The Persian Gulf and Abusheher.
When we had fairly entered the Persian Gulf I found myself on classic
ground, where all the wonderful adventures of Sinbad the sailor were,
what a genuine Yankee would call located. I sent for an Arabian
servant called Khudâdâd, and asked him who were the inhabitants of
the barren shore of Arabia that we saw. He answered, with apparent
alarm--"They are of the sect of Wahâbees, and are called Jouassimee;
but God preserve us from them, for they are monsters. Their occupation
is piracy, and their delight murder; and to make it worse, they give
you the most pious reasons for every villainy they commit. They abide
by the letter of the sacred volume, rejecting all commentaries and
traditions. If you are their captive, and offer all you possess to save
your life, they say 'No! it is written in the Koran that it is unlawful
to plunder the living, but we are not prohibited in that sacred work
from stripping the dead;' so saying, they knock you on the head. But
then," continued Khudâdâd, "that is not so much their fault, for they
are descended from a Houl, or monster, and they act according to their
nature."
I begged he would inform me about their descent. He seemed surprised
at my ignorance, and said it was a story that he thought was known to
every one in the world, but proceeded to comply with my request.
"An Arab fisherman," said he, "who lived in a village on the Persian
Gulf, not far from Gombroon, being one day busy at his usual
occupation, found his net so heavy that he could hardly drag it on
shore. Exulting in his good fortune, he exerted all his strength: but
judge of his astonishment, when, instead of a shoal of fish, he saw
in his net an animal of the shape of a man, but covered with hair. He
approached it with caution; but finding it harmless, carried it to his
house, where it soon became a favourite; for, though it could speak no
language, and utter no sound except 'houl, houl,' (from whence it took
its name,) it was extremely docile and intelligent; and the fisherman,
who possessed some property, employed it to guard his flocks.
"It happened one day that a hundred Persian horsemen, clothed in
complete armour, came from the interior, and began to drive away the
sheep. The Houl, who was alone, and had no arms but a club, made signs
for them to desist; but they only scoffed at his unnatural appearance,
till he slew one or two who approached too near him. They now attacked
him in a body; but his courage and strength were surpassed by his
activity, and while all fell who came within his reach, he eluded every
blow of his enemies; and they fled, after losing half their numbers.
"The fisherman and his neighbours, when they heard of the battle,
hastened to the aid of the faithful Houl, whom they found in possession
of the horses, clothes, and arms of the vanquished Persians. An Arab
of the village, struck with his valour, and casting an eye of cupidity
at the wealth he had acquired, offered him the hand of his daughter,
who was very beautiful, and she, preferring good qualities to outward
appearance, showed no reluctance to become the bride of this kind and
gallant monster. Their marriage was celebrated with more pomp than was
ever before known in the village; and the Houl, who was dressed in one
of the richest suits of the Persians he had slain, and mounted on one
of their finest horses, looked surprisingly well. He was quite beside
himself with joy, playing such antics, and exhibiting such good humour,
strength, and agility, that his bride, who had at first been pitied,
became the envy of every fisherman's daughter. She would have been more
so, could they have foreseen the fame to which she was destined. She
had four sons, from whom are descended the four tribes of Ben Jouassim,
Ben Ahmed, Ben Nasir, and Ben Saboohil, who are to this day known by
the general name of Ben Houl, or the children of Houl. They are all
fishermen, boatmen, and pirates, and live chiefly at sea, inheriting,
it is believed, the amphibious nature of their common ancestor."
After this tale was concluded, I asked Khudâdâd what kind of men
inhabited those high mountains which we saw rising on the Persian
shores of the gulf. Delighted at this second opportunity of showing his
knowledge, he replied, "They also are robbers, but they are not so bad
as the Jouassimee. They refer their first settlement in these mountains
to the devil; but then they are the children of men, and their nature
is not diabolical, though their deeds are sometimes very like it."
On questioning Khudâdâd further, I found he had the popular story taken
from Firdousee,[6] and that he kept pretty near to his text; but I
shall give it in his own words. "You have heard of Zohâk, prince of
Arabia?" I said I had. "Well then," he continued, "you know he was a
very wicked man. He conquered Jemsheed, king of Persia, who was in
those days deemed the most glorious monarch on earth. After this great
success Zohâk was tempted by the devil, who allured him, under the
shape of a venerable old man, to kill his father, that he might become
king of Arabia as well as Persia. In those days men lived on vegetable
diet; but the devil, anxious to destroy as many of the human race as
he could, tempted Zohâk with some new roasted eggs, and perceiving
him to relish his food, proposed to cook him a dish of partridges and
quails, with the flavour of which the Prince was so delighted that he
bade his friend ask any favour he liked. The wily old man said all he
wished was to kiss the shoulders of his beloved monarch. They were
bared for that purpose; but no sooner had the infernal lips touched
them than out sprang from each a ravenous serpent, and at the same time
the venerable old man changed to his natural shape, and disappeared in
a thunder-storm, exclaiming that human brains alone would satisfy the
monsters he had created, and that their death would be followed by that
of Zohâk.
"It fell out as the devil foretold: the serpents refused all other
food, and, for a period, two victims were daily slain to satisfy them.
Those charged with the preparation of this horrid repast, seeing the
devil's design, determined on frustrating it; and while they paraded
before Zohâk and his serpents the persons who were doomed to death,
they substituted the brains of sheep, and sent their supposed human
victims to the mountains of Kerman and Lauristan, where they increased,
and became a great people, and their descendants still inhabit these
hills. There can be no doubt," said Khudâdâd, gravely, "of the truth of
what I have told you; for it is all written in a book, and a fine poem
made upon it, which is called the Shâh-nâmeh, or Book of Kings."
Having acquired this correct information about the shores of the gulf,
I landed at Abusheher,[7] a Persian sea-port, celebrated as the mart
of chintzes and long-ells, of dates and asafoetida. We were met on the
beach by the whole population of the town. What appeared to excite
most admiration was the light company of His Majesty's 84th Regiment,
whose uniform appearance caused no slight wonder. Struck with their
similarity of look, one man exclaimed, "These fellows must all have
had the same father and mother!" "That cannot be," said another, "for
they must all have been born on the same day." "They are proper devils,
I'll warrant them," said an old woman, who had been looking at them
very attentively. They had now received the order to march; and the
regularity with which their feet moved was a new subject of surprise.
An old merchant, called Hajee Ismael, whose life had been spent amongst
his accounts, and who delighted in everything that was regular, stood
at a corner as they passed in files, and kept saying, as he noted
them with his fingers, "correct,[8] correct, correct." Take it all in
all, our landing seemed to give great pleasure to the men, women, and
children of the port of Abusheher.
We had not been on shore a week before two events occurred, one of
which showed what the Persians thought of us, and the other taught us
what we should think of them.
Before the year 1800 no political mission from an European nation
had visited the court of Persia for a century; but the English,
though only known in that kingdom as merchants, had fame as soldiers,
from the report of their deeds in India. An officer of one of the
frigates, who had gone ashore to visit the Envoy, when mounted on a
spirited horse, afforded no small entertainment to the Persians by
his bad horsemanship. The next day the man who supplied the ship with
vegetables, and who spoke a little English, met him on board, and said,
"Don't be ashamed, sir, nobody knows you: bad rider! I tell them, you,
like all English, ride well, but that time they see you, very drunk!"
We were much amused at this conception of our national character. The
Persian thought it would have been a reproach for a man of a warlike
nation not to ride well, but none for an European to get drunk.
The other occurrence was still more characteristic. The Envoy or
Elchee,[9] as the Persians called him, had, among other plans for
doing good, one for the introduction of potatoes. Among those who
listened to him, and applauded his disinterested intentions to benefit
Persia, was a fat, smooth-faced young merchant, who obtained a promise
of a considerable quantity of potatoes for seed, having (according
to his own report) rented a large piece of ground, that he might be
an humble instrument in the hands of the British Representative for
doing good. The latter, pleased with his zeal, honoured this excellent
man with such particular attention, that, conceiving himself a prime
favourite, he ventured one day to suggest that "As the season was too
far advanced for the potatoe-garden that year, it would not be unworthy
of the Elchee's wonted liberality to commute his intended present for
a pair of pistols, or a piece of British broadcloth." This premature
disclosure of the real object of this professed improver of the soil
produced no little ridicule, in which his countrymen, who were jealous
of the favour he had enjoyed, joined most heartily. He was known till
the day of his death, which happened three years ago, by the name of
Potatoes. It is satisfactory to add, that the plan for introducing this
valuable root did not fail: they were found to flourish at Abusheher,
where they are called "Malcolm's[10] plum," after the Elchee, who looks
to the accident which gave his name to a useful vegetable as one of his
best chances of enduring fame.
The English factory, which had long been at Gombroon, had been removed
some years before to Abusheher. All the old servants had accompanied
it, and one, of the name of Suffer, had recently died, of whom I was
delighted to hear, from the best authority, an anecdote, which did
credit to the kindness of our countrymen, while it showed that even in
this soil, good usage will generate strong and lasting attachment. When
poor Suffer, who had been fifty years a servant in the factory, was on
his death-bed, the English doctor ordered him a glass of wine. He at
first refused it, saying, "I cannot take it; it is forbidden in the
Koran." But after a few moments he begged the doctor to give it him,
saying, as he raised himself in his bed, "Give me the wine; for it is
written in the same volume, that all you unbelievers will be excluded
from Paradise; and the experience of fifty years teaches me to prefer
your society in the other world, to any place unto which I can be
advanced with my own countrymen." He died a few hours after this sally,
which I was glad to observe proved of value to his son, a rough-looking
lad named Derveish, who was introduced by the Resident to the Envoy, at
the time the former told the story of the father's attachment. Derveish
was taken into service, and I have watched his gradual advancement till
he has become the proprietor of a large boat, which is the ne plus
ultra of the ambition of an Abusheheree.
The natives of this place are almost all of Arab race, and fond of
the sea; a propensity the more remarkable, as it is in such strong
contrast with the disposition of the Persians, of whom all classes have
an unconquerable antipathy to that element. But this is not the only
characteristic distinction between these classes of men, who appear to
agree in nothing but in dwelling in the same town. The Persians, who
have been tempted by the hope of gain to exchange the fine climate of
the elevated plains of the interior, for the sea-ports on the edge of
the sultry desert, which forms the shores of the gulf, retain all the
smooth pliant manners of their country; and they look with disgust on
what they deem the rude barbarous habits of the Arabians, who are the
great body of the inhabitants of this track, and who can scarcely be
distinguished, either in look or sentiment, from their kindred on the
opposite shore.
A remarkable instance of the difference of character, between the lower
orders of these two classes, occurred one morning, when the Envoy was
preparing a match, to be run by a beautiful English greyhound called
Venus, and a strong Arabian dog named Kessâb, or the Butcher. He was
giving directions to his master of the chase, Hyder, and expressing his
sanguine hopes of Venus's success: Mahomed Beg, a tall well-dressed
Persian groom, assented to all his anticipations, saying, "What
pretensions can that Arab dog have to run with the beautiful greyhound
of the Elchee?"
Others joined in the same language, and the opinion appeared
general, when an Arab, called Gherreeba,[11] whose pay was only four
piastres[12] a month, whose chequered turban and cloth round his middle
were not worth one, and whose occupation was sitting all day exposed to
the sun, watering some grass screens that were placed against the door
of the house to exclude the heat--darted up, and, with an eye of fire
and the most marked energy, exclaimed, "By the all-powerful God, the
Arab dog will triumph."[13]
Gherreeba was for the moment the representative of the feelings of
his country. The parasites around stood watching the Elchee, and
were not a little mortified when they heard him applaud the honest
warmth and manly independence of the poor Arab, who was invited to
witness the trial. It ended, like most similar trials, in each party
being convinced that their own favourite was, or ought to have been,
the winner. The dogs ran as usual beautifully: Venus was by far the
fleetest; but the chase, which was after a half-grown antelope, proved
long, and the strength of the Butcher prevailed towards the close. It
is however, justice to the deer species, while we are praising the
canine, to add, that the antelope beat them both.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Firdousee is the first of the epic poets of Persia, and few
countries can boast of a greater genius. His chief work, the
Shâh-nâmeh, or Book of Kings, contains, mixed with allegory and fable,
almost all the Persians know of their ancient history.
[7] Abusheher is the proper name, but it is better known to Europeans
by the abbreviated appellation of Bushire.
[8] "Hissab," the Persian word, literally means an account;
metaphorically, "correct, or according to a just account."
[9] Elchee means ambassador, or representative of a foreign nation.
[10] Alou, e, Malcolm.
[11] Gherreeb means poor--this man was really so; but it is not unusual
to meet Mahomedans, who are remarkable for their rank, pride, or
wealth, with names of similar character, that have been given by their
mothers in a spirit of religious humility.
[12] The value of a piastre is about twenty pence.
[13] Billâh il azeem yadhfar al Arab.