is also adjusted. Hassan left me when I arrived, being unwilling to go
to the north of Persia so late, and he bought a new opium pipe, saying
that he cannot bear the pain and craving of being without it. He was a
fair travelling servant for a Persian, not unreasonably dishonest, and
I am sorry to lose him. In the attempt to replace him a maze of lies,
fraud, and underhand dealing has been passed through. I have at last
engaged Johannes, a strong-looking young Armenian, speaking Turkish
and Persian besides Armenian. He has never served Europeans, but has
learned baking and the wine trade. He looks much of a cub. For
appearance sake I have armed him with a long gun. He and Mirza are
alike incompetent to make any travelling arrangements or overcome any
difficulties, to discover where escorts are needed and where they may
be dispensed with, or to meet any emergencies, and as Persian will be
considerably replaced by Turki _en route_ Mirza will be of less and
less use as an interpreter. I cannot get any recent information about
the route, and very little at all. I see endless difficulties ahead,
and a prospect of illustrating in my own experience the _dictum_ often
dinned into my ears, that "No lady ought to travel alone in Persia."
This will be my last opportunity of posting a letter for nearly a
month. The Persian post is only exceeded in unreliability by the
Persian telegraph. To register letters is the only way of securing
their safe arrival, and it is necessary to send a trustworthy man to
the Post Offices, who, after seeing the effacing stamp put upon the
postage stamp, will further insist upon seeing the postmaster put the
letters in the bag. In Tihran the Europeans make much use of the
Legation bags, and the merchants prefer to trust their letters to
private _gholams_ rather than to the post, while at Isfahan people are
often glad to send their letters by the monthly telegraph _chapar_
rather than run a postal risk. However, a foreign letter, registered,
is pretty safe. The telegraph is worse; you often have to bribe the
telegraph clerk to send the message, and unless you see it sent it
will probably be destroyed. Of five messages sent by me from Hamadan
one was returned because the British agent in Isfahan was "not known"
(!), two were slower than letters sent the same day, the fourth took a
week, and of the fifth there is "no information." Even in this
important commercial city the Post Office is only open for a short
time on two days in the week.
I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] For a detailed and most interesting account of these remarkable
representations the reader is referred to Mr. Benjamin's _Persia and
the Persians_, chap. xiii.
[18] Since I returned I have been asked more than once, "What are the
results of missions in Hamadan?" Among those which appear on the
surface are the spiritual enlightenment of a number of persons whose
minds were blinded by the gross and childish superstitions and the
inconceivable ignorance into which the ancient church of S. Gregory
the Illuminator has fallen. The raising of a higher standard of morals
among the Armenians, so that a decided stigma is coming to be attached
to drunkenness and other vices. The bringing the whole of the rising
generation of Armenians under influences which in all respects "make
for righteousness." The elevation of a large number of women into
being the companions and helps rather than the drudges of men. The
bestowing upon boys an education which fits them for any positions to
which they may aspire in Persia and elsewhere, and creates a taste for
intellectual pursuits. The introduction of European medicine and
surgery, and the bringing them within the reach of the poorest of the
people. The breaking down of some Moslem prejudices against
Christians. The gradually ameliorating influence exercised by the
exhibition of the religion of Jesus Christ in purity of life, in
ceaseless benevolence, in _truthfulness_ and _loyalty to engagements_,
in kind and just dealing, in temperance and self-denial, and the many
virtues which make up Christian discipleship, and the dissemination in
the city and neighbourhood of a higher teaching on the duties of
common life, illustrated by example, not in fits and starts, but
through years of loving and patient labour.
LETTER XXV
GAUKHAUD, _Sept. 18_.
This is a difficult journey. The road is rarely traversed by
Europeans, the marches are long, and I am really not well enough to
travel at all, not having been able to shake off the fever. Cooler
days and cold nights are, however, coming to the rescue.
My Hamadan friends gave me a _badraghah_ (a parting escort)--Miss C.
M----, Mr. Watson, Pastor Ovannes and his boy, all on horseback; Mrs.
Watson and her baby on an ass; several servants on foot, and Miss
M---- and Mrs. Alexander in a spidery American buggy with a pair of
horses; Dr. Alexander, a man six feet two inches high and very thin,
"riding postilion" on one of them to get the buggy over difficult
places; Ibrahim, the ladies' _factotum_, with a gun slung behind him,
following on horseback. Two of the ladies and the native pastor stayed
at night. It was not a pleasant return to camp life, for Johannes is
quite ignorant of it, and everything was at sixes and sevens. Nor was
the first morning pleasant, for the head _charvadar_, Sharban, came
speaking loud with vehement gesticulation, saying that if I did not
march with the big caravan and halt when it did, they would only give
me one man, and added sundry other threats. Miss M---- scolded him,
reminding them of their agreement, and Ibrahim told them that if they
violated it in the way they threatened they would have to "eat more
wood than they had ever eaten in their lives on going back to
Hamadan." ("Eating wood" is the phrase for being bastinadoed.) A
squabble the first morning is a usual occurrence, and Miss M----
thought it would be all right, and advised me to go on to Kooltapa,
the first stage put down by the _charvadars_.
Cultivation extends over the eight miles from Hamadan to Bahar. There
are streams, and willows, and various hamlets with much wood, and
Bahar is completely buried in orchards and poplars. It is a place of
1500 people, and has well-built houses, small mosques, and _mollahs'_
schools. It makes _gelims_ (thin carpets), and grows besides wheat,
barley, cotton, and oil seeds, an immense quantity of fruit, which has
a ready market in the city.
Miss M---- and Pastor Ovannes escorted me for the first mile, and,
meeting the caravan on their way back, gave Sharban a parting
exhortation. As soon as they were out of sight he sent back one man,
and, in spite of Mirza's remonstrances, drove my _yabus_ with the big
caravan--a grievance to start with, as his baggage animals were so
heavily loaded that they could not go even two miles an hour, and I
have taken five, though I only need three, in order to get over the
ground at three miles an hour. I am obliged to have Johannes with me,
as comparatively little Persian is spoken by the common people along
this road.
Beyond Bahar the road lies over elevated table-lands, destitute of
springs and streams, and now scorched up. One or two small villages,
lying off the track, and some ruinous towers on eminences, built for
watching robbers, scarcely break the monotony of this twenty-four
miles' march.
At three, having ascended nearly 1000 feet, we reached the small and
very poor walled village of Kooltapa, below which are some reservoirs,
a series of pools connected by a stream, and the camping-ground, a
fine piece of level sward, much of which was already occupied by two
Turkish caravans, with 100 horses in each, and a man to every ten. The
loads were all carefully stacked, covered with rugs, and watched by
very large and fierce dogs.
I lay down in the _shuldari_, feeling really ill. Four o'clock, five
o'clock, sunset came, but no caravan. Johannes was quite ill, but went
to the village to hire a _samovar_, and to try to get tea and
supplies. There was neither tea nor _samovar_, and no supplies but
horse food and some coarse cheese and blanket bread, too sour and
dirty to be eaten. Long after dark they brought a little milk. _Boy_
was locked up in a house, and I rolled myself in his blanket and the
few wraps I had with me, and, making the best of circumstances, tried
to sleep; but it was too cold, and the position too perilous, and
Johannes, who had loaded his gun with ball, overcome with fatigue,
instead of watching was sound asleep. At eleven Mirza's voice, though
it said, "Madam, these _charvadars_ won't do for you, they are wicked
men," was very welcome. They had stopped half-way, and four of them,
including Sharban's father, had dragged him off his horse with some
violence, and had unloaded it. He appealed to the village headman,
who, after wrangling with them for some hours, persuaded them to let
him have a mule, and come to Kooltapa with the servants' tent, my bed,
and other comforts, and sent two armed guides with him.
The larger tent was pitched and I went to bed, and not having the
nettings which hang from the roof of my Cabul tent, and are a complete
security against mere pilferers, I put all I could under the blankets
and arranged the other things within reach of my hand in the middle of
the tent. I also burned a light, having learned that Kooltapa is a
dangerous place. At midnight the Turkish caravans started with noise
inconceivable, yells of _charvadars_, shouts of village boys, squeals
of horses, barking of big dogs, firing of guns, and jangling of 200
sets of bells, all sobering down into a grandly solemn sound as of
many church steeples on the march.
I went out to see that all was right, found my servants sleeping
heavily and had not the heart to awake them, found the mercury a
degree below the freezing point, and lay down, covering my head with a
blanket, for the shivering stage of fever had come on. The night was
very still, and after some time I heard in the stillness the not
uncommon noise of a dog (as I thought) fumbling outside my tent. I
took no notice till he seemed getting in, when I jumped up with an
adjuration, saw the floor vacant, and heard human feet running away. I
ran out and fired blank cartridge several times in the direction of
the footsteps, hoping that the flashes would reveal the miscreant, but
his movements had been more agile than mine. Mirza ran into the
village and informed the _ketchuda_, but he took it very quietly and
said that the robbers were Turks, which was false. I offered a large
reward, but it was useless.
When daylight came and I investigated my losses I found myself without
any of the things which I have come to regard as indispensable. My
cork helmet, boots, gloves, sun umbrella, stockings, scanty stock of
underclothing, all my brushes, towels, soap, scissors, needles,
thread, thimble, the strong combination knife which Aziz coveted and
which was used three or four times every day, a large silk
handkerchief a hundred years old which I wore as a protection from the
sun, my mask, revolver case, keys, pencils, paint brushes, sketches,
notes of journeys, and my one mug were all gone. If anything could be
worse, my gold pen, with which I have written for the last eighteen
years, had also disappeared. Furthermore, to relieve the tedium of
the long wait during the pitching of my tent, and of the hour's rest
which I am obliged to take on my bed after getting in, I was "doing" a
large piece of embroidery from an ancient Irish pattern, arabesques on
dark, apricot-coloured coarse silk in low-toned greens, pinks, and
blues, all outlined in gold. This work has been a real pleasure to me,
and I relied on it for recreation for the rest of my journey. Gone
too, with all the silks and gold for finishing it! Now I have nothing
to do when the long marches are over, and as I can scarcely write with
this pen and have also lost my drawing materials, a perspective of
dulness opens out before me. If Sharban had not disobeyed orders and
stayed behind with my tent all this would not have happened. I now
realise what it is to be without what to a European are "the
necessaries of life," and I can scarcely replace any of them for three
weeks.
The caravan came in at nine, and I soon got into my tent and spent
much of the day in making a head-cover by rolling lint and wadding in
handkerchiefs and sewing them up into a sort of turban with a
leather-needle and packthread obtained from Mirza. I was able to get
from a villager a second-hand pair of _ghevas_,--most serviceable
shoes, with "uppers" made of stout cotton webbing knitted here by the
women and among the Bakhtiaris by the men, and with soles of rag sewn
and pressed tightly together and tipped with horn. These and the
"uppers" are connected with very stout leather brought to a point at
the toe and heel. _Ghevas_ are the most comfortable, and for dry
weather and mountain-climbing the most indestructible of shoes. Thus
provided I have to face the discomfort caused by the other losses as
best I may. "It's no use crying over spilt milk!"
The day before, when the _charvadars_ pulled Mirza off his mule and he
threatened them with the agreement, they replied that it was false
that they had made any agreement except to take me to Urmi in twenty
days, and that they were not afraid of the Prince Governor of Hamadan,
"for he is always asleep, and the Feringhi is _only a Khanum_." I sent
to them that I wished to leave Kooltapa at noon. They replied that
they were not going to move. I was in their power, for they had
received advance pay for seven days, and I said no more about moving.
However, at noon I sent Mirza to read the agreement to them, and
Sharban and his father could not deny the authenticity of the seal,
and a superior villager, who could read, testified that Mirza had read
it correctly.
They then saw that they had put themselves into a "tight place," and
sent that they desired to humble themselves, saying, "your foot is on
our eyes," a phrase of humility. I took no notice of them all day, but
at sunset sent for Sharban, and telling Mirza not to soften down my
language, spoke to him in few words. "You have broken your agreement,
and you will have to take the consequences. Your conduct is
disgraceful and abominable, so cowardly that you don't deserve to be
called a man, it is only what one would expect from a _pidar sag_. Do
you mean to keep your agreement or not?" He began to whine, and threw
himself at my feet, but I reluctantly assumed a terrific voice, and
saying "_Khamosh! Bero!_" (Be silent! Begone!), shut the tent.
_Bijar, September 21._--No Persian ever believes your word, and these
poor fellows did not believe that I had letters to the governors _en
route_. They are now terribly frightened, and see that a Feringhi,
even though "_only a Khanum_," cannot be maltreated with impunity.
When I arrived here, even before I sent my letter of introduction, the
Governor sent a _farash-bashi_ with compliments and offers of
hospitality, and afterwards a strong guard. Then Sharban piteously
entreated that I would not take him before the Governor, and would
not make him "eat wood," and his big caravan at last has chimed away
on its northward journey to be seen no more. Thus, by acting a part
absolutely hateful to me, the mutiny was quelled, and things are now
going on all right, except that Sharban avails himself of small
opportunities of being disobliging. I do sincerely detest the
cowardliness of the Oriental nature, which is probably the result of
ages of oppression by superiors.
It is so vexing that the policy of trust which has served me so well
on all former journeys has to be abandoned, and that one of suspicion
has to be substituted for it. I am told by all Europeans that from the
Shah downwards no one trusts father, brother, wife, superior, or
inferior. Every one walks warily and suspiciously through a maze of
fraud and falsehood. If one asks a question, or any one expresses an
opinion, or tells what passes for a fact, he looks over each shoulder
to see that no one is listening.[19]
A noble Persian said to me, "Lying is rotting this country. Persians
tell lies before they can speak." Almost every day when one is wishing
to be trustful, kind, and considerate, one encounters unmitigated
lying, cowardly bluster, or dexterously-planned fraud, and the
necessity of being always on guard is wearing and repulsive.
Here is another specimen of the sort of net which is woven round a
traveller. At Kooltapa, after the theft, I sent to the _ketchuda_ for
a night-watchman, and he replied that he could not give one without
an order, and that as he knew only Turki, my letter in Persian from
the Prince Governor of Hamadan was nothing to him. Later, a _sowar_,
who said he was also a "road-guard," came and said that he only was
responsible for the safety of travellers, and that I could not get a
watchman from the _ketchuda_, as no one could pass the gates after
sunset without his permission. I already knew that there were no
gates. He said he was entitled to five _krans_ a night for protecting
the tents. (The charge is one _kran_, or under exceptional
circumstances two.) I told him we were quite capable of protecting
ourselves. Late in the evening an apparently respectable man came and
warned us to keep a good look-out, as this _sowar_ and another had
vowed to rob our tents out of revenge for not having been employed.
These men, acting as road-guards, are a great terror to the people.
They levy blackmail on caravans and take food for their horses and
themselves, "the pick of everything," without payment. The people also
accuse them of committing, or being accessory to, the majority of
highway robberies. The women who came to condole with me on my losses
accused these men of being the thieves, but it was younger feet which
clattered away from my tent.
Sharban, thoroughly subdued for the time, and his servant watched, and
to show that they were awake fired their guns repeatedly. The nightly
arrangement now is to secure a watchman from the _ketchuda_; to walk
round the camp two or three times every night to see that he is awake,
and that _Boy_ is all right; to secure the _yekdan_ to my bed with a
stout mule-chain, and to rope the table and chair on which I put my
few remaining things also to the bed, taking care to put a tin can
with a knife in it on the very edge of the table, so that if the
things are tampered with the clatter may awake me.
After leaving Kooltapa, treeless country becomes bushless, and nothing
combustible is to be got but animal fuel. Manure is far too precious
for this purpose to be wasted on the fields. Men with asses follow
caravans and collect it in bags. The yards into which the flocks and
herds are driven at night have now been cleaned out, and in every
village all the women are occupied in moulding the manure into
_kiziks_ or cakes fully a foot long and four inches thick. These,
after being dried in the sun, are built up into conical stacks, often
exceeding twenty feet in height, and are plastered with a layer of the
same material. The making of this artificial fuel is one of the most
important industries of Persia, and is exclusively in the hands of
women. The preparation of the winter stock takes from six to fourteen
weeks, and is very hard wet work. The fuel gives out a good deal of
heat, but burns fast. Its combustible qualities are increased by an
admixture of cut straw. At this season, between the colossal black
stacks of fuel and the conical piles of winter "keep" upon the roofs,
the villages are almost invisible.
The march to Gaukhaud was over twenty miles of rolling scorched
table-lands--baked mud, without inhabitants. Gaukhaud and the villages
for fifty miles farther are unwalled, but each house, with its
cattle-yard and upper and underground folds, has a massive mud wall
sloping slightly inwards, with an entrance closed by a heavy wooden
gate, strengthened with iron. The upper sheep-folds have thick stone
doors three feet square. Each house is a fortress, and nothing is to
be seen above its walls but a quantity of beehive roofs and a number
of truncated cones of winter fodder on a central platform.
The female costume is also different. The women, unveiled, bold-faced,
and handsome in the Meg Merrilees style, wear black sleeveless
jackets vandyked and tasselled, red skirts, and black handkerchiefs
rolled round their heads. Little Persian is spoken or even understood,
and everything indicates that the limit of Persia proper, _i.e._ the
Persia of Persians, has been passed. Gaukhaud is a village of 350
houses, grows wheat, barley, grapes, and melons; and though a once
splendid caravanserai on a height is roofless and ruined, and the
village has no better water than an irrigation ditch, it is said to be
fairly prosperous.
The march to Babarashan is for twenty miles along a featureless
irrigated valley about a mile wide, with grass and stubble, several
beehive villages, and mud hills never over 150 feet high on either
side. Crossing a brick bridge over a trifling stream, and passing
through the large village of Tulwar, where men who were burying a
corpse politely laid fried funeral-cakes flavoured with sesamum on my
saddle-bow, we ascended over low scorched hills, much ploughed for
winter sowing, to the beehive village of Babarashan, of 180 houses,
abundantly supplied with water, where we camped close to some tents of
the Kara Tepe and a large caravan. The dust blown across the camp from
the threshing-floors was obnoxious but inevitable. The "sharp
threshing instruments having teeth" are not used in this region, but
mobs of animals, up to a dozen, tied together, oxen, cows, horses, and
asses, are driven over the wheat.
I am finding the disadvantages of having an untrained servant.
Johannes that evening ran hither and thither without method, never
finished anything, spent an hour in bargaining for a fowl, failed to
get his fire to burn, consequently could not cook or make tea, and I
went supperless to bed. The same confusion prevailed the next morning,
but things have been better since. No life is so charming as camp
life, but incompetent servants are a great drawback.
Another uninteresting march of twenty miles over high table-lands and
through a valley surrounded by mud hills, with quaint outcrops of
broken rock on their summits, and a pass through some picturesque
rocky hills brought us into a basin among mountains, in which stands
the rather important town of Bijar in the midst of poplars, willows,
apricots, and vines. Bijar is said to have 5000 inhabitants. It has a
Governor for itself and the surrounding district, and a garrison of a
regiment of infantry and 100 _sowars_ to keep the turbulent frontier
Kurds in order. It has ruinous mud walls, no regular bazars, only
shops at intervals; fully a third is in ruins, and most of the houses
and even the Governor's palace are falling into decay. It is, however,
accounted a thriving place, and is noted for _gelims_ and carpenters'
work. It has four caravanserais, hardly habitable, however, seven
_hammams_, and a few mosques and _mollahs'_ schools. It has an air of
being quite out of the world. I have been here two days, and as
foreigners are very rarely seen, the greater part of the population
has strolled past my tent.
I camped as usual outside the walls, near a small spring, and soon a
_farash-bashi_ came from the Governor, with a message expressive of
much annoyance at my having "camped in the wilderness when I was their
guest, and they would have given me a safe camping-ground in the
palace garden." Mirza took my introduction to him, and he sent a
second message saying that the next three marches were "very
dangerous," and appointed an hour for an interview. Soon eight
infantrymen, well uniformed and set up, with rifles and fixed
bayonets, arrived and mounted guard round my tent, changing every six
hours. This completed Sharban's discomfiture.