Intense cold--Dulled sense of taste--Characteristics of the
country--Beautiful stones--Clouds of the desert--A salt
stream--Icicles on the moustache and eyelashes--Longing for
sunrise--Prayers of the camel men--Fedeshk--Ali Murat meets his
wife--Opium dens and opium smokers--Effects of smoking opium in
excess--Fever-stricken people--Dwellings--An official
visitor--Science reduced to practice--Sadek's idea of sunset and
sunrise--"Keshk" cheese--Arrival in Birjand.
We left camp at 8 p.m. on the night of November 20th-21st, and by
midnight the cold grew intense. The camel men lighted big bonfires all
through the night wherever they found a few shrubs, but I was so ill with
fever that I had not the strength and energy to dismount from my camel,
on which I was shivering with cold although well wrapped up in blankets.
After marching eight miles from our last camp we came to a brackish well
where the camel men replenished their water-skins. I was rather
interested to see what dulled sense of taste these men of the desert
possessed. When I saw them making a rush for this well I thought that
probably we had come to fresh water, and on asking them they said this
was a well of excellent "sweet water." When I tasted it, it was so salt
that it quite made one's inflamed gums and palate smart with pain. I
noticed some days later that when we did actually get fairly sweet water
they could detect no difference between it and the most brackish water.
We had come through hilly and broken country, over low passes and narrow
gorges flanking dry river-beds. Then we had entered another immense flat
stretch of _lut_, quite level except an occasional solitary hillock
breaking the monotonous line of the horizon here and there. From one of
these hillocks (4,300 feet) near our camp of November 21st one got quite
an interesting panorama all round.
The highest mountain in sight was still the Naiband peak to the
south-west of us. A range which seemed about 50 miles off spread to the
north-west, and before it--about 20 miles distant from us--a very long
low hill range. In an arc from our west to our north were distinguishable
several high pointed peaks. A blackish brown, handsomely cut hill stood
prominent a mile or so from us in the middle of the plain.
To the north the country was much broken up and low. There was a stream
of salt water running from east to west with thick salt deposits on each
side of the water edge. To the north-east the hills showed no peculiar
characteristics but to the east and south-east could be observed two
short hill-ranges, much indented, of broken up and corroded rock, similar
to the many we had already found across the desert. To the north and to
the south of the hill range which stood to the east of us there were low
passes, and behind them again the flat _lut_.
The only thing of real interest in the absolutely bare parts of the
desert is the geological formation of the soil and the only amusement is
to examine the different beautifully coloured stones that can be picked
up, such as handsome agates, bits of malachite, crystals, beautiful
marbles, and flints. These are all the more interesting when one thinks
that most of them may have travelled hundreds, some, thousands of miles
to get there, either brought by the water when the country was submerged
or shifted on and on by the wind. They all bear marks of travel, and even
the hardest are polished smooth, the original natural angles of crystals
being in many cases actually worn down and quite rounded. Sand-polished
pebbles of red jasper, jasper-conglomerates, chalcedony, quartz and
agatescent quartz, pink and brown corroded limestone, and calcite were
the most frequently met with.
A desert is, in England, always associated with glorious sunsets. Why
this should be so is rather difficult to be understood by anybody
reasoning in the right way, because the magnificent tints of a sunset are
caused by moisture in the air and not by abnormal dryness. All the time
that I was in the desert itself I never saw a sunset that really had half
the picturesqueness of one of our most modest sunsets in Europe. The sun
disappeared very fast, leaving a slightly yellow glow above the horizon,
which soon became greenish by blending with the blue sky and then black
with night. The twilight was extremely short.
We seldom saw clouds at all in the desert and when we did they were
scrubby, little, patchy, angular lumps at enormous heights above the
earth's surface. They were generally white or light grey. Occasionally
they were of the fish-bone pattern, in long successive ridges, resembling
the waves formed on the sand surface when shifted by wind. Soon after the
sun had disappeared behind the horizon, these clouds generally changed
their colour from white into black and made long lines stretching for
great distances across the sky, but adding no beauty to it.
Naturally, the play of shifting lights and shadows upon the desert when
the sun shone above the clouds was quite weird, especially when the last
formation of clouds referred to cast long bluish shadows slowly moving
upon the brilliantly-lighted, whitish tint of the ground. Lower upon the
horizon line a curtain of a dirty brownish tint was generally to be seen,
due to particles of sand in the air, otherwise in almost all cases that
came under my observation the clouds formed well-defined, thin, clean,
horizontal lines, or else when very high up patchy small skiffs.
One missed greatly the fat, rolling, globular clouds which are so common
to Europe, and which fill the sky with fantastic forms. There is such a
thing as getting tired of an everlasting spread of blue sky and the glow
of a roasting sun.
A strong westerly gale swept low over the surface of the desert. It was
very cold after sunset, but fortunately we had plenty of tamarisk shrubs
at hand and camel dung with which to make big fires.
The river bed below our camp was very wide, but the salt stream itself
not more than three to four feet across. It eventually lost itself to the
north-west in the desert. The camels had been let loose to graze and had
a good feed of tamarisk, which they seemed to enjoy much after their long
diet on reduced rations of straw and cotton seeds.
We left this camp (4,120 feet) soon after dinner at 7 p.m., and during
the night passed several ranges of hills, we travelling all the time on
the flat. In the middle of the night the cold was bitter, so cold that I
had icicles hanging on my moustache and eyelashes. It was impossible to
remain on the camels, and ill as we all felt we had to walk--drag
ourselves would be a more suitable expression--to keep ourselves from
freezing. On these cold nights we simply longed for the sun to come out.
The dark hours seemed interminable. One began slightly to revive when the
first glimmering of yellowish light began to tinge the dark blue sky, and
the dazzling stars gradually lost their brilliancy and eventually
disappeared altogether from the heaven above us.
On the first ray of sun appearing the devout camel men stopped the
caravan, spread a small cloth upon the ground, and, having picked up a
small stone, placed it in front of them. They duly turned towards sacred
Mecca and lifted their arms, then, muttering their prayers, knelt and
placed their heads upon the ground, as we have already seen others do, in
the usual Mussulman manner. They were most diligent in this respect, and
one could not help admiring the intent fervour of their appeals to Allah.
At sunset, too, their prayers never failed to be recited--no matter what
they were busy doing at the time, all being interrupted for the purpose.
At 5.30 a.m. we arrived at a village called Fedeshk--quite a large place,
situated in a flat oblong plain ten miles long and a mile and a half
wide, surrounded by low hills on all sides.
On being asked why he had made the camels go so fast on this march, Ali
Murat, my camel man, blushingly confessed that in this village was his
home and his wife, whom he had not seen for eight months. The anxiety to
see his better half, who lived only a stone-throw from where we made
camp, did not, however, prevent him looking carefully after his camels,
whom he placed first of all in his affection, and smoking Sadek's
cigarettes, and a pipe with the other camel men, and waiting till my tea
had been brewed to receive his customary six cups. After all this had
been gone through, which took the best part of two hours, he disappeared
and we did not see him again for the remainder of the morning.
The people of Fedeshk were striking for two reasons, first for being
sadly fever-stricken, secondly because they were addicted to opium
smoking to a disastrous degree. There were a number of opium dens in the
place, and I went to see them. They were dreadful places, in which one
would suspect opium smoking was not the only vice indulged in by the
natives.
As I entered one of these houses, after a considerable knocking at the
door and a great rustling of people running about the small courtyard
inside, we were admitted into a room so dark that I at first could
discern nothing at all. The pungent, sickening odour of the opium pipes
gave one quite a turn, and I lighted up a match to see where I was.
There were men lying about on mats in a semi-stupefied state, and men
attendants refilling the pipes--similar to those used in China, a cane
holder with earthenware pipe in which tiny pills of opium were inserted
and consumed over the flame of a small lamp. Several of the men were in
such a torpid state that they mechanically inhaled the opium smoke when
the pipes were pressed to their lips, but were hardly cognizant of what
went about around them. The opium-den keeper in the meantime did a
roaring business, and had a little scale on which he weighed the opium
that he served out.
It seemed evident, as I lighted match after match, by certain articles of
ladies' attire which in the hurried departure had been left behind in the
room, that the usual attendants of the smokers were women, but they had
stampeded away on our arrival. One heard them chuckle in the adjoining
rooms, and in their haste, they had left behind a great many pairs of
slippers at the entrance of the room.
I had two men conveyed out into the sun where I wanted to examine them.
The pupils of their eyes had contracted to a most abnormal extent, even
before they were exposed to the sunlight, and seemed to have almost lost
the power of expanding and contracting in various lights, and although
the eyes were wide opened and staring they did not seem to discern what
was placed before them. The eye-ball had a yellowish tinge and the iris
was not well-defined but seemed to have undergone discoloration and faded
away into the white of the eye. They seemed affected by a kind of
temporary atrophy.
The pulse beat extremely slow and faintly; the lips were drawn tight; the
hearing so dulled that even loud noises seemed to have no effect upon
them. The body was flabby and almost lifeless. It was not possible to
obtain an answer to anything one asked them. They had quite a cadaverous
appearance, with yellowish, pallid skins, sunken eyes, and teeth showing
fully under the drawn lips.
Only now and then, as one watched them, a sigh, followed by a shiver or a
grunt, came forth to show us that they were still alive. The fingers and
toes displayed some muscular contraction, but not the other joints, which
were quite loose. The heart beat so feebly that one could hardly feel
it.
They remained spread out in the yard in the positions we had placed them,
and were indeed most pitiful objects. The den-keeper told me that these
two men were most inveterate smokers, and were at it the whole time until
they became quite unconscious.
There were other men in a slightly better condition, but all more or less
showing the same symptoms of stupefaction. Those that could mutter words
said that it was an irresistible passion that they could never stop. The
opium gave them no dreams, they told me, but a delicious feeling of
absolute contentment and happiness, which they could never experience
when not indulging in this disastrous vice.
On looking upon things impartially, however, one came to the conclusion
that, bad as it was, opium-smoking had certainly more peaceful and less
disgusting effects upon those unfortunates addicted to it than whiskey or
absinthe, or votka drunkenness, for instance.
The entire population of this village was, unfortunately, given to this
bad habit, and it was quite pitiable to look upon their haggard, staring
faces, and idiotic expression.
Malarial fever is very prevalent at Fedeshk, and some of the corpse-like
people affected by it came to my camp for medicine. They were not unlike
walking skeletons, with stringy hands and feet and a skin of ghastly
yellow colour. They had parched, bloodless ears, curled forward, and
sunken cheeks, with deep sunk-in eyes. In the more virulent cases fever
was accompanied by rheumatic pains so strong as practically to paralyse
the legs and arms, which were reduced to a positive minimum of flesh.
The dwellings of Fedeshk were not impressive. Mud hovels as usual, with
domes over the rooms, as everywhere in Persia, only the familiar
aperture, instead of being directly in the centre of the dome itself, had
a kind of hood over it to screen it from the terrific winds of the West.
[Illustration: Fever Stricken Man at Fedeshk.]
[Illustration: The Citadel, Birjand.]
It is to be noticed in connection with these winds that to the west of
Fedeshk there are rather high mountains, and even winds originally not
coming from the west may be turned back or switched in that direction by
this chain of mountains.
A large ice store-house is met with at the end of the village, which
testifies to the intense cold that can be experienced here in the winter
months.
An official residing in the place sent word that he would call upon me,
and we made a grand display of all the carpets we possessed to receive
him. He arrived with a number of servants, and we had a very pleasant
interview, with great consumption of tea. He was extremely civil;
inquired whether he could be of any assistance, which was politely
declined, and showed intense interest in my firearms and scientific
instruments. He and his people were amazed when I told them that their
village stood at an elevation of 4,620 ft. above sea level, and
explained to them how I had measured the height by means of aneroids
and the hypsometrical apparatus.
"These are wonderful!" he said, with a salaam, as he handed me back the
instruments which had been eagerly examined by all present. "And," he
added, "can you also measure the length of cloth with them?"
A compass, too, he had never set eyes upon; and he at first thought that
it was constructed to point towards Mecca! Had not one long ago got
accustomed to similar questions often asked one by London people, the
innocence of the Persian official might have taken one's breath away, but
this was nothing to what happened later.
The Persians showed great curiosity to learn everything in connection
with whatever foreign articles I possessed and the respective prices I
had paid for them. Then Sadek was closely examined as to the amount of
food I ate every day, the salary I paid him, and why I had come across
the desert. Was I a Russian or an Englishman? The officer had never seen
either, but heard both well spoken of. He had understood that all
Englishmen had yellow hair; why had I dark hair? London, he, like most
Persians, believed to be a suburb of Bombay, connected with Russia by
means of a "machine road,"--a railway!
Why on earth did the _ferenghi_ want to know how high mountains were? Did
the _ferenghi_ know how to find gold in the earth? and so on, were the
queries which Sadek had to answer.
With repeated salaams, preceded by a thousand other questions, the
official departed; but Sadek, who was much excited, was still bent on a
highly scientific conversation to the following effect:--
"Sahib," he said, "you have travelled in many countries, have you not?"
"Yes."
"Sahib, have you been to the country where the sun 'goes to sleep' in a
hole in the earth every evening?"
That was Sadek's idea of a sunset! His idea of a sunrise was that a
brand-new sun was sent up every day, and this explained how it was that
it rose from the opposite side to that on which it had "gone to sleep."
Ali Murat, looking somewhat washed out and absent minded, came back to
camp at noon, garbed in a very handsome new coat which his wife had woven
and embroidered for him during his absence. He was very proud of it.
We left Fedeshk an hour later, as I was very anxious to reach the city of
Birjand the same day if possible. We were now again in fairly inhabited
country, and on our hurried march passed a great many villages, large and
small, such as Shahzileh, Mazumabad, Tagot, Siaguih, Shamzabad. Further,
at Ossenabad, is to be seen a ruined country-house of the Governor of
Birjand, then the last two villages of Khelatekhan and Khelatehajih.
Ali Murat seemed rather dazzled on this last march, and was so worn out
that he threw himself down upon the ground several times, regardless of
spoiling his smart new coat. In a moment he became fast asleep, and it
took some rousing to make him get up again. His wife had given him a bag
of _keshk_--a kind of cheese, which looked like hardened curdled
milk--and of this he partook freely to try and regain his former
strength. Keshk cheese was very hard stuff to eat and took a lot of
chewing. To prevent it getting too hard it had to be soaked in water
every few days.
We had a nasty wind against us, but the way was flat and good; our
direction, due east across the long narrow valley of sand, nowhere
broader than a couple of miles. To the north were a number of low hills
shaped like so many tents, white, grey, and light-red in colour, and also
to the south, where there was an additional irregular and somewhat higher
rocky mountain.
In the evening of November 24th we had crossed the entire Salt Desert and
arrived at the large city of Birjand, after Meshed the most important
city of Khorassan, the journey having occupied twenty days, which was
considered a very fast crossing.
There was a beautiful new caravanserai here, with clean spacious rooms,
and with a most attentive and obliging keeper in charge of it.