of rain and hail, which had covered the mountain-tops with their first
sheet of winter snow. We had slept at a tiny post-house, sixteen miles
from the city gates--an unquiet lodging it had proved, for travellers
came clattering in all through the early hours of the night, and
towards morning the post dashed past, changing horses and speeding
forward on its way to Tabriz. The beauty of the night compensated in a
measure for wakeful hours; the moon--our last Persian moon--shone out
of a clear heaven, its beams glittered on the fields of freshly-fallen
snow far away on the mountains, and touched with mysterious light the
sleeping forms of Persian travellers stretched in rows on the ground in
the veranda of the post-house. We were up before the autumn dawn, and
started on our road just as the sun shot over the mountains. Ali Akbar
led the way--Ali Akbar, the swiftest rider on the road to Resht, he
with the surest judgment as to the merits of a post-horse, the richest
store of curses for delinquent post-boys, the deftest hand in the
confection of a pillau, the brightest twinkle of humour darting from
under shaggy brows--friend, counsellor, protector, and incidentally
our servant. He had wound a scarlet turban round his head, he made it
a practice not to wash on a journey, and his usually shaven beard had
begun to assume alarming proportions before we reached the Caspian. His
saddle-bags and his huge pockets bulged with miscellaneous objects--a
cake, a pot of marmalade, a crossed Foreign Office bag, a saucepan,
a pair of embroidered slippers which he had produced in the rain and
presented to us a mile or two from Tehran, with a view, I imagine,
to establishing the friendliest relations between us. We followed;
in the rear came two baggage-horses carrying our scanty luggage, and
driven by a mounted post-boy, generally deficient. These three, the
baggage-horses and the post-boy, were our weak point--a veritable
heel of Achilles; they represented to us ‘black Care,’ which is said
to follow behind every horseman. What a genius those horses had for
tumbling over stones! What a limitless capacity for sleep was possessed
by those post-boys! How easily could the Gordian knot have been
unloosed if its ropes had shared in the smallest measure that feeling
for simplicity which animated those which bound our baggage!
The first stage that morning was pleasant enough; then came the
heat and the dust with it. Sunshine--sunshine! tedious, changeless,
monotonous! Not that discreet English sunshine which varies its charm
with clouds, with rainbows, with golden mist, as an attractive woman
varies her dress and the fashion of her hair--‘ever afresh and ever
anew,’ as the Persian poet has it--here the sun has long ceased trying
to please so venerable a world. The long straight road lay ahead; the
desolate plain stretched southwards, mile after uninterrupted mile; the
bare mountain barrier shut out the north; and for sound, the thud of
our horses’ feet as we rode, the heavy, tired thud of cantering feet,
and the gasp of the indrawn breath, for as the stage drew to its close
the weary beasts cantered on more and more sullenly through dust and
heat.
At last far away, where the road dipped and turned, stood the
longed-for clump of trees, clustered round the great caravanserai and
the glittering blue-tiled dome of the little mosque. This was not an
ordinary post-house, but a stately pile, four-square, built by some
pious person in the reign of Shah Abbas, and the mosque was the shrine
and tomb of a saint, a descendant of the Prophet. Behind it lay a huge
mound of earth, a solid watch-tower heaped up in turbulent times.
From its summit the anxious inhabitants of the caravanserai could see
far and wide over the plain, and shut their gates betimes before an
on-coming foe.... War has passed away round the shrine of the Yengi
Imam, yet it is not security, but indifference, that is high-priest
under the blue dome, and though the shadows of the old watchers gazing
from the earth-heap would see no sturdy band of Persian robbers rushing
down on them from the mountains, they may tremble some day before a
white-capped Russian army, marching resistless along the dusty road.
The clatter of the post-horses over the stones broke the noon-day
silence. Yengi Imam looked very desolate and uncared-for as we rode
through the mud-heaps before its hospitable doors. Half the blue tiles
had fallen from the dome, unnoticed and unreplaced, meagre poplars
shivered in the sun, stunted pomegranate bushes carpeted the ground
with yellow autumn leaves, their heavy dark-red fruit a poor exchange
for the spring glory of crimson flower. Persians love pomegranates,
and on a journey prize them above all other fruits, and even to the
foreigner their pink fleshy pips, thick set like jewels, are not
without charm. But it is mainly the charm of the imagination and of
memories of Arabian Night stories in which disguised princes ate
preserved pomegranate seeds, and found them delicious. Do not attempt
to follow their example, for when you have tasted the essence of
steel knife with which a pomegranate is flavoured, you will lose all
confidence in the judgment of princes, even in disguise. And it is a
pity to destroy illusions. But for beauty give me pomegranate bushes in
the spring, with dark, dark green leaves and glowing flowers, thick and
pulpy like a fruit, and winged with delicate petals, red as flame.
Through the low door of the caravanserai we entered the cool vault
of the stable which ran all round the garden court. A lordly stable
it was, lighted by shafts of sunshine falling from the glass balls
with which each tiny dome was studded--vault beyond vault, dusty
light and shadowy darkness following each other in endless succession
till the eye lost itself in the flickering sunshine of a corner
dome. Here stood weary post-horses, sore-backed and broken-kneed;
here lay piles of sweet-smelling hay and heaped-up store of grain.
At one corner was a minute bazaar, where we could buy thin flaps of
bread if we had a mind to eat flour mixed in equal parts with sand
and fashioned into the semblance of brown paper; raisins also, and
dried figs, bunches of black grapes, sweet and good, and tiny glasses
of weak hot tea, much sugared, which pale amber-coloured beverage
is more comforting to the traveller on burning Persian roads than
the choicest of the forbidden juices of the grape. The great stable
enclosed a square plot of garden--orchard, rather, for it was all
planted with fruit-trees--which, after the manner of Eastern gardens,
was elaborately watered by a network of rivulets flowing into a large
central tank, roofed over to protect it from the sun. He did his work
well, the pious founder of the caravanserai, but he thought more of
the comfort of beasts than of men. One or two bare rooms opening into
the garden, a few windowless, airless holes in the inner wall, a row
of dark niches above the mangers--that was what he judged to be good
enough for such as he; the high, cool domes were for weary horses and
tinkling caravans of mules.
We were well content to stretch ourselves in the mules’ palace with
a heap of their hay for bed. Thirty-two miles of road lay behind us,
thirty-two miles in front--an hour’s rest at mid-day did not come amiss.
As we lay we saw in the garden a Persian, dressed in the pleated
frock-coat and the tall brimless astrakhan hat which are the customary
clothes of a gentleman. Round his hat was wrapped a red scarf to
protect it from the dust of travelling; the rest of his attire was as
spotless as though dust were an unknown quantity to him. He watched
us attentively for some minutes, and then beckoned us to his room
opposite. We rose, still stiff from the saddle, and walked slowly round
the court. He greeted us with the calm dignity of bearing that sits as
easily on the Oriental as his flowing robes. Manner and robe would be
alike impossible in the busy breathless life of the West, where, if you
pause for a moment even to gird your loins, half your competitors have
passed you before you look up. The Oriental holds aloof, nor are the
folds of his garments disturbed by any unseemly activity. He stands and
waits the end; his day is past. There is much virtue in immobility if
you take the attitude like a philosopher, yet to fade away gracefully
is a difficult task for men or nations--the mortal coil is apt to
entangle departing feet and compromise the dignity of the exit.
‘Salaam uleikum!’ said our new friend--‘Peace be with you!’ and,
taking us by the hand, he led us into his room, which was furnished
with a mat and a couple of wooden bedsteads. On one of these he made
us sit, and set out before us on a sheet of bread a roast chicken, an
onion, some salt, a round ball of cheese, and some bunches of grapes;
then, seeing that we hesitated as to the proper mode of attacking the
chicken, he took it in his fingers, delicately pulled apart wings, legs
and breast, and motioned us again to eat. He himself was provided with
another, to which he at once turned his attention, and thus encouraged,
we also fell to. Never did roast chicken taste so delicious! I judge
from other experiences that he was probably tough; he was, alas!
small, but, for all that, we look back to him with gratitude as having
furnished the most excellent luncheon we ever ate. In ten minutes his
bones, the onion, and a pile of grape skins were the only traces left
of our repast, and we got up feeling that two more stages on tired
post-horses were as nothing in the length of a September afternoon.
We said farewell to our unknown host, stammering broken phrases of
polite Persian. ‘Out of his great kindness we had eaten an excellent
breakfast; the clemency of his nobility was excessive; we hoped that he
might carry himself safely to Tehran, and that God would be with him.’
But though our Persian was poor, gratitude shone from our faces. He
bowed and smiled, and assured us that our servant was honoured by our
having partaken of his chicken, but he would not shake hands with us
because he had not yet washed his fingers, which, as he had used them
as knives and forks both for himself and for us, were somewhat sticky.
So we mounted our horses, and rode away towards our crude Western
world, and he mounted his and passed eastward into his own cities.
Who he is, and what his calling, we shall never know--nor would we.
He remains to us a type, a charming memory, of the hospitality, the
courtesy, of the East. Whether he be prince or soldier or simple
traveller, God be with him! Khuda hafez--God be his Protector!
_A STAGE AND A HALF_
‘AS music at the close is sweetest last,’ says Shakespeare. We
cling regretfully to the close, but the beginning is what is worth
having--the beginning, with all its freshness, all its enthusiasm,
all its unexpected charm, Hercules for strength, Atalanta for speed,
Gabriel for fair promise. Say what you will, the end is sad. Do not
linger over the possibilities to which (all unfulfilled) it sets a
term, but remember the glorious energy which spurred you forward at
first, and which lies ready to spring forth anew.
When we were riding post, we had occasion to study the philosophy of
beginnings. ‘Ah, if we could only have gone on like that!’ we sighed
when, finding ourselves at the end of a weary day only thirty miles
removed from our starting-point, we remembered the sixty flashing
miles that had passed beneath our horses’ feet the day before. The
long road to the sea seemed an eternity of space not to be measured by
our creeping, tired steps. Yet with the dawn our views had changed.
However weary, however stiff you may be when in the dusk you reach the
last half-farsakh of the last half-stage, the night’s rest will send
you on with as keen a pleasure as if you had been lying idle for a
week before. The clear day, the low cool sun, the delicious cup of tea
flavoured with the morning, the fresh horse, the long straight road in
front of you--away! away! A careful jog, a steady canter, who does not
feel that he could put a girdle round the earth at the beginning of the
first stage? And then the sun creeps higher, shadows and mists vanish,
the dust dances in the hot road, your horse jogs on more slowly--how
large the world is, how long four farsakhs! And beyond them lie another
four, and yet another; better not to think of them--Inshallah, we shall
sleep somewhere to-night!
Through all these vicissitudes of mood we were destined to pass on
the second day of our riding. The sun was already high when we reached
the city which lay at the end of our first stage, and passed under
its tiled gateway into a wide street, a good half of whose mud houses
were so ruinous that they can have fulfilled none of the objects for
which houses are erected. As we penetrated further into the city, the
streets narrowed and became more populous--thronged, indeed, with
long-robed men and shrouded women, buying and selling, eating fruit,
chatting before the barbers’ shops, scowling at us as they moved out
of our way. We rode down a wide tree-planted avenue, bordered by
houses gaily patterned with coloured bricks, past the hammam where the
coarse blue towels were stretched in line against the wall to dry,
past the beautiful gateway of the Prince’s palace, under whose arch
of blue and green and yellow faïence we could see the cool garden set
with trees and fountains. Presently we were lying in a little alcove
under the archway of a tiny tumble-down post-house, vainly demanding
fresh horses. Stray Persians sat round in the street, eating grapes
and bread, drinking water out of earthen pitchers, watching us with
grave, observant faces, quite unmoved by our expostulations and
entreaties. There was a mythical mail in front of us which had swept
away an incredible number of horses--seventeen or eighteen, the owner
of the post-house assured us; indeed, he had none left. We had heard
of this mail before--all our difficulties and discomforts were in turn
attributed to it. No one could explain what made the bags so unusually
heavy, but I fancy such an obstacle is not infrequent on Persian roads.
At any rate, the postmaster was not mistaken when he foretold our
disbelief of his statements.
At length we were off again at the very hottest moment of the day. At
the town gate the baggage-horses turned homesick, and refused to move
any further from their ruined stalls; in despair we left Ali Akbar to
deal with them and rode on alone. On and on slowly through endless
vineyards, past an evil-smelling cemetery where the cholera had dug
many rows of fresh graves; on and on till the signs of habitation that
encircled the town had disappeared, and we found ourselves in a bare,
flat, desolate land. A keen wind rose, and blew from the mountains
wreaths of storm-cloud which eclipsed the sun, and still there was no
sign of the little town which marked the next half-stage. We looked
round us in complete ignorance of our whereabouts, and espied in the
distance a village walled round with crenellated mud, in front of
whose gates some children were playing. Riding up to them, we inquired
whether we were on the right road. Alas! we were not. Unperceived, it
had trended away northwards, and heaven knows to what dim cities we
were diligently riding! So we turned northwards, directed by a barely
defined track through the wilderness.
Just as the storm began to break we met a blue-robed pedlar with
a merry face, who assured us that we had only half an hour further to
go. He, too, was making for Agababa; he had seen our nobilities lying
in the post-house at Kasvin--yes, it was only a thin farsakh more now.
At length, through wind and rain, we reached the vineyards and gardens
of Agababa, and passed under the shelter of its big gate-house. Here
we determined to lodge, deciding that on such a night further progress
was out of the question. We turned to the people who were gathered
under the archway, talking and smoking kalyans, and asked them whose
house this was. It belonged to Hadgi Abdullah, the Shah’s farrash. We
intimated that we wished to lodge here--where was Hadgi Abdullah? He
was in Tehran, they replied, but offered no suggestion as to the course
we should pursue. We left them to smoke their kalyans in peace, and,
taking the matter into our own hands, we dismounted, ordered tea and
fire, and climbed the steep staircase that led into the balakhaneh.
It consisted of three rooms: a large one in the centre, with a long
low window of tiny panes set in delicate but broken woodwork, and
opening on to a balcony; on either side two smaller rooms, one of which
was furnished with a carpet and inhabited by two Persians, while the
other was completely empty except for some walnuts spread out to dry
in one corner. Here we established ourselves, to the entire unconcern
of the Persians, who treated the sudden invasion of their quarters
by two damp and muddy travellers as a matter not worthy of remark.
Half an hour later Ali Akbar joined us. We interrogated him as to the
probable fate of the baggage. He replied, laying his head upon his
clasped hands, that the horses were most likely asleep, which seemed so
reasonable an explanation from what we had seen of their disposition
that it did not occur to us to inquire why no steps had been taken to
have them awakened. But the valiant Ali Akbar was not to be daunted
by the unpromising aspect of things. Borrowing a brazier, he began to
cook us a meal, a process which we impeded by vainly attempting to
dry our clothes over the glowing charcoal, for our own fire smoked so
abominably that it was not possible to stay in the same room with it,
and in self-defence we were obliged to let it go out. It was a glad
moment when our supper was set before us, for since the cake and tea
of the early morning we had eaten nothing, and the chicken, the eggs,
and the boiled rice (which had been filched from the evening meal of
some inhabitant of Agababa) looked most appetising. Moreover, the
same obliging person--he was a ragged muleteer, whose feet had been
developed to an abnormal size either by much travelling or by the
necessity of kicking his mules to drive them onward--had provided us
with a large dish of delicious grapes.
The servants of the palace are not, unfortunately, numbered among
our friends, and it seems improbable that we shall ever make the
acquaintance of Hadgi Abdullah, but we remain eternally his debtors
for the night’s shelter his roof afforded us. His hospitality went no
further than a roof--we spread our own cloaks for beds, our own saddles
served us for pillows, and for our dinner we went a-foraging--but
though his floor was hard, though his fire smoked, though his walnuts
stained our elbows when we leant on them, though the bond of bread and
salt is not between us, still that unknown pilgrim was a benefactor to
us pilgrims of a more distant land than holy Mecca. How does he spend
his days, I wonder, in that Agababa gate-house of his, where for one
stormy autumn night we rested? Does he fly to his peaceful, mud-walled
village from time to time when the service of the palace has become
hateful to him? Does he sit at sunset on the balcony overlooking his
laden fruit-trees, smoking a kalyan, and watching the village folk as
they drive home the flocks of goats under his archway--as they stagger
through it loaded with wood bundles? And when the sun has set behind
the sweeping curve of mountains, what peaceful thoughts of the future,
of restful age, of projects accomplished, come to him with the sweet
smell of wood fires and of savoury evening meals?
Ah, simple pleasures, so familiar in a land so far removed! Not in
great towns, not in palaces, had we felt the tie of humanity which
binds East and West, but in that distant roadside village, lying on the
floor of the Shah’s farrash, we claimed kinship with the toilers of
an alien soil. For one night we, too, were taking our share in their
lives, with one flash of insight the common link of joy and sorrow was
revealed to us--to us of a different civilization and a different world.
So we lay and listened to the wind, and slept a little; but a
waterproof is not the best of mattresses, and our beds were passing
hard. Moreover, the good pilgrim had neglected the sweeping of
his floors for some time previously, and there were many strange
inhabitants of the dust besides ourselves. In the middle of the night
news was brought that our baggage had passed us and gone on to the end
of the stage; an hour or two later we rose and followed it, with the
keen storm-wind still blowing in our faces. A late waning moon shone
brilliantly over our heads, and behind the house of Hadgi Abdullah lay
the first white streaks of the day.
_A BRIDLE-PATH_
WHEN we saw the post-house of Mazreh, where we rejoined our missing
baggage, we rejoiced that not under its roof, but under the hospitable
roof of Hadgi Abdullah, we had taken shelter through the windy night.
It was more than common dirty: the mud floors were littered with
eggshells and with nameless horrors, which spoke of a yet more uneasy
lodging than that of the previous evening. It stood some little way
from the village of Mazreh, which lay on the lower slopes of the
mountains, and beyond it our path turned upwards and was lost in the
mist that hid the top of the pass.
In a year or two this bridle-path across the hills will have joined
the long roll of things that were; no more will travellers entering
Persia climb the narrow track which was the Shah’s highway; no more
will their horses’ feet slip among pools of mud and ring out against
the solid rock; the Russian Government have taken the highroad to
Tehran into their hands, and are even now constructing a broad
carriage-way from the Caspian to join the Persian road at Kasvin. But
the bridle-path, which had served generations of travellers before us,
had a charm of its own, too--the charm of all such tracks which lead
you, as it were, through the very heart of a country as uncivilized as
when the waters first retreated from the hill-tops. A foot on either
side of you the mountains rise in steep slopes and walls of rock, or
fall into deep valleys and precipices. The narrow way seems to vanish
into wilderness as you pass over it, but when you look ahead you see it
running between Scylla and Charybdis, clear and secure.
The post-horses of Mazreh matched the accommodation it offered. We
spent an hour listening to Ali Akbar condemning the father of the
postmaster to eternal fire, and at the end found ourselves provided
with sorry beasts, the merest apologies for horses, to which animals
they bore but a blurred resemblance. A few hundred yards up the hill,
however, we met a man driving some laden beasts, and cajoled him so
successfully that he consented to exchange baggage-horses with us,
whereupon we went gaily onwards, leaving him to his fate. In all
probability he is still toiling towards Kasvin, with his own goods and
the skins of our horses upon his shoulders.
Our path breasted the hillside boldly, and we were presently buried in
a cold mist, which seemed to us all the colder after the dust and heat
of the last two days in the plain. The mist lay thickly round us at
the top of the pass; we pushed on at a good pace until we caught sight
of a solitary tree which grows just above the hollow, where, somewhat
sheltered from winter winds and snows, lies the village of Kharzan, a
tiny citadel girt round with mud walls. Only half the stage was done,
but we stopped at the caravanserai to breathe our horses after the long
pull.
The gateway of a caravanserai is lined within on either side by a
narrow platform, on which you can sit enjoying rest and shelter,
smoking your kalyan and drinking your cup of tea. At Kharzan a
wood-fire was burning merrily upon the bricks of one of these
platforms; various Persians who were cooking and warming themselves
over it made room for us when they saw us approaching, and gave us
steaming glasses of tea, which we drank gratefully. There was a good
deal of coming and going through the archway: laden donkeys and men
wrapped in coats of sheepskin over their blue cotton garments appeared
suddenly out of the mist and disappeared as suddenly into it; the
crackling sticks sent bright jets of firelight flickering over wild
faces and the rough coats of men and animals.
Leaving Kharzan, we turned down the pass between mountain sides bare
now after the summer’s scorching, but where in the spring we had seen
masses of scarlet tulips in full bloom. The lower slopes in spring and
autumn are covered with the black tent roofs and yellow reed walls of
nomads driving their flocks from lowland pastures up to mountain-tops
when the snow melts, and back to the valleys when the winter returns.
But the season was well advanced when we passed, and the mountains were
already deserted.