has any security in the tenure of an office of which slander,
bribery, or intrigue at Court may at any moment deprive him, it is
natural that the most coveted positions should be those in which the
largest perquisites can be made, and that their occupants should feel
it their bounden duty to "make hay while the sun shines,"--in other
words, to squeeze the people so long as there is anything left to
squeeze. The great drawback of the Persian peasant's life is that he
has no security for the earnings of labour. He is the ultimate sponge
to be sucked dry by all above him. Every official squeezes the man
below him, and the highest is squeezed by the Crown.
Little, if any, of the revenue drawn from the country is spent on
works of public utility, and roads, bridges, official buildings,
fortifications, and all else are allowed to fall into disrepair. In
downright English the administration of government and law is
execrable, and there can be little hope of a resurrection for Persia
until the system under which she is impoverished be reformed or swept
away.
But who is to cleanse this Augean stable? Who will introduce the
elementary principles of justice? Are tools of the right temper to
work with to be found among the men of this generation? Is the
dwarfing and narrowing creed[38] of Islam to be replaced or in any way
to be modified by Christianity? It looks very much as if the men to
initiate and carry out administrative and financial reforms are not
forthcoming, and that, unless the Shah is willing to import or borrow
them, the present system of official corruption, mendacity, bribery,
and obstruction may continue to prevail.
The inherent weakness of Persia lies in her administrative system
rather than in her sparse population and paucity of fuel and water, a
paucity arising partly out of misgovernment. In the felt evils of this
system, and in the idea that law, equitable taxation, and security for
the earnings of labour are distinctively European blessings, lies a
part of the strength of Russia in Persia. I have elsewhere remarked
upon the indifference with which Russian annexation is contemplated. A
reformed system of administration, by giving the Persian people
something to live for and die for, would doubtless evoke the dormant
spirit of patriotism, and render foreign conquest, or acquisition
without conquest, a less easy task.
After living for ten months among the Persian people, and fully
recognising their faults, I should regret to see them absorbed by the
"White Czar" or any other power. A country which for more than 2000
years has maintained an independent existence, and which possesses
customs, a language, a civilisation, and a nationality of its own, and
works no injury to its neighbours, has certainly a _raison d'etre_.
My early impressions of Persia were of effeteness and ruin, but as I
learned to know more of the vitality, energy, and industry of her
people, and of the capacities of her prolific soil, I have come to
regard her resurrection under certain circumstances as a possibility,
and cordially to echo the wish eloquently expressed by the Marquis of
Salisbury on the occasion of the Shah's last visit to England: "We
desire above all things that Persia shall not only be prosperous, but
be strong,--strong in her resources, strong in her preparations,
strong in her alliances,--in order that she may pursue the peaceful
path on which she has entered in security and tranquillity." I. L. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] On this subject there can be no better authority than the Hon.
George N. Curzon, M.P., who after careful study has estimated the
total population of Persia at over nine millions.
[38] In _The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline, and Fall_, a valuable
recent work, its author, Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.I., dwells very strongly
on the narrowing influence of Islam on national life, and concludes
his review of it in the following words: "As regards the spiritual,
social, and dogmatic aspect of Islam, there has been neither progress
nor material change. Such as we found it in the days of the Caliphate,
such is it also at the present day. Christian nations may advance in
civilisation, freedom, and morality, in philosophy, science, and the
arts, but Islam stands still. And thus stationary, so far as the
lessons of its history avail, it will remain." In a chapter at the end
of his book he deals with polygamy, servile concubinage, temporary
marriages, and the law of divorce, as cankering the domestic life of
Mohammedan countries, and _infallibly neutralising all civilising
influences_.
LETTER XXVIII
KOCHANES, _Oct. 23_.
The Kurdish _katirgis_ turned out very badly. They came at twelve
instead of eight, compelling me to do only a half-day's march. Then
they brought six horses instead of the four which had been bargained
for, and said they would "throw down the loads" if I did not take
them. Each night they insisted on starting the next morning at
daybreak, but no persuasions could get them off before eight. They
said they could not travel with a Christian except in broad daylight.
They would only drive a mile an hour, and instead of adhering to their
contract to bring me here in four days, took four to come half-way. On
the slightest remonstrance they were insolent and violent, and
threatened to "throw down the loads" in the most inconvenient places,
and they eventually became so mutinous that I was obliged to dismiss
them at the half-way halt at the risk of not getting transport any
farther.[39]
The "throw on the road" from Urmi was a very large one, and consisted
of nearly all the English and American Mission clergy and two Syrians,
all on screaming, biting, kicking horses. It was a charming ride
through fruitful country among pleasant villages to Anhar. The wind
was strong and bracing. Clouds were drifting grandly over the
splendid mountains to the west, the ranges to the north were glorified
by rich blue colouring, purple in the shadows; among mountains on the
east the Urmi sea showed itself as a turquoise streak, and among
gardens and vineyards in the middle distance rose Zoroastrian cones of
ashes, and the great mound, which tradition honours as the scene of
the martyrdom of St. George.
When all my kind friends left me, and I walked alone in the frosty
twilight on the roof of my comfortable room in the _Qasha's_ house,
and looked towards the wall of the frontier mountains through which my
journey lay, I felt an unwonted feeling of elation at the prospect
before me, which no possible perils from Kurds, or from the sudden
setting-in of winter could damp, and thus far the interest is much
greater even than I expected.
The next morning I was joined by _Qasha_ ----, a Syrian priest, a man
of great learning and intelligence, a Turkish subject and landed
proprietor, who knows everybody in this region, and speaks English
well. He is fearfully anxious and timid, partly from a dread of being
robbed of his splendid saddle mule, and partly from having the
responsibility of escorting an English lady on a journey which has
turned out full of peril.
On the long ascent from Anhar a bitter wintry wind prevailed, sweeping
over the tattered thistles and the pale belated campanulas which alone
remain of the summer flora, but the view from the summit was one of
rare beauty. The grandly drifting clouds of the night before had done
their work, and had draped the Kurdish mountains half-way down with
the first snows of winter, while the valley at their feet, in which
Merwana lies, was a smiling autumn scene of flowery pasturage and busy
harvest operations under the magic of an atmosphere of living blue.
Merwana is a village of 100 houses, chiefly Christian, though it has
a Kurdish _ketchuda_. It is a rich village, or was, being both
pastoral and agricultural. The slopes are cultivated up to a great
height, and ox sleds bring the sheaves to the threshing-floor. The
grain is kept in great clay-lined holes under ground, covered with
straw and earth. I write that the village _was_ rich. Lately a cloud
of Kurds armed with rifles swooped down upon it towards evening, drove
off 900 sheep, and killed a man and woman. The villagers appealed to
Government, after which Hesso, a redoubtable Kurdish chief in its pay,
went up with a band of men to Marbishu, a Christian village in Turkey,
drove off 1460 sheep, and offered to repay Merwana with the stolen
property. As matters now stand 700 of the poorest of the sheep have
been restored to Marbishu, Merwana loses all, and Hesso and his six
robber brothers have gained 760. The sole hope of the plundered people
of both villages is in the intercession of Dr. Cochrane with the
Governor of Azerbijan.[40]
As I reached Merwana at 10 A.M., and the _katirgis_, after raging for
an hour, refused to proceed, I took Mirza and _Qasha_ Bardah, the
priest under whose hospitable roof I lodged, with me, and went up the
valley to Ombar, the abode of Hesso, with the vague hope of "doing
something" for the poor people. The path lay among bright streams and
flowery pastures, the sun was warm, the air sharp, the mountains
uplifted their sunlit snows into a heaven of delicious blue, the ride
was charming. Hesso's village, consisting of a few very low rough
stone houses, overshadowed by great cones of _kiziks_, is well
situated on a slope above a torrent issuing from a magnificent cleft
in the mountain wall, at the mouth of which is a square keep on a
rock.
[Illustration: HESSO KHAN.]
Hesso's house is just a "but and a ben," with a door which involves
stooping. Its rough stone walls are unplastered, and the only light
admitted comes from a hole in the roof, which serves to let out the
smoke. I confess to a feeling of trepidation when I asked to see the
Kurdish chief, and I felt the folly of my errand. A superbly-dressed
Kurd took us into a room dense with tobacco smoke, which, from its
darkness, the roughness of its walls, and the lowness of its rude
roof, resembled a cave rather than a house. Yet Hesso receives L200 a
year from the Persian Government, and has apparently unlimited
opportunities for plunder.
There were some coarse mats on the floor, and a _samovar_ with some
Russian glass tea-cups. Two Persian officials and a number of
well-armed and splendidly-dressed Kurds, with jewelled _khanjars_ and
revolvers in their girdles and rifles by their sides, sat or reclined
against the wall. Hesso himself leaned against a roll of bedding at
the upper end of the room, and space was made for us on the floor at
his left hand. A superb stage brigand he looked, in fitting
surroundings, the handsomest man I have seen in Persia, a large man,
with a large face, dark prominent eyes, a broad brow, a straight nose,
superb teeth, a fine but sensual mouth, a dark olive complexion, and a
false smile. A jewelled Kurdish turban with much crimson, a short
jacket and full trousers of a fine cream-coloured woollen fabric, an
embroidered silk shirt, socks of an elaborate pattern, a girdle of
many yards of Kashmir stuff, with eight knots, one above another, in
the middle, and a _khelat_ or coat of honour of rich Kerman brocade
formed his striking costume. In his girdle he wore a _khanjar_, with
an ebony hilt and scabbard ornamented with filigree gold knobs
incrusted with turquoises, attached to the girdle by a silver chain
two yards long, of heavy filigree balls, a beautiful piece of work.
Hesso's brothers, superb men, most picturesquely dressed, surrounded
him. The Kurds who handed round the tea and the jewelled _kalians_
looked fantastic brigands. The scene was a picture.
Of course my errand failed. I could not speak about the sheep through
the priest of the robbed village, and Hesso said that he could not
speak on any "political" subject before the Persians who were present.
The conversation was not animated, and _Qasha_ Bardah was very
nervous till Hesso turned round, and with an awakened expression of
face asked how it was that "England had allowed Turkey to grow so
feeble that her frontier and Armenia are in a state of anarchy"?
Hesso's handsome face is that of a villain. He does not look more than
thirty. He has 200 well-mounted marksmen at his disposal. The father
of this redoubtable Kurdish chief died in prison, where he was
confined by order of the Shah, and the son revenged himself by
harrying this part of the Shah's dominions, and with sixty men,
including his six brothers, successfully resisted a large Persian
force sent against him, and eventually escaped into Turkey, doing much
damage on his way. Hesso on arriving in Kerbela obtained a letter from
the Sheikh, or chief _Mollah_ there, saying that he offered his
submission to the Shah, and went to Tihran, where after seeing the
Shah's splendour he said that if he had known it before, he would not
have been in rebellion.
Before this the Persians took a strong castle from the Kurds, and
garrisoned it with an officer and a company of soldiers. Up to it one
day went Hesso boldly, keeping the six men who went with him out of
sight, and thumped upon the gate till it was opened, saying he was a
bearer of despatches. He first shot the sentry dead, and next the
officer, who came to see what the disturbance was about. Meantime the
six men, by climbing on each other's shoulders, scaled the castle
wall, and by confused shouts and dragging of the stone roller to and
fro over the roof they made the garrison believe that it was attacked
by a large force, and it surrendered at discretion. The lives of the
soldiers were spared, but they were marched out in their shirts, with
their hands above their heads.
The Merwana threshing-floor was guarded at night by ten men. The
following morning we were to have started an hour before daylight, but
the _katirgis_ refused to load, and the Kurdish _ketchuda_, with his
horsemen, declined to start till an hour after sunrise, because he
could not earlier "tell friends from foes." The ground was covered
with hoar-frost, and the feathery foliage of the tamarisk was like the
finest white coral.
Turning into the mountains, we spent nine hours in a grand defile,
much wooded, where a difficult path is shut in with the Marbishu
torrent. The Kurds left us at Bani, when two fine fellows became our
protectors as far as a small stream, crossing which we entered Turkey.
At a Kurdish semi-subterranean village, over which one might ride
without knowing it, a splendidly-dressed young Khan emerged from one
of the burrows, and said he would give us guards, but they would not
go farther than a certain village, where two of his men had been
killed three days before. "There is blood between us and them," he
said. After that, for five hours up to Marbishu, the scenery is
glorious. The valley narrows into a picturesque gorge between
precipitous mountains, from 2000 to 4000 feet above the river, on the
sides of which a narrow and occasionally scaffolded path is carried,
not always passable for laden mules. Many grand ravines came down upon
this gorge, their dwarf trees, orange, tawny, and canary-yellow,
mingled with rose-red leafage. The rose bushes are covered with masses
of large carnation-red hips, the bramble trailers are crimson and
gold, the tamarisk is lemon-yellow. Nature, like the dolphin, is most
beautiful in dying.
The depths were filled with a blue gloom, the needle-like peaks which
tower above glittered with new-fallen snow, the air was fresh and
intoxicating--it was the romance of travel. But it soon became
apparent that we were among stern and even perilous realities. A
notorious robber chief was disposed to bar our passage. His men had
just robbed a party of travellers, and were spread over the hill.
They took a horse from Johannes, but afterwards restored it on certain
conditions. Farther on we met a number of Kurds, with thirty fat sheep
and some cattle, which they were driving off from Marbishu. Then the
_katirgis_ said that they would go no farther than the village, for
they heard that robbers were lying in wait for us farther on!
In the wildest part of the gorge, where two ravines meet, there is
fine stoneless soil, tilled like a garden; the mountains fall a little
apart--there are walnuts, fruit trees, and poplars; again the valley
narrows, the path just hangs on the hillside, and I was riding over
the roofs of village houses for some time before I knew it. The hills
again opened, and there were flourishing breadths of turnips, and
people digging potatoes, an article of food and export which was
introduced by the missionaries forty years ago. The glen narrowed
again, and we came upon the principal part of Marbishu--rude stone
houses in tiers, burrowing deeply into the hills, with rock above and
rock below on the precipitous sides of a noisy torrent, crossed by two
picturesque log bridges, one of the wildest situations I have ever
seen, and with a wintry chill about it, for the sun at this season
deserts it at three. Rude, primitive, colourless, its dwellings like
the poorest cowsheds, its church like a Canadian ice-house, clinging
to mountain sides and spires of rock, so long as I remember anything I
shall remember Marbishu.
Steep narrow paths and steep rude steps brought us to a three-sided
yard, with a rough verandah where cooking and other operations were
going on, and at the entrance we were cordially welcomed by _Qasha_
Ishai, the priest. After ascertaining that it would be very dangerous
to go farther, I crossed the river to the church, which is one of the
finest in the country, and a place of pilgrimage. The village is noted
for its religious faithfulness. The church is said to be 850 years
old--a low, flat-roofed, windowless stone building. Either it was
always partially subterranean, or the earth has accumulated round it,
for the floor is three feet below the ground outside. The entrance is
by a heavy door two feet six inches high. Inside it is as nearly dark
as possible. Two or three circular holes at a great height in the
enormously thick wall let in as many glimmers, but artificial light is
necessary. There are several small ante-chapels. In two are rude and
ancient tombs of ancient bishops, plain blocks of stone, with crosses
upon them. In another is a rough desk, covered with candle droppings,
on which the _Liturgy of the Apostles_ lay open, and on it a cross,
which it is the custom to kiss. A fourth is used for the safe keeping
of agricultural implements. Two are empty, and one of these serves the
useful purpose of a mortuary chapel. The church proper is very small
and high. The stone floor has been worn into cavities by the feet of
worshippers; the walls, where not covered with lengths of grimy
printed cotton, are black with the candle smoke of ages. The one sign
of sacred use is a rude stone screen at the east end, at openings in
the front of which the people receive the Eucharist. Behind this is
the sanctuary, into which the priest alone, and he fasting, may enter.
Old brass lamps and candelabra, incrusted with blackened tallow, hang
from the roof, and strings of little bells from wall to wall, which
are plucked by each recipient of the sacred elements as he returns to
his "stand."
In this gloomy vault-like building prayers are said, as in all
Nestorian churches, at sunrise and sunset by the priest in his
ordinary clothing, the villagers being summoned by the beating of a
mallet on a board.[41]
The church is a place of refuge when a Kurdish attack is expected.
Nine years ago the people carried into it all their movables that they
valued most, believing it to be secure, but the Kurds broke in in
force and took all they wanted. The few sacred treasures of the
village and the Eucharistic leaven are hidden in an elevated recess in
the wall. The graveyard, which contains only a few flat slabs imbedded
in the soil, is the only possible camping-ground; but though it is
clean and neat, it looked so damp and felt so cold that I preferred to
accept a big room with walls six feet thick in the priest's house,
even though it overhangs the torrent with its thunder and clash.
Many a strange house I have seen, but never anything so striking as
the dwelling of _Qasha_ Ishai. Passing through the rude verandah, and
through a lofty room nearly dark, with a rough stone dais, on which
were some mattresses, and berths one above another, I stumbled in
total darkness into a room seventy feet by forty, and twenty feet or
more high in its highest part. It has no particular shape, and wanders
away from this lofty centre into low irregular caverns and recesses
excavated in the mountain side. Parts of the floor are of naked rock,
parts of damp earth. In one rocky recess is a powerful spring of pure
water. The roofs are supported on barked stems of trees, black, like
the walls, wherever it was possible to see them, with the smoke of two
centuries. Ancient oil lamps on posts or in recesses rendered darkness
visible. Goat-skins, with the legs sticking out, containing butter,
hanging from the blackened cross-beams, and wheat, apples, potatoes,
and onions in heaps and sacks, piles of wool, spinning-wheels, great
wooden cradles here and there, huge oil and water jars, wooden stools,
piles of bedding, ploughs, threshing instruments, long guns, swords,
spears, and gear encumbered the floor, while much more was stowed away
in the dim caverns of the rock.
I asked the number of families under the roof. "Seven ovens," was the
reply. This meant seven families, and it is true that three
generations, seventy-two persons, live, cook, sleep, and pursue their
avocations under that patriarchal roof.
The road is a bad one for laden beasts, and very dangerous besides,
and the few travellers who visit Kochanes usually take the caravan
route from Urmi _via_ Diza, and the fact of an English person passing
through Marbishu with a letter to the Turkish authorities was soon
"noised abroad," and I was invited to spend the evening in this most
picturesque house. All the inmates were there, and over a hundred of
the villagers besides; and cooking, baking, spinning, carding wool,
knitting, and cleaning swords and guns went on all the time. There
were women and girls in bright red dresses; men reclining on bedding
already unrolled on the uneven floor, or standing in knots in their
picturesque dresses leaning on their long guns, with daggers gleaming
in their belts; groups seated round the great fire, in the uncertain
light of which faces gleamed here and there in the dim recesses, while
the towering form of _Qasha_ Ishai loomed grandly through the smoke,
as the culmination of the artistic effect.
The subject discussed was equally interesting to the Syrians and to
me,--the dangers of the pass and the number of guards necessary. We
talked late into the night, and long before I left the female and
juvenile part of the family had retired to their beds. Again I heard
of Hesso's misdeeds, of the robbery of 1400 sheep; of the driving off
on the previous morning of thirty sheep which they were about to
barter for their winter supply of wheat; of the oppressive taxation,
100 _liras_ (nearly L100) on 100 houses; of the unchecked depredations
of the Kurds, which had increased this summer and autumn, leaving them
too poor to pay their taxes; of a life of peril and fear and
apprehension for their women, which is scarcely bearable; of the
oppression of man and the silence of God. Underlying all is a feeling
of bitter disappointment that England, which "has helped the oppressed
elsewhere, does nothing for us." They thought, they said, "that when
the English priests came it was the beginning of succour, and that the
Lord was no longer deaf, and our faces were lightened, but now it is
all dark, and there is no help in God or man."
I now find myself in the midst of a state of things of which I was
completely ignorant, and for which I was utterly unprepared, and in a
region full of fear and danger, in which our co-religionists are the
nearly helpless prey of fanatical mountaineers, whose profession is
robbery.
[Illustration: A SYRIAN FAMILY.]