shelving rocks, the sun began to play that old game of his by which he
loves to prove himself superior to wind and storms. We loosened and
finally stripped off waterproofs, coats and cloaks, and fastened them
behind our saddles; but nothing would satisfy him--he blazed more and
more furiously upon the narrow, open path and upon the walls of rock
and upon us, until we regretted the chill mist which still lay upon the
Kharzan Pass behind us. At length we reached the bottom of the hill
and crossed a stony river-bed, overgrown with tamarisk bushes, at the
further side of which stood a post-house, with some fig-trees in front
of it. The post-house of Paichenar is not an agreeable resting-place.
It is a ‘murmurous haunt of flies’ even on late autumn afternoons:
flies are served up with your roast chicken, flies flavour your pillau,
flies swim in your wine, they buzz through the tiny rooms, and creep up
the whitewashed walls, regardless of the caustic references to their
presence which are written up in all languages by travellers whose
patience they have tried beyond endurance. Flies are so illiterate; not
one of those many tongues appeals to them.
We ate our mid-day meal in their company, and set off again towards
Menjil, following the course of the river--a long stage through
burning afternoon sun and the cold chill of dusk, before we reached
the Valley of the White River. Menjil has an unhonoured name among
Persian villages; it is reputed to be the windiest place in all the
Iranian Empire. Morning, noon and night the wind whistles round its
mud-houses--that they stand at all must be due only to the constant
interposition of Providence in their favour, and even so they stand in
a most dilapidated condition. It blows the branches of the olive-trees
all to one side, making them look like stunted people breasting the
elements, with their hair streaming out behind them; it lashes the
swift current of the Sefid Rud until its waters seem to turn backward
and beat in waves against the lower side of the bridge piers. By the
time we caught sight of the twinkling lights of the village, we felt as
though we had traversed every climate the world has to offer, beginning
with the frigid zone in the morning, and crossing the equator in the
afternoon, to say nothing of a long evening ride through the second
circle of the Inferno and the ‘Bufera infernal che mai non resta.’
It was dark as we plashed through the stream which runs between
the low houses as you approach Menjil, almost too dark to avoid
trampling on the children who were playing along it, and the homeward
plodding goats which stepped suddenly out of the night. We knew our
way, however, and turned up from the water (not without a curious
sensation of surprise at our own intimacy with that small and remote
Persian village) into the main street, where the post-house and the
telegraph-office stand. The post-house, where we had slept before on
our outward journey, was comfortable enough as post-houses go--it was
even furnished with some luxury, for it boasted a wooden table and
some chairs. There was a Russian family in possession when we arrived,
father, mother, and a troop of children, who were making their way
down to Enzeli; but they did not discommode us, as they appeared to be
content with one room, and resigned the other two to us. They had left
Tehran some days before us, but had travelled very slowly, the women
and children going at a foot-pace, either slung in covered panniers
across the backs of mules, or carried in a box-shaped litter, which, as
it crossed hills and valleys, jolted them first on to their feet and
then on to their heads in a manner which must have been disturbing to
the most equable of temperaments.
We went to the telegraph-office, where we sent and received messages,
profiting by the opportunity of being once more in touch with the world
of men. The telegraph clerk was an agreeable Persian, who entertained
us with cups of tea while we delivered our messages. His office was
hung round with curtains, behind which we could hear much chattering
and laughing going forward in subdued tones, and between the folds we
caught from time to time glimpses of the inquisitive, laughing faces
of his womenkind. What with the tea and the laughing women and the
conversation of the clerk, the sending of telegrams becomes an amusing
pastime in Menjil.
Next day, when we descended into the street, we found our servant
engaged in heaping objurgations upon the head of a European who was
sullenly watching the saddling of our fresh mounts. We inquired as to
the cause of difference between them, and were informed by Ali Akbar
that the man--he was an Austrian merchant--had attempted to suborn the
people of the post-house, and to purloin our horses while we slept.
‘And when you would have reached the parakhod (steamer),’ said Ali
Akbar, ‘Allah alone knows, for there are no other horses fit for your
Excellencies to ride!’
The stables must have been passing ill supplied, for our Excellencies
had not been accustomed to show a very critical spirit in the matter of
horseflesh.
‘Does he also wish to reach the parakhod?’ we asked in sympathetic
tones.
‘He is the son of a dog!’ Ali Akbar replied laconically, upon which we
felt that the subject might fitly be brought to a close.
The Austrian did not appear on the steamer, from which we argued that
he had not succeeded in securing post-horses, after having been baffled
in his attempt to ride away on ours.
We rode all the morning along a rocky little path, following the
downward course of the Sefid Rud. The river where the bridge of Menjil
crosses it presents an aspect extraordinarily wild and beautiful.
The deep, bare valley below the bridge opens out above it into wider
ground, bordered by rugged mountains, and narrowing away upwards to
where heavy clouds rest upon blue peaks. The wind races through the
desolate valley, and finding nothing to resist it but the bridge, whose
strong piers stand firmly in the foaming water, it wreaks its vengeance
on the storm-clouds, which it collects and scatters at its pleasure,
tearing them apart and driving them headlong in front of it, till the
valley is flecked with their dark shadows, and with glints of brilliant
sunshine between.
We rode through the tiny village of Rudbar, embedded in a wealth of
olives, down by the water’s edge. Some inhabitant, with a tasteful
eye for decoration, had covered the houses with a continuous pattern
of red lines and rows of rudely-drawn hands, with the five fingers
outstretched, intended to represent the Prophet’s hands, and to serve
not only as an adornment, but as a charm against evil. We had great
difficulty in persuading our baggage-mules to pass by open doors and
narrow side streets without satisfying their curiosity as to what lay
beyond; they developed all the qualities of ardent explorers, and
whenever we were not looking, turned into courtyards and disappeared
up slums, Ali Akbar pursuing them with cries and curses, waving his
Turkoman lash over his head and dealing blows to right and left. The
villagers were gathering in the olive harvest; we shouted to them to
throw us some of the fruit, but on experience we came to the conclusion
that olives au naturel are not good eating.
Towards mid-day we reached the post-house of Rustemabad, standing
half-way up the hillside, and from the platform in front of it we
looked across the valley and saw the opposite mountains covered
with--forest! Damp, delicious, green forest, trees and trees set
thickly over the uneven ground--such a joy to the eye as never was
after long months of arid desert, dust and stones! We lunched and
changed horses (with some regret, for wisdom had been justified in
Ali Akbar, and the Menjil mounts had proved to be excellent, full of
spirit and go--a delightful break in the usual monotony of stumbling
three-legged brutes), and then we hurried down into the fertile
province of Ghilan. Oh, the pleasant forest track all overgrown with
moss and maidenhair fern, and the damp, sweet smell of leaves, and the
shafts of tempered sunlight between interlacing boughs, and the sound
of splashing water! We lifted our eyes only to see the wide Sefid Rud
foaming down over his stones, and beyond him more woods, and more and
more.
At the bottom of the hill we rested for a few minutes, and drank
tea at the caravanserai of the Imam Zadeh Hashem. Here our friendly
bridle-path came to an end, and a muddy road lay before us, leading to
Resht and the Caspian. We set off with renewed spirits, and traversed
the four or five miles between us and our last post-house at a gentle
canter. On either side of the road rose a wall of densest vegetation,
with here and there a marshy pond covered with rushes, and here and
there a tiny clearing, from which the encroaching jungle was with
difficulty held back. A luxuriant plant-life covered every stem and
every log of wood with moss and ferns, the very huts were half hidden
under gourds, which climbed up the walls and laid their fruit and
broad leaves across the thatching of the roofs. Charming indeed are
the wooden cottages of Ghilan, standing with their backs set into the
forest, which has been forced to yield them a foot or two of ground,
with verandas supported by columns of rudely-dressed tree-trunks, and
with the glow of the firelight (as when we passed that evening) shining
through doors and chinks and crevices, while the pleasant smell of
wood-smoke rises round them; but the damp climate has set its seal of
disease upon the people--they are white and hollow-cheeked, the dark
eyes look enormous in the thin faces and glow with the light of fever.
They die young, these people, whose meagre bodies are consumed by
malaria and shaken by agues.
The post-house of Kudum stands in a small clearing, with ponds round
it, the abode of frogs. We found it tolerably comfortable; the swallows
which had been nesting in the rafters when we had passed in the spring,
and which had disturbed us in the very early hours of the morning with
twitterings and flutterings, had fled now, taking their fledged little
ones with them; but one of the rooms which was offered to us seemed
to belong to someone more important than swallows. His bed was all
prepared in it, and on a table were strewn his writing materials, reed
pens and inkpots and sheets of paper. We inquired whose was the room
of which we had thus summarily entered into possession. ‘Oh,’ said the
people of the post-house indifferently, ‘it is only the room of the
Naïb.’ Now, Naïb means deputy, it is also the title of the Shah’s third
son, the Commander-in-Chief--who this particular Naïb was we failed to
ascertain, but we had visions of a trampling ragged army surrounding
our beds late at night, while the Naïb-es-Sultan, with the portrait of
the Shah blazing in diamonds upon his breast, commanded us in indignant
tones to quit the rooms which had been prepared for him, or of waking
to find some humbler deputy seated at the table and writing busily with
his reed pens complaints of our insolence to his Government. We were
undisturbed, however, except by frogs, who croaked unsoothing lullabies
in our ears, and by the bells of a caravan of camels which passed at
dead of night--an endless train, with silent, ghostly steps, looming
out like shadows through the mists, and passing like shadows into the
mists again.
Next morning we woke to feel with relief that our ride was over;
for the last time we saw our luggage strapped on to the backs of
pack-horses, and mounting ourselves into a battered shay, we jolted
down the road to the red roofs and the civilization of Resht.
_TWO PALACES_
MANY, many years have passed since the ingenious Shahrazad beguiled
the sleepless hours of the Sultan Shahriyar with her deftly-woven
stories, and still for us they are as entrancing, as delightful, as
they were for him when they first flowed from her lips. Still those
exciting volumes keep generations of English children on wakeful
pillows, still they throw the first glamour of mystery and wonder
over the unknown East. By the light of our earliest readings we look
upon that other world as upon a fairy region full of wild and magical
possibilities; imprisoned efreets and obedient djinns, luckless
princesses and fortunate fishermen, fall into their appointed places as
naturally as policemen and engine-drivers, female orators and members
of the Stock Exchange with us; flying carpets await them instead of
railway trains, and the one-eyed Kalender seeks a night’s shelter as
readily in the palace of the three beautiful ladies as he would hie
him to the Crown Hotel at home. Yet though one may be prepared in
theory for the unexpected, some feeling of bewilderment is excusable
when one finds one’s self actually in the midst of it, for even in
these soberer days the East remembers enough of her former arts as
to know that surprise lies at the root of all witchcraft. The supply
of bottled magicians seems, indeed, to be exhausted, and the carpets
have, for the most part, lost their migratory qualities--travellers
must look nowadays to more commonplace modes of progression, but they
will be hard put to it from time to time if they do not consent to
resign themselves so far to the traditions of their childhood as to
seek refuge under a palace roof. It may be that the modern dispensation
is as yet incompletely understood, or perhaps civilization marches
slowly along Persian roads--at any rate, you will search in vain for
the welcoming sign which hangs in English cottage windows, and if the
village of mud huts be but a little removed from the track beaten by
the feet of post horses, not even the most comfortless lodging will
offer itself to you. Fortunately palaces are many in this land where
inns are few, and if the hospitality of a king will satisfy you, you
may still be tolerably at ease. But luxury will not be yours. The
palaces, too, have changed since the fairy-tale days; they are empty
now, unfurnished, neglected, the rose-gardens have run wild, the
plaster is dropping from the walls, and the Shah himself, when he
visits them, is obliged to carry the necessaries of life with him.
Take, therefore, your own chicken if you would dine, and your own bed
if you have a mind to sleep, and send your servants before you to sweep
out the dusty rooms.
It was to the palace of Afcheh, twenty miles to the north-east of
Tehran, that we were riding one hot evening. Our road led us across
a sun-scorched plain and over a pass, at the top of which we found
ourselves looking down on to a long upland valley. A river ran
through it, giving life to a belt of trees and cornfields, and on
each side rose the bare mountains which are the Shah’s favourite
hunting grounds. Down on the river bank stood a tea-house with an
inviting veranda, roofed over with green boughs, under which a group of
Persians were sitting, listening with inattentive ears to an excited
story-teller while he wove some tale of adventure in the sleepy warmth
of the twilight. The veranda was screened from the road by clumps of
oleanders, whose pink flowers made an exquisite Japanese setting to
the cluster of blue-robed peasants. Beyond the tea-house the river was
spanned by a bridge, the arches of which were so skilfully fitted into
the opposite hill that a carriage--if ever carriage comes--driving down
the steep and crooked path must almost inevitably fall headlong into
the water below. Night fell as we made our way along the valley; the
moon rose, turning the mountain-sides into gleaming sheets of light,
filling the gorges with deepest, most mysterious shadow, and after an
hour or two of foot-pace riding, we reached the village of Afcheh, our
destination.
In the courtyard of the palace preparations for the night were already
afoot. In one corner glowed a charcoal brazier, over which the cook was
busily concocting a dinner, a table was spread in the middle, and at
the further end, protected from the brilliant moonlight by the shadow
of a wall, stood a row of camp-beds, for though numberless empty rooms
were at our disposal, we had been warned that they were infested by
insects, and had chosen the more prudent course of sleeping in the open
air. Fortunately, the night was hot and fine, and the court was amply
large enough to serve as kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom.
We retired, therefore, to rest, but an Eastern night is not meant
for sleep. The animals of the village shared this conviction to the
full. The horses, our near neighbours, moved to and fro, and tugged
impatiently against their tethering ropes; a traveller riding down
the stony streets was saluted by a mad outcry of dogs, who felt it
incumbent upon them to keep up a fitful barking long after the sound of
his footsteps had died away; and stealthy cats crept round our beds,
and considered (not without envy) the softness of our blankets. It was
too light for sleep. The moon flooded high heaven, and where the shadow
of the wall ended, the intense brightness beat even through closed
eyelids. The world was too lovely for sleep. It summoned you forth to
watch and to wonder, to listen to the soft rush of mountain streams and
the whispering of poplar leaves, to loiter through the vacant palace
rooms where the moonbeams fell in patches from the latticed windows,
to gaze down the terraced gardens bathed in the deceptive light which
seemed to lay everything bare, and yet hid neglect and decay, to strain
your eyes towards the shimmering mud roofs on which the villagers
snatched a broken rest, turning over with a sigh and a muttered prayer
or rising to seek a smoother bed; and yet away towards the dim ranges
of mountains that stretched southwards. All the witchery of an Eastern
night lay upon Afcheh--surely, if Shahrazad had but once conducted her
lord to his open window, she might have spared her fertile imagination
many an effort.
In the early hours of the morning the moon set, and darkness fell upon
the world, for though the sky was alive with newly revealed stars,
their rays were lost in the depths of heaven, and left night to reign
on the earth. A little wind shivered through the poplars in the garden,
warning us it was time to continue on our way if we would reach the top
of the next pass before the heat of day fell upon us, and we drank an
early cup of tea in the dark, and waited under the clump of trees that
served for stables while the mules were loaded and the horses saddled.
As we waited, suddenly the daystar flashed up over the mountains,
a brilliant herald summoning the world to wake. The people on the
house-tops lifted their heads, and saw that the night was past. As we
rode down the village street they were rising and rolling up their
beds, and by the time we reached the valley they were breakfasting
on their doorsteps, and the glory of the star had faded in the white
dawn. In some meadows watered by the mountain streams a family of
nomads had already struck camp, and were starting out on their day’s
journey; the narrow path over the hills--at best little more than a
steep staircase of rock--was blocked by trains of mules laden with coal
(black stone, explained our servants); the air rang with the cries of
the mule-drivers, and as we rode upwards in cold shadow, the sun struck
the mountain-tops, and turned them into solid gold. Day is swift-footed
in the East, and man early abroad. Half-way up the pass we paused to
look back at our last night’s resting-place, but a shoulder of rock
hid the palace, and we carried away with us only an impression of the
mysterious beauty of its moonlit courts and gardens.
Autumn had come and had almost passed before we found ourselves a
second time the guests of the Shah, and under his roof we spent our
last two nights in Persia--the one willingly, the other unwillingly.
This other palace stood in the midst of a grove of orange-trees;
the waters of the Caspian lapped round its walls, and before its
balconies stretched the densely-wooded hills of Ghilan. The Russian
steamer which was to take us to Baku (for no Persian flag may float
on the inland sea) touched at Enzeli early in the morning to pick up
passengers, and we had been advised to pass the night there, so that
we might be ready betimes. Accordingly, we had driven through the
damp flat country, a tangled mass of vegetation, that lies between
Resht and the sea, we had been rowed by half-naked sailors up the long
canal and across the lagoons, and in the evening we had reached the
peninsula on which the village stands. We were conducted at once to the
palace, and, passing down moss-grown garden paths, bordered by zinnias
and some belated China roses, we came upon a two-storied house, with
deep verandas, and a red-tiled roof rising above the orange-trees. At
the top of the staircase we found ourselves in an endless succession
of rooms, most of them quite tiny, with windows opening on to the
veranda--all unpeopled, all desolate. We chose our suite of apartments,
and proceeded to establish ourselves by setting up our beds and
dragging a wooden table into our dining-room. Next door to us Ali
Akbar had organized his kitchen, and we sat hungrily waiting while he
roasted a chicken and heated some boiled rice for our supper. Presently
a shadow darkened our doorway, and from the veranda there entered a
Persian general dressed in shabby uniform, with some inferior order on
his breast, and the badge of the Lion and the Sun fastened into his
kolah. He bowed, and politely claimed acquaintance with us, and after
a moment of hesitation we recognised in him a fasting official who had
come to meet us on our arrival in Persia. The month of Ramazan was then
just over, and, in instant expectation of the appearance of the new
moon, he had neglected to make a good meal just before dawn. For some
reason unknown to us the moon had not been seen that night, and mid-day
had found him still compelled to fast. He had sat for full two hours
in suffering silence while we crossed the lagoons, but as we paused by
the banks of the canal someone had shouted to him that the moon had,
in fact, been signalled, and in jubilant haste he had jumped out of
our boat, and had rushed away to enjoy his long-deferred breakfast,
from which he returned to us smiling, contented, and, I trust, replete.
This gentleman it was who now stood upon our palatial threshold; we
brought some wooden chairs from one of the numberless untenanted rooms,
and invited him and the friend he had with him to enter. They sat down
opposite to us and folded their hands, and we sat down, too, and looked
at them, and wondered how they expected to be entertained. After an
interval of silence we ventured upon a few remarks touching the weather
and similar topics, to which they replied with a polite assent that did
not seem to contain the promise of many conversational possibilities.
We questioned them as to the condition of Enzeli--what the people did
there, how they lived, and, finally, how many inhabitants the peninsula
contained. At this our military friend fell into deep thought, so
prolonged that we argued from it that he was about to give us the most
recent and accurate statistics. At length he looked up with a satisfied
air, as though he had succeeded in recalling the exact figures to
mind, and replied, ‘Kheli!’--‘A great many!’ No wonder the question
had puzzled him. The matter-of-fact European mode of arriving at the
size of a village had never before been presented to his Persian brain.
How many people? Why, enough to catch fish for him, to make caviare,
to sell in the bazaars and tend the orange-gardens--Kheli, therefore,
a great many. The interview came to a close when our servant appeared
with steaming dishes. Our two guests rose, and, saying they would leave
us to the rest and refreshment we must surely need, bowed themselves
out.
A curious savour of mingled East and West hung about the little palace.
We slept in bare Persian rooms, the loaded orange boughs touched our
verandas, and the soft air of the Eastern night rustled through the
reed curtains that hung over them; but the brisk, fresh smell of the
sea mixed itself with the heavy Oriental atmosphere, beyond the garden
walls the moon shone on the broad Caspian, highway to many lands, and
the silence of the night was broken by the whistling of steamers, as
though Enzeli itself were one of those greater ports on busier seas to
which we were speeding.