village, and before I knew it I was on the roof of a house. The
village is built in ten steps up the steep hillside, the posts which
support one projecting roof resting on the back of the roof below.
The people were timid and suspicious, gave untrue replies to questions
at first, said we were "doing talisman to take their country," and
consulted in Aziz's and Mirza's hearing how they might rob us. It was
even difficult to get them to bring fodder for the horses. They were
fanatical and called us _Kafirs_. Some of the women have never been
out of their romantic mountain-walled hole, in which they are shut up
by snow for four months every winter. Ten families live there, each
one possessing a step. They said they owned sixty-five goats and
sheep, five cows, and seven asses; that they sell their wheat, and
salt from a salt spring at the back of the hill, and that their food
is chiefly acorn flour made into bread, curds, and wild celery.
This bread is made from the fruit of the _Quercus ballota_, which is
often nearly three inches long. The acorns are not gathered, but
picked up when they fall. The women bruise them between stones to
expel the bitter juices. They are afterwards reduced to flour, which
is well washed to remove the remaining bitterness, and dried in the
sun. It is either made into thin cakes and baked, or is mixed into a
paste with buttermilk and water and eaten raw. The baked cakes are not
very unpalatable, but the paste is nauseous. Acorn flour is never used
from choice.
The grain is exchanged for blue cottons and tobacco. It is not
possible to imagine a more isolated life. Tihran and Isfahan are names
barely known to these people, and the Shah is little more to them than
the Czar.
Near the _imamzada_ of Sahid is a burial-ground, rendered holy by the
dust of a _pir_ or saint who lies there. It has many headstones, and
one very large gray stone lion, on whose sides are rude carvings of a
gun, a sword, a dagger, a powder-flask, and a spear. On a few low
headstones a peculiar comb is carved, denoting that the grave is that
of a woman.
To several stones long locks of hair are attached, some black and
shining, others dead-looking and discoloured. It is customary for the
Bakhtiari women to sacrifice their locks to the memory of their
husbands and other near male relatives.
I think that they have a great deal of conjugal and family affection,
though their ways are rough, and that they mourn for their dead for a
considerable time. On one grave a young woman was rocking herself to
and fro, wailing with a sound like the Highland coronach, but longer
and more despairing. She was also beating her uncovered bosom
rhythmically, and had cut her face till the blood came. So apparently
absorbed was she in her grief that she took no notice of a Feringhi
and an Indian. She had been bereaved of her husband for a year, his
life having been sacrificed in a tribal fight.
The next two days were occupied in what might well be called
"mountaineering" on goat tracks; skirting great mountain spurs on
shelving paths not always wide enough for a horse's two feet alongside
of each other, with precipitous declivities of 1000 or 2000 feet;
ascending on ledges of rock to over 9000 feet, then by frightful
tracks descending 2000 or 3000 but to climb again; and at every
descent always seeing in front dizzy zigzags surmounting the crest of
some ragged ridge, only, as one knows, to descend again. _Screw_
nearly fell over backwards with me once and again, and came down a
smooth face of rock as mules sometimes come down a snow slide in
Switzerland. I was told that I should "break my neck" many times, that
no Bakhtiari had ever ridden over these tracks, or ever would, but my
hurt knee left me no choice. These tracks are simply worn by the
annual passage of the nomads and their flocks. They are frightful
beyond all description. The worst paths in Ladak and Nubra are nothing
to them.
Occasionally we traversed deep ravines with noisy torrents where the
shade was dense, and willows, ash, walnut, cherry, elm, plum, and oak
were crowded together, with the _Juniperus excelsa_ in rifts above.
With a moist climate it would be a glorious land, but even where the
scenery is finest there is always something lacking. There is no
atmosphere. All is sharp, colourless, naked. Even many of the flowers
are queer, and some are positively ugly. Many have thorns, some are
leather-like, others woolly, a few sticky. Inconspicuous flowers and
large leathery leaves are very common. The seed-vessels of some are
far prettier than the flowers, and brighter in colour. In several the
calyx grows after the corolla has withered, and becomes bright pink or
orange, like a very gay but only partially-opened blossom.
_Umbelliferae_ predominate this month. _Compositae_ too are numerous.
All, even bulbs, send down their roots very deep.
After leaving camp yesterday and crossing a high pass we descended
into the earth's interior, only to ascend a second pass by a steep
zigzag. Suddenly a wall of rock appeared as if to bar progress, but on
nearing it a narrow V-shaped slit was seen to afford a risky passage,
offering no other foothold than smooth shelving rock on the inside for
a number of yards, with a precipice above on the right and below on
the left. Ledges of slippery rock led up to it, and _Screw_ was
jumping and scrambling up these when the guides howled to me to stop,
and I was lifted off somehow. The white Arab was rolling and
struggling in the V, _Screw_ following lost his footing, and the two
presented a confusion of hoofs and legs in the air and bodies
struggling and rolling through the slit till they picked themselves up
with cut legs. The guides tried vainly to find some way by which the
caravans which followed much later might avoid this risk, and the Agha
went down the pass which had been so laboriously ascended to give
directions for its passage.
The _charvadars_ on reaching the difficulty made attempts to turn it
but failed; some loads were taken off and carried by men, and each
mule struggled safely through with one man at his head, and one or
two supporting him by his tail. The passage of the V took the caravan
an hour, but meantime there was the enjoyment of the sight of a
confused mass of mountains, whitish precipitous ranges, sun-lit, with
tremendous ravines between them, lying in the cool blue shadows of
early morning; mountains with long straight summits, mountains
snow-covered and snow-slashed, great spires of naked rock, huge ranges
buttressed by huge spurs herbage-covered, with outcrops of barren
rock,--a mighty, solitary, impressive scene, an uplifted wilderness
without a camp.
The descent of 4000 feet from this summit consists of any number of
zigzag tracks on the narrow top of the narrow ridge of one of the huge
rocky buttresses of Gartak, both sides being precipitous. Even on the
horse I was dizzy, and he went down most unwillingly, not taking any
responsibility as to finding the safest way, and depending solely on
my eye and hand. Mirza, being hampered with the care of his own mule,
was useless, and otherwise I was alone. These thready zigzags ended on
what appeared to be a precipice, from the foot of which human voices
came up, shouting to me to dismount. I did so, and got down, hanging
on to _Screw's_ bridle, and letting myself down over the ledges by my
hands for another hour, having to be careful all the time to avoid
being knocked down by his slips and jumps. I could hardly get him to
face some of the smooth broken faces of rock. A slide of gravel, a
snow-bridge, worn thin, over a torrent, and some slippery rock ledges
to scramble over by its side led to a pathless ascent through grass
and bushes. The guides and Aziz roared to me from a valley below, by
which roars I found my way down a steep hillside to the Gokun, a
mountain river of a unique and most beautiful blue-green colour,
abounding in deep pools from which it emerges in billows of cool
foam.
I forded it by a broad ford where crystal-green water glides calmly
over brown and red pebbles, with a willow-shaded margin, and as I
crossed a flock of long-bearded goats swam and jumped from rock to
rock from the other side, the whole scene an artist's dream. This
valley has magnificent pasturage, hay not yet "sun cured," long grass,
and abundant clover and vetches brightened by a profuse growth of a
small _helianthus_.
The march over the Gokun Pass and down to the Gokun river is the worst
I ever made. Had the track been in Ladak or Lahoul it would have been
marked on the Government maps "impassable for laden animals." Yet
Hadji's splendid mules, held at times by both head and tail,
accomplished it, and only minor disasters occurred. One mule had his
head gashed, Mirza had a bad fall, and broke my milk bottle, Hassan,
leading his own horse, fell twenty feet with the animal and cut his
arm, the ridge pole of my tent was broken, and is with difficulty
bandaged so as to hold, and some of the other baggage was damaged.
Hadji grumbles politely, and says that "in all time loaded mules were
never taken over such tracks," and I believe him. Aziz says that I
must be "tired of life," or I should never ride over them, and
certainly _Screw_ carried me at the peril of his life and mine.
The camps are pitched for Sunday at an altitude of 8000 feet, high
above the river--mine under the befriending shade of a colossal
natural sphinx, so remarkable that two photographs and a sketch by
Mirza were taken of it. It confronted us in a startling way, a grand
man's head with a flowing wig and a legal face, much resembling the
photographs of Lord Chancellor Hatherley.
The mules have been poorly fed for the last few days, and it is
pleasant to see them revelling in the abundant pasturage. After this
tremendous nine hours' march they came in quite cheerily, Cock o' the
Walk leading the caravan, with his fighting face on, shaking his grand
mane, and stamping as if he had not walked a mile.
The Sunday has been a very quiet one, except for the fighting of the
horses, which seem intent on murdering each other, the fussiness of
Aziz about a cut which his mare got yesterday, and for which he
expects my frequent attention, and the torment of the sand-flies,
which revel in the heat which kills the mosquitos.
_Kalahoma, July 11._--On Monday it was a pretty march from the shadow
of the sphinx through a well-irrigated and cultivated valley with many
camps, and by a high pass, to the neighbourhood of the Kuh-i-Shahan,
on which I rested for some hours at a height of 12,010 feet, the
actual summit being somewhat higher. On its north-east side the view
was hideous, of scorched, rolling gravel hills and wide scorched
valleys, with two winding streams, and some patches of wheat
surrounding two scorched mud villages.
The descent to Camp Kamarun, a deep ravine with a rapid mountain
stream, was blessed by a shower, which cooled the air, and resulted in
the only grand, stormy, wild sunset that I have seen for months. This
valley is blocked at the east end by Gargunaki, on the west by the
Kala Kuh, and the rocky ranges of Faidun and the Kuh-i-Shahan close in
its sides.
Long, long ago tradition says a certain great chief had eleven sons.
They quarrelled and divided into hostile factions of four and seven,
forming the still hostile groups of the Chahar Lang and the Haft Lang
of to-day. For some time past the ruling dynasty has been of the Haft
Lang division; Aziz also belongs to it, and we have been almost
entirely among its tribes hitherto. This ancient feud, though modified
in intensity, still exists. At this camp we were among tribes of the
Chahar Lang, and there was reason to apprehend robbery and a night
attack; so careful arrangements were made, and the men kept guard by
turns.
The following day's march, which was also pretty, included a long
descent through a cultivated valley, with willows, plums, and walnuts
growing along a stream, and a steep ascent and descent to the two
villages of Masir on well-cultivated slopes, belonging to Taimur Khan,
the chief of the powerful Magawe tribe, to whom the villagers pay what
they call a moderate "rent" in sheep, goats, and grain. They are of
the Chahar Lang, and deny that they are under the Ilkhani's rule. They
had a fight with a tribe of the Haft Lang ten days ago, killed twelve
men, had seven killed and wounded, and took some guns and horses.
These, however, they have restored at the command of the Ilkhani,
which contradicts their assertion.
They have a burial-ground with several very white lions rampant upon
it, of most noble aspect, boldly carved, and with the usual
bas-reliefs on their sides.
The camps were on a gravelly slope with a yellow glare, and the
mercury reached 105 deg. The presence of villages in this country always
indicates a comparatively warm climate, in which people can live
throughout the winter. The Scripture phrase, "maketh the outgoings of
the morning and evening to rejoice," has come to bear a clear and
vivid meaning. In this country, in this fiery latitude, life is merely
a struggle from the time the sun has been up for two hours until he
sinks very low. "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof." One
watches with dismay his flaming disc wheel into the cloudless sky, to
blaze and scintillate mercilessly there for many terrible hours,
scorching, withering, destroying, "turning a fruitful land into a
desert," bringing eye diseases in his train. With sunset, but not much
before, comes a respite, embittered by sand-flies, and life begins to
be possible; then darkness comes with a stride and the day is done.
Among the many people who came to the _Hak[=i]m_ was a man who had
received a severe sword cut in the recent fight. I disliked his
expression, and remarked on it to Mirza. On the next day's march,
though there were twelve men with the caravan, this man seized and
made off with the handsome chestnut horse Karun, which was being led.
The horse had a sore back and soon kicked off his rider and was
recovered. On the same march Mujid was attacked, and under the threat
of being stripped was obliged to give up all the money he had on his
person. On the same day some women clamorously demanded bracelets, and
when I did not give them two took hold of my bridle and one of my
foot, and were dragging me off, when on Mirza coming up they let me
go.
Marching among lower hills and broader valleys, irrigated and
cultivated, with much wood along the streams and scattered on the
lower slopes, we passed the inhabited villages of Tarsa and Sah Kala,
surrounded by patches of buckwheat, vetches, and melons, and with much
provision of _kiziks_ for fuel on their roofs, and camped by the
richly-wooded river Guwa, in a grove of fine trees, crossing its
vigorous torrent the next morning by a wicker bridge, the Pul-i-Guwa.
A long ascent among oaks, where the views of mountains and ravines
were grand, an upland meadow where I found a white bee orchis, and a
steep ascent among stones, brought us to the top of a pass 9650 feet
in altitude. On its south-west side there is a very striking view of
gorges of immense depth and steepness, through which the Guwa finds
its way. To the north-east the prospect is of a very feeble country,
which we entered by a tiresome gravelly descent, very open, composed
of low hills with outcrops of rock at their summits, irrigated
rolling valleys and plains, with deep rifts indicative of streams, and
some Magawe villages.
Our route lay across the most scorched and gravelly part of the upper
slopes of a wide valley, scantily sprinkled with blue _eryngiums_ and
a woolly species of _artemisia_, a very repulsive region, where herds
of camels, kept for breeding purposes, were grazing. On the other side
of this valley a spur of the fine mountain Jalanda projects, and on it
are the two villages and fort of Kalahoma, the residence of Taimur
Khan.
We halted below the hill while a spring was being searched for, and I
was sitting on horseback eating my lunch, a biscuit in one hand and a
cup in the other. I have mentioned the savagery of the horses, and
especially of _Hak[=i]m_, who has become like a wild beast. He was
standing fully four horse-lengths away from me, with his tail towards
me, and the guide had let go his bridle, when there was a roar or
squeal, and a momentary vision of glaring wild-beast eyes, streaming
mane, and open mouth rushing down upon me and towering above _Screw's_
head, and the next thing I remember is finding myself on the ground
with my foot in the stirrup and three men lifting me up.
I was a good deal shaken, and cut my arm badly, but mounted again, and
though falling on my head has given me a sickish headache for two
days, I have not absolutely required rest, and in camp there is no use
in "making a fuss"--if indeed there ever is.
I shall not have pleasant memories of this camp. The tents were
scarcely pitched before crowds assembled for medicine. I could get no
rest, for if I shut the tent the heat was unbearable, and if I opened
it there was the crowd, row behind row, the hindmost pushing the
foremost in, so that it was 8 P.M. before I got any food. Yesterday
morning at six I was awakened by people all round the tent, some
shaking the curtains and calling "_Hak[=i]m! Hak[=i]m!_" and though I
kept it shut till eleven, and raised the mercury to 115 deg. by doing so,
there was no rest.
From eleven o'clock till 9 P.M., except for one hour, when I was away
at the Khan's, I was "seeing patients," wishing I were a real instead
of a spurious _Hak[=i]m_, for there was so much suffering, and some of
it I knew not how to relieve. However, I was able (thanks to St.
Mary's Hospital, London) to open three whitlows and two abscesses, and
it was delightful to see the immediate relief of the sufferers. "God
is great," they all exclaimed, and the bystanders echoed, "God is
great." I dressed five neglected bullet wounds, and sewed up a gash of
doubtful origin, and with a little help from Mirza prepared
eye-lotions and medicines for seventy-three people. I asked one
badly-wounded man in what quarrel he had been shot, and he replied
that he didn't know, his Khan had told him to go and fight.
In the afternoon several very distressed people were brought from an
Armenian village ten miles off, and were laid by those who brought
them at the tent door. At five the crowd was very great and the hubbub
inconceivable, and Mirza failed to keep order in the absence of Aziz
Khan, who had gone on a pilgrimage to a neighbouring _imamzada_. The
mercury had never fallen below 100 deg. I had been standing or kneeling
for six hours, and had a racking headache, so I reluctantly shut up my
medicine chest and went by invitation to call on the Khan's wives, but
the whole crowd surrounded and followed me, swelling as it moved
along, a man with a mare with bad eyes, which had been brought ten
miles for eye-lotion, increasing the clamour by his urgency. "Khanum!
Khanum!" (lady) "Chashma!" (eyes) "Shikam!" (stomach) were shouted on
all sides, with "_Hak[=i]m! Hak[=i]m!_" The people even clutched my
clothing, and hands were raised to heaven to implore blessings on me
if I would attend to them.
The whole village of Kalahoma was out, thronging, pressing, and almost
suffocating me, and the Khan's servants who came to meet me did not or
could not disperse the people, though every man holds his life at the
Khan's disposal. These villages, which are surrounded by opium fields,
are composed of the rudest of human habitations, built of rough
stones, the walls being only five feet high. There is much
subterranean room for cattle. The stacks of such winter fodder as
celery and _Centaurea alata_, and those of _kiziks_ for fuel, are
larger than the dwellings. The latter are of conical form, and many of
them are built on the house roofs.
Taimur Khan's fort and _serai_ are in the midst of all this, and are
very poor and ruinous, but the walls are high, and they have a
_balakhana_. As I approached the ladies came out to meet me, veiled in
white cotton _chadars_. The principal wife took my hand and led me
through a hole in the wall, not to be called a doorway, into a
courtyard littered with offal and piled with stacked animal fuel, and
up some high dilapidated steps, into a small dark room, outside of
which are a very small "lobby" and a blackened ladder against the
wall, leading to the roof, on which the ladies sleep in the hot
weather. Some poor rugs covered the floor, and there were besides some
poor cotton-covered bolsters. Everything, even the dress of the
ladies, indicated poverty. The dark hot room was immediately packed
with a crowd of women, children, and babies, all appallingly dirty. It
was a relief when the Khan was announced in the distance, and they
cleared out like frightened sheep, leaving only the four wives, who
stood up at his approach, and remained standing till he was seated.
No "well-bred" Khan would pay me a visit in his _andarun_ without
sending first with his "homage" to know if I would receive him, nor
did Taimur Khan violate this rule or the other of remaining standing
until I asked him to be seated. He is a tall, very melancholy-looking
man, with a Turkish cast of face, and is dressed in the usual Persian
style. After a few ordinary commonplaces he talked politics and tribal
affairs, _apparently_ frankly, but who can say if truthfully? He knows
that I have letters from the Prime Minister, and he hoped that I might
do him some good at Tihran. As soon as important subjects superseded
trifles, the wives relapsed into complete indifference, and stared
into vacancy.
His tribe, the Magawe, is estimated at 500 families, and has been
powerful. Taimur Khan is a staunch adherent of the Ilkhani, but at
this point there is a change as to the tribute, half of which is paid
to the Ilkhani and half to the Governor of Burujird. He has many
grievances, and complains most bitterly that he and his tribe are
being ground into poverty by exactions which, he asserts, have this
year raised the tribute from 700 to 4000 _tumans_.
He asks me to do something to help him, adding that his house is in
ruins, and that he is so oppressed that he cannot build a new one, or
have any surroundings suitable to his rank. I said that I could only
send his statements to the British "Vakil" in Tihran, and he at once
asked how many horses he should present him with. I replied that the
"Vakil" would not accept anything, and that he had lately declined a
superb diamond setting in which the Shah desired to send him his
picture. The Khan raised his hands, with the exclamation "God is
great!"
Isfandyar Khan and Taimur Khan were at war some years ago, and fought
from mountain to mountain, and Taimur Khan was eventually captured,
taken to Burujird, and sent to Isfahan, where he was kept in irons
for some years, the redoubtable Aziz Khan being one of his captors.
This accounts for the disappearance of Aziz on "pilgrimage" to a
neighbouring _imamzada_, and the consequent dulness of the camp.
Among a people at once simple and revengeful, it is not unlikely that
such severities may bear their legitimate fruit if an occasion
presents itself, such as the embroilment of Persia with any other
power. Another Khan who was thrown into prison and irons by the
Zil-es-Sultan expressed himself strongly on the subject. "Five years,"
he said, holding out his muscular wrists, on which the marks of
fetters are still visible, "I wore the chains. Can I forget?" The
Bakhtiaris do not love the Persians, and are held, I think, by a
brittle thread.
I have written of the extreme poverty of the surroundings of the Khaja
Taimur or Taimur Khan. It is not a solitary instance. Throughout this
journey I am painfully impressed with the poverty of the tribesmen. As
compared with the wealth of those farther south when visited by Sir A.
H. Layard and the Baron de Bode, their condition is one of
destitution. The Ilkhani and Ilbegi have fine studs, but few of the
Khans have any horses worth looking at, and for some time past none at
all have been seen except a few belonging to the chiefs, and the men
either walk or ride very small asses.