other side of the frontier is said to be "unsettled," no Persians
will go by the route that I wish to take, and two sets of Kurds, after
making agreements to carry my loads, have disappeared. Various Syrians
have come down from the mountains with stories of Kurdish raids on
their sheep and cattle, but as such things are always going on, and
the impression that "things are much worse than usual" does not rest
on any ascertained basis, my friends do not advise me to give up the
journey to Kochanes, and I am just starting _en route_ for Trebizond.
I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] A name usually applied to the Roman Uniats at Mosul.
[33] The mode of building mud houses was described in Letter VI. vol.
i. p. 149.
[34] Dr. Labaree, whose experience stretches back for thirty years,
writes of the races under Persian rule in the Province of Azerbijan in
the following terms: "The Nestorians and Armenians of Persia in common
with their Mohammedan neighbours suffer from the evil forms of society
and government which have been bequeathed to them from the earliest
dawnings of history. Landlordism in its worst forms bears sway. The
poor _rayat_ or tenant must pay his landlord one-half or two-thirds of
all the produce of his farm. Aside from his poll tax he must pay a tax
on his house, his hayfields, and his fruit trees, and on all his stock
with the exception of the oxen with which he tills the soil. But this
is not all. He is virtually at the mercy of his Agha, which translated
literally means master, a word which most correctly describes the
relation of the landlord to his peasants. By law he may require from
each of his _rayats_ three days of labour without pay. In reality he
makes them work for him as much as he sees fit. He helps himself to
what he pleases whenever he makes them a visit. He sells them grain
and flour above the market price. He ties them up and beats them for
slight offences. And to all this and much else must the poor peasant
submit for fear of worse persecutions if he complains. In these
respects Moslem, Christian, and Jew suffer alike."
[35] Later, I heard the same accusation brought against the Persian
Kurds by a high official in Constantinople.
[36] The national customs of the Syrians are endless, and in many ways
very interesting. They are treated very fully in a scarce volume
called _Residence in Persia among the Nestorians_, by Dr. Justin
Perkins.
FAREWELL IMPRESSIONS OF PERSIA
In the letters by which this chapter is preceded few general opinions
have been expressed on Persia, its government, and its people, but now
that I contemplate them with some regard to perspective, and have
reversed some of my earlier and hastier judgments, I will, with the
reader's permission, give some of the impressions formed during a
journey extending over nine months, chiefly in the western and
south-western portions of the Empire.
On the pillared plain of Persepolis, on the bull-flanked portals which
tower above the Hall of Xerxes, the Palace of Darius, and the
stairways with the sculptured bas-reliefs, which portray the
magnificence, the military triumphs, and the religious ceremonial of
the greatest of the Persian monarchs, runs the stately inscription: "I
am Xerxes the King, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of the
many-peopled countries, the Upholder of the Great World, the son of
Darius the King, the Achaemenian"; and on the tablets on the rock of
Besitun is inscribed in language as august the claim of Darius the
Mede to a dominion which in his day was regarded as nearly universal.
The twenty-four centuries which have passed since these claims were
made have seen the ruin of the Palace-Temples of Persepolis, the
triumph of Islam over Zoroastrianism, the devastating sweep of the
hordes of Taimurlane and other semi-barbaric conquerors, the
destruction of ancient art and frontiers, and the compression of the
Empire within comparatively narrow limits.
Still, these limits include an area about thrice the size of France,
the sovereign has reassumed the title of King of Kings, Persia takes
her own place--and that not a low one--in the comity of nations, and
the genuine Persians retain vitality enough to compel the allegiance
of the numerically important tribes included within their frontiers,
though scarcely more than 30,000 soldiers are with the colours at any
given time.
Still, under a land system fourteen centuries old, Persia produces
cereals enough for home consumption with a surplus for export; her
peasants are thrifty and industrious, and their methods of tillage,
though among the most ancient on earth, are well adapted to their
present needs and the conditions of soil and climate.
Her merchants are able and enterprising, and her sagacious liberality
in the toleration of Christians and Jews has added strength to her
commercial position.
Though she has lost the high order of civilisation which she possessed
centuries before Christ, she has in no sense relapsed into barbarism,
and on the whole good order and security prevail.
The condition of modern Persia has to be studied along with that of
the configuration of the country. The traveller through Khorasan and
Seistan, from the Gulf to Yezd, or from Bushire to Tihran, views it as
a sparsely-peopled region--a desert with an occasional oasis, and
legitimately describes it as such. The traveller through the
"Bakhtiari mountains," and from Burujird through Western Persia up to
the Sea of Urmi, seeing the superb pasturages and perennial streams of
the Zard-Kuh, the Sabz-Kuh, and the Kuh-i-Rang, and the vast area of
careful cultivation, sprinkled with towns and villages, which extends
from a few miles north of Burujird to the walls of Urmi and far
beyond, may with equal fidelity describe it as a land of abounding
waters, a peopled and well-watered garden.
The direction of my journey has been fully indicated. It is only from
the descriptions of others that I know anything of the arid wastes of
Eastern Persia or of the moist and malarious provinces bordering on
the Caspian Sea, with their alluvial valleys and rice grounds, and
their jungle and forest-covered mountains, or of the verdureless
plains and steppes of Kerman and Laristan.
Persia proper, the country which has supplied the race which has
evinced such a remarkable vitality and historic continuity, may be
described as a vast plateau from 3500 to 6000 feet in altitude,
extending on the east into Afghanistan, on the north-west into
Armenia, and overlooking the Caspian to the north, and the Persian
Gulf and the vast levels of Mesopotamia to the south and south-west.
To reach this platform from the south, lofty ranges, which include the
_kotals_ of Shiraz, must be crossed. From the Tigris valley on the
west it is only accessible by surmounting the Zagros chain and lesser
ranges; and to attain it from the north the traveller must climb the
rocky pathways of the Elburz mountains. This great "Iranian plateau,"
except in Eastern Persia, is intersected both by mountain ranges and
detached mountain masses, which store up in their sunless hollows the
snowfall on which all Persian agriculture depends, the rainfall being
so scanty as to be of little practical value.
Thus the possibility of obtaining supplies of water from the melting
snows dictates the drift of population, and it seems unlikely that the
plains of Eastern Persia, where no such supplies exist, were ever more
populous than now. It was otherwise with parts of Central Persia, now
lying waste, for the remains of canals and _kanaats_ attest that a
process of local depopulation has been going on. It is the
configuration of the country rather than anything else which accounts
for the unpeopled wastes in some directions, and the constant
succession of towns and populous villages in others.
Of the population thus distributed along hill slopes and on the plains
at the feet of the ranges, there is no accurate record, and the total
has been variously estimated at from six to nine millions. Estimates
of the urban and village populations were in most cases supplied to me
by the Persian local officials, but from these I am convinced that it
is necessary to make a very liberal deduction. General Schindler, a
gentleman for some years in the Persian Government service, who has
travelled over a great part of Persia with the view of ascertaining
its resources and condition, in the year 1885 estimated its population
at 7,653,000. In his analysis the Christian and the Bakhtiari and
Feili Lur populations are, according to present information, greatly
under-estimated.
If I may venture to hazard an opinion, after travelling over a
considerable area of Western Persia, it would be that the higher
estimate is nearest the mark, for the natural increase in time of
peace, as accepted by statists, is three-quarters per cent per annum,
and Persia has had peace and freedom from famine for very many
years.[37]
The country population consists of _rayats_ or permanent cultivators,
and Ilyats or nomadic pastoral tribes. Coal-fields and lead and iron
may hereafter produce commercial centres, but the industry of Persia
at present may be said to be nearly altogether agricultural.
The settled peasant population, so far as I am able to judge, is well
fed and fairly well clothed, and the habitations suit the climate. The
people are poor, but not with the poverty of Europe--that is, except
in famine years, there is no scarcity of the necessaries of life, with
the single exception of fuel.
The wages of the agricultural labourer vary from 5d. a day with food
to 9d. without; a skilled mason earns 1s. 6d., a carpenter 1s. 4d.
Men-servants get from 17s. to L2 per month, nominally without board,
but with _modakel_ and other pickings; female servants much less.
Prices are, however, low. Clothing, tea, coffee, and sugar cost about
the same as in Europe. The cotton worn by the poor is very cheap.
Wheat, which is sold by weight, costs at harvest-time from 7s. 6d. to
15s. per load of 320 lbs. I have been told by several cultivators that
a man can live and bring up an average family on something under L6 a
year.
I did not see anything like "grinding poverty" in the villages. If it
existed, the old and helpless could scarcely be supported by their
relatives, and the women, in spite of the seclusion of custom and
faith, would be compelled to work in the fields, a "barbarism" which I
never saw in Persia among Moslems.
In both town and country the working classes appeared to me to be as
comfortable and, on the whole, as happy as people in the same
condition in life in most other countries, with the exception, and
that not a small one, of their liability to official exactions. The
peasants are grossly ignorant, hardy, dirty, bigoted, domestic,
industrious, avaricious, sober, and tractable, and ages of misrule
have developed in them many of the faults of oppressed Oriental
peoples. Of the country outside of the district in which they live
they usually know nothing, they detest the local governors, but to
the Shah they willingly owe, and are ready to pay, a right loyal
allegiance.
My impression of the Persians of the trading and agricultural classes
is that they are thoroughly unwarlike, fairly satisfied if they are
let alone, unpatriotic, and apparently indifferent to the prospect of
a Russian "occupation." Their bearing is independent rather than
manly; their religious feelings are strong and easily offended; their
sociability and love of fun come out strongly in the freedom of their
bazars. Europeans do not meet with anything of the grovelling
deference to which we are accustomed in India. If there be
obsequiousness in stereotyped phraseology, there is none in manner. We
are treated courteously as strangers, but are made to feel that we are
in no wise essential to the well-being of the country, and a European
traveller without introductions to the Provincial authorities finds
himself a very insignificant person indeed.
Governors and the governed are one. They understand each other, and
are of one creed, and there is no ruling alien race to interfere with
ancient custom or freedom of action, or to wound racial
susceptibilities with every touch. Even the traditional infamies of
administration are expected and understood by those whom they chiefly
concern.
The rich men congregate chiefly in the cities. It is very rare to find
any but the poorer Khans, Aghas or proprietors of villages, men little
removed from the peasants around them, living on their own properties.
The wealthy _Seigneur_, the lord of many villages, resides in Tihran,
Kirmanshah, or Isfahan; pays a _nasr_, who manages his estate and
fleeces his tenants, and spends his revenues himself on urban
pleasures. The purchase of villages and their surrounding lands is a
favourite investment. This system of absenteeism not only prevents
that friendly contact between landowner and peasant which is such a
desirable feature of proprietorship, but it leaves the villages
exposed to the exactions of the _nasr_, and without a semblance of
protection from the rapacious demands of the provincial authorities.
It is noteworthy that fortunes made in trade are seeking investment in
land.
The upper classes in Persia appear to me to differ widely from
Orientals, as they are supposed to be, and often really are. They love
life intensely, fill it with enjoyment, and neither regard existence
as a task to be toiled through nor as a burden to be got rid of.
Handsome, robust, restless, intelligent, imaginative, accumulative,
vivacious, polished in manner and speech, many of them excellent
linguists, well acquainted with their own literature, especially with
their poets; lavish, alike in expenditure on personal luxuries and in
charity to the poor; full of artistic instincts, and loving to
surround themselves with the beautiful, inquisitive, adaptable;
addicted to sport and out-of-doors life, untruthful both from
hereditary suspiciousness and excess of courtesy--the Persian
gentleman has an individuality of his own which is more nearly akin to
the French or Russian than to the Oriental type.
My impressions of the morals both of the Persian peasantry and the
Bakhtiari Lurs are, as to some points, rather favourable than the
reverse, and I think and hope that there is as much domestic affection
and fidelity as is compatible with a religion which more or less
effectually secures the degradation of woman. The morals of the upper
classes are, I believe, very easy. In various carefully written
papers, one of them at least official, very painful glimpses have been
given incidentally into the state of Persian upper-class morality, and
undoubtedly the intrigues of the _andarun_ are as unfavourable to
purity as they are to happiness.
For the traveller the greater part of Persian territory is absolutely
safe. I have ridden on horseback through it at every season of the
year, in some regions without an escort, in others with Persian or
Kurdish guards supplied by the local authorities, and was never
actually the victim of any form of robbery, except the pilfering from
an unguarded tent. Though travelling with only an Indian servant, I
found the provincial authorities everywhere courteous, and ready to
aid my journey by every means within their power, though in Persia as
elsewhere I never claimed, and indeed never received, any special
favour on the ground of sex.
A few darker shadows remain to be put in. There is no education truly
so called for Persians, except in Tihran, and under the existing
system the next generation is not likely to be more enlightened than
the present. All the towns and the larger villages possess mosque
schools, in which the highest education bestowed is a smattering of
Arabic and a knowledge of the tales of _Saadi_. The Persian characters
are taught, and some attention is paid to caligraphy, for a man who
can write well is sure to make a fair living. The parrot-like reading
of the Koran in Arabic is the _summum bonum_ of the teaching. Very few
of the boys in the village schools learn to write, but if a clever lad
aspires to be a _mirza_ or secretary he pays great attention to the
formation of the Persian characters, and acquires that knowledge of
compliment, phrase, and trope which is essential to his proposed
calling.
Pleading, waiting, and the elements of arithmetic are usual among the
bazar class and merchants, but with the rest the slight knowledge of
reading acquired in childhood is soon forgotten, and the ability to
repeat a few verses from the Koran and a few prayers in Arabic is all
that remains of the mosque school "education." School discipline is
severe, and the rope and pulley and bastinado are used as instruments
of punishment.
A few young men in the cities, who are destined to be _mollahs_,
_hak[=i]ms_, or lawyers, proceed to the _Medressehs_ or Colleges,
where they acquire a thorough knowledge of Arabic, do some desultory
reading, and "hang on" to their teachers, at whose feet they literally
sit on all occasions, and after a few years have been spent in rather
a profitless way they usually find employment.
Government _employes_, courtiers, the higher officers in the army,
diplomats, and sons of wealthy Khans receive the rudiments of a
liberal education in the College at Tihran, where they frequently
acquire a very creditable knowledge of French.
The admirable schools established by the American and English
missionaries at Urmi, Tihran, Tabriz, Hamadan, and Julfa affect only
the Armenians and Syrians and a few Jews and Zoroastrians. Outside of
these there is neither intellectual nor moral training, and even the
simplest duties of life, such as honesty, truthfulness, and regard for
contract, are never inculcated.
It may be supposed that in conformity with the Moslem axiom, "not to
open the eyes of a woman too wide," the bulk of Persian women are not
thought worthy of any education at all. A few of the daughters of rich
men can read the Koran, but without comprehending it, and can both
read and recite poetry.
Throughout the country, law, that is the _Urf_ or unwritten law, a
mass of precedents and traditions orally handed down and administered
by secular judges--is not held in any respect at all, and while the
rich can override it by bribery, the poor regard it only as a
commodity which is bought and sold, and which they are too poor to
buy.
The other department of Persian law, the _Sh[=a]hr_, which is based
upon the Koran, and is administered by religious teachers, takes
cognisance chiefly of civil cases, and its administration is nearly as
corrupt as that of the _Urf_. Law, in the sense in which we understand
it, as the avenger of wrong and the sublimely impartial protector of
individual rights and liberties, has no existence at all in Persia.
The curse of the country is venal mal-administration. It meets one at
every turn, and in protean shapes. There is no official conscience,
and no public opinion to act as a check upon official
unscrupulousness. Of Government as an institution for the good of the
governed there is no conception. The greed, which is among the most
painful features of Persian character, finds its apotheosis in
officialism. From the lowest to the highest rounds of the official
ladder unblushing bribery is the _modus operandi_ of promotion.
It is very obvious that the Shah himself is the Government. He is an
absolute despot, subject to no controlling influences but the
criticisms of the European press, and the demands of the European
Legations. He is the sole executive. His ministers are but servants of
the highest grade, whose duties consist in carrying out his orders.
The lives and properties of all his subjects are held only at his
pleasure. His sons are but his tools, to be raised or degraded at his
will, and the same may be said of the highest personages in the
Empire. The Shah is the State,--irresponsible and all-powerful.
Nasr-ed-Din is a most diligent ruler. No pleasures, not even the
chase, to which he is devoted, divert his attention from business. He
takes the initiative in all policy, guides with a firm hand the
destinies of Persia, supervises every department, appoints directly to
all offices of importance, and by means known to absolute rulers has
his eyes in every part of his dominions. He is regarded as a very
able man,--his European travels have made him to some extent an
enlightened one.
His reign of forty-two years has been disfigured, especially in its
earlier portion, by some acts which we should regard as great crimes,
but which do not count as such in Oriental judgment; neither are the
sale of offices, the taking of bribes under the disguise of presents,
the receiving of what is practically _modakel_, or exactions upon rich
men, repugnant in the slightest degree to the Oriental mind.
Remembering the unwholesome traditions of his throne and dynasty, we
must give him full credit for everything in which he makes a new
departure. Surrounded by intrigue, hampered by the unceasing political
rivalry between England and Russia, thwarted by the obstructive
tactics of the latter at every turn, and with the shadow of a Russian
occupation of the northern provinces of the Empire looming in a not
far distant future, any step in the direction of reform taken by the
Shah involves difficulties of which the outer world has no conception,
not only in braving the antagonism of his powerful neighbour, and her
attempted interference with the internal concerns of Persia, but in
overcoming the apathy of his people and the prejudices of his
co-religionists.
As it is, under him Persia has awakened partially from her long sleep.
The state of insecurity described by the travellers of thirty and
forty years ago no longer exists. Far feebler than Turkey, Persia,
through the resolute will of one man, has eclipsed Turkey altogether
in suppressing brigandage, in subduing the Kurds and other nomadic
tribes, in securing safety for travellers and caravans even on the
remoter roads, and in producing tolerable contentment among the
Armenian and Nestorian populations.
Under him the authority of the central Government has been
consolidated, the empty treasury has been filled, the
semi-independence of the provincial governors has been broken, Persia
has been re-created as a coherent Empire, certain roads have been
made, posts and telegraphs have been inaugurated, an Imperial Bank
with branches in some of the principal towns has been formed, foreign
capital has been encouraged or at least permitted to enter the
country, a concession for the free navigation of the Karun has been
granted, and the _Nasiri_ Company, the most hopeful token of native
progress, has received Imperial favour.
But under all this lies the inherent rottenness of Persian
administration, an abyss of official corruption and infamy without a
bottom or a shore, a corruption of heredity and tradition, unchecked
by public opinion or the teachings of even an elementary education in
morals and the rudiments of justice. There are few men pure enough to
judge their fellows or to lift clean hands to Heaven, and power and
place are valued for their opportunities for plunder.
In no part of Persia did I hear any complaint of the tribute levied by
the Shah. It is regarded as legitimate. But in most districts
allegations concerning the rapacity and exactions of the provincial
governors were universal, and there is unfortunately great reason for
believing them well founded. The farming of the taxes, the practical
purchase of appointments, the gigantic system of bribery by which all
offices are obtained, the absence of administrative training and
supervision, the traditions of office, and the absolute dependence of
every official on the pleasure of a Sovereign surrounded by the
intrigues of an Oriental court, are conditions sufficient to destroy
the virtue of all but the best of men.