and to-day in the Kharba valley of fighting among the Kuh-i-Shahan
mountains with the loss of twelve lives, and horsemen passed us armed
with long guns and swords on their way to tribal war. I fear I shall
have to return to Isfahan. Things are regarded as looking very
precarious farther on, and every movement, retrograde or forward, is
beset with difficulties.
I. L. B.
LETTER XVII
CAMP GAL-I-GAV, KUH-I-RANG, _July 2_.
From Dima we ascended to high tablelands, having the snowy Zard Kuh
ever in sight, one nameless peak being at present pure white, and
descended into and crossed the Shorab, a fertile valley, on one side
of which is the famous cleft called Kar Kanun, an artificial gash
across a spur of the Kuh-i-Rang of the same name. After winding among
mountains we descended on the Karun, whose waters, clear, rapid, and
peacock-green, fertilise a plain of fine flowery turf lying at the
base of hills, with another branch of the Karun between them and the
Zard Kuh.
It is a lovely plain, bright and smiling, contrasting with the savage
magnificence of the Zard Kuh, which comes down upon it with its peaks,
chasms, and precipices, and glittering fields of unbroken snow. It was
given up to mares and foals, but green platforms high above, and
little hollows in the foot-hills were spotted with Ilyat tents, and in
the four days which we spent there the camps were never free from
Ilyat visitors. The Sahib came in the first evening with one man badly
hurt, and another apparently in the first stage of rheumatic fever. A
small tent was rigged for this poor fellow, who was in intense pain
and quite helpless, with a temperature of 104 deg., and every joint
swollen. The usual remedies had no effect on him. I had had a present
of a small quantity of _salol_, a newish drug, with directions for
its use, and his master Hadji undertook to make him take it regularly,
and hot tea when he fancied it, and at the end of twenty-two hours he
was not only free from fever but from pain, and was able to mount a
mule.[1]
There are two definite objects of interest close to the plain of
Chaman Kushan, the reputed source of the Karun and the great
artificial cleft of Kar Kanun. I visited the first on a misty day,
which exaggerated the height of the mountains, and by filling their
chasms with translucent blue atmosphere gave a rare loveliness to the
whole, for it must be said that the beauties of Persian scenery are
usually staring, hard, and unveiled. The fords of two or three rivers,
including the Karun, some steep ascents and descents, a rough ride
along a stony slope of the Zard Kuh, and the crossing of a very solid
snow-bridge took us to the top of a cliff exactly opposite the
powerful springs in which the Karun has its reputed origin.
Over this source towers the mighty range of the Zard Kuh,--a colossal
mountain barrier, a mass of yellow and gray limestone, with stupendous
snow-filled chasms, huge precipices, and vast snow-fields, treeless
and destitute of herbage except where the tulip-studded grass runs up
to meet the moisture from the snow-fields. It is the birthplace of
innumerable torrents, but one alone finds its way to the sea.
These springs are in a lateral slit in a lofty limestone precipice
below a snow-field, at one end of which, as if from a shaft, the
most powerful of them wells up, and uniting with the others in a sort
of grotto of ferns and mosses pours over a ledge in a sheet of foam, a
powerful waterfall, and slides away, a vigorous river of a wonderful
blue-green colour, under a snow-bridge, starting full fledged on its
course. The surroundings of this spring are wild and magnificent. A
few Bakhtiaris crept across the lower part of the face of rock, and
perched themselves above it. The roar of the water, now loud, now
subdued, made wild music, and the snow-bridges added to the
impressiveness of the scene.
[Illustration: SAR-I-CHESMEH-I-KURANG _To face p. 29, vol. II._]
Of course the geographical interest of this region is engrossing.[2]
This remarkable spring, called by the Bakhtiaris
Sar-i-Cheshmeh-i-Kurang ("the head source of the Kurang"), and until
this journey held to be the real source, is not, however, the actual
birthplace of the Karun or Kurang, which was afterwards traced up to
its headwaters in the magnificent Kuh-i-Rang.[3]
A few words on this, the one real river of which Persia can boast, and
which seems destined to play an important part in her commercial
future, will not be out of place. From its source it is a powerful and
important stream, full, deep, and flowing with great velocity for much
of its upper course between precipices varying in height from 1000 to
3000 feet. It is a perennial stream, fordable in very few places, and
then only in its upper waters. Varying in width usually from fifty to
a hundred yards, it is compressed at the Pul-i-Ali-kuh into a breadth
of about nine feet.
The steepness and height of its banks make it in general useless for
irrigation purposes, but some day it may be turned to account as a
great "water power." Its windings, dictated by the singular formation
of the mountain ranges (for I reject the idea of it having "carved"
its channel), are almost phenomenal. After flowing south-east for a
hundred miles from its source, it makes an acute bend, flows for fifty
miles to the south-west, and then making another fantastic turn it
flows in an exactly opposite direction to that of its earlier course,
proceeding north-west to Shuster for a hundred miles.
It is calculated that the distance from the Kuh-i-Rang to Shuster as
the crow flies is seventy-five miles, but the distance travelled by
the waters of the Karun is 250 miles, with an aggregate fall of 9000
feet.
Besides being fed on its journey through the Bakhtiari country by many
mountain-side fountain springs of pure fresh water, as well as by salt
streams and springs, it receives various tributaries, among the most
important of which are the Ab-i-Bazuft and a stream which, though
known locally under various names, may be called from the Chigakhor
basin in which it rises the Ab-i-Chigakhor, which makes a course of
ninety miles to get over a distance of twenty; the Darkash Warkash
flowing in from the Chahar Mahals near Ardal, the Dinarud rising in
the fair valley of Gorab, and the Ab-i-Cherri or Duab.
This mountain range, the Zard Kuh, in whose steep side at a height of
over 8000 feet the Sar-i-Cheshmeh-i-Kurang wells up so grandly, is
rather a series of rock summits and precipices than a range of
mountains. In late June its naked shelves and battlements upbore great
snow-fields, and its huge rifts or passes--the Gil-i-Shah, nearly
11,700 feet in altitude, and the Pambakal, 11,400--were full of snow.
But even in four days it melted rapidly, and probably by August little
remains except a few patches, in the highest and most sunless of the
rifts. It is only on the north side that the snow lasts even into
July.
[Illustration: ZARD KUH RANGE. _To face p. 30, vol. II._]
The marked features of this range are its narrow wall-like character,
its ruggedness on both sides, its absence of any peaks rising very
remarkably above the ordinary jagged level of the barrier, its lack of
prominent spurs, and its almost complete nakedness. It is grand, but
only under rare atmospheric conditions can it be termed beautiful. Its
length may be about thirty miles. It runs from north-west to
south-east. Some of its highest summits attain an elevation of 13,000
feet. Its name is a corruption of Sard Kuh, "cold mountain."
After fording various snow streams and taking a break-neck goat track,
we reached the great snow pass of Gil-i-Shah, by which the Bakhtiaris
come up from the Shuster plains on the firm snow in spring, returning
when the snow is soft in autumn by a very difficult track on the rocky
ledges above. In the mist it looked the most magnificent and
stupendous pass I had ever seen, always excepting the entrance to the
Lachalang Pass in Lesser Tibet, and an atmospheric illusion raised the
mountains which guard it up to the blue sky. I much wished to reach
the summit, but in a very narrow chasm was fairly baffled by a wide
rift in a sort of elevated snow-bridge which the mule could not cross,
and camped there for some hours; but even there nomads crowded round
my tent with more audacity in their curiosity than they usually show,
and Mirza heard two of them planning an ingenious robbery.
The heat was very great when I returned, 100 deg. in the shade, but rest
was impossible, for numbers of mares and horses were tethered near my
tent, and their riders, men and women, to the number of forty, seized
on me, clamouring for medicines and eye lotions. I often wonder at the
quiet gravity of Mirza's face as he interprets their grotesque
accounts of their ailments. A son of Chiragh Ali Khan came to tell me
that the "Feringhi ointment" had cured a beautiful young woman of his
tribe of an "abscess in her nose"! An instance of real benefit hardly
consoles for many failures, and any cure increases the exhausting
number of "patients." On one day on that plain there was no rest
between eleven and five.
Small events occurred tending to show that the good order which the
Ilkhani's government secures is chiefly round the centre of rule.
Stories of tribal disputes with violence, and of fights arising out of
blood feuds came in daily, and recent sword cuts and bullet wounds
were brought to the _Hak[=i]m_. One day there was a disturbance in
camp owing to a man attacking Hassan for preventing a woman from
entering my tent in my absence. I learned very soon after coming into
this country that the Bakhtiaris are dangerously sensitive about their
women, although the latter are unveiled and have an amount of latitude
unusual in the East. I have more than once cautioned my servants on
this point, for any supposed insult to a female relative of a
Bakhtiari would have by custom to be wiped out in blood. This extreme
sensitiveness has its good side, for even in the midst of the tribal
wars and broils which are constantly occurring female honour is always
secure, and a woman can travel safely alone through the wildest
regions; a woman betraying her husband would, however, almost
certainly be put to death. One night the camps were threatened by
robbers, upon whom Aziz Khan fired.
Solitary as is now the general aspect of the surrounding country, it
must have been crowded with workmen and their food providers within
the last two centuries, for in the beginning of the seventeenth
century Shah Abbas the Great, the greatest and most patriotic of
modern Persian kings, in his anxiety to deliver Isfahan once for all
from the risk of famine, formed and partly executed the design of
turning to account the difference in level (about 300 feet) between
the Karun and Zainderud, and by cleaving an intervening mountain spur
to let the waters of the one pass into the other. The work of cleaving
was carried on by his successors, but either the workmen failed to get
through the flint which underlies the free-stone, or the downfall of
the Sufari dynasty made an end of it, and nothing remains of what
should have been a famous engineering enterprise but a huge cleft with
tool marks upon it in the crest of the hill, "in length 300 yards, in
breadth fifteen, and fifty feet deep."[4] Above it are great heaps of
quarried stones and the remains of houses, possibly of overseers, and
below are the remnants of the dam which was to have diverted the Karun
water into the cleft.
On a cool, beautiful evening I came down from this somewhat mournful
height to a very striking scene, where the peacock-blue branch from
the Sar-i-Cheshmeh unites with the peacock-green stream from
Kuh-i-Rang, the dark, high sides of their channels shutting out the
mountains. Both rivers rush tumultuously above their union, but
afterwards glide downwards in a smooth, silent volume of most
exquisite colour, so deep as to be unfordable, and fringed with green
strips of grass and innumerable flowers. On emerging from the ravine
the noble mass of the Zard Kuh was seen rose-coloured in the sunset,
its crests and spires of snow cleaving the blue sky, and the bright
waters and flower-starred grass of the plain gave a smiling welcome
home.
The next march was a very beautiful one, most of the way over the
spurs and deeply-cleft ravines of the grand Kuh-i-Rang by sheep and
goat tracks, and no tracks at all, a lonely and magnificent ride, shut
in among mountains of great height, their spurs green with tamarisk,
salvias, and euphorbias, their ravines noisy with torrents, bright
springs bursting from their sides with lawn-like grass below, and
their slopes patched with acres of deep snow, on whose margin purple
crocuses, yellow ranunculuses, and white tulips were springing. But
the grand feature of the march is not the mighty Kuh-i-Rang on the
right, but the magnificent Zard Kuh on the left, uplifting its
snow-fields and snow-crests into the blue of heaven, on the other side
of an ever-narrowing valley. At the pass of Gal-i-Gav, 11,150 (?) feet
in altitude, where we have halted for two days, the Zard Kuh
approaches the Kuh-i-Rang so closely as to leave only a very deeply
cleft ravine between them. From this pass there is a very grand view,
not only of these ranges, but of a tremendous depression into which
the pass leads, beyond which is the fine definite mountain
Kuh-i-Shahan. This pass is the watershed between the Karun and
Ab-i-Diz, though, be it remembered, the latter eventually unites with
the former at Band-i-Kir. All is treeless.
The Kuh-i-Rang is the only "real mountain" seen on the journey
hitherto. It is unlike all others, not only in its huge bulk and
gigantic and far-reaching spurs, but in being _clothed_. Its name
means the "variegated mountain." It has much Devonshire red about it,
but clad as it is now with greenery, its soil and rock ribs cannot be
investigated.
It is a mountain rich in waters, both streams and springs. It is
physically and geographically a centre, a sort of knot nearly uniting
what have been happily termed the "Outer" and "Inner" ranges of the
Bakhtiari mountains, and it manifestly divides the country into two
regions, which, for convenience' sake, have been felicitously termed
the Bakhtiari country and Upper Elam, the former lying to the
south-east and the latter to the north-west of this most important
group of peaks, only just under 13,000 feet, which passes under the
general name Kuh-i-Rang.
A prominent geographical feature of this region is that from this
point south-eastwards the valleys rim parallel with the great ranges,
and are tolerably wide and level, carrying the drainage easily and
smoothly, with plenty of room for the fairly easy tracks which usually
run on both banks of the rivers.
The reader who has followed the geographical part of my narrative
will, I hope, have perceived that the openings through the Outer and
Inner ranges in the region previously traversed are few and
remarkable, the Tang-i-Ghezi and the Tang-i-Darkash Warkash piercing
the Outer, and the Tang-i-Dupulan the Inner range.
The Kuh-i-Rang is the definite water-parting and the originating cause
of two drainage systems, and it may be seen from the map, as was
beautifully obvious from the summit of one of the peaks over 11,000
feet in height, that it marks a singular change in the "lie of the
land," inasmuch as the main drainage no longer runs parallel to the
main ranges, but cuts them across, breaking up Upper Elam into a wild
and confused sea of mountains, riven and gashed, without any attempt
at uniformity.
This cutting through the ranges at right angles by rivers which
somehow must reach the sea, probably through channels formed by some
tremendous operations of nature, presents serious obstacles to the
traveller, and must effectually prevent commerce flowing in that
direction. The aspect of Upper Elam as seen from the Kuh-i-Rang is of
huge walls of naked rock, occasionally opening out so as to give space
for such a noble mountain as the Kuh-i-Shahan, with tremendous gorges
or canyons among them, with sheer precipices 4000 and 5000 feet high,
below which blue-green torrents, crystalline in their purity, rage and
boom, thundering on their way to join the Ab-i-Diz. The valleys are
short, and elevated from 6000 to 7000 feet, and the tracks dignified
by the name of roads pass along them and at great altitudes on the
sides of the main ranges, but are compelled continually to make dips
and ascents of many thousand feet to reach and emerge from the fords
of the rivers which dash through the magnificent rifts and canyons.
To the south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang the formation is orderly and
intelligible; to the north-west all is confusion and disorder, but a
sublime confusion. Two great passes to the north and south of this
magnificent mountain are the only ways of communication between the
region of Upper Elam and the Bakhtiari country. The northern pass was
ascended from Dima. The Kharba, one of the head-streams of the
Zainderud, rises on it and fertilises a beautiful valley about
fourteen miles in length. That pass, the Gal-i-Bard-i-Jamal (the pass
of Jamal's stone), the stone being a great detached rock near the
summit, and the Gal-i-Gav (the Cattle Pass) on the southern side, are
both over 10,000 feet in altitude. They are seldom traversed by the
natives, and only in well-armed parties, as both are very dangerous.
The Kuh-i-Rang must now be regarded as the true birthplace of the
Zainderud and the Karun, though their sources have hitherto been
placed in the Zard Kuh. A tributary of the Ab-i-Diz, and locally
considered as its head-water, rises also in the Kuh-i-Rang.
[Illustration: AZIZ KHAN.]
Aziz Khan, who had gone to his tents, has returned with a very nice
young servant and another mare, and with him noise and "go." He has
such a definite personality, and is so energetic in his movements,
that the camps are dull without him. He is a fearful beggar. He asks
me for something every day, and for things he can make no possible use
of, simply out of acquisitiveness. He has got from me among many other
things a new embroidered saddle-cloth, a double-bladed knife, an
Indian _kamarband_, many yards of silk, a large pair of scissors,
bracelets for his wife and daughter, and working materials, and now he
has set his heart on a large combination knife, which is invaluable to
me. "What use is that knife to a woman?" he asks daily. Now he says
that I have given him many things but I have never given him money,
and he must have a purse of money.
"Why can you do so much more than our women?" he often asks. His
astonishment that I can read, and yet more that I can write, is most
amusing. "Can many women in your country write?" he asked. "Can your
Queen read and write? Can she embroider as you do?" At first he
thought that I only pretended to write, but was convinced when I sent
a letter to the Ilkhani.
He usually appears when a number of sick people come, interprets their
dialect into good Persian for Mirza, and beats and pelts them with
stones when they crowd too closely, but they do not care. Sometimes
when I say that nothing that I have can do a sick person any good he
begs "for my sake" that I will try, and when I still decline he goes
away in a tantrum, cursing, and shaking his wide _shulwars_ with an
angry strut, but is soon back again with fresh demands.
He spreads his prayer-carpet and goes through his devotions thrice a
day, but somehow "Aziz Khan praying" seems to suggest some ludicrous
idea, even to his co-religionists. "Feringhis don't fear God," he said
to me; "they never worship." I told him he was wrong, that many are
very devout. He said, "Does ---- pray?" mentioning a European. I said
"Most certainly," and he walked away with the sneering laugh of a
fiend. He is a complete child of nature. He says what he thinks, and
acts chiefly as he pleases, but withal there is a gentlemanliness and
a considerable dignity about him. I think that his ruling religion is
loyalty to Isfandyar Khan, and consequent hatred of the Ilkhani and
all his other enemies. Going through a pantomimic firing of an English
rifle he said, "I hope I may shoot the Shah with this one day!" "For
what reason?" I asked. "Because he murdered Isfandyar Khan's father,
and I hate him." I asked him if he liked shooting, and he replied, "I
like shooting men!"
He has done a good deal of fighting, and has been shot through the
lung, arm, and leg, besides getting sword cuts, and he takes some
pride in showing his wounds. I think he is faithful. Mirza says that
he has smoothed many difficulties, and has put many crooked things
straight, without taking any credit to himself. His most apparent
faults are greed and a sort of selfish cunning.
There are many camps about the Gal-i-Gav, and crowds, needing very
careful watching, are always about the tents, wanting to see Feringhi
things, most of the people never having seen a Feringhi. It is a novel
sight in the evenings when long lines of brown sheep in single file
cross the snow-fields, following the shepherds into camp.
This Gal-i-Gav on the Kuh-i-Rang marks a new departure on the journey,
as well as the establishment of certain geographical facts. It will be
impossible for the future to place the source of the Karun in the Zard
Kuh range, for we followed the stream up to the Kuh-i-Rang, or to
indulge in the supposition that the mountains which lie to the
north-west are "covered with eternal snow," which in this latitude
would imply heights from 17,000 to 20,000 feet.
It is indeed a disappointment that, look where one may over the great
area filled up by huge rock barriers and vast mountains, from the
softer ridges bounding the fiery Persian plains to the last hills in
which the Inner range descends upon the great alluvial levels of
Khuzistan, not a peak presents itself in the glittering snowy mantle
which I have longed to see. Snow in forlorn patches or nearly hidden
in sunless rifts, and the snow-fields of the Zard Kuh will remain for
a time, but eternal snow is--nowhere, and it does not appear that the
highest of the peaks much exceeds 13,000 feet, either in Upper Elam or
the Bakhtiari country.
Great difficulties are ahead, not only from tracks which are said to
be impassable for laden animals, but from the disturbed state of the
country. From what I hear from Aziz Khan and from the guides who have
come up here, I gather that the power of the Ilkhani, shaky enough
even nearer Ardal, all but dwindles away here, and is limited to the
collection of the tribute, the petty Khans fighting among themselves,
and doing mainly what is right in their own eyes.
It is somewhat of a satisfaction to me that it is impossible now to go
back, and that a region absolutely unexplored lies ahead, doubtless
full, as the previously untraversed regions have been, of surprises
and interests.
I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the benefit of other travellers I add that the dose of _salol_
was ten grains every three hours. I found it equally efficacious
afterwards in several cases of acute rheumatism with fever. I hope
that the general reader will excuse the medical and surgical notes
given in these letters. I am anxious to show the great desire for
European medical aid, and the wide sphere that is open to a medical
missionary, at least for physical healing.
[2] A few geographical paragraphs which follow here and on p. 35 are
later additions to the letter.
[3] Although the correct name of this river is undoubtedly Kurang, I
have throughout adopted the ordinary spelling _Karun_, under which it
is commercially and politically known.
[4] _Six Months in Persia._--Stack.
LETTER XVIII
CAMP GOKUN, _July 6_.
A descent of 5000 feet brought us into the grand and narrow gorge of
the Sahid stream, with willow, walnut, oak, maple, pear, and crab
along its banks, knotted together by sprays of pink roses, with oaks
higher up, and above them again overhanging mountains of naked rock,
scorched, and radiating heat.
Quite suddenly, after a steep ascent, there is a view of a steep slope
below, where a lateral ravine comes down on the Sahid, green with
crops of wheat and barley, poplars, willows, and a grove of fine
walnuts, and more wonderful still, with an _imamzada_ in good repair,
and a village, also named Sahid, in which people live all the year.
The glen is magnificent, and is the one spot that I have seen in
Persia which suggests Switzerland.