traversing the noble plain of Hadji Hussein, till the road ascends by
tawny slopes to the wretched village of Amirabad--seventeen hovels on
a windy hill, badly supplied with water. Partly sunk below ground,
this village, at a short distance off, is only indicated by huge
stacks of the _Centaurea alata_ and tall cones of _kiziks_, which,
being neatly plastered, are very superior in appearance to the houses
which they are intended to warm.
The western side of the great plain was studded with Ilyat camps of
octagonal and umbrella-shaped tents with the sides kept out by stout
ribs. Great herds of camels, and flocks of big fat-tailed sheep,
varying in colour from Vandyke brown to golden auburn, camels carrying
fodder, and tribesmen building it into great stacks, round which, but
seven feet off, they place fences of a reed which is abundant in
swampy places, gave life and animation. Ilyat women brought bowls of
milk and curds, and offered me the hospitality of their tents.
As I passed through a herd of grazing camels, an ancient,
long-toothed, evil-faced beast ran at _Boy_ with open mouth and a
snarling growl. Poor _Boy_ literally gasped with terror (courage is
not his strong point) and dashed off at a gallop; and now whenever he
sees camels in the distance he snorts and does his best to bolt to one
side, showing a cowardice which is really pitiable.
It was very cold when I left Amirabad the next morning at 6.30, and
hoar-frost lay on the ground. The steadiness with which the mercury
descends at this season is as interesting as its steady ascent in the
spring, and its freedom from any but the smallest fluctuations in the
summer. The road to Sujbul[=a]k passes over uplands and hill-slopes,
tawny with sun-cured grass, and after crossing some low spurs, blue
with the lovely _Eryngium caeruleum_, descends into a long rich valley
watered by the river Sanak. This valley, in which are situated Inda
Khosh and other large villages, is abundantly irrigated, and is
cultivated throughout. Well planted with fruit trees, it is a great
contrast to the arid, fiery slopes which descend upon it.
Long before reaching Sujbul[=a]k there were indications of the
vicinity of a place of some importance, caravans going both ways,
asses loaded with perishable produce, horsemen and foot passengers,
including many fine-looking Kurdish women unveiled, and walking with a
firm masculine stride, even when carrying children on their backs.
A few miles from the town two _sowars_ met me, but after escorting me
for some distance they left me, and taking the wrong road, I found
myself shortly on a slope above the town, not among the living but the
dead. Such a City of Death I have never seen. A whole hour was
occupied in riding through it without reaching its limits. Fifty
thousand gravestones are said to stand on the reddish-gray gravel
between the hill and the city wall, mere unhewn slabs of gray stone,
from six inches to as many feet in height, row beyond row to the limit
of vision--300,000 people, they say, are buried there. There is no
suggestion of "life and immortality." Weird, melancholy, and terribly
malodorous, owing to the shallowness of the graves, the impression
made by this vast cemetery is solely painful. The tombs are continued
up to the walls and even among the houses, and having been much
disturbed there is the sad spectacle of human skulls and bones lying
about, being gnawed by dogs.
The graveyard side of Sujbul[=a]k is fouler and filthier than anything
I have seen, and the odours, even in this beautiful weather, are
appalling. The centre of each alley is a broken channel with a broken
pavement on each side. These channels were obviously constructed for
water, but now contain only a black and stagnant horror, hardly to be
called a fluid, choked with every kind of refuse. The bazars are
narrow, dark, and busy, full of Russian commodities, leather goods,
ready-made clothing, melons, grapes, and pop-corn. The crowds of men
mostly wore the Kurdish or Turkish costume, but black-robed and
white-turbaned Seyyids and _mollahs_ were not wanting.
Sujbul[=a]k, the capital of Northern Persian Kurdistan, and the
residence of a governor, is quite an important _entrepot_ for furs, in
which it carries on a large trade with Russia, and a French firm, it
is said, buys up fur rugs to the value of several hundred thousand
francs annually. It also does a large business with the Kurdish tribes
of the adjacent mountains and the Turkish nomads of the plains, and a
considerable trade in gall-nuts. It has twenty small mosques, three
_hammams_, some very inferior caravanserais, and a few coffee-houses.
Its meat bazar and its grain and pulse bazars are capacious and well
supplied.
It has a reputed population of 5000 souls. Kurds largely predominate,
but there are so many Turks that the Turkish Government has lately
built a very conspicuous consulate, with the aspect of a fortress, and
has appointed a consul to protect the interests of its subjects. There
are 120 Armenians, who make wine and _arak_, and are usurers, and gold
and silver smiths. The Jews get their living by money-lending,
peddling drugs, dyeing cotton goods, selling groceries, and making
gold and silver lace. There is a garrison, of 1000 men nominally, for
the town and district are somewhat turbulent, and a conflict is always
imminent between the Kurds and Turks, who are Sunnis, and the small
Persian population, which is Shiah. The altitude of Sujbul[=a]k is
4770 feet. Here I have come upon the track of Ida Pfeiffer, who
travelled in the Urmi region more than forty years ago, when
travelling in Persia was full of risks, and much more difficult in all
respects than it is now.
[Illustration: KURD OF SUJBUL[=A]K.]
The Sanak, though clear and bright, is fouled by many abominations,
and by the ceaseless washing of clothes above the town; there are no
pure wells, and all people who care about what they drink keep asses
constantly bringing water from an uncontaminated part of the river,
two miles off. Even the Governor has to depend on this supply.
Sujbul[=a]k looks very well from this camp, with the bright river in
the foreground, and above it, irregularly grouped on a rising bank,
the facade, terraces, and towers of the Governor's palace, the
fort-like Turkish consulate, and numbers of good dwelling-houses, with
_balakhanas_ painted blue or pink, or covered with arabesques in red,
with projecting lattice windows of dark wood, and balconies
overhanging the water.
This shingle where I am encamped is the Rotten Row of the town, and is
very lively this evening, for numbers of Kurds have been galloping
their horses here, and performing feats of horsemanship before the
admiring eyes of hundreds of promenaders, male and female, most of the
latter unveiled. As all have to cross the ford where the river is some
inches above a man's knees, the effect is grotesque, and even the
women have no objection to displaying their round white limbs in the
clear water. The ladies of the Governor's _andarun_ sent word that
food and quarters had been prepared for me since noon, but I excused
myself on the plea of excessive fatigue. This message was followed by
a visit from the Governor's foster-mother, an unveiled jolly woman, of
redundant proportions, wearing remarkably short petticoats, which
displayed limbs like pillars. A small woman attended her, and a number
of Kurd men, superbly dressed, and wearing short two-edged swords,
with ebony hilts ornamented with incrustations of very finely-worked
filigree silver. These weapons are made here. The lady has been to
Mecca, and evinces much more general intelligence than the secluded
women. She took a dagger from one of the attendants, and showed me
with much go how the thrusts which kill are made.
All were much amused with _Boy's_ gentle ways. He had been into the
town for supplies, and, as usual, asked me to take off his bridle by
coming up and putting his ears under my chin, when, if I do not attend
to him at once, he lifts his head and gives me a gentle push, or rubs
his nose against my cheek. The men admired his strong, clean limbs,
which are his best points. Last night I heard snoring very near me,
and thinking that the watchmen were sleeping under the _flys_, I went
out to waken them, and found the big beast stretched out fast asleep
in the verandah of the tent, having retired there for warmth. I
accompanied my visitors to the ford, followed by _Boy_, to their great
amusement, as it was to mine to see the stout lady mount nimbly on a
Kurd's back, and ride him "pickaback" through the water!
This has not been a comfortable afternoon. The Governor has been out
all day hunting, and his deputy either at the bath or a religious
function. Milk can only be got in the Jewish quarter, where smallpox
is prevailing; the Sanak water is too foul to be used for tea, and no
man will go two miles so late for a pure supply. Johannes, who is most
disobedient as well as incompetent, has brought no horse food, and
poor _Boy_ has been calling for it for two hours, coming into my tent,
shaking the bag in which the barley is usually kept, and actually in
his hunger clearing the table of melons and grapes. These, however,
are only among the very small annoyances of travelling.
9 P.M.--The Governor has returned, and has sent a guard of twenty-five
soldiers, with an invitation to visit the ladies before I start
to-morrow.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXVI
TURKMAN, _Oct. 6_.
Rising very early on Friday morning to keep my appointment with the
ladies of the Governor of Sujbul[=a]k, as well as to obtain a letter
from him, I reached the palace entrance a little after sunrise, the
hour agreed upon. The walls and gateway are crumbling, the courtyard
is in heaps, the glass windows of the facade and towers are much
broken, the plaster is mangy--a complete disappointment. The Kurdish
guard slept soundly at the entrance; only a big dog, more faithful
than man, was on the alert. The Governor was not yet awake, nor the
ladies. It would be an "intolerable crime," the sentry said, to waken
them. He looked as if he thought it an "intolerable crime" that his
own surreptitious slumbers had been disturbed. It is contrary to
Persian etiquette to waken persons of distinction till they please. I
waited at the entrance for half an hour and then reluctantly departed,
very sorry not to give the ladies the opportunity they ardently
desired of seeing a European woman. They had sent word that they had
only once in their lives seen one!
The march to the poor village of Mehemetabad was over uninteresting
low rounded hills and through a valley without habitations, opening
upon a fine plain, at the south-east end of which the village stands.
The camping-ground was a green fallow near some willows and a stream.
After marching for some hours under a glittering sky and a hot sun
over scorched, glaring yellow soil, a measure of greenness just round
the tent is most refreshing to eyes which are suffering from the want
of the coloured glasses which were ground under a _yabu's_ hoofs a
fortnight ago.
The Khan of the village was very courteous, and sent a tray of
splendid grapes, and six watchmen. Buffalo bulls of very large size
were used there for burden. Buffaloes are a sure sign of mitigated
aridity, for they must bathe, _i.e._ lie down in water three times
daily, if they are to be kept in health, and if the water and mud are
not deep enough for this, boys go in along with them and pour water
over them with a pannikin. In these regions they are almost
exclusively used for burdens, draught, and milk, and everywhere their
curved flat horns and sweet, calm, silly faces are to be seen above
the water of the deep irrigation ditches. The buffalo, though usually
mild enough to be driven by small children, has an uncertain temper,
and can be roused to frightful ferocity. In Persian Kurdistan, if not
elsewhere, this is taken advantage of, and in the spring, when the
animals are in good condition after the winter's rest, the people have
buffalo fights, in which cruel injuries would be inflicted were it not
for the merciful provision of nature in giving these animals flat
incurved horns.[23]
As I sat at my tent door a cloud of dust moved along the road towards
the village, escorting an indefinite something which loomed
monstrously through it. I have not seen a cart for nine months, and
till the unmistakable creak of wooden wheels enlightened me I could
not think what was approaching. Actually every village on these plains
has one or more buffalo-carts, with wooden wheels without tires, and
hubs and axles of enormous size and strength, usually drawn by four
buffaloes. A man sits on the front of the cart and drives with a
stick, and a boy _facing backwards_ sits on the yoke between the two
foremost beasts. He croons a perpetual song, and if this ceases the
buffaloes stop. For every added pair (and on the next plain I saw as
many as six yoke) there is an additional boy and an additional song.
This apparition carried a light wooden frame, which was loaded to a
preposterous height with the strong reeds which are used to support
the mud roofs, heavily weighted as these are with stacks of fodder.
One would think one was in the heart of the Bakhtiari country and not
on a caravan route, from the difficulty of getting any correct
guidance as to the road, distance, safety, or otherwise, etc. Sharban
has never been this way, and is the prey of every rumour. Between his
terror of having to "eat wood" on his return, and his dread of being
attacked and robbed of his _yabus_, he leads an uneasy life, and when,
as at Mehemetabad, there is no yard for his animals, he watches all
night in the idea that the guards are the "worst robbers of all." I
think he has all the Mussulman distrust of arrangements made by a
woman! Hitherto the guards have been faithful and quiet. I always ask
them not to talk after 8 P.M., and I have not once been disturbed by
them; and when I walk as usual twice round the camp during the night I
always find them awake by their big watch-fires.
The village Khan, an intelligent man, spent some time with me in the
afternoon. The fields of his village are not manured at all, and the
yield is only about tenfold. Willows are grown for the sake of the
osiers, which are a necessity, and not for fuel, and the whole of the
manure is required for cooking and heating purposes. He said that his
village becomes poorer annually owing to the heavier exactions of the
officials and the larger sums demanded to "buy off robbers." The
latter is a complaint often made in the villages which are near the
Turkish frontier, a boundary which from all accounts needs
considerable "rectification." The people say that Kurds cross the
border, and that unless they bribe them they drive off their sheep and
cattle and get over it again safely, but I doubt the truth of these
statements.
I got away at sunrise for a march of nominally fourteen miles, but in
reality twenty-four. Sharban not only stated the distance falsely but
induced others to do the same thing, and when he passed me at midday,
saying the halting-place was only two miles ahead, he went on for
twelve miles, his desire being to rejoin that bugbear, the "big
caravan," which he heard had reached Urmi. The result is that I have
had to rest for two days, and he has gained two days' pay, but has
lost time.
After some serious difficulties in crossing some swampy streams and a
pitiable display of cowardice on _Boy's_ part, we embarked on the
magnificent plain of Sulduz, where Johannes, with a supreme
self-confidence which imposed on me, took the wrong one of two tracks,
and we rode west instead of east, to within a few hours' journey of a
pass into Turkey through the magnificent range of the Zibar mountains,
which even at this advanced season are in some places heavily patched
with last winter's snow.
To regain the caravan route we had to cross the greater part of this
grand plain, which I had not then seen equalled in Persia for
fertility and population. It possesses, that crown of blessings, an
abundant water supply, indeed so abundant that in the spring it is a
swamp, and the spring sowing is delayed till May. It has several large
villages, slightly raised and well planted, a few of them with the
large fortified houses of resident proprietors overtopping the smaller
dwellings. Evidences of material prosperity meet the eye everywhere, a
prosperity which needs to be guarded, however, for every shepherd,
cowherd, ploughman, and buffalo-driver goes about his work armed.
Large herds of mares with mule foals, of big fat cattle, and of
buffaloes, with plenty of mud to wallow in, stacks of real hay and of
fine reeds, buffalo carts moving slowly near all the villages carrying
the hay into security, grass uncut and unscorched, eighteen inches
high, a deep, black, stoneless soil, impassable at certain seasons,
towering cones of animal fuel, for export as well as use, an intensely
blue sky above, a cool breeze, and the rare sight of cloud-shadows
drifting over waving grass and flecking the cobalt sides of the Zibar
mountains, combined to form a picture I would not willingly have
missed, impatient as I was for the first view of the Sea of Urmi.
Beyond there are low stony hills, which would be absolutely bare now
but for the _Eryngium caeruleum_ and the showy spikes of a great yellow
mullein, a salt lake, most of which is now a salt incrustation,
mimicking ice from beneath which the water has been withdrawn, but
with an odour which no ice ever has, then a gradual ascent to a windy
ridge, and then--the Dead Sea of Urmi or Urumiya.
Dead indeed it looked from that point of view, and dead were its
surroundings. It lay, a sheet of blue, bluer even than the heavens
above it, stretching northwards beyond the limits of vision, and
bounded on the east, but very far away, by low blue ranges, seen
faintly through a blue veil. On the west side there are mountains,
which recede considerably, and descend upon it in low rounded buff
slopes or downs, over which the track, keeping near the water, lies.
There was not a green thing, not a bush, or house, or flock of sheep,
or horseman, or foot passenger along the miles of road which were
visible from that point. The water lay in the mocking beauty of its
brilliant colouring, a sea without a shore, without a boat, without a
ripple or flash of foam, lifeless utterly, dead from all time past to
all time to come. Dead, too, it is on closer acquaintance, and its
odour, which can be discerned three miles off, is that odour of
corruption known to science as sulphuretted hydrogen. Now and then
there is a shore, a shallow bay or inlet, in which the lake, driven by
the east wind, evaporates, leaving behind it a glaring crust of salt,
beyond which a thick, bubbly, blackish-green scum lies on the blue
water. In such places only the expressive old-fashioned word _stench_
can describe the odour, which was strong enough nearly to knock over
the servants and _charvadars_. No description can give an idea of the
effluvium which is met with here and there beside this great salt
lake, which has a length of eighty miles and an average breadth of
twenty-four.
A few miles from Dissa the lake-water is brought into tanks and
evaporated, and many donkeys were being loaded with the product,
which, like all salt which is sold in Persia, is impure, and for
European use always requires a domestic and tedious process of
purification.
After a solitude of several miles villages appear, lying off the road
in folds of the hills, which gradually recede so far as to leave a
plain some miles broad and very fertile. At the end of an eleven
hours' march we reached the important village of Dissa, with large
houses and orchards, abundant water, a detachment of soldiers as a
garrison, a resident proprietor's house, to which in his absence I
was at once invited by his wife, and so surrounded by cultivation that
a vacant space could only be found for the camp in a stubble-field.
The caravan had only just come in, and there was neither fuel nor
drinking water within easy reach. I was so completely worn out that I
was lifted off the horse and laid on the ground in blankets till the
camp was in order late at night. Sharban, knowing that his deception
was discovered, had disappeared with his _yabus_ without helping as
usual to pitch my tent. Mirza, always cheerful and hard-working,
though always slow, and Johannes did their best, but it is very hard
on servants who are up before five not to bring them in till sunset,
when their work is scarcely over till near midnight, and has to be
done in the dark. The next day there were a succession of dust storms
and half a gale from noon to sunset, but my tent stood it well, and
the following day this was repeated. These strong winds usually
prevail in the afternoon at this season.
_Urmi, October 8._--A march over low and much-ploughed hills, an easy
descent and a ford brought us down upon the plain of Urmi, the
"Paradise of Persia," and to the pleasant and friendly hamlet of
Turkman, where I spent the night and made the half-march into Urmi
yesterday morning. This plain is truly "Paradise" as seen from the
hill above it, nor can I say that its charm disappears on more
intimate acquaintance. Far from it!
I have travelled now for nine months in Persia and know pretty well
what to expect--not to look for surprises of beauty and luxuriance,
and to be satisfied with occasional oases of cultivation among brown,
rocky, treeless hills, varied by brown villages with crops and spindly
poplars and willows, contrasting with the harsh barrenness of the
surrounding gravelly waste.
But beautiful Urmi, far as the eye can reach, is one oasis. From
Turkman onwards the plain becomes more and more attractive, the
wood-embosomed villages closer together, the variety of trees greater.
Irrigation canals shaded by fruit trees, and irrigation ditches
bordered by reeds, carry water in abundance all through the plain.
Swampy streams abound. Fair stretches of smooth green sward rejoice
the eye. Big buffaloes draw heavy carts laden with the teeming produce
of the black, slimy, bountiful soil from the fields into the villages.
Wheat, maize, beans, melons, gourds, potatoes, carrots, turnips,
beets, capsicum, chilis, _bringals_, lady's fingers, castor-oil (for
burning), cotton, madder, salsify, scorzonera, celery, oil-seeds of
various sorts, opium, and tobacco all flourish. The orchards are full
of trees which almost merit the epithet noble. Noble indeed are the
walnuts, and beautiful are the pomegranates, the apricots, the apples,
the peach and plum trees, and glorious are the vineyards with their
foliage, which, like that of the cherry and pear, is passing away in
scarlet and gold. Nature has perfected her work and rests. It is
autumn in its glories, but without its gloom.
Men, women, and children are all busy. Here the wine-press is at work,
there girls are laying clusters of grapes on terraces prepared for the
purpose, to dry for raisins; women[24] are gathering cotton and
castor-oil seeds, little boys are taking buffaloes to bathe, men are
driving and loading buffalo-carts, herding mares, ploughing and
trenching, and in the innumerable villages the storehouses are being
filled; the herbs and chilis are hanging from the roofs to dry, the
women are making large cakes of animal fuel (of which they have
sufficient for export), and are building it into great conical stacks,
the crones are spinning in the sun, and the swaddled infants bound in
their cradles are lying in the fields and vineyards, while the mothers
are at work. This picture of beauty, fertility, and industry is framed
by the Kurdistan mountains on the one side, and on the other by long
lines of poplars, through which there are glimpses of the deep blue
waters of the Urmi Sea. These Kurdistan mountains, a prolongation of
the Taurus chain, stern in their character, and dwarfing all the minor
ranges, contrast grandly with the luxuriant plains of Sulduz and Urmi.