or both eyes more or less
+affected, and fourteen had only one eye.
+
+Between Shalamzar and Ardal lies the lofty Gardan-i-Zirreh, by which
+the Kuh-i-Sukhta is crossed at a height of 8300 feet. The ascent
+begins soon after leaving the village, and is long and steep--a nasty
+climb. The upper part at this date is encumbered with snow, below
+which primulas are blooming in great profusion, and lower down
+leathery flowers devoid of beauty cover without adorning the hillside.
+Two peasants went up with me, and from time to time kindly handed me
+clusters of small raisins taken from the breasts of dirty felt
+clothing. On reaching the snow I found Rustem Khan's horse half-buried
+in a drift, so I made the rest of the ascent on foot. The snow was
+three feet deep, but for the most part presented no difficulties, even
+to the baggage animals.
+
+At the summit there were no green things except some plants of
+_artemisia_, not even a blade of grass, but among the crevices
+appeared small fragile snow-white tulips with yellow centres, mixed
+with scarlet and mauve blossoms of a more vigorous make. At that great
+height the air was keen and bracing, and to eyes for months accustomed
+to regions buried in dazzling snow and to glaring gravelly wastes,
+there was something perfectly entrancing about the view on the
+Bakhtiari side. Though treeless, it looked like Paradise. Lying at the
+foot of the pass is the deep valley of Seligun, 8000 feet high, with
+the range of the Kuh-i-Nassar to the south, and of the Kuh-Shah-Purnar
+to the north--green, full of springs and streams, with two lakes
+bringing down the blue of heaven to earth, with slopes aflame with the
+crimson and terra-cotta _Fritillaria imperialis_, and levels one
+golden glory with a yellow ranunculus. Rich and dark was the green of
+the grass, tall and deep on the plain, but when creeping up the
+ravines to meet the snows, short green sward enamelled with tulips.
+Great masses of naked rock, snow-slashed, and ranges of snow-topped
+masses behind and above, walled in that picture of cool serenity, its
+loneliness only broken by three black tents of Ilyats far away. So I
+saw Seligun, but those who see it a month hence will find only a brown
+and dusty plain!
+
+The range we crossed divides the Chahar Mahals from the true Bakhtiari
+country, a land of mountains which rumour crests with eternal snow, of
+unexplored valleys and streams, of feudal chiefs, of blood feuds, and
+of nomad tribes moving with vast flocks and herds.
+
+Mehemet Ali, a new and undesirable acquisition, was loaded with my
+_shuldari_, and we clambered down the hillside, leading our horses
+amidst tamarisk scrub and a glory of tulips, till we reached the
+level, when a gallop brought us to the camps, pitched near a vigorous
+spring in the green flower-enamelled grass.
+
+That halt was luxury for man and beast. Later the air was cool and
+moist. The sun-lit white fleeces which had been rolling among the
+higher hills darkened and thickened into rain-clouds, drifting
+stormily, and only revealing here and there through their rifts
+glimpses of blue. A few flocks of sheep on the mountains, and the
+mules and horses revelling knee-deep in the juicy grass, were the sole
+representatives of animated life. It was a real refreshment to be away
+from the dust of mud villages, and to escape from the pressure of
+noisy and curious crowds, and the sight of sore eyes.
+
+Towards evening, a gallop on the Arabs with the Bakhtiari escort took
+us to the camp of the lately-arrived Ilyats. Orientals spend much of
+their time in the quiet contemplation of cooking pots, and these
+nomads were not an exception, for they were all sitting round a
+brushwood fire, on which the evening meal of meat broth with herbs was
+being prepared. The women were unveiled. Both men and women are of
+quite a different type from the Persians. They are completely clothed
+and in appearance are certainly only semi-savages. These tents
+consisted of stones rudely laid to a height of two feet at the back,
+over which there is a canopy with an open front and sides, of woven
+goat's-hair supported on poles. Such tents are barely a shelter from
+wind and rain, but in them generations of Ilyats are born and die,
+despising those of their race who settle in villages.
+
+There were great neutral-tint masses of rolling clouds, great banks of
+glistering white clouds, a cold roystering wind, a lurid glow, and
+then a cloudy twilight. _Hak[=i]m_ threw up his heels and galloped
+over the moist grass, the Bakhtiaris, two on one horse, laughed and
+yelled--there was the desert freedom without the desert. It was the
+most inspiriting evening I have spent in Persia. Truth compels me to
+add that there were legions of black flies.
+
+In the early morning, after riding round the south-east end of the
+valley, we passed by the lake Seligun or Albolaki, banked up by a
+revetment of rude masonry. The wind was strong, and drove the
+foam-flecked water in a long line of foam on the shore. Red-legged
+storks were standing in a row fishing. Cool scuds of rain made the
+morning homelike. Then there was a hill ascent, from which the view of
+snowy mountains, gashed by deep ravines and backed by neutral-tint
+clouds, was magnificent, and then a steep and rocky defile, which
+involved walking, its sides gaudy with the _Fritillaria imperialis_,
+which here attains a size and a depth of colouring of which we have no
+conception.
+
+In this pass we met a large number of Ilyat families going up to their
+summer quarters, with their brown flocks of sheep and their black
+flocks of goats. Their tents with all their other goods were packed in
+convenient parcels on small cows, and the women with babies and big
+wooden cradles were on asses. The women without babies, the elder
+children, and the men walked.
+
+Whatever beauty these women possessed was in the Meg Merrilees style,
+with a certain weirdness about it. They had large, dark, long eyes,
+with well-marked eyebrows, artificially prolonged, straight prominent
+noses, wide mouths with thin lips, long straight chins, and masses of
+black hair falling on each side of the face. Their dress consisted of
+enormously full dark blue cotton trousers, drawn in at the ankles, and
+suspended over the hips, not from the waist (the invariable custom in
+Persia), and loose sleeved vests, open in front. The adult women all
+wear a piece of cotton pinned on the head, and falling over the back
+and shoulders. The men had their hair in many long plaits, hanging
+from under felt skull-caps, and wore wide blue cotton trousers, white
+or printed cotton shirts over these, and girdles in which they carried
+knives, pipes, and other indispensables. All wore shoes or sandals of
+some kind. These men were very swarthy, but the younger women had rich
+brunette complexions, and were unveiled.
+
+Some bad horse-fights worried the remainder of the march, which
+included the ascent of an anemone-covered hill, 7700 feet high, from
+which we got the first view of the Ardal valley, much cultivated, till
+it narrows and is lost among mountains, now partly covered with snow.
+In the centre is a large building with a tower, the spring residence
+of the Ilkhani, whose goodwill it is necessary to secure. Through a
+magnificent gorge in the mountains passes the now famous Karun. A
+clatter of rain and a strong wind greeted our entrance into the
+valley, where we were met by some horsemen from the Ilkhani.
+
+The great Ardal plateau is itself treeless, though the lower spurs of
+the Kuh-i-Sabz on the south side are well wooded with the _belut_, a
+species of oak. There is much cultivation, and at this season the
+uncultivated ground is covered with the great green leaves of a fodder
+plant, the _Centaurea alata_, which a little later are cut, dried,
+and stacked. The rivers of the plateau are the Karun and Sabzu on the
+south side, and the river of Shamsabad, which brings to the Karun the
+drainage of the Chahar Mahals, and enters the valley through a
+magnificent _tang_ or chasm on its north side, called Darkash Warkash.
+The village of Ardal is eighty-five miles from Isfahan, on the Shuster
+caravan route, and is about 200 from Shuster. Its altitude is 5970
+feet, its Long. 50 deg. 50' E. and its Lat. 32 deg. N.
+
+On arriving here the grandeur of the Ilkhani's house faded away.
+Except for the fortified tower it looks like a second-rate
+caravanserai. The village, such as there is of it, is crowded on a
+steep slope outside the "Palace." It is a miserable hamlet of low
+windowless mud hovels, with uneven mud floors, one or two feet lower
+than the ground outside, built in yards with ruinous walls, and full
+of heaps and holes. It is an _olla podrida_ of dark, poor, smoky mud
+huts; narrow dirt-heaped alleys, with bones and offal lying about;
+gaunt yelping dogs; bottle-green slimy pools, and ruins. The people
+are as dirty as the houses, but they are fine in physique and face, as
+if only the fittest survive. There is an _imamzada_, much visited on
+Fridays, on an adjacent slope. The snow lies here five feet deep in
+winter, it is said.
+
+When we arrived the roofs and balconies of the Ilkhani's house were
+crowded with people looking out for us. The Agha called at once, and I
+sent my letter of introduction from the Amin-es-Sultan. Presents
+arrived, formal visits were paid, the Ilkhani's principal wife
+appointed an hour at which to receive me, and a number of dismounted
+horsemen came and escorted me to the palace. The chief feature of the
+house is a large audience-chamber over the entrance, in which the
+chief holds a daily _durbar_, the deep balcony outside being usually
+thronged by crowds of tribesmen, all having free access to him. The
+coming and going are incessant.
+
+  [Illustration: CASTLE OF ARDAL.]
+
+The palace or castle is like a two-storied caravanserai, enclosing a
+large untidy courtyard, round which are stables and cow-houses, and
+dens for soldiers and servants. In the outer front of the building are
+deep recessed arches, with rooms opening upon them, in which the
+Isfahan traders, who come here for a month, expose their wares.
+Passing under the Ilkhani's audience-chamber by a broad arched passage
+with deep recesses on both sides, and through the forlorn uneven
+courtyard, a long, dark arched passage leads into a second courtyard,
+where there is an attempt at ornament by means of tanks and willows.
+Round this are a number of living-rooms for the Ilkhani's sons and
+their families, and here is the _andarun_, or house of the women. On
+the far side is the Fort, a tall square tower with loopholes and
+embrasures.
+
+A Cerberus guards the entrance to the _andarun_, but he allowed Mirza
+to accompany me. A few steps lead up from the courtyard into a lofty
+oblong room, with a deep cushioned recess containing a fireplace. The
+roof rests on wooden pillars. The front of the room facing the
+courtyard is entirely of fretwork filled in with pale blue and amber
+glass. The recess and part of the floor were covered with very
+beautiful blue and white grounded carpets, made by the women. The
+principal wife, a comely wide-mouthed woman of forty, advanced to meet
+me, kissed my hand, raised it to her brow, and sat down on a large
+carpet squab, while the other wives led me into the recess, and seated
+me on a pile of cushions, taking their places in a row on the floor
+opposite, but scarcely raising their eyes, and never speaking one
+word. The rest of the room was full of women and children standing,
+and many more blocked up the doorways, all crowding forward in spite
+of objurgations and smart slaps frequently administered by the
+principal wife.
+
+The three young wives are Bakhtiaris, and their style of beauty is
+novel to me--straight noses, wide mouths, thin lips, and long chins.
+Each has three stars tattooed on her chin, one in the centre of the
+forehead, and several on the back of the hands. The eyebrows are not
+only elongated with indigo, but are made to meet across the nose. The
+finger-nails, and inside of the hands, are stained with henna. The
+hair hangs round their wild, handsome faces, down to their
+collar-bones, in loose, heavy, but not uncleanly masses.
+
+Among the "well-to-do" Bakhtiari women, as among the Persians, the
+hair receives very great attention, although it is seldom exhibited.
+It is naturally jet black, and very abundant. It is washed at least
+once a week with a thin paste of a yellowish clay found among the
+Zard-Kuh mountains, which has a very cleansing effect.
+
+But the women are not content with their hair as it is, and alter its
+tinge by elaborate arts. They make a thick paste of henna, leave it on
+for two hours, and then wash it off. The result is a rich auburn tint.
+A similar paste, made of powdered indigo leaves, is then plastered
+over the hair for two hours. On its removal the locks are dark green,
+but in twenty-four hours more they become a rich blue-black. The
+process needs repeating about every twenty days, but it helps to fill
+up the infinite leisure of life. It is performed by the bath
+attendants.
+
+In justice to my sex I must add that the men dye their hair to an
+equal extent with the women, from the shining blue-black of the Shah's
+moustache to the brilliant orange of the beard of Hadji Hussein, by
+which he forfeits, though not in Persian estimation, the respect due
+to age.
+
+Some of the Ilkhani's children and grand-children have the hair dyed
+with henna alone to a rich auburn tint, which is very becoming to the
+auburn eyes and delicate paleness of some of them.
+
+The wives wore enormously full black silk trousers, drawn tight at the
+ankles, with an interregnum between them and short black vests, loose
+and open in front; and black silk sheets attached to a band fixed on
+the head enveloped their persons. They have, as is usual among these
+people, small and beautiful hands, with taper fingers and nails
+carefully kept. The chief wife, who rules the others, rumour says, was
+also dressed in black. She has a certain degree of comely dignity
+about her, and having seen something of the outer world in a
+pilgrimage to Mecca via Baghdad, returning by Egypt and Persia, and
+having also lived in Tihran, her intelligence has been somewhat
+awakened. The Bakhtiari women generally are neither veiled nor
+secluded, but the higher chiefs who have been at the capital think it
+_chic_ to adopt the Persian customs regarding women, and the inferior
+chiefs, when they have houses, follow their example.
+
+My conversation with the "queen" consisted chiefly of question and
+answer, varied by an occasional divergence on her part into an
+animated talk with Mirza Yusuf. Among the many questions asked were
+these: at what age our women marry? how many wives the Agha has? how
+long our women are allowed to keep their boys with them? why I do not
+dye my hair? if I know of anything to take away wrinkles? to whiten
+teeth? etc., if our men divorce their wives when they are forty? why
+Mr. ---- had refused a Bakhtiari wife? if I am travelling to collect
+herbs? if I am looking for the plant which if found would turn the
+base metals into gold? etc.
+
+She said they had very dull lives, and knew nothing of any customs but
+their own; that they would like to see the Agha, who, they heard, was
+a head taller than their tallest men; that they hoped I should be at
+Chigakhor when they were there, as it would be less dull, and she
+apologised for not offering tea or sweetmeats, as it is the fast of
+the Ramazan, which they observe very strictly. I told them that the
+Agha wished to take their photographs, and the Hadji Ilkhani along
+with them. They were quite delighted, but it occurred to them that
+they must first get the Ilkhani's consent. This was refused, and one
+of his sons, whose wife is very handsome, said, "We cannot allow
+pictures to be made of our women. It is not our custom. We cannot
+allow pictures of our women to be in strange hands. No good women have
+their pictures taken. Among the tribes you may find women base enough
+to be photographed." The chief wife offered to make me a present of
+her grandson, to whom I am giving a tonic, if I can make him strong
+and cure his deafness. He is a pale precocious child of ten, with
+hazel eyes and hair made artificially auburn.
+
+When the remarkably frivolous conversation flagged, they brought
+children afflicted with such maladies as ophthalmia, scabies, and sore
+eyes to be cured, but rejected my dictum that a copious use of soap
+and water must precede all remedies. Among the adults headaches, loss
+of appetite, and dyspepsia seem the prevailing ailments. Love potions
+were asked for, and charms to bring back lost love, with special
+earnestness, and the woful looks assumed when I told the applicants
+that I could do nothing for them were sadly suggestive. There could
+not have been fewer than sixty women and children in the room, many,
+indeed most of them, fearfully dirty in dress and person. Among them
+were several negro and mulatto slaves. When I came away the balconies
+and arches of the Ilkhani's house were full of men, anxious to have a
+good view of the Feringhi woman, but there was no rudeness there, or
+in the village, which I walked through afterwards with a courtesy
+escort of several dismounted horsemen.
+
+After this the Ilkhani asked me to go to see a man who is very ill,
+and sent two of his retainers with me. It must be understood that
+Mirza Yusuf goes with me everywhere as attendant and interpreter. The
+house was a dark room, with a shed outside, in a filthy yard, in which
+children, goats, and dogs were rolling over each other in a foot of
+powdered mud. Crowds of men were standing in and about the shed. I
+made my way through them, moving them to right and left with my hands,
+with the recognised supremacy of a _Hak[=i]m_! There were some wadded
+quilts on the ground, and another covered a form of which nothing was
+visible but two feet, deadly cold. The only account that the
+bystanders could give of the illness was, that four days ago the man
+fainted, and that since he had not been able to eat, speak, or move.
+The face was covered with several folds of a very dirty _chadar_. On
+removing it I was startled by seeing, not a sick man, but the open
+mouth, gasping respiration, and glassy eyes of a dying man. His
+nostrils had been stuffed with moist mud and a chopped aromatic herb.
+The feet were uncovered, and the limbs were quite cold. There was no
+cruelty in this. The men about him were most kind, but _absolutely
+ignorant_.
+
+I told them that he could hardly survive the night, and that all I
+could do was to help him to die comfortably. They said with one
+clamorous voice that they would do whatever I told them, and in the
+remaining hours they kept their word. I bade them cleanse the mud from
+his nostrils, wrap the feet and legs in warm cloths, give him air, and
+not crowd round him. Under less solemn circumstances I should have
+been amused with the absolute docility with which these big
+savage-looking men obeyed me. I cut up a blanket, and when they had
+heated some water in their poor fashion, showed them how to prepare
+fomentations, put on the first myself, and bathed his face and hands.
+
+He was clothed in rags of felt and cotton, evidently never changed
+since the day they were put on, though he was what they call
+"rich,"--a great owner of mares, flocks, and herds,--and the skin was
+scaly with decades of dirt. I ventured to pour a little sal-volatile
+and water down his throat, and the glassy eyeballs moved a little. I
+asked the bystanders if, as Moslems, they would object to his taking
+some spirits medicinally? They were willing, but said there was no
+_arak_ in the Bakhtiari country, a happy exemption! The Agha's
+kindness supplied some whisky, of which from that time the dying man
+took a teaspoonful, much diluted, every two hours, tossed down his
+throat with a spoon, Allah being always invoked. There was no woman's
+gentleness to soothe his last hours. A wife in the dark den inside was
+weaving, and once came out and looked carelessly at him, but men did
+for him all that he required with a tenderness and kindness which were
+very pleasing. Before I left they asked for directions over again, and
+one of the Ilkhani's retainers wrote them down.
+
+At night the Ilkhani sent to say that the man was much better and he
+hoped I would go and see him. The scene was yet more weird than in the
+daytime. A crowd of men were sitting and standing round a fire outside
+the shed, and four were watching the dying man. The whisky had revived
+him, his pulse was better, the fomentation had relieved the pain, and
+when it was reapplied he had uttered the word "good." I tried to make
+them understand it was only a last flicker of life, but they thought
+he would recover, and the Ilkhani sent to know what food he should
+have.
+
+At dawn "death music," wild and sweet, rang out on the still air; he
+died painlessly at midnight, and was carried to the grave twelve hours
+later.
+
+When people are very ill their friends give them food and medicine (if
+a _Hak[=i]m_ be attainable), till, in their judgment, the case is
+hopeless. Then they send for a _mollah_; who reads the Koran in a very
+loud sing-song tone till death ensues, the last thirst being
+alleviated meantime by _sharbat_ dropped into the mouth. Camphor and
+other sweet spices are burned at the grave. If they burn well and all
+is pure afterwards, they say that the deceased person has gone to
+heaven; if they burn feebly and smokily, and there is any
+unpleasantness from the grave, they say that the spirit is in
+perdition. A Bakhtiari grave is a very shallow trench.
+
+The watchers were kind, and carried out my directions faithfully. I
+give these minute details to show how much even simple nursing can do
+to mitigate suffering among a people so extremely ignorant as the
+Bakhtiaris are not only of the way to tend the sick, but of the
+virtues of the medicinal plants which grow in abundance around them. A
+medical man itinerating among their camps with a light hospital tent
+and some simple instruments and medicines could do a great deal of
+healing, and much also to break down the strong prejudice which exists
+against Christianity. Here, as elsewhere, the _Hak[=i]m_ is respected.
+Going in that capacity I found the people docile, respectful, and even
+grateful. Had I gone among them in any other, a Christian Feringhi
+woman would certainly have encountered rudeness and worse.
+
+The Ilkhani, who has not been in a hurry to call, made a formal visit
+to-day with his brother, Reza Kuli Khan, his eldest son Lutf, another
+son, Ghulam, with bad eyes, and a crowd of retainers. The Hadji
+Ilkhani,--Imam Kuli Khan, the great feudal chief of the Bakhtiari
+tribes, is a quiet-looking middle-aged man with a short black beard, a
+parchment-coloured complexion, and a face somewhat lined, with a
+slightly sinister expression at times. He wore a white felt cap, a
+blue full-skirted coat lined with green, another of fine buff
+kerseymere under it, with a girdle, and very wide black silk trousers.
+
+He is a man of some dignity of deportment, and his usual expression is
+somewhat kindly and courteous. He is a devout Moslem, and has a
+finely-illuminated copy of the Koran, which he spends much time in
+reading. He is not generally regarded as a very capable or powerful
+man, and is at variance with the Ilbegi, who, though nominally second
+chief, practically shares his power. In fact, at this time serious
+intrigues are going on, and some say that the adherents of the two
+chiefs would not be unwilling to come to open war.
+
+  [Illustration: IMAM KULI KHAN.]
+
+The greatest men who in this century have filled the office of Ilkhani
+both perished miserably. The fate of Sir H. Layard's friend, Mehemet
+Taki Khan, is well known to all readers of the _Early Recollections_,
+but it was possibly less unexpected than that of Hussein Kuli Khan,
+brother of the present Ilkhani, and father of the Ilbegi Isfandyar
+Khan. This man was evidently an enlightened and able ruler; he
+suppressed brigandage with a firm hand, and desired to see the
+Mohammerah-Shuster-Isfahan route fairly opened to trade. He went so
+far as to promise Mr. Mackenzie, of one of the leading Persian Gulf
+firms, in writing, that he would hold himself personally responsible
+for the safety of caravans in their passage through his territory, and
+would repay any losses by robbery. He agreed to take a third share of
+the cost of the necessary steamers on the Karun, and to furnish 100
+mules for land transport between Shuster and Isfahan.[51]
+
+It appears that Persian jealousy was excited by his enterprising
+spirit; he fell under the displeasure of the Zil-es-Sultan, and in
+1882 was put to death by poison while on his annual visit of homage.
+The present Ilkhani, who succeeded him, warned possibly by his
+brother's fate, is said to show little, if any, interest in commercial
+enterprise, and to have made the somewhat shrewd remark that the
+English "under the dress of the merchant often conceal the uniform of
+the soldier."
+
+In 1888 the Shah relented towards Hussein Kuli Khan's sons, the eldest
+of whom, Isfandyar Khan, had been in prison for seven years, and they
+with their uncle, Reza Kuli Khan, descended with their followers and a
+small Persian army upon the plain of Chigakhor, where they surprised
+and defeated the Hadji Ilkhani. His brother, Reza, was thereupon
+recognised by the Shah as Ilkhani, and Isfandyar as Ilbegi, with the
+substance of power. Another turn of the wheel of fortune, and the
+brothers became respectively Ilkhani and Governor of the Chahar
+Mahals, and their nephew is reinstated as Ilbegi.[52]
+
+The Ilkhani's word is law, within broad limits, among the numerous
+tribes of Bakhtiari Lurs who have consented to recognise him as their
+feudal head, and it has been estimated that in a popular quarrel he
+could bring from 8000 to 10,000 armed horsemen into the field. He is
+judge as well as ruler, but in certain cases there is a possible
+appeal to Tihran from his decisions. He is appointed by the Shah, with
+a salary of 1000 _tumans_ a year, but a strong man in his position
+could be practically independent.
+
+It can scarcely be supposed that the present Ilkhani will long retain
+his uneasy seat against the intrigues at the Persian court, and with a
+powerful and popular rival close at hand. It is manifestly the
+interest of the Shah's government to weaken the tribal power, and
+extinguish the authority and independence of the principal chiefs, and
+the Oriental method of attaining this end is by plots and intrigues at
+the capital, by creating and fomenting local quarrels, and by
+oppressive taxation. It is not wonderful, therefore, that many of the
+principal Khans, whose immemorial freedom has been encroached upon in
+many recent years by the Tihran Government, should look forward to a
+day when one of the Western powers will occupy south-west Persia, and
+give them security.
+
+The _Hadji_ Ilkhani, for the people always prefix the religious title,
+discussed the proposed journey, promised me an escort of a horseman
+and a _tufangchi_, or foot-soldier, begged us to consider ourselves
+here and everywhere as his guests, and to ask for all we want, here
+and elsewhere. His brother, Reza Kuli Khan, who has played an
+important part in tribal affairs, resembles him, but the sinister look
+is more persistent on his face. He was much depressed by the fear that
+he was going blind, but on trying my glasses he found he could see.
+The surprise of the old-sighted people when they find that spectacles
+renew their youth is most interesting.
+
+Another visitor has been the Ilbegi, Isfandyar Khan. Though not tall,
+he is very good-looking, and has beautiful hands and feet. He is able,
+powerful, and ambitious, inspires his adherents with great personal
+devotion, and is regarded by many as the "coming man." He was in
+Tihran when I was in Julfa, and hearing from one of the Ministers that
+I was about to visit the Bakhtiari country, he wrote to a general of
+cavalry in Isfahan, asking him to provide me with an escort if I
+needed it. I was glad to thank him for his courtesy in this matter,
+and for more substantial help. Before his visit, his retainer, Mansur,
+brought me the money of which I had been robbed in Kahva Rukh! This
+man absolutely refused a present, saying that his liege lord would
+nearly kill him if he took one. Isfandyar Khan welcomed me kindly,
+regretting much that my first night under Bakhtiari rule should have
+been marked by a robbery. He said that before his day the tribesmen
+not only robbed, but killed, and that he had reduced them to such
+order that he was surprised as well as shocked at this occurrence. I
+replied that it occurred in a Persian village, and that in many
+countries one might be robbed, but in none that I knew of would such
+quick restitution be made.
+
+In cases of robbery, the Ilkhani sends round to the _ketchudas_ or
+headmen of the camps or villages of the offending district, to replace
+the money, as in my case, or the value of the thing taken, after which
+the thief must be caught if possible. When caught, the headmen consult
+as to his punishment, which may be the cutting off of a hand or nose,
+or to be severely branded. In any case he must be for the future a
+marked man. I gather that the most severe penalties are rarely
+inflicted. I hope the fine of 800 _krans_ levied on Kahva Rukh may
+stimulate the people to surrender the thief. I agreed to forego 200
+_krans_, as Isfandyar Khan says that his men raised all they could,
+and the remaining sum would have to be paid by himself.
+
+After a good deal of earnest conversation he became frivolous! He
+asked the Agha his age, and guessed it at thirty-five. On being
+enlightened he asked if he dyed his hair, and if his teeth were his
+own. Then he said that he dyed his own hair, and wore artificial
+teeth. He also asked my age. He and Lutf and Ghulam, the Ilkhani's
+sons, who accompanied him, possess superb watches, with two dials, and
+an arrangement for showing the phases of the moon.
+
+Having accepted an invitation from the Ilbegi to visit him at Naghun,
+a village ten miles from Ardal, accompanied by Lutf and Ghulam, we
+were ready at seven, the hour appointed, as the day promised to be
+very hot. Eight o'clock came, nine o'clock, half-past nine, and on
+sending to see if the young Khans were coming, the servants replied
+that they had "no orders to wake them." So we Europeans broiled three
+hours in the sun at the pleasure of "barbarians"!
+
+During the Ramazan these people revel from sunset to sunrise, with
+feasting, music, singing, and merriment, and then they lie in bed till
+noon or later, to abridge the long hours of the fast. "Is it such a
+fast that I have chosen?" may well be asked.
+
+The noise during the night in the Ilkhani's palace is tremendous. The
+festivities begin soon after sunset and go on till an hour before
+dawn. Odours agreeable to Bakhtiari noses are wafted down to my tent,
+but I do not find them appetising. An eatable called _zalabi_ is in
+great request during the Ramazan. It is made by mixing sugar and
+starch with oil of sesamum, and is poured on ready heated copper
+trays, and frizzled into fritters. Masses of eggs mixed with rice,
+clarified butter, and jams, concealing balls of highly-spiced
+mincemeat, _kabobs_, and mutton stewed with preserved lemon juice and
+onions are favourite dishes at the Ilkhani's.
+
+Besides the music and singing, the "Court" entertains itself nightly
+with performing monkeys and dancing men, besides story-tellers, and
+reciters of the poetry of Hafiz. It is satisfactory to know that the
+uproarious merriment which drifts down to my tent along with odours of
+perpetual frying, owes none of its inspiration to alcohol, coffee and
+_sharbat_ being the drinks consumed.
+
+We rode without a guide down the Ardal valley, took the worst road
+through some deep and blazing gulches, found the sun fierce, and the
+treelessness irksome, saw much ploughing, made a long ascent, and
+stopped short of the village of Naghun at a large walled garden on the
+arid hillside, which irrigation has turned into a shady paradise of
+pear, apricot, and walnut trees, with a luxurious undergrowth of roses
+and pomegranates. The young Khans galloped up just as we did, laughing
+heartily at having slept so late. All the village men were gathered to
+see the Feringhis, and the Ilbegi and his brothers received us at the
+garden gate, all shaking hands. Certainly this Khan has much power in
+his face, and his dignified and easy manner is that of a leader of
+men. His dress was becoming, a handsome dark blue cloak lined with
+scarlet, and with a deep fur collar, over his ordinary costume.
+
+So much has been said and written about the Bakhtiaris being "savages"
+or "semi-savages," that the entertainment which followed was quite a
+surprise to me. Two fine canopy tents were pitched in the shade, and
+handsome carpets were laid in them, and under a spreading walnut tree
+a _karsi_, or fire cover, covered with a rug, served as a table, and
+cigarettes, a bowl of ice, a glass jug of _sharbat_, and some tumblers
+were neatly arranged upon it. Iron chairs were provided for the
+European guests, and the Ilbegi, his brothers, the Ilkhani's sons, and
+others sat round the border of the carpet on which they were placed.
+There were fully fifty attendants. Into the midst of this masculine
+crowd, a male nurse brought the Ilbegi's youngest child, a dark,
+quiet, pale, wistful little girl of four years old, a daintily-dressed
+little creature, with a crimson velvet cap, and a green and crimson
+velvet frock. She was gentle and confiding, and liked to remain with
+me.
+
+After a long conversation on subjects more or less worth speaking
+upon, our hosts retired, to sleep under the trees, leaving us to eat,
+and a number of servants brought in a large _karsi_ covered with food.
+Several yards of blanket bread, or "flapjacks," served as a
+table-cloth, and another for the dish-cover of a huge _pillau_ in the
+centre. Cruets, plates, knives and forks, iced water, Russian
+lemonade, and tumblers were all provided. The dinner consisted of
+_pillau_, lamb cutlets, a curried fowl, celery with sour sauce,
+clotted cream, and sour milk. The food was well cooked and clean, and
+the servants, rough as they looked, were dexterous and attentive.
+
+After dinner, by the Ilbegi's wish, I paid a visit to the ladies of
+his _haram_. Naghun rivals the other villages of the tribes in
+containing the meanest and worst permanent habitations I have ever
+seen. Isfandyar Khan's house is a mud building surrounding a
+courtyard, through which the visitor passes into another, round which
+are the women's apartments. Both yards were forlorn, uneven, and
+malodorous, from the heaps of offal and rubbish lying under the hot
+sun. I was received by fifteen ladies in a pleasant, clean,
+whitewashed apartment, with bright rugs and silk-covered pillows on
+the floor, and glass bottles and other ornaments in the _takchahs_.
+
+At the top of the room I was welcomed, not by the principal wife, but
+by a portly middle-aged woman, the Khan's sister, and evidently the
+duenna of the _haram_, as not one of the other women ventured to
+speak, or to offer any courtesies. A chair was provided for me with a
+_karsi_ in front of it, covered with trays of _gaz_ and other
+sweetmeats. Mirza and a male attendant stood in the doorway, and
+outside shoals of women and children on tip-toe were struggling for a
+glance into the room. Several slaves were present, coal-black,
+woolly-headed, huge-mouthed negresses. The fifteen ladies held their
+gay _chadars_ to their faces so as to show only one eye, so I sent
+Mirza behind a curtain and asked for the pleasure of seeing their
+faces, when they all unveiled with shrieks of laughter.
+
+The result was disappointing. The women were all young, or youngish,
+but only one was really handsome. The wives are brunettes with long
+chins. They wore gay _chadars_ of muslin, short gold-embroidered
+jackets, gauze chemises, and bright-coloured balloon trousers. Three
+of the others wore black satin balloon trousers, black silk jackets,
+yellow gauze vests, and black _chadars_ spotted with white. These
+three were literally moon-faced, like the representations of the moon
+on old clocks, a type I have not yet seen. All wear the hair brought
+to the front, where it hangs in wavy masses on each side of the face.
+They wore black silk gold-embroidered skull-caps, set back on their
+heads, and long chains of gold coins from the back to the ear, with
+two, three, or four long necklaces of the same in which the coins were
+very large and handsome. One wife, a young creature, was poorly
+dressed, very dejected-looking, and destitute of ornaments. Her mother
+has since pleaded for something "to bring back her husband's love."
+The eyebrows were painted with indigo and were made to meet in a point
+on the bridge of the nose. Each had one stained or tattooed star on
+her forehead, three on her chin, and a galaxy on the back of each
+hand.
+
+Before Mirza reappeared they huddled themselves up in their _chadars_
+and sat motionless against the wall as before. After tea I had quite a
+lively conversation with the Khan's sister, who has been to Basrah,
+Baghdad, and Mecca.
+
+Besides the usual questions as to my age, dyeing my hair, painting my
+face, etc., with suggestions on the improvement which their methods
+would make on my eyes and eyebrows, she asked a little about my
+journeys, about the marriage customs of England, about divorce, the
+position of women with us, their freedom, horsemanship, and
+amusements. She said, "We don't ride, we sit on horses." Dancing for
+amusement she could not understand. "Our servants dance for us," she
+said. The dancing of men and women together, and the evening dress of
+Englishwomen, she thought contrary to the elementary principles of
+morality. I wanted them to have their photographs taken, but they
+said, "It is not the custom of our country; no good women have their
+pictures taken, we should have many things said against us if we were
+made into pictures."
+
+They wanted to give me presents, but I made my usual excuse, that I
+have made a rule not to receive presents in travelling; then they said
+that they would go and see me in my tent at Chigakhor, their summer
+quarters, and that I could not refuse what they took in their own
+hands. They greatly desired to see the Agha, of whose imposing
+_physique_ they had heard, but they said that the Khan would not like
+them to go to the garden, and that their wish must remain ungratified.
+"We lead such dull lives," the Khan's sister exclaimed; "we never see
+any one or go anywhere." It seems that the slightest development of
+intellect awakens them to the consciousness of this deplorable
+dulness, of which, fortunately, the unawakened intelligence is
+unaware. As a fact, two of the ladies have not been out of the Ardal
+valley, and are looking forward to the migration to the Chigakhor
+valley as to a great gaiety.
+
+They asked me if I could read, and if I made carpets? They invariably
+ask if I have a husband and children, and when I tell them that I am a
+widow and childless, they simulate weeping for one or two minutes, a
+hypocrisy which, though it proceeds from a kindly feeling, has a very
+painful effect. Their occupation in the winter is a little
+carpet-weaving, which takes the place of our "fancy-work." They also
+make a species of _nougat_, from the manna found on the oaks on some
+of their mountains, mixed with chopped almonds and rose-water. When I
+concluded my visit they sent a servant with me with a tray of this and
+other sweetmeats of their own making.
+
+The party in the garden was a very merry one. The Bakhtiaris love fun,
+and shrieked with laughter at many things. This jollity, however, did
+not exclude topics of interesting talk. During this time _Karun_, a
+handsome chestnut Arab, and my horse _Screw_ had a fierce fight, and
+Karim, a Beloochi, in separating them had his arm severely crunched
+and torn, the large muscles being exposed and lacerated. He was
+brought in faint and bleeding and in great pain, and will not be of
+any use for some time. The Agha asked the Ilbegi for two lads to go
+with him to help his servants. The answer was, "We are a wandering
+people, Bakhtiaris cannot be servants, but some of our young men will
+go with you,"--and three brothers joined us there, absolute savages in
+their ways. A cow was offered for the march, and on the Agha jocularly
+saying that he should have all the milk, the Ilbegi said that I should
+have one to myself, and sent two. He complained that I did not ask for
+anything, and said that I was their guest so long as I was in their
+country, and must treat them as brothers and ask for all I need.
+"Don't feel as if you were in a foreign land" he said; "we love the
+English."
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[48] The readers interested in such matters will find much
+carefully-acquired information on water distribution, assessments, and
+tenure of land in the second volume of the late Mr. Stack's _Six
+Months in Persia_.
+
+[49] Some of the legends connected with these objects are grossly
+superstitious. At Shurishghan there is a "Holy Testament," regarding
+which the story runs that it was once stolen by the Lurs, who buried
+it under a tree by the bank of a stream. Long afterwards a man began
+to cut down the tree, but when the axe was laid to its root blood
+gushed forth. On searching for the cause of this miracle the Gospels
+were found uninjured beneath. It is believed that if any one were to
+take the Testament away it would return of its own accord. It has the
+reputation of working miracles of healing, and many resort to it
+either for themselves or for their sick friends, from Northern Persia
+and even from Shiraz, as well as from the vicinity, and vows are made
+before it. The gifts presented to it become the property of its
+owners.
+
+[50] And so it did, though it was then so ill that it seemed unlikely
+that it would live through the night, and I told them so before I gave
+the medicine, lest they should think that I had killed it.
+
+[51] _Proceedings of R.G.S._, vol. v. No. 3, New Series.
+
+[52] I am indebted for the information given above to a valuable paper
+by Mr. H. Blosse Lynch, given in the _Proceedings of the R.G.S._ for
+September 1890.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XV
+
+
+     ARDAL, _May 14_.
+
+The week spent here has passed rapidly. There is much coming and
+going. My camp is by the side of a frequented pathway, close to a
+delicious spring, much resorted to by Ilyat women, who draw water in
+_mussocks_ and copper pots, and gossip there. The Ilyats are on the
+march to their summer quarters, and the steady tramp of their flocks
+and herds and the bleating of their sheep is heard at intervals
+throughout the nights. Sometimes one of their horses or cows stumbles
+over the tent ropes and nearly brings the tent down. Servants of the
+Ilkhani with messages and presents of curds, celery pickled in sour
+cream, and apricots, go to and fro. Sick people come at intervals all
+day long, and the medicine chest is in hourly requisition.
+
+The sick are not always satisfied with occasional visits to the
+_Hak[=i]m's_ tent: a man, who has a little daughter ill of jaundice,
+after coming twice for medicine, has brought a tent, and has
+established himself in it with his child close to me, and a woman with
+bad eyes has also pitched a tent near mine; at present thirteen people
+come twice daily to have zinc lotion dropped into their eyes. The fame
+of the "tabloids" has been widely spread, and if I take common powders
+out of papers, or liquids out of bottles, the people shake their heads
+and say they do not want those, but "the fine medicines out of the
+leather box." To such an extent is this preference carried that they
+reject decoctions of a species of _artemisia_, a powerful tonic,
+unless I put tabloids of permanganate of potash (Condy's fluid) into
+the bottle before their eyes.
+
+They have no idea of the difference between curable and incurable
+maladies. Many people, stone blind, have come long distances for
+eye-lotion, and to-night a man nearly blind came in, leading a man
+totally blind for eight years, asking me to restore his sight. The
+blind had led the blind from a camp twenty-four miles off!
+Octogenarians believe that I can give them back their hearing, and men
+with crippled or paralysed limbs think that if I would give them some
+"Feringhi ointment," of which they have heard, they would be restored.
+Some come to stare at a Feringhi lady, others to see my tent, which
+they occasionally say is "fit for Allah," and the general result is
+that I have very little time to myself.
+
+The Ardal plateau is really pretty at this season, and I have had many
+pleasant evening gallops over soft green grass and soft red earth. The
+view from the tent is pleasant: on the one side the green slopes which
+fall down to the precipices which overhang the Karun, with the snowy
+mountains, deeply cleft, of the region which is still a geographical
+mystery beyond them; on the other, mountains of naked rock with grass
+running up into their ravines, and between them and me billows of
+grass and wild flowers. A barley slope comes down to my tent. The
+stalks are only six inches long, and the ears, though ripe, contain
+almost nothing. Every evening a servant of the Ilkhani brings three
+little wild boars to feed on the grain. Farther down the path are the
+servants' and muleteers' camps, surrounded by packing-cases,
+_yekdans_, mule-bags, nose-bags, gear of all kinds, and the usual
+litter of an encampment.
+
+The men, whether Indian, Persian, Beloochi, or Bakhtiari, are all
+quiet and well-behaved. The motto of the camps is "Silence is golden."
+Hadji Hussein is quiet in manner and speech, and though he has seven
+muleteers, yells and shouts are unknown.
+
+There is something exciting in the prospect of travelling through a
+region much of which is unknown and unmapped, and overlooked hitherto
+by both geographical and commercial enterprise; and in the prospective
+good fortune of learning the manners and customs of tribes untouched
+by European influence, and about whose reception of a Feringhi woman
+doleful prophecies have been made.
+
+_Tur, May 18._--The last day at Ardal was a busy one. Several of the
+Khans called to take leave. I made a farewell visit to the Ilkhani's
+_haram_; people came for medicines at intervals from 5 A.M. till 9
+P.M.; numberless eye-lotions had to be prepared; stores, straps,
+ropes, and equipments had to be looked to; presents to be given to the
+Ilkhani's servants; native shoes, with webbing tops and rag soles, to
+be hunted for to replace boots which could not be mended, and it was
+late before the preparations were completed. During the night some of
+my tent ropes were snapped by a stampede of mules, and a heavy
+thunderstorm coming on with wind and rain, the tent flapped about my
+ears till dawn.
+
+It was very hot when we left the next morning. The promised escort was
+not forthcoming. The details of each day's march have been much alike.
+I start early, taking Mirza with me with the _shuldari_, halt usually
+half-way, and have a frugal lunch of milk and biscuits, read till the
+caravan has passed, rest in my tent for an hour, and ride on till I
+reach the spot chosen for the camp. Occasionally on arriving it is
+found that the place selected on local evidence is unsuitable, or the
+water is scanty or bad, and we march farther. The greatest luxury is
+to find the tent pitched, the camp bed put up, and the kettle boiling
+for afternoon tea. I rest, write, and work till near sunset, when I
+dine on mutton and rice, and go to bed soon after dark, as I breakfast
+at four. An hour or two is taken up daily with giving medicines to
+sick people.
+
+There are no villages, but camps occur frequently. The three young
+savages brought from Naghun are very amusing from the savage freedom
+of their ways, but they exasperate the servants by quizzing and
+mimicking them. The cows are useless. Between them they give at most a
+teacupful of milk, and generally none. Either the calves or the boys
+take it, or the marches are too much for them. In the Ilyat camps
+there is plenty, but as it is customary to mix the milk of sheep,
+goats, and cows, and to milk the animals with dirty hands into dirty
+copper pots, and almost at once to turn the milk into a sour mass,
+like whipped cream in appearance, by shaking it with some "leaven" in
+a dirty goat-skin, a European cannot always drink it. Indeed, it goes
+through every variety of bad taste.
+
+The camps halt on Sundays, and the men highly appreciate the rest.
+They sleep, smoke, wash and mend their clothes, and are in good humour
+and excellent trim on Monday morning, and the mules show their
+unconscious appreciation of a holiday by coming into camp kicking and
+frolicking.
+
+The baggage animals are fine, powerful mules and horses, with not a
+sore back among them. The pack saddles and tackle are all in good
+order. The caravan is led by a horse caparisoned with many bells and
+tassels, a splendid little gray fellow, full of pluck and fire, called
+Cock o' the Walk. He comes in at the end of a long march, arching his
+neck, shaking his magnificent mane, and occasionally kicking off his
+load. Sometimes he knocks down two or three men, dashes off with his
+load at a gallop, and even when hobbled manages to hop up to the two
+Arabs and challenge them to a fight. These handsome horses have some
+of the qualities for which their breed is famous, and are as
+surefooted as goats, but they are very noisy, and they hate each other
+and disturb the peace of the camp by their constant attempts to fight.
+My horse, _Screw_, can go wherever a mule can find foothold. He is
+ugly, morose, a great fighter, and most uninteresting. The donkeys and
+a fat retriever are destitute of "salient points."
+
+Hadji Hussein, the _charvadar_, has elevated his profession into an
+art. On reaching camp, after unloading, each muleteer takes away the
+five animals for which he is responsible, and liberates them, with the
+saddles on, to graze. After a time they drive them into camp, remove
+the saddles, and groom them thoroughly, while the saddler goes over
+the equipments, and does any repairs that are needed. After the
+grooming each muleteer, having examined the feet of his animals,
+reports upon them, and Hadji replaces all lost shoes and nails. The
+saddles and the _juls_ or blankets are then put on, the mules are
+watered in batches of five, and are turned loose for the night to
+feed, with two muleteers to watch them by turns. Hadji, whose soft
+voice and courteous manners make all dealings with him agreeable,
+receives his orders for the morrow, and he with his young son, Abbas
+Ali, and the rest of the muleteers, camp near my tent, cook their
+supper of blanket bread with _mast_ or curds, roll their heads and
+persons in blankets, put their feet to the fire, and are soon asleep,
+but Hadji gets up two or three times in the night to look after his
+valuable property.
+
+At 4 A.M. or earlier, the mules are driven into camp, and are made
+fast to ropes, which are arranged the previous night by pegging them
+down in an oblong forty feet by twenty. Nose-bags with grain are put
+on; and as the loads are got ready the mules are loaded, with Hadji's
+help and supervision. No noise is allowed during this operation.
+
+After an hour or more the caravan moves, led by Cock o' the Walk,
+usually with two men at his head to moderate his impetuosity for a
+time, with a guide; and Hadji on his fine-looking saddle mule looks
+after the safety of everything. He is punctual, drives fast and
+steadily, and always reaches the camping-ground in good time. When he
+gets near it he dismounts, and putting on the air of "your most
+obedient servant," leads in Cock o' the Walk. He is really a very
+gentlemanly man for his position, but is unfortunately avaricious, and
+though he has amassed what is, for Persia, a very large fortune, he
+wears very poor clothes, and eats sparingly of the poorest food. He is
+a big man of fifty, wears blue cotton clothing and a red turban, is
+very florid, and having a white or very gray beard, has dyed it an
+orange red with henna.
+
+My servants have fallen fairly well into their work, but are
+frightfully slow. All pitch the tents, and Hassan cooks, washes, packs
+the cooking and table equipments, and saddles my horse. Mirza Yusuf
+interprets, waits on me, packs the tent furnishings, rides with me,
+and is always within hearing of my whistle. He is good, truthful, and
+intelligent, sketches with some talent, is always cheerful, never
+grumbles, is quite indifferent to personal comfort, gets on well with
+the people, is obliging to every one, is always ready to interpret,
+and though well educated has the good sense not to regard any work as
+"menial." Mehemet Ali, the "superfluity," is a scamp, and, I fear,
+dishonest. The servants feed themselves on a _kran_ (8d.) a day,
+allowed as "road money." Sheep are driven with us, and are turned into
+mutton as required. Really, they follow us, attaching themselves to
+the gray horses, and feeding almost among their feet. My food
+consists of roast mutton, rice, _chapatties_, tea, and milk, without
+luxuries or variety. Life is very simple and very free from
+purposeless bothers. The days are becoming very hot, but the nights
+are cool. The black flies and the sand-flies are the chief tormentors.
+
+On leaving Ardal we passed very shortly into a region little traversed
+by Europeans, embracing remarkable gorges and singularly abrupt turns
+in ravines, through which the Karun, here a deep and powerful stream,
+finds its way. A deep descent over grassy hills to a rude village in a
+valley and a steep ascent took us to the four booths, which are the
+summer quarters of our former escort, Rustem Khan, who received us
+with courteous hospitality, and regaled us with fresh cow's milk in a
+copper basin. He introduced me to twelve women and a number of
+children, nearly all with sore eyes. There is not a shadow of privacy
+in these tents, with open fronts and sides. The carpets, which are
+made by the women, serve as chairs, tables, and beds, and the low wall
+of roughly-heaped stones at the back for trunks and wardrobe, for on
+it they keep their "things" in immense saddle-bags made of handsome
+rugs. The visible furniture consists of a big copper bowl for food, a
+small one for milk, a huge copper pot for clarifying butter, and a
+goat-skin suspended from three poles, which is jerked by two women
+seated on the ground, and is used for churning butter and making
+curds.
+
+A steep ascent gives a superb view of a confused sea of mountains, and
+of a precipitous and tremendous gorge, the Tang-i-Ardal, through which
+the Karun passes, making a singularly abrupt turn after leaving a
+narrow and apparently inaccessible canyon or rift on the south side of
+the Ardal valley. A steep zigzag descent of 600 feet in less than
+three-quarters of a mile brings the path down to the Karun, a deep
+bottle-green river, now swirling in drifts of foam, now resting
+momentarily in quiet depths, but always giving an impression of volume
+and power. Large and small land turtles abound in that fiercely hot
+gorge of from 1000 to 2000 feet deep. The narrow road crosses the
+river on a bridge of two arches, and proceeds for some distance at a
+considerable height on its right bank. There I saw natural wood for
+the first time since crossing the Zagros mountains in January, and
+though the oak, ash, and maple are poor and stunted, their slender
+shade was delicious. Roses, irises, St. John's wort, and other flowers
+were abundant.
+
+The path ascends past a clear spring, up steep zigzags to a graveyard
+in which are several stone lions, rudely carved, of natural size,
+facing Mecca-wards, with pistols, swords, and daggers carved in relief
+on their sides, marking the graves of fighting men. On this
+magnificent point above the Karun a few hovels, deserted in summer,
+surrounded by apricot trees form the village of Duashda Imams, which
+has a superb view of the extraordinary and sinuous chasm through which
+the Karun passes for many miles, thundering on its jagged and fretted
+course between gigantic and nearly perpendicular cliffs of limestone
+and conglomerate. Near this village the pistachio is abundant, and
+planes, willows, and a large-leaved clematis vary the foliage.
+
+Leaving the river at this point, a somewhat illegible path leads
+through "park-like" scenery, fair slopes of grass and flowers
+sprinkled with oaks singly or in clumps, glades among trees in their
+first fresh green, and evermore as a background gray mountains slashed
+with snow.
+
+In the midst of these pretty uplands is the Ilyat encampment of
+Martaza, with its black tents, donkeys, sheep, goats, and big fierce
+dogs, which vociferously rushed upon _Downie_, the retriever, and were
+themselves rushed upon and gripped by a number of women. The people,
+having been informed of our intended arrival by Reza Kuli Khan, had
+arranged a large tent with carpets and cushions, but we pitched the
+camps eventually on an oak-covered slope, out of the way of the noise,
+curiosity, and evil odours of Martaza. Water is very scarce there,
+three wells or pools, fouled by the feet of animals, being the only
+supply.
+
+I rested on my _dhurrie_ under an oak till the caravan came up. It was
+a sweet place, but was soon invaded, and for the rest of the day quiet
+and privacy were out of the question, for presently appeared a fine,
+florid, buxom dame, loud of speech, followed by a number of women and
+children, all as dirty as it is possible to be, and all crowded round
+me and sat down on my carpet. This _Khanum Shirin_ is married to the
+chief or headman, but being an heiress she "bosses" the tribe. She
+brought up bolsters and quilts, and begged us to consider themselves,
+the whole region, and all they had as _pishkash_ (a present from an
+inferior to a superior), but when she was asked if it included
+herself, she blushed and covered her face. After two hours of somewhat
+flagging conversation she led her train back again, but after my tent
+was pitched she reappeared with a much larger number of women,
+including two betrothed girls of sixteen and seventeen years old, who
+are really beautiful.
+
+These maidens were dressed in clean cotton costumes, and white veils
+of figured silk gauze enveloped them from head to foot. They unveiled
+in my tent, and looked more like _houris_ than any women I have seen
+in the East; and their beauty was enhanced by the sweetness and
+maidenly modesty of their expression. I wished them to be
+photographed, and they were quite willing, but when I took them
+outside some men joined the crowd and said it should not be, and that
+when their betrothed husbands came home they would tell them how bold
+and bad they had been, and would have them beaten. Although these
+beauties had been most modest and maidenly in their behaviour, they
+were sent back with blows, and were told not to come near us again.
+The Agha entertained the _Khanum Shirin_ for a long time, and the
+conversation was very animated, but when he set a very fine musical
+box going for their amusement the lady and the rest of the crowd
+became quite listless and apathetic, and said they much preferred to
+talk. When their prolonged visit came to an end the _Khanum_ led her
+train away, with a bow which really had something of graceful dignity
+in it.
+
+The next morning her husband, the _Mollah-i-Martaza_, and his son,
+mounted on one horse, came with us as guides, and when we halted at
+their camp the _Khanum_ took the whip out of my hand and whipped the
+women all round with it, except the offending beauties, who were not
+to be seen. The _mollah_ is a grave, quiet, and most respectable-looking
+man, more like a thriving merchant than a nomad chief, though he does
+carry arms. He is a devout Moslem, and is learned, _i.e._ he can read
+the Koran.
+
+In a short time the woodland beauty is exchanged for weedy hills and
+slopes strewn with boulders. Getting other guides at an Ilyat camp, we
+ascended Sanginak, a mountain 8200 feet high, from the top of which a
+good idea of the local topography is gained. The most striking
+features are the absence of definite peaks and the tremendous gorges
+and abrupt turns of the Karun, which swallows in its passage all minor
+streams. Precipitous ranges of great altitude hemmed in by ranges yet
+loftier, snow-covered or snow-patched, with deep valleys between them,
+well grassed and often well wooded, great clefts, through which at
+some seasons streams reach the Karun; mountain meadows spotted with
+the black tents of Ilyats, and deserted hovels far below, with patches
+of wheat and barley, make up the landscape.
+
+These hills are covered with celery of immense size. The leaves are
+dried and stacked for fodder, and the underground stalks, which are
+very white, are a great article of food, both fresh and steeped for a
+length of time in sour milk. After resting in some Ilyat tents, where
+the people were friendly and dirty, we had a most tiresome march over
+treeless hills covered with herbs, and down a steep descent into the
+Gurab plain, on which a great wall of rocky mountains of definite and
+impressive shapes descends in broken spurs. My guide, who had never
+been certain about the way, led me wrong. No tents were visible, the
+nomads I met had seen neither tents nor caravan. Two hours went by in
+toiling round the bases of green hills, and then there was the joyful
+surprise of coming upon my tent pitched, the kettle boiling, the mules
+knee-deep in food, close by the Chesmeh-i-Gurab, a copious spring of
+good water, of which one could safely drink.
+
+This Gurab plain, one of very many lying high up among these Luristan
+mountains, is green and pretty now--a sea of bulbs and grass, but is
+brown and dusty from early in June onwards. It is about four miles
+long by nine or ten broad, and is watered by a clear and wonderfully
+winding stream, which dwindles to a thread later on. The nomads are
+already coming up.
+
+The rest was much broken by the critical state of Karim's arm, which
+was swelled, throbbing, and inflamed all round the wound inflicted by
+_Karun_ on May 13, and he had high fever. It was a helpless
+predicament, the symptoms were so like those of gangrene. I thought he
+would most likely die of the hot marches. It was a very anxious night,
+as all our methods of healing were exhausted, and the singular
+improvement which set in and has continued must have been the work of
+the Great Physician, to whom an appeal for help was earnestly made.
+The wound is daily syringed with Condy's fluid, the only antiseptic
+available, and has a drainage tube. To-day I have begun to use
+eucalyptus oil, with which the man is delighted, possibly because he
+has heard that it is very expensive, and that I have hardly any left!
+
+Yesterday I had the amusement of shifting the camps to another place,
+and Hadji was somewhat doubtful of my leadership. On arriving at the
+beautiful crystal spring which the guide had indicated as the
+halting-place for Sunday, I found that it issued from under a mound of
+grass-grown graves, was in the full sun blaze, and at the lowest part
+of the plain. The guide asserted that it was the only spring, but
+having seen a dark stain of vegetation high among the hills, I halted
+the caravan and rode off alone in search of the water I hoped it
+indicated, disregarding the suppressed but unmistakably sneering
+laughter of the guide and _charvadars_. In less than a mile I came
+upon the dry bed of a rivulet, a little higher up on a scanty,
+intermittent trickle, higher still on a gurgling streamlet fringed by
+masses of blue scilla, and still higher on a small circular spring of
+very cold water, with two flowery plateaux below it just large enough
+for the camps, in a green quiet corrie, with the mountains close
+behind. Hadji laughed, and the guide insisted that the spring was not
+always there. A delightful place it is in which to spend Sunday
+quietly, with its musical ripple of water, its sky-blue carpet of
+scilla, its beds of white and purple irises, its slopes ablaze with
+the _Fritillaria imperialis_, and its sweet, calm view of the green
+Gurab plain and the silver windings of the Dinarud.
+
+Above the spring is the precipitous hill of Tur, with the remains of
+a rude fort on its shattered rocky summit. Two similar ruins are
+visible from Tur, one on a rocky ledge of an offshoot of the
+Kuh-i-Gerra, on the other side of the Dinarud valley, the other on the
+crest of a noble headland of the Sanganaki range, which is visible
+throughout the whole region. The local legend concerning them is that
+long before the days of the Parthian kings, and when bows and arrows
+were the only weapons known, iron being undiscovered, there was in the
+neighbourhood of Gurab a king called Faruk Padishah, who had three
+sons, Salmon, Tur, and Iraj. It does not appear to be usual among the
+Bakhtiaris for sons to "get on" together after their father's death,
+and the three youths quarrelled and built these three impregnable
+forts--Killa Tur, the one I examined, Killa Iraj, and Killa Salmon.
+
+The beautiful valley was evidently too narrow for their ambition, and
+leaving their uncomfortable fastnesses they went northwards, and
+founded three empires, Salmon to the Golden Horn, where he founded
+Stamboul, Tur to Turkistan, and Iraj became the founder of the Iranian
+Empire.
+
+Killa Tur is a stone building mostly below the surface of the
+hill-top, of rough hewn stone cemented with lime mortar of the
+hardness of concrete. The inner space of the fort is not more than
+eighty square yards. The walls are from three to six feet thick.
+
+_Chigakhor, May 31._--The last twelve days have been spent in marching
+through a country which has not been traversed by Europeans, only
+crossed along the main track. On leaving the pleasant camp of Tur we
+descended to the Gurab plain, purple in patches with a showy species
+of garlic, skirted the base of the Tur spur, and rode for some miles
+along the left bank of the Dinarud, which, after watering the plain of
+Gurab, sparkles and rushes down a grassy valley bright with roses and
+lilies, and well wooded with oak, elm, and hawthorn. This river,
+gaining continually in volume, makes a turbulent descent to the Karun
+a few miles from the point where we left it. This was the finest day's
+march of the journey. The mountain forms were grander and more
+definite, the vegetation richer, the scenery more varied, and a
+kindlier atmosphere pervaded it. In the midst of a wood of fine walnut
+trees, ash, and hawthorn, laced together by the tendrils of vines, a
+copious stream tumbles over rocks fringed with maiden-hair, and
+sparkles through grass purple with orchises. This is the only time
+that I have seen the one or the other in Persia, and it was like an
+unexpected meeting with dear friends.
+
+Crossing the Dinarud on a twig bridge, fording a turbulent affluent,
+which bursts full fledged from the mountain side, and ascending for
+some hours through grassy glades wooded with oak and elm, we camped
+for two days on the alpine meadow of Arjul, scantily watered but now
+very green. Oak woods come down upon it, the vines are magnificent,
+and there is some cultivation of wheat, which is sown by the nomads
+before their departure in the late autumn, and is reaped during their
+summer sojourn. There are no tents there at present, yet from camps
+near and far, on horseback and on foot, people came for eye-lotions,
+and remained at night to have them dropped into their eyes.
+
+The next morning I was awakened at dawn by Mirza's voice calling to
+me, "Madam, Hadji wants you to come down and sew up a mule that's been
+gored by a wild boar." Awfully gored it was. A piece of skin about ten
+inches square was hanging down between its forelegs, and a broad wound
+the depth of my hand and fully a foot long extended right into its
+chest, with a great piece taken out. I did what I could, but the
+animal had to be left behind to be cured by the Mollah-i-Martaza, who
+left us there. Another misfortune to Hadji was the loss of the fiery
+leader of the caravan, Cock o' the Walk, but late at night he was
+brought into camp at Dupulan quite crestfallen, having gone back to
+the rich pastures which surround the Chesmeh-i-Gurab. The muleteer who
+went in search of him was attacked by some Lurs and stripped of his
+clothing, but on some men coming up who said his master was under the
+protection of the Ilkhani, his clothes and horse were returned to him.
+
+The parallel ranges with deep valleys between them, which are such a
+feature of this country, are seen in perfection near Arjul. Some of
+the torrents of this mountain region are already dry, but their broad
+stony beds, full of monstrous boulders, arrest the fury with which at
+times they seek the Karun. One of these, the Imamzada, passes through
+the most precipitous and narrow gorge which it is possible to travel,
+even with unloaded mules. The narrow path is chiefly rude rock
+ladders, threading a gorge or chasm on a gigantic scale, with a
+compressed body of water thundering below, concealed mainly by gnarled
+and contorted trees, which find root-hold in every rift. Where the
+chasm widens for a space before narrowing to a throat we forded it,
+and through glades and wooded uplands reached Arjul, descending and
+crossing the torrent by the same ford on the march to Dupulan the next
+day.
+
+Owing to the loss of two baggage animals and the necessary
+re-adjustment of the loads, I was late in starting from Arjul, and the
+heat as we descended to the lower levels was very great, the
+atmosphere being misty as well as sultry. Passing upwards, through
+glades wooded with oaks, the path emerges on high gravelly uplands
+above the tremendous gorge of the Karun, the manifold windings of
+which it follows at a great height. From the first sight of this river
+in the Ardal valley to its emergence at Dupulan, just below these
+heights, it has come down with abrupt elbow-like turns and singular
+sinuosities--a full, rapid, powerful glass-green volume of water,
+through a ravine or gorge or chasm from 1000 to 2000 feet in depth,
+now narrowing, now widening, but always _the_ feature of the
+landscape. It would be natural to use the usual phrase, and write of
+the Karun having "carved" this passage for itself, but I am more and
+more convinced that this is not the case, but that its waters found
+their way into channels already riven by some of those mighty
+operations of nature which have made of this country a region of walls
+and clefts.
+
+  [Illustration: THE KARUN AT DUPULAN.]
+
+A long, very steep gravelly descent leads from these high lands down
+to the Karun, and to one of the routes--little used, however--from
+Isfahan to Shuster. It is reported as being closed by snow four months
+of the year. The scenery changed its aspect here, and for walls and
+parapets of splintered rock there are rounded gravelly hills and
+stretching uplands.
+
+The three groups of most wretched mud hovels which form the village of
+Dupulan ("Two Bridge Place") are on an eminence on the left bank of
+the Karun, which emerges from its long imprisonment in a gorge in the
+mountains by a narrow passage between two lofty walls of rock so
+smooth and regular in their slope and so perfect a gateway as to
+suggest art rather than nature. This river, the volume of which is
+rapidly augmenting on its downward course, is here compressed into a
+width of about twenty yards.
+
+At this point a stone bridge, built by Hussein Kuli Khan, of one large
+pointed arch with a smaller one for the flood, and a rough roadway
+corresponding to the arch in the steepness of its pitch, spans the
+stream, which passes onwards gently and smoothly, its waters a deep
+cool green. Below Dupulan the Karun, which in that direction has been
+explored by several travellers, turns to the south-west, and after a
+considerable bend enters the levels above Shuster by a north-westerly
+course. Near the bridge the Karun is joined by the Sabzu, a very
+vigorous torrent from the Ardal plain, which is crossed by a twig
+bridge, safer than it looks.
+
+The camps were pitched in apricot orchards in the Sabzu ravine, near
+some _elaegnus_ trees, which are now bearing their sweet gray and
+yellow blossoms, which will be succeeded by auburn tresses of a woolly
+but very pleasant fruit. Dupulan has an altitude of only 4950 feet,
+and in its course from the Kuh-i-Rang to this point the Karun has
+descended about 4000 feet. Though there was a breeze, and both ends of
+my tent and the _kanats_ were open, the mercury was at 86 deg. inside, and
+at 5 A.M. at 72 deg. outside (on May 21). There were no supplies, and even
+milk was unattainable.
+
+The road we followed ascends the Dupulan Pass, which it crosses at a
+height of 6380 feet. The path is very bad, hardly to be called a path.
+The valley which it ascends is packed with large and small boulders,
+with round water-worn stones among them, and such track as there is
+makes sharp zigzags over and among these rocks. _Screw_ was very
+unwilling to face the difficulties, which took two hours to surmount.
+The ascent was hampered by coming upon a tribe of Ilyats on the move,
+who at times blocked up the pass with their innumerable sheep and
+goats and their herds of cattle. Once entangled in this migration, it
+was only possible to move on a few feet at a time. It straggled along
+for more than a mile,--loaded cows and bullocks, innumerable sheep,
+goats, lambs, and kids; big dogs; asses loaded with black tents and
+short tent-poles on the loads; weakly sheep tied on donkeys' backs,
+and weakly lambs carried in shepherds' bosoms; handsome mares, each
+with her foal, running loose or ridden by women with babies seated on
+the tops of loaded saddle-bags made of gay rugs; tribesmen on foot
+with long guns slung behind their shoulders, and big two-edged knives
+in their girdles; sheep bleating, dogs barking, mares neighing, men
+shouting and occasionally firing off their guns, the whole ravine
+choked up with the ascending tribal movement.
+
+Half-way up the ascent there is a most striking view of mountain
+ranges cleft by the great chasm of the Karun. The descent is into the
+eastern part of the Ardal valley, over arid treeless hillsides
+partially ploughed, to the village of Dehnau, not yet deserted for the
+summer. Fattiallah Khan expected us, and rooms were prepared for me in
+the women's house, which I excused myself from occupying by saying
+that I cannot sleep under a roof. I managed also to escape partaking
+of a huge garlicky dinner which was being cooked for me.
+
+The Khan's house or fort, built like all else of mud, has a somewhat
+imposing gateway, over which are the men's apartments. The roof is
+decorated with a number of ibex horns. Within is a rude courtyard with
+an uneven surface, on which servants and negro slaves were skinning
+sheep, winnowing wheat, clarifying butter, carding wool, cooking, and
+making cheese. The women's apartments are round the courtyard, and
+include the usual feature of these houses, an _atrium_, or room
+without a front, and a darkish room within. The floor of the _atrium_
+was covered with brown felts, and there was a mattress for me to sit
+upon. The ruling spirit of the _haram_ is the Khan's mother, a comely
+matron of enormous size, who occasionally slapped her son's four young
+and comely wives when they were too "forward." She wore a short
+jacket, balloon-like trousers of violet silk, and a black coronet, to
+which was attached a black _chadar_ which completely enveloped her.
+
+The wives wore figured white _chadars_, print trousers, and strings
+of coins. Children much afflicted with cutaneous maladies crawled on
+the floor. Heaps of servants, negro slaves, old hags, and young girls
+crowded behind and around, all talking at once and at the top of their
+voices, and at the open front the village people constantly assembled,
+to be driven away at intervals by a man with a stick. A bowl of cow's
+milk and some barley bread were given to me, and though a remarkably
+dirty negress kept the flies away by flapping the milk bowl with a
+dirty sleeve, I was very grateful for the meal, for I was really
+suffering from the heat and fatigue.
+
+A visit to a _haram_ is not productive of mutual elevation. The women
+seem exceedingly frivolous, and are almost exclusively interested in
+the adornment of their persons, the dress and ailments of their
+children, and in the frightful jealousies and intrigues inseparable
+from the system of polygamy, and which are fostered by the servants
+and discarded wives. The servile deference paid by the other women to
+the reigning favourite before her face, and the merciless persistency
+of the attempts made behind her back to oust her from her position,
+and the requests made on the one hand for charms or potions to win or
+bring back the love of a husband, and on the other for something which
+shall make the favourite hateful to him, are evidences of the misery
+of heart which underlies the outward frivolity.
+
+The tone of Fattiallah Khan's _haram_ was not higher than usual. The
+ladies took off my hat, untwisted my hair, felt my hands, and shrieked
+when they found that my gloves came off; laughed immoderately at my
+Bakhtiari shoes, which, it seems, are only worn by men; put their
+rings on my fingers, put my hat on their own heads, asked if I could
+give them better hair dyes than their own, and cosmetics to make their
+skins fair; paid the usual compliments, told me to regard everything
+as _pishkash_, asked for medicines and charms, and regretted that I
+would not sleep in their house, because, as they said, they "never
+went anywhere or saw anything."
+
+They have no occupation, except occasionally a little embroidery. They
+amuse themselves, they said, by watching the servants at work, and by
+having girls to dance before them. They find the winter, though spent
+in a warm climate, very long and wearisome, and after dark employ
+female professional story-tellers to entertain them with love stories.
+At night the elder lady sent three times for a charm which should give
+her daughter the love of her husband. She is married to another Khan,
+and I recalled her as the forlorn-looking girl without any jewels who
+excited my sympathies in his house.
+
+Marriages are early among these people. They are arranged by the
+parents of both bride and bridegroom. The betrothal feast is a great
+formality. The "settlements" having been made by the bridegroom's
+father and mother, they distribute sweetmeats among the members of the
+bride's family, and some respectable men who are present tie a
+handkerchief round the head of the bride, and kiss the hands of her
+parents as a sign of the betrothal. The engagement must be fulfilled
+by the bride's parents under pain of severe penalties, from which the
+bridegroom's parents are usually exempt. But, should he prove
+faithless, he is a marked man. It appears that "breach of promise of
+marriage" is very rare. The betrothal may take place at the tenderest
+age, but the marriage is usually delayed till the bride is twelve
+years old, or even older, and the bridegroom is from fifteen to
+eighteen.
+
+The "settlements" made at the betrothal are paid at the time of
+marriage, and consist of a sum of money or cattle, mares, or sheep,
+according to the circumstances of the bridegroom's parents. It is
+essential among all classes that a number of costumes be presented to
+the bride. After the marriage is over her parents bestow a suit of
+clothes on her husband, but these are usually of an inferior, or, as
+my interpreter calls them, of a "trivial" description.
+
+A Bakhtiari marriage is a very noisy performance. For three days or
+more, in fact as long as the festivities can be afforded, the
+relations and friends of both parties are assembled at the tents of
+the bride's parents, feasting and dancing (men and women on this
+occasion dancing together), performing feats of horsemanship, and
+shooting at a mark. The noise at this time is ceaseless. Drums,
+tom-toms, reeds, whistles, and a sort of bagpipe are all in
+requisition, and songs of love and war are chanted. At this time also
+is danced the national dance, the _chapi_, of which on no other
+occasion (except a burial) can a stranger procure a sight for love or
+money. It is said to resemble the _arnaoutika_ of the modern Greeks;
+any number of men can join in it. The dancers form in a close row,
+holding each other by their _kamarbands_, and swinging along sidewise.
+They mark the time by alternately stamping the heel of the right and
+left foot. The dancers are led by a man who dances apart, waving a
+handkerchief rhythmically above his head, and either singing a war
+song or playing on a reed pipe. After the marriage feast the bride
+follows her husband to his father's tent, where she becomes subject to
+her mother-in-law.
+
+The messenger, after looking round to see that there were no
+bystanders, very mysteriously produced from his girdle a black,
+flattish oval stone of very close texture, weighing about a pound,
+almost polished by long handling. He told me that it was believed that
+this stone, if kept in one family for fifty years and steadily worn
+by father and son, would then not only turn to gold, but have the
+power of transmuting any metal laid beside it for five years, and he
+wanted to know what the wisdom of the Feringhis knew about it.
+
+I went up to my camp above the village and tried to rest there, but
+the buzz of a crowd outside and the ceaseless lifting of curtains and
+_kanats_ made this quite impossible. When I opened the tent I found
+the crowd seated in a semicircle five rows deep, waiting for
+medicines, chiefly eye-lotion, quinine, and cough mixtures. These
+daily assemblages of "patients" are most fatiguing. The satisfaction
+is that some "lame dogs" are "helped over stiles," and that some
+prejudice against Christians is removed.
+
+After this Fattiallah Khan, with a number of retainers, paid a formal
+visit to the Agha, who kindly sent for me, as I do not receive any but
+lady visitors in my tent. The Khan is a very good-looking and
+well-dressed man of twenty-eight, very amusing, and ready to be
+amused. He was very anxious to be doctored, but looked the opposite of
+a sick man. He and Isfandyar Khan were in arms against the Ilkhani two
+years ago, and a few men were shot. He looked as if he were very sorry
+not to have killed him.
+
+The Bakhtiaris have an enormous conceit of themselves and their
+country. It comes out in all ways and on all occasions, and their war
+stories and songs abound in legends of singular prowess, one Bakhtiari
+killing twenty Persians, and the like. They represent the power of the
+Shah over them as merely nominal, a convenient fiction for the time
+being, although it is apparent that Persia, which for years has been
+aiming at the extinction of the authority of the principal chiefs, has
+had at least a partial success.
+
+At such interviews a private conversation is impossible. The manners
+are those of a feudal _regime_. Heaps of retainers crowd round, and
+even join in the conversation. A servant brought the Khan a handsome
+_kalian_ to smoke three times. He also took tea. A great quantity of
+opium for exportation is grown about Dehnau, and the Khan said that
+the cultivation of it is always increasing.
+
+From Dehnau the path I took leads over gravelly treeless hills,
+through many treeless gulches, to the top of a great gorge, through
+which the Sabzu passes as an impetuous torrent. The descent to a very
+primitive bridge is long and difficult, a succession of rocky zigzags.
+Picturesqueness is not a usual attribute of mud villages, but the view
+from every point of Chiraz, the village on the lofty cliffs on the
+other side of the stream, is strikingly so. They are irregularly
+covered with houses, partly built on them and partly excavated out of
+them, and behind is a cool mass of greenery, apricot orchards,
+magnificent walnut and mulberry trees, great standard hawthorns loaded
+with masses of blossom, wheat coming into ear, and clumps and banks of
+canary-yellow roses measuring three inches across their petals. Groups
+of women, in whose attire Turkey red predominated, were on the house
+roofs. Wild flowers abounded, and the sides of the craggy path by
+which I descended were crowded with leguminous and umbelliferous
+plants, with the white and pink dianthus, and with the thorny
+_tussocks_ of the gum tragacanth, largely used for kindling, now in
+full bloom.
+
+As I dragged my unwilling horse down the steep descent, his bridle was
+taken out of my hands, and I was welcomed by the brother of Fattiallah
+Khan, who, with a number of village men escorted me over the twig
+bridge, and up to an exquisite halting-place under a large mulberry
+tree, where the next two hours were spent in receiving visitors. It
+is evident that these fine orchards must have been the pleasure-ground
+of some powerful ruler, and the immense yellow roses are such as grow
+in one or two places in Kashmir, where they are attributed to
+Jehangir.
+
+The track from Chiraz for many miles follows up the right bank of the
+Sabzu at a great height, descends occasionally into deep gulches,
+crosses the spurs of mountains whose rifts give root-hold to contorted
+"pencil cedars," and winds among small ash trees and hawthorns, or
+among rich grass and young wheat, which is grown to a considerable
+extent on the irrigated slopes above the river. It is a great surprise
+to find so much land under cultivation, and so much labour spent on
+irrigation channels. Some of these canals are several miles in length,
+and the water always runs in them swiftly, and the right way, although
+the "savages" who make them have no levels or any tools but spades.
+
+Mountains, much scored and canyoned by streams, very grand in form, and
+with much snow still upon them, rise to a great height above the
+ranges which form the Sabzu valley. From Chaharta, an uninteresting
+camping-ground by the river, I proceeded by an elevated and rather
+illegible track in a easterly direction to the meeting of two streams,
+forded the Sabzu, and camped for two days on the green slope of Sabz
+Kuh, at a height of 8100 feet, close to a vigorous spring whose waters
+form many streamlets, fringed by an abundance of pink primulas, purple
+and white orchises, white tulips, and small fragrant blue irises.
+
+Lahdaraz is in the very heart of mountain ranges, and as the Ilyats
+have not yet come up so high, there were no crowds round my tent for
+medicine, but one sick woman was carried thither eleven miles on the
+back of her husband, who seemed tenderly solicitous about her.
+
+On Monday I spent most of the day 1000 feet higher, in most
+magnificent scenery on an imposing scale of grandeur. The guide took
+us from the camp through herbage, snow, and alpine flowers, up a
+valley with fine mountains on either side, terminating on the brink of
+a gigantic precipice, a cloven ledge between the Kuh-i-Kaller and a
+stupendous cliff or headland, Sultan Ibrahim, over 12,000 feet, which
+descends in shelving masses to an abyss of tremendous depth, where
+water thunders in a narrow rift. The Sabz Kuh, or "green mountain"
+range, famous for the pasturage of its higher slopes, terminates in
+Sultan Ibrahim, and unites at its eastern end with the Kuh-i-Kaller, a
+range somewhat higher. On the east side of this huge chasm rises
+another range of peaks, with green shelves, dark rifts, and red
+precipices, behind which rise another, and yet another, whose blue,
+snow-patched summits blended with the pure cool blue of the sky. In
+the far distance, in a blue veil, lies the green-tinted plain of Khana
+Mirza, set as an emerald in this savage scenery, with two ranges
+beyond, and above them the great mountain mass of the Riji, whose
+snowy peaks were painted faintly on a faint blue heaven.
+
+That misty valley, irrigated and cultivated, with 100 villages of the
+Janiki tribe upon it, is the only fair spot in the savage landscape.
+Elsewhere only a few wild flowers and a gnarled juniper here and there
+relieve the fierce, blazing verdurelessness of these stupendous
+precipices. Never, not even among the Himalayas, have I seen anything
+so superlatively grand, though I have always imagined that such scenes
+must exist somewhere on the earth. A pair of wild sheep on a ledge, a
+serpent or two, and an eagle soaring sunwards represented animate
+nature, otherwise the tremendous heights above, the awful depths
+below, the snowy mountains, and the valley with its smile, were given
+over to solitude and silence, except for the dull roar of the torrent
+hurrying down to vivify the Khana Mirza plain.
+
+After leaving Lahdaraz the path followed the course of the Sabzu
+through grass and barley for a few miles. Then there is an abrupt and
+disagreeable change to yellow mud slopes and high mud mountains deeply
+fissured, the scanty herbage already eaten down by Ilyat flocks--a
+desolate land, without springs, streams, or even Ilyat tents. Then
+comes a precipice at an altitude of 7500 feet, through a cleft in
+which, the Tang-i-Wastagun, the road passes, and descends to the plain
+of Gandaman as something little better than a sheep track on a steep
+hillside above a stream. The heat was fierce. A pair of stout
+gardening gloves does not preserve the hands from blistering.
+Spectacles with wire gauze sides have to be abandoned as they threaten
+to roast the eyes. In this latitude, 32 deg., the heat of the sun at noon
+is tremendous. At the precipice top I crept into a hole at the base of
+a rock, for "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," till the
+caravan staggered up. It was difficult to brave the sun's direct rays.
+He looked like a ball of magnesium light, white and scintillating, in
+the unclouded sky.
+
+On crossing the Tang-i-Wastagun we left behind the Bakhtiari country
+proper for a time, and re-entered the Chahar Mahals, with their mixed
+village population of Persians and Armenians. The descent from the
+Tang-i-Wastagun is upon a ruined Armenian village with a large
+graveyard. The tombstones are of great size, ten feet long by three
+feet broad and three feet high, sarcophagus-shaped, and on each stone
+are an Armenian epitaph and a finely-engraved cross. The plain of
+Gandaman or Wastagun is a very large one, over 7000 feet in altitude,
+and is surrounded mainly by high mountains still snow-patched, but to
+the north by low rocky hills. Much of it is irrigated and under
+cultivation, and grows heavy crops of wheat and barley. The pasturage
+is fine and abundant, and the people breed cattle and horses. The
+uncultivated slopes are now covered with red tulips and a purple
+_allium_, and even the dry gravel added largely to the daily
+increasing botanical collection.
+
+  [Illustration: ALI JAN.]
+
+The camps were pitched on green turf near three springs, a quiet
+place, but there was little rest. We were hardly settled before there
+was a severe fight among the horses, my sour-tempered _Screw_ being
+the aggressor. This was hardly quieted when there was a sharp
+"scrimmage" between the _charvadars_ and the Agha's three young
+savages, in which one of them, Ali Jan, was badly beaten, and came to
+me to have a bleeding face and head dressed. After that the people
+began to come in from the villages for eye-washes and medicines. They
+have no bottles, nor have I, and the better-off bring great copper
+jugs and basins for an ounce or two of lotion! A very poor old woman
+much afflicted with ophthalmia said she had three sisters all blind,
+that she had nothing for lotion, nothing in the world but a copper
+cooking pot, and she cried piteously. I had nothing to give her, and
+eventually she returned with an egg-shell, with the top neatly chipped
+off. It is the custom to raise the hands to heaven and invoke
+blessings on the _Hak[=i]m's_ head, but I never received so many as
+from this poor creature.
+
+The ride to the village of Gandaman, where we halted for two days, was
+an agreeable one. After being shut up among mountains and precipices,
+space and level ground to gallop over are an agreeable change, and in
+the early morning the heat was not excessive. The great plain was a
+truly pastoral scene. Wild-looking shepherds with long guns led great
+brown flocks to the hills; innumerable yokes of black oxen, ploughing
+with the usual iron-shod, pointed wooden share, turned over the rich
+black soil, making straight furrows, and crossing them diagonally;
+mares in herds fed with their foals; and shepherds busily separated
+the sheep from the goats.
+
+Close to the filthy walled Armenian village of Kunak there is a
+conical hill with a large fort, in ruinous condition, upon it, and not
+far off are the remains of an Armenian village, enclosed by a square
+wall with a round tower at each corner. This must have been until
+recently a place of some local importance, as it is approached by a
+paved causeway, and had an aqueduct, now ruinous, carried over the
+river on three arches. Not only the plain but the hill-slopes up to a
+great height are cultivated, and though the latter have the
+precariousness of rain-lands, the crops already in ear promise well.
+
+Crossing a spur which descends upon the north side of the plain, we
+reached Gandaman, a good-looking walled Moslem village of 196 houses,
+much planted, chiefly with willows, and rejoicing in eight springs,
+close together, the overflow of which makes quite a piece of water. It
+has an _imamzada_ on an eminence and is fairly prosperous, for besides
+pastoral wealth it weaves and exports carpets, and dyes cotton and
+woollen yarn with madder and other vegetable dyes. The mountain view
+to the south-west is very fine.
+
+I was in my tent early, but there was little rest, for crowds of
+people with bad eyes and woful maladies besieged it until the evening.
+At noon a gay procession crossed the green camping-ground, four mares
+caparisoned in red trappings, each carrying two women in bright
+dresses, but shrouded in pure white sheets bound round their heads
+with silver chains. The _ketchuda_ of the Armenian village of
+Libasgun, two miles off, accompanied them, and said that they came to
+invite me to their village, for they are Christians. Then they all
+made the sign of the Cross, which is welcome in this land as a bond of
+brotherhood.
+
+Cleanly, comely, large-eyed, bright-cheeked, and wholesome they
+looked, in their pure white _chadars_, gay red dresses, and
+embroidered under-vests. They had massive silver girdles, weighing
+several pounds, worn there only by married women, red coronets, heavy
+tiaras of silver, huge necklaces of coins, and large filigree silver
+drops attached down the edges of their too open vests. Their heavy
+hair was plaited, but not fastened up. Each wore a stiff
+diamond-shaped piece of white cotton over her mouth and the tip of her
+nose. They said it was their custom to wear it, and they would not
+remove it even to eat English biscuits! They managed to drink tea by
+veiling their faces with their _chadars_ and passing the cup
+underneath, but they turned their faces quite away as they did it.
+They had come for the day, and had brought large hanks of wool to
+wind, but the headman had the tact to take them away after arranging
+for me to return the visit in the evening.
+
+He seemed an intelligent man. Libasgun, with its 120 houses, is,
+according to his account, a prosperous village, paying its tax of 300
+_tumans_ (L100) a year to the Amin-ud-Daulat, and making a present
+only to the Ilkhani. It has 2000 sheep and goats, besides mares and
+cattle. It has an oil mill, and exports oil to Isfahan. The women
+weave carpets, and embroider beautifully on coarse cotton woven by
+themselves, and dyed indigo blue and madder red by their Gandaman
+neighbours. This man is proud of being a Christian. Among the
+Armenians Christianity is as much a national characteristic as pride
+of race and strict monogamy. He remarked that there are no sore eyes
+in Libasgun, and attributed it to the greater cleanliness of the
+people and to the cross signed in holy oil upon their brows in
+baptism!
+
+I rode to this village in the late afternoon, and was received with
+much distinction in the _balakhana_ of the _ketchuda's_ house, where I
+was handed to the seat of honour, a bolster at the head of the
+handsomely-carpeted room. It soon filled with buxom women in red, with
+jackets displaying their figures, or want of figures, down to their
+waists. From the red velvet coronets on their heads hung two graduated
+rows of silver coins, and their muslin _chadars_ were attached to
+their hair with large silver pins and chains. Magnificent necklaces of
+gold coins were also worn.
+
+  [Illustration: ARMENIAN WOMEN OF LIBASGUN.]
+
+Forty women sat on the floor in rows against the wall. Each had rosy
+cheeks, big black eyes, and a diamond-shaped white cloth over her
+mouth. The uniformity was shocking. They stared, not at me, but at
+nothing. They looked listless and soulless, only fit to be what they
+are--the servants of their husbands. When they had asked me my age,
+and why I do not dye my hair, the conversation flagged, for I could
+not get any information from them even on the simplest topics. Hotter
+and hotter grew the room, more stolid the vacancy of the eyes, more
+grotesque the rows of white diamonds over the mouths, when the happy
+thought occurred to me to ask to see the embroidered aprons, which
+every girl receives from her mother on her marriage. Two mountains of
+flesh obligingly rolled out of the room, and rolled in again bringing
+some beautiful specimens of needlework. This is really what is known
+as "Russian embroidery," cross stitch in artistic colours on coarse
+red or blue cotton. The stomachers are most beautifully worked. The
+aprons cover the whole of the front and the sides of the dress. The
+mothers begin to embroider them when their daughters are ten. The
+diamond-shaped cloth is put on by girls at eight or nine. The women
+would not remove it for a moment even to oblige a guest. The perpetual
+wearing of it is one of their religious customs, only prevailing,
+however, in some localities. They say that when our Lord was born His
+mother in token of reverence took a cloth and covered her mouth, hence
+their habit.
+
+When the _ketchuda_ arrived he found the heat of the room unbearable
+and proposed an adjournment to the lower roof, which was speedily
+swept, watered, and carpeted.
+
+An elaborate banquet had been prepared in the hope that the Agha would
+pay them a visit, and they were much mortified at his non-appearance.
+The great copper basins containing the food were heaped together in
+the middle of the carpets, and the guests, fifty in number, sat down,
+the men on one side, and the women on the other, the wives of the
+_ketchuda_ and his brothers serving. There were several _samovars_
+with tea, but only three cups. A long bolster was the place of honour,
+and I occupied it alone till the village priests arrived,--reverend
+men with long beards, high black head-dresses, and full black cassocks
+with flowing sleeves. All the guests rose, and remained standing till
+they had been ceremoniously conducted to seats. I found them very
+agreeable and cultured men, acquainted with the varying "streams of
+tendency" in the Church of England, and very anxious to claim our
+Church as a sister of their own. This banquet was rather a gay scene,
+and on a higher roof fully one hundred women and children dressed in
+bright red stood watching the proceedings below.
+
+I proposed to see the church, and with the priests, most of the
+guests, and a considerable following of the onlookers, walked to it
+through filthy alleys. This ancient building, in a dirty and
+malodorous yard, differs externally from the mud houses which surround
+it only in having two bells on a beam. The interior consists of four
+domed vaults, and requires artificial light. A vault with a raised
+floor contains the altar and a badly-painted altar-piece representing
+the B. V.; a rail separates the men, who stand in front, from the
+women, who stand behind. A Liturgy and an illuminated medieval copy of
+the Gospels, of which they are very proud, are their only treasures.
+They have no needlework, and the altar cloth is only a piece of
+printed cotton. Nothing could well look poorer than this small, dark,
+vacant building, with a few tallow candles without candlesticks giving
+a smoky light.
+
+They have two daily services lasting from one to two hours each, and
+Mass on Sunday is protracted to seven hours! The priests said that all
+the men, except two who watch the flocks, and nearly all the women are
+at both services on Sunday, and that many of the men and most of the
+women are at both daily services, one of which, as is usual, begins
+before daylight. There is no school. The fathers teach their boys to
+read and write, and the mothers instruct their girls in needlework.
+
+After visits to the priests' houses, a number of villagers on
+horseback escorted me back to Gandaman. The heat of those two days was
+very great for May, the mercury marking 83 deg. in the shade at 10 A.M.
+One hundred and thirteen people came for medicines, and in their
+eagerness they swarmed round both ends of the tent, blocking out all
+air. The ailments were much more varied and serious than among the
+Bakhtiaris.
+
+  [Illustration: WALL AND GATE OF LIBASGUN.]
+
+The last march was a hot and tedious one of eighteen miles, along an
+uninteresting open valley, much ploughed, bounded by sloping
+herbage-covered hills, surmounted by parapets of perpendicular rock.
+After passing the large Moslem village of Baldiji, we re-entered the
+Bakhtiari country, ascended to the Bakhtiari village of Dastgird,
+descended to the plain of Chigakhor, skirted its southern margin, and
+on its western side, on two spurs of the great Kuh-i-Kaller range,
+with a ravine between them, the camps were pitched. In two days most
+of the tents were blown down, and were moved into two ravines with a
+hill between them, on which the Sahib on his arrival pitched his camp.
+
+My ravine has a spring, with exactly space for my tent beside it, and
+a platform higher up with just room enough for the servants. A strong
+stream, rudely brawling, issuing from the spring, disturbs sleep.
+There is no possibility of changing one's position by even a six-feet
+stroll, so rough and steep is the ground. Mirza bringing my meals from
+the cooking tent has a stick to steady himself. At first there was
+nothing to see but scorched mountains opposite, and the green plain on
+which the ravine opens, but the _Hak[=i]m's_ tent was soon discovered,
+and I have had 278 "patients"! Before I am up in the morning they are
+sitting in rows one behind another on the steep ground, their horses
+and asses grazing near them, and all day they come. One of the chiefs
+of the Janiki tribe came with several saddle and baggage horses and
+even a tent, to ask me to go with him to the great plain of Khana
+Mirza, three days' march from here, to cure his wife's eyes, and was
+grieved to the heart when I told him they were beyond my skill. He
+stayed while a great number of sick people got eye-lotions and
+medicines, and then asked me why I gave these medicines and took so
+much trouble. I replied that our Master and Lord not only commanded us
+to do good to all men as we have opportunity, but Himself healed the
+sick. "You call Him Master and Lord," he said; "He was a great
+Prophet. _Send a Hak[=i]m to us in His likeness._"
+
+I have heard so much of Chigakhor that I am disappointed with the
+reality. There are no trees, most of the snow has melted, the
+mountains are not very bold in their features, the plain has a sort of
+lowland look about it, and though its altitude is 7500 feet, the days
+and even nights are very hot. The interest of it lies in it being the
+summer resort of the Ilkhani and Ilbegi, a fact which makes it the
+great centre of Bakhtiari life. As many as 400 tents are pitched here
+in the height of the season, and the coming and going of Khans and
+headmen with tribute and on other business is ceaseless.
+
+The plain, which is about seven miles long by three broad, is quite
+level. Near the south-east end is a shallow reedy mere, fringed by a
+fertile swampiness, which produces extraordinary crops of grass far
+out into the middle of the level.
+
+Near the same end is a rocky eminence or island, on which is the
+fortress castle of the Ilkhani. The "season" begins in early June,
+when the tribes come up from the warm pastures of Dizful and Shuster,
+to which they return with their pastoral wealth in the autumn, after
+which the plain is flooded and frozen for the winter. At the north end
+are the villages of Dastgird and Aurugun and a great deal of irrigated
+land producing wheat. Except at that end the plain is surrounded by
+mountains; on its southern side, where a part of the Sukhta range
+rises into the lofty peak of Challeh Kuh, with its snow-slashes and
+snow-fields, they attain an altitude of 12,000 or 13,000 feet.
+
+It is not easy, perhaps not possible, to pass through the part of the
+Bakhtiari country for which we are bound, without some sort of
+assistance from its feudal lords, a responsible man, for instance, who
+can obtain supplies from the people. Therefore we have been detained
+here for many days waiting for the expected arrival of the Ilkhani. A
+few days ago a rumour arrived, since unhappily continued, that things
+were in confusion below, owing to the discovery of a plot on the part
+of the Ilkhani to murder the Ilbegi. Stories are current of the number
+of persons "put out of the way" before he attained his present rank
+for the second time, and it is not "Bakhtiari custom" to be
+over-scrupulous about human life. No doubt his nephew, the Ilbegi, is
+a very dangerous rival, and that his retainers are bent on seeing him
+in a yet higher position than he now occupies.
+
+A truce has been patched up, however, and yesterday the Ilkhani and
+Isfandyar Khan arrived together, with their great trains of armed
+horsemen, their _harams_, their splendid studs, their crowds of
+unmounted retainers, their strings of baggage mules and asses laden
+with firewood, and all the "rag, tag, and bobtail" in attendance on
+Oriental rulers. Following them in endless nocturnal procession come
+up the tribes, and day breaks on an ever-increasing number of brown
+flocks and herds, of mares, asses, dogs, black tents, and household
+goods. When we arrived there were only three tents, now the green
+bases of the mountains and all the platforms and ravines where there
+are springs are spotted with them, in rows or semicircles, and at
+night the camp fires of the multitude look like the lights of a city.
+Each clan has a prescriptive right to its camping-ground and pasture
+(though both are a fruitful source of quarrels), and arrives with its
+_ketchuda_ and complete social organisation, taking up its position
+like a division of an army.
+
+When in the early morning or afternoon the tribe reaches the
+camping-ground, everything is done in the most orderly way. The
+infants are put into their cradles, the men clear the ground if
+necessary, drive the pegs and put up the poles, and if there be
+wood--of which there is not a stick here--they make a fence of loose
+branches to contain the camp, but the women do the really hard work.
+Their lords, easily satisfied with their modicum of labour, soon
+retire to enjoy their pipes and the endless gossip of Bakhtiari life.
+
+  [Illustration: A PERSO-BAKHTIARI CRADLE.]
+
+After the ground has been arranged the tents occupy invariably the
+same relative position, whether the camp is in a row, a semicircle, a
+circle, or streets, so that the cattle and flocks may easily find
+their owners' abodes without being driven. The tents, which are of
+black goats' hair cloth, are laid out and beaten, and the women spread
+them over the poles and arrange the rest, after which the inside is
+brushed to remove the soot. In a good tent, reed screens are put up to
+divide the space into two or more portions, and some of the tribes
+fence round the whole camp with these screens, leaving one opening,
+and use the interior for a sheepfold. The small bushes are grubbed up
+for fuel. The women also draw the water, and the boys attend to the
+flocks. Many of the camps, however, have neither fences nor environing
+screens, and their inmates dwell without any attempt at privacy, and
+rely for the safety of their flocks on big and trustworthy dogs, of
+which every camp has a number.
+
+When they move the bulk of the labour again falls on the women. They
+first make the baggage into neat small packages suited for the backs
+of oxen; then they take up the tent pegs, throw down the tents, and
+roll them up in the reed screens, all that the men undertake being to
+help in loading the oxen. It is only when a division halts for at
+least some days that this process is gone through. In fine weather, if
+a tribe is marching daily to its summer or winter camping-grounds, the
+families frequently sleep in the open.
+
+The chief's tent is always recognisable by its size, and is
+occasionally white. I have seen a tent of a wealthy Khan fully sixty
+feet long. A row of poles not more than ten feet high supported the
+roof, which was of brown haircloth, the widths united by a coarse open
+stitch. On the windward side the roof was pinned down nearly to the
+top of a loosely-laid wall of stones about three feet high. The
+leeward side was quite open, and the roof, which could be lowered if
+necessary, was elevated and extended by poles six feet high. If the
+tent was sixty feet long, it was made by this arrangement twenty feet
+broad. At the lower end was a great fire-hole in the earth, and the
+floor of the upper end was covered with rugs, quilts, and pillows, the
+household stuff being arranged chiefly on and against the rude stone
+wall.
+
+The process of encamping for a camp of seventy tents takes about two
+hours, and many interruptions occur, especially the clamorous demands
+of unweaned infants of mature years. De-camping the same number of
+tents takes about an hour. A free, wild life these nomads lead, full
+of frays and plots, but probably happier than the average lot.
+
+Below the castle is the great encampment of the chiefs, brown tents
+and white bell tents, among which the tall white pavilion of the
+Ilkhani towers conspicuously. The Ilkhani and Ilbegi called on me, and
+as they sat outside my tent it was odd to look back two years to the
+time when they were fighting each other, and barely two weeks to the
+discovery of the plot of the dark-browed Ilkhani to murder his nephew.
+The Ilkhani's face had a very uncomfortable expression. Intrigues
+against him at Tihran and nearer home, the rumoured enmity of the
+Prime Minister, the turbulence of some of the tribes, the growing
+power of the adherents of Isfandyar Khan, and his own baffled plot to
+destroy him must make things unpleasant. Several of the small Khans
+who have been to see me expect fighting here before the end of the
+summer. The Ilkhani had previously availed himself of the resources of
+my medicine chest, and with so much benefit that I was obliged to
+grant a request which deprived me of a whole bottle of "tabloids."
+
+In the evening I visited the ladies who are in the castle leading the
+usual dull life of the _haram_, high above the bustle which centres
+round the Ilkhani's pavilion, with its crowds of tribesmen, mares and
+foals feeding, tethered saddle horses neighing, cows being milked,
+horsemen galloping here and there, firing at a mark, asses bearing
+wood and flour from Ardal being unloaded--a bustle masculine solely.
+
+Isfandyar Khan, with whose look of capacity I am more and more
+impressed, and Lutf received us and led us to the great pavilion,
+which is decorated very handsomely throughout with red and blue
+_applique_ arabesques, and much resembles an Indian _durbar_ tent. A
+brown felt carpet occupied the centre. The Ilkhani, who rose and shook
+hands, sat on one side and the Ilbegi on the other, and sons, Khans,
+and attendants to the number of 200, I daresay, stood around. We made
+some fine speeches, rendered finer, doubtless, by Mirza; repeated an
+offer to send a doctor to itinerate in the country for some months in
+1891, took the inevitable tea, and while the escorts were being
+arranged for I went to the fort.
+
+It is the fortress of the Haft Lang, one great division of the
+Bakhtiari Lurs, which supplies the ruling dynasty. The building is a
+parallelogram, flanked by four round towers, with large casemates and
+a keep on its southern side. It has two courtyards, surrounded by
+stables and barracks, but there is no water within the gates, and
+earthquakes and neglect have reduced much of it to a semi-ruinous
+condition. Over the gateway and along the front is a handsome suite of
+well-arranged balconied rooms, richly decorated in Persian style, the
+front and doors of the large reception-room being of fretwork filled
+in with amber and pale blue glass, and the roof and walls are covered
+with small mirrors set so as to resemble facets, with medallion
+pictures of beauties and of the chase let in at intervals. The effect
+of the mirrors is striking, and even beautiful. There were very
+handsome rugs on the floor, and divans covered with Kashan velvet; but
+rugs, divans, and squabs were heaped to the depth of some inches with
+rose petals which were being prepared for rose-water, and the
+principal wife rose out of a perfect bed of them.
+
+These ladies have no conversation, and relapse into apathy after
+asking a few personal questions. Again they said they wished to see
+the Agha, of whose height and prowess many rumours had reached them,
+but when I suggested that they might see him from the roof or balcony
+they said they were afraid. Again they said they had such dull lives,
+and regretted my departure, as they thought they might come and see my
+tent. I felt sorry for them, sorrier than I can say, as I realised
+more fully the unspeakable degradation and dulness of their lives. A
+perfect rabble of dirty women and children filled the passages and
+staircase.
+
+On one of my last evenings I rode, attended only by Mirza, to the
+village of Dastgird to see two women whose husband desired medicines
+for them. This village is piled upon the hillside at the north end of
+the valley and a traveller can be seen afar off. I had never visited
+any of the camps so slenderly escorted, and when I saw the roofs
+covered with men and numbers more running to the stream with long guns
+slung behind their backs and big knives in their girdles, I was much
+afraid that they might be rude in the absence of a European man, and
+that I should get into trouble. At the stream the _ketchuda_, whose
+wives were ill, and several of the principal inhabitants met me. They
+salaamed, touched their hearts and brows, two held my stirrups, others
+walked alongside, and an ever-increasing escort took me up the steep
+rude alley of the village to the low arch by which the headman's
+courtyard--all rocks, holes, and heaps--is entered.
+
+Dismounting was a difficulty. Several men got hold of _Screw_, one
+made a step of his back, another of his knee, one grasped my foot, two
+got hold of my arms, all shouting and disputing as to how to proceed,
+but somehow I was hauled off, and lifted by strong arms up into the
+_atrium_, the floor of which was covered with their woven rugs, across
+which they led me to an improvised place of honour, a _karsi_ covered
+with a red blanket. A brass _samovar_ was steaming hospitably on the
+floor, surrounded by tea-glasses, trays, and sugar. The chief paid me
+the usual Persian compliment, "Your presence purifies the house;" men
+crowded in, shrouded women peeped through doorways; they served me on
+bended knees with tea _a la Russe_, and though they shouted very loud,
+and often all together, they made me very cordially welcome. They send
+their flocks with some of their people to warmer regions for the
+winter, but the chief and many families remain, though the snow is
+from seven to nine feet deep, according to their marks on a post.
+
+I rode to the camp where the wives were, with the Khan and a number of
+men on foot and on horseback, a messenger having been sent in advance.
+In the village the great sheep-dogs, as usual, showed extreme
+hostility, and one, madder than the rest, a powerful savage, attacked
+me, fixing his teeth in my stirrup guard, and hanging on. The Khan
+drew a revolver and shot him through the back, killing him at once,
+and threatened to beat the owner. _Screw_ was quite undisturbed by the
+incident.
+
+The power of the _ketchuda_ or headman of a group of families is not
+absolute even in this small area. His duties are to arrange the annual
+migrations, punish small crimes summarily, to report larger crimes to
+the Khan, to collect the tribute, conjointly with the Khan, and to
+carry out his orders among the families of his group. Private
+oppression appears to be much practised among the _ketchudas_, and
+under the feeble rule of Imam Kuli Khan to be seldom exposed. The
+_ketchuda's_ office, originally elective, has a great tendency to
+become hereditary, but at any moment the Ilkhani may declare it
+elective in a special case.
+
+Though the offices of Ilkhani and Ilbegi are held only annually at the
+pleasure of the Shah, and the _ketchudas_ are properly elective, the
+office of Khan or chief is strictly hereditary, though it does not
+necessarily fall to the eldest son. This element of permanence gives
+the Khan almost supreme authority in his tribe, and when the Ilkhani
+is a weak man and a Khan is a strong one, he is practically
+independent, except in the matter of the tribute to the Shah.
+
+It was in curbing the power of these Khans by steering a shrewd and
+even course among their feuds and conflicts, by justice and
+consideration in the collection of the revenues, and by rendering it a
+matter of self-interest for them to seek his protection and
+acknowledge his headship, that Sir A. H. Layard's friend, Mohammed
+Taki Khan, succeeded in reducing these wild tribes to something like
+order, and Hussein Kuli Khan, "the last real ruler of the Bakhtiaris,"
+pursued the same methods with nearly equal success.
+
+But things have changed, and a fresh era of broils and rivalries has
+set in, and in addition to tribal feuds and jealousies, the
+universally-erected line of partisanship between the adherents of the
+Ilkhani and Ilbegi produces anything but a pacific prospect. These
+broils, and the prospects of fighting, are the subjects discussed at
+my tent door in the evenings.
+
+  [Illustration: A DASTGIRD TENT.]
+
+The Dastgird encampment that evening was the romance of camp life. On
+the velvety green grass there were four high black canopies, open at
+the front and sides, looking across the green flowery plain, on which
+the Ilkhani's castle stood out, a violet mass against the sunset gold,
+between the snow-streaked mountains. There were handsome carpets,
+mattresses, and bolsters; _samovars_ steaming on big brass trays, an
+abundance of curds, milk, and whey, and at one end of the largest tent
+there were two very fine mares, untethered, with young foals, and
+children rolling about among their feet. I was placed, as usual, on
+a bolster, and the tent filled with people, all shouting, and
+clamouring together, bringing rheumatism ("wind in the bones"), sore
+eyes, headaches ("wind in the head"), and old age to be cured. The
+Khan's wife, a handsome, pathetic-looking girl, had become an
+epileptic a fortnight ago. This malady is sadly common. Of the 278
+people who have come for medicines here thirteen per cent have had
+epileptic fits. They call them "faintings," and have no horror of
+them. Eye diseases, including such severe forms as cataract and
+glaucoma, rheumatism, headaches, and dyspepsia are their most severe
+ailments. No people have been seen with chest complaints, bone
+diseases, or cancer.
+
+In the largest tent there was a young mother with an infant less than
+twenty-four hours old, and already its eyebrows, or at all events the
+place where eyebrows will be, were deeply stained and curved. At seven
+or eight years old girls are tattooed on hands, arms, neck, and chest,
+and the face is decorated with stars on the forehead and chin.
+
+Though children of both sexes are dearly loved among these people, it
+is only at the birth of a son that there is anything like festivity,
+and most of the people are too poor to do more even then than
+distribute sweetmeats among their friends and relations. The
+"wealthier" families celebrate the birth of a firstborn son with
+music, feasting, and dancing.
+
+At the age of five or six days the child is named, by whispering the
+Divine name in its ear, along with that chosen by the parents.
+
+After a long visit the people all kissed my hand, raising it to their
+foreheads afterwards, and the Khan made a mounting block of his back,
+and rode with me to the main path. It was all savage, but the
+intention was throughout courteous, according to their notions. It
+became pitch dark, and I lost my way, and should have pulled _Screw_
+over a precipice but for his sagacious self-will. One of the finest
+sights I have seen was my own camp in a thunderstorm, with its white
+tents revealed by a flash of lightning, which lighted for a second the
+black darkness of the ravine.
+
+The next morning the Khan of Dastgird's servants brought fifteen
+bottles and pipkins for eye-lotions and medicines. In spite of the
+directions in Persian which Mirza put upon the bottles, I doubt not
+that some of the eye-lotions will be swallowed, and that some of the
+medicines will be put into the eyes!
+
+_June 8._--The last evening has come after a busy day. The
+difficulties in the way of getting ready for the start to-morrow have
+been great. The iron socket of my tent-pole broke, there was no smith
+in the valley, and when one arrived with the Ilkhani, the Ilkhani's
+direct order had to be obtained before he would finish the work he had
+undertaken. I supplied the iron, but then there was no charcoal. I
+have been tentless for the whole day. Provisions for forty days have
+to be taken from Chigakhor, and two cwts. of rice and flour have been
+promised over and over again, but have only partially arrived
+to-night. Hassan has bought a horse and a cow, and they have both
+strayed, and he has gone in search of them, and Mirza in search of
+him, and both have been away for hours.
+
+Of the escorts promised by the Ilkhani not one man has arrived, though
+it was considered that the letter to him given me by the
+Amin-es-Sultan would have obviated any difficulty on this score. An
+armed sentry was to have slept in front of my tent, and a _tufangchi_
+was to have been my constant attendant, and I have nobody. Of the
+escort promised to the Agha not one man has appeared. In this case we
+are left to do what General Schindler and others in Tihran and
+Isfahan declared to be impossible, viz. to get through the country
+without an escort and without the moral support of a retainer high in
+the Ilkhani's service. Whether there have been crooked dealings; or
+whether the Ilkhani, in spite of his promises, regards the presence of
+travellers in his country with disfavour; or whether, apprehending a
+collision, both the Ilkhani and Ilbegi are unwilling to part with any
+of their horsemen, it is impossible to decide.
+
+     I. L. B.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I
+
+
+
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan,
+Volume I (of 2), by Isabella L. Bird
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